Mina Clavero

On Friday afternoon, an adventure began.  After class, Kelsey, Ally, Patrick, Brice and I headed to the bus station to hop on the next bus to Mina Clavero.  Mina is a small town in the sierras surrounding Cordoba where many a cordobese spends the weekend.  After such good luck with our day trip to Alta Gracia a few weeks ago, we figured it would be no sweat.  Oh, were we deceived.  Being the cruise director that I am, I marched us up to the desk, expecting to buy tickets for a bus leaving within the next 20 minutes.  Unfortunately, about twenty desks later, we discovered the next bus didn't leave for close to two hours.  After more deciphering and number crunching, and wandering from floor to floor, (Cordoba has a three story bus terminal) we purchased our tickets.  


What to do in a time like this?  Well, ice cream of course.  We enjoyed some helado while waiting for the time to pass.  We sat on a bench next to a bona-fide backpacker.  He struck up conversation with some of us and we ended up chatting for the better part of forty-five minutes.  He had spent a month traveling between northern Argentina and Bolivia.  He explained a lot of history to me, especially about what happened during colonization of South America.  He relayed a fascinating story of a town in Bolivia that should be the richest city on earth.  They have so much silver there that before the Europeans came, people used silver as tiles in their homes.  However, the Europeans exploited it to the extent that now, there isn't any pure silver left.  Incredibly deep mines today yield only 35-40% pure silver.  What's more, the town is still in ruins to this day due to the European exploitation of their natural resources.  Argentina has a sordid colonial history as well.  Julio Roca, featured on the 100 peso bill, led an expedition into Patagonia (the south of Argentina) and killed every single indigenous person that crossed their path.  Afterward, the Spanish were free to devour the resources found in this area.  Many indigenous groups are near extinction now.  Needless to say, it was a very informative forty-five minutes!


We got on the bus... which was almost an hour late... and headed off to Mina!  I sat next to a nice, albeit shy young man.  We conversed a lot about the differences between Argentina and the United States and he explained to me a lot how the government functions here.  I love talking to locals about their country.  Sometimes they are a little defensive, but for the most part, once I show that I have an open and honest interest in their country and that I am not here to just boast about how great the U.S. is, most people open up.  The best people to whom I've talked have been taxi drivers actually.  They are very informed and very opinionated.  Let me just say that one taught me some new naughty words as he was referring to the current political administration.  


We arrived in Mina and set off towards the hotel.  The "bible" that knows all informed us of a pedestrian bridge, which would have saved us about thirty minutes of walking.  We couldn't find the bridge, but we did get a nice tour of the town to start out.  There is basically one main road in the town where a lot of shops and restaurants are.  Our hotel was just one block up from the main road.  The hotel was owned by a sweet old lady.  Although we had reserved two rooms, she ended up giving us our own bungalow in the complex.  We had dinner at a restaurant with a great ambiance and some live music afterward.  The band played all the rock and roll hits, and we sang along... or sometimes louder than the band I think.  Kelsey kept trying for Freebird... Ave LIBRE!.... but they weren't having it.  

los elefantes

Saturday was a fantastic and relaxing day.  We had a great breakfast, scrambled eggs, bread, orange juice, tea.. all for $18 pesos! (about $4 USD)  Brice, Ally and I kayaked on the river while the other two sunned on the beach... and when I say sunned I mean napped.  Then we walked to Los Elefantes.  This is a little ways outside the main part of town, along the river.  It is an area of the river surrounded by huge boulders that really do look like elephants.  We swam in the cool river and sunned on the rocks for most of the afternoon.  


Due to some crazy mix up with our tickets, we wanted to leave at 6 p.m., but didn't end up leaving until 9 p.m.  It turned out just fine, as we were able to sit at an outdoor restaurant and have some dinner and talk about life and love and all the good things in it.  


Three hours on the bus later, we were back in rainy Cordoba.  It was a great weekend, and I know that it was the precursor to many other fantastic trips!