Out and About: Fun in the Province of Cordoba

The province of Cordoba is quite a beautiful place.  It has the landscape of Manitoba for me.  Lots of beautiful rivers and streams.  The only difference is there are some small mountains and ceros.  Certain parts of the province are more tropical.  I understand why Joel Balm said that it reminds him of Costa Rica.

 

Before leaving Canada I was Reading another Canadians Travel blog (Joel).  He mentioned a place called Playa Los Hippies where you can go and camp for free.

 

I took the bus from Cordoba to Cuesta Blanca.  From there I walked for half an Hour to the town of Diquicitos.  From there I walked another half an hour over a small mountain and down to the beautiful beach.

Sign in Diquicitos signalling Playa Los Hippies.

View of the beach as I walk down the mountain.  It is a joke amongst the hippies at the beach to make a play on words of the town Cuesta Blanca and call the área Costa Blanca, for its beautiful Green scenery similar to Costa Rica.

River Selfie.

These kids are 17 and live in Cordoba.  I was camping near them.  They are very crafty and Smart.  They make popcorn with tin cans and can turn pop bottles into a variety of different inventions.  If Cordoba were ever to discover oil they have some great thinkers that would make good engineers.

This is my friend Juan.  He lives at Playa Los Hippies permanently.  He showed up to the beach with just a shirt and his shoes and he has groundscored all of his possesions.  Asado grills, pots, pans, coolers, a lawn chair, two tents and even adopted a stray beach dog named Angor that now lives in his tent.  Juan has everything but he did lose his shoes.  He has a newborn baby on the way and plans to bring the baby to Playa Los Hippies and live there permanently with his family.  He is the best backcountry cook I have ever met.  He made a variety of different food that he gladly shared with me.  Curries, Polento and once even coffee that he made from a special tree bark.  It was amazing!

 Juans camp with his Beach dog Angor.

 Me and my tent.

 Cuddles with Angor the dog who also has a baby on the way with his Beach Wife Dog.  His favorite activity is going with Juan to collect firewood.  Juan is very insistent that people help him collect firewood because everyone spends time in the night around his fire and he uses the fire to cook for people.  I went with him one day.  It takes about half an hour to traverse the mountain and get to the spot with lots of deadfall.  From there he carries about 30 kg of Wood down.  It was so heavy I could only carry for about 3 minutes before I dropped the Wood.  But Juan runs with it down the mountain without a problem barefoot Wood on back.

 

 

Left (Juan), middle my travel Sister Leia, and right my other travel sister Leila.  I keep meeting up with these girls on my travels.  In San Pedro de Attacames in Chile, in Valpraiso Chile we all volunteered in a hostel, in Mendoza for a couple days and again in Cordoba.  Here we are walking out with Juan to catch the bus home.  It turns out that today Christina Kirchner the President of Argentina was making a speech and when that happens the country shuts down.  There was no bus, we couldnt go home.  We turned around, bought three boxes of wine, and returned to the beach to share our wine with all the broke ass hippies.  One more night at Playa Los Hippies.  No one was dissapointed.  And Juan was so happy to have us as company camping in his sight/home.

 

All in all I spent about a week at Playa Los Hippies.  I went on two separate times during my 2.5 weeks in the province of Cordoba.  There is definitely a lot of hippies there.  Different types of hippies: hippies with money, hippies without money, backwoods hippies, punk hippies, and rasta hippies (Juan).

 

At one point I made a day trip to Alta Gracia, the home of Che Guevera.  I actually went to his childhood house that has been converted into a museum.

 

Here is the pedal bicycle with small engine that he used to go on his first trip across South America.  This was before the trip profiled in the movie Motorcyle Diaries.

The fake Passport Che used to gain entry into Bolivia, the journey that led to his demise.  I used my fake student ID card to get a discount into the museum.  After seeing this Passport I realized that maybe me and Che arent so different.

Statue of Che.

 

Up Next I headed to Villa Maria, Cordoba to see a Manu Chao Concert.  Manu Chao is from Spain/France but he is living in Argentina for the summer.  In my travels throughout South America I felt that Manu Chao is probably the most popular Rock/Reggae Artist right now.  In Chile and Argentina especially they are so popular amongst youth and hippie types.  His lyrics combine French, English and Spanish.

The town of Villa Maria is very beautiful.  Many modern cutting edge architectural projects like this bridge.

Fishermen stand on the bridge and lower nets to catch fish.

 

 Me and my friends getting ready to go to the manu chao concert.  Left Lucy from France.  Next Charlie from Villa Maria, he lives at the hostel so he can hit on girls from Europe.  And Natalya from Cordoba/San Luis who just also happened to be at Playa Los Hippies and then I saw her again at the hostel for Manu Chao.  i have said it before and i will say it again, the best part for me about travelling is running into the same people and friends along the way.

 

 

A video from the Manu Chao concert.  I did not make this one that is why it is so good. 

The concert was the best I have ever been to in my life.  So much energy from the crowd and manu chao made sure everyone was involved.  The concert lasted about 2.5 hours and Manu Chao made to encores.  It took place in the Villa Maria Amphitheater, a huge Brand new venue right on the river.

 

 



San pedro de Atacamas Chile

After a month and one week in Peru, I decided to go to Chile next instead of Bolivia.  Chile is a very tall country.  The North is all dessert, the middle has famous cities like Santiago, Valpraiso and the south is all beauitful mountains and lakes.  It appealed to me because Chile is more modern than Bolivia and the Chileans I have been meeting this trip are really cool.  But seeing this country means crossing the North, which is nothing but dessert!!

This is a shot from the South of Peru on the bus when the landscapes started to change to dessert.

After spending a night in the bus station in Arica, the first town in Chile, i was finally able to catch a bus to San Pedro.  This small tourist town is loaded with tourists from across the world, but first and foremost tourists from Chile.  I met so many people from Santiago in this small Northern Dessert town.  It reminds me a lot of if you were to mix Banff and Keremeos (Canada) into one town.  Lots of beautiful sightseeing and tourism with loads of hostels, but at the same time in the dessert and quite small and tranquil.

People walking the streets with bicycles.  If you live in this town you own a bicycle.  And if you are visiting you rent one to check out the sights.

A shot of my beautiful hostel.  The structure here is for the tents to give you shade during the day. It was a great hostel and the cheapest in the city for 5000 pesos (or ten dollars canadian a night).  Chile is very expensive compared to Peru and Ecuador.  In Ecuador i could camp for five dollars a night.  That being said my campground in Chile is the best and had two kitchens, a parilla and showers.  The guests from Santiago staying here were so nice and always willing to share their delicious barbequeud meat.

One day I took a tour to Valle de Luna to see the caves.

The caves were filled with beautiful glass like crystals.  Que linda!

Dessert Shot!  it gets hot here during the day like 30 degrees.  At night it cools off a bit but no much.  The climate here in San Pedro is supposed to be the driest in all the world.  There are snowcaped mountains nearby but the town (at only 2000m) rarely gets any rain.

Tres marias rock formation in Valle de luna.

The reason they call it valle de luna is because the landscape is supposed to look like the moon... and it does.

Huge Dune in the dessert.  Some people go sandboarding but I haven't. I am spoiled with the mountains of Canada, i dont want to go on a slow sandboard that you need to stop every two minutes to wax it if you want to go down the hill.  When I get back to Canada April 10, i will still have one month left in snowboard season to hit the slopes.

As the sun sets over the Valle de Luna the dessert is transformed into a yellow paradise.

The time in San pedro was amazing.  Travelling solo here was one of the best locations because everywhere i went, people wanted to hang out with me. Every night there is a campfire on the beach with hippies playing music and doing firespinning.  it is a cool and enchanting dessert town.