Is that you Córdoba?

While although it may feel like I just got here (which is totally fair because I kind of did just get here), my first trip is now *check* complete!

From my experience traveling is a lot like getting a tattoo or piercing. In the moment, you might be really really really miserable and hate life and find yourself swearing that you'll never ever do something like choosing to take the really long drive or sleeping in an uncomfortable place or freezing on the overnight bus ever again. Then, your next trip comes around, and you've completely forgotten how miserable you were and find yourself convincing yourself that x, y, or z thing won't be that bad and will be worth it in the end. This is how the vast majority of my trip to Córdoba went. Now this isn't me asking for pity or asking you whether or not you would choose to do these things. I'm just here to tell you what I did and that I would, in fact, do it all again.

Yani and I started planning our trip to Córdoba back in November to go to a music festival. Ultimately, the whole ticket-purchasing situation got a delayed, so by the time we were ready to send it and buy the tickets, they were pretty pricey. However, we decided to go to Córdoba anyway! This city was on my list of the few places I still wanted to hit in Argentina, and Yani's friend was offering us a place to stay, and other friends of hers were offering to drive us, so it really was the time to go.

Córdoba is in what would be considered Central Argentina.

I present to you, my trusty Wikipedia map of Argentina.

Level 1 Question: Do you remember where I am?

Level 2 Question: How long do you think it takes to get to Córdoba (the capital) by car?

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No cheating!

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Is this what you guessed?

Or did you forget how long Argentina is?

Looking at the map, I can imagine you're wondering why it was so handy and great to drive to Córdoba. Unfortunately, Córdoba is tucked into the central part of the country just like Puerto Madryn is tucked into the south. Neither is particularly easy to access (but Puerto Madryn even more so because it's literally in middle of nowhere whereas Córdoba is the second largest city in Argentina), so flying is a long drawn out process with at least one [long] layover. Then, there's the bus option which is fine, but that's just a long time to be stuck using the bus bathroom. So although it sounds miserable, driving was a really good option (and it helped us save a ton of money).

We started our journey at around 5pm Sunday (2/12) afternoon, so that we would arrive early(ish) Monday morning. For the journey, I packed a lot of snacks. I basically brought half the verdulería with me as well as some crackers and a little bit of chocolate. One con of being vegan is that it's pretty much guaranteed your options are going to be limited at most gas stations. One pro of being vegan is that you can use the aforementioned con to not share your food. I had all the cherry tomatoes for myself.

For the first few hours of the journey, people were rather talkative. I got bored pretty quickly because the three of them know each other kind of well, so they had more common things to talk about. I chose to maybe be a little rude and listen to my audiobook.

We made stops at YPF stations (a pretty common gas station chain here) about every two hours to fill up and stretch our legs.

Here we are near Santa Rosa checking out the map of La Pampa (a province here).

By the third or fourth stop, I was pretty tired and tried to get some sleep. I surprised myself in how much I was able to sleep on this trip to Córdoba. While it may not have been a good sleep. I slept.

Since I slept, and since it was dark for a large portion of the trip, I didn't get to see much scenery. Fortunately, I don't think I missed too too much. I did, however, really enjoy watching the landscape (that I did see) change. Down here in Puerto Madryn, it's pretty desert-like. There really aren't any trees once you actually leave town, but once we started making our way north, the vegetation started to change! It started off with smaller bushes which grew to bigger bushes and grasslands type vibes and then more greenery and big bushes and trees!

This is from once we were in Córdoba the province. So much green!

We finally made it to the city of Córdoba around 10 am.

Yani and I were not staying at the same place as the other two, so they dropped us off near where we were staying before heading to their own place. Yani and I's first order of business was finding some place to eat. Immediately. We both so desperately needed coffee and real sustenance. Luckily, I found somewhere that had both vegan and not vegan food!

My meal, obviously, is the one on the left. I ordered a sandwich with lots and lots of veggies. It was perfect. Those of you who know me know that I would've been happy to drink about 5 more of those coffees after that long car drive.

Afterwards, we made our way to Yani's friend's apartment (a friend that lives in Córdoba). She was nice enough to let us stay with her for the week! Not only was this the least expensive option, but she also lived really really close to the center of the city where we spent most of our time. It was super convenient!

On our way, we began to tourist by visiting the cathedral!

Amo = I love; CBA = Córdoba

We ended up just hanging out for the rest of the day. I had to tutor a little, and I think we both really just wanted to take a nap. We did venture out to get dinner, though, at another restaurant with options for everyone!

I got a burger with bbq sauce and cheese and caramelized onions, I think.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped by one of the many churches in Córdoba. It was really pretty at night! It was called la Iglesia de los Capuchinos.

Yani and I dedicated the next day, Tuesday, to sleeping in a bit and doing some site seeing around the city. Our first stop (because I was super bossy and said I wanted it to be our first stop) was el Museo de la Memoria (Museum of Memory). This museum has artifacts from and exhibits about the era of the Dictatorship here in Argentina. Unfortunately, it was closed the entire time we were there. I was so sad!

After striking out on stop one, we headed to the next stop on our list, the Jesuit Crypt. The lady at the tourist office really talked this place up, so we were both pretty excited to see what all the hype was about. She must've been some sort of crypt fanatic because there really wasn't much to it...

We walked down the stairs...

to find this....and that's about it. Naturally, there wasn't any airflow or air movement, so walking down there on a day like that was like walking straight into an oven. Needless to say, we spent very little time there.

We sought refuge from the unbearable heat of the crypt in the Museum of Cuarteto, which is a type of music born in Córdoba. It wasn't the biggest of museums, but I appreciated that because you weren't stuck wandering aimlessly through 20 different rooms.

Here's a link to a video of one of the most famous Cuarteto artists doing his thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoiYFBQYcfQ

After the museum, we headed to yet another touristy site - the Jesuit block. (Please be patient with me. Translating some of these words to English is tricky.)

It was a really pretty building. It was like a square, but the middle was cut out, leaving a pretty patio-esque area (seen below).

There were several rooms marked as kind of important, but the barcodes to scan and listen to the audio guide weren't working, so we ended up walking around aimlessly. That is how we found this room (?) which was a sneaky entrance into some type of science museum. We did not stay long, though, because we were a little worn out and hungry and hot.

Here's a picture of a random door in the building:

We did a little fend-for-yourself situation for lunch. I found a vegan place that only did take out from which I got a "chicken" wrap, and Yani found a place with actual chicken. We ate outside with our respective meals before heading back to the apartment for a little siesta/rest.

After a bit of rest, we headed back into to town (I'm realizing now how much we did omg) for our city tour on this fun bus! This bus took us around town and showed us lots of fun spots. I loved this because we got to see a lot of things I wanted to see but were a little out of walking distance.

Here's a cool view of the cathedral from the bus:

On the bus, there was a tour guide who told us all about the city of Córdoba. There was also this random guy (the one standing in the white shirt) who was taking pictures of literally everything, and there were a bunch of people wearing big floppy hats. Yani and I missed the floppy hat memo.

The trees were rather pretty but also a bit annoying because the branches hung low, so more than a dozen times we had to duck to avoid getting smacked in the face.

Here are some random sites in Córdoba:

I loved that these signs (see below) were all around the city! It was fun trying to find as many as possible! This one was in the city's big park. I was really glad we got a chance to see the park, since it was pretty unlikely that we were going to make our way there by walking. At one point while we were driving around the park, we conveniently stopped next to what the tour guide said was the best choripán ever and that she always goes there. It was kind of silly because after quite a bit of praise you wanted to just ask upfront how much money she got for saying that.

We finished the tour around 7:30/8pm, realizing just how lucky we were that we had chosen to do the evening tour rather than the morning tour. At that point, the sun had started to set, and it was bit cloudy and breezy, so it felt really nice. Just imagine the morning tour with the sun beating down on you on the top of a bus with no cover. Awful. I can feel my thighs sticking to the seats just thinking about it.

Since it was a little early for dinner, we wandered around a bit, exploring a fun neighborhood called Güemes. This neighborhood was full of lots of bars and restaurants. It was super fun to walk around because there were lots of places sort of like food halls as well as patios and rooftops.

Here you can see they weren't quite food halls but like alleyways or hallways with restaurants packed together lining each side.

We ended up stopping at a place to hangout and snack while we waited for the appropriate time to go eat dinner. In other words, we found a place to eat while we were waiting to eat. The bread I ordered was really good. It was like a carrot bread. The server had said the vegan option was lemon flavored, so I when I got this I was bit surprised and just closed my eyes and hoped it was vegan.

Yani and I sat at the coffee shop for a little enjoying the view. We sat on the rooftop and nosily watched everyone on their dates since it was Valentine's Day (and you could tell with the amount of couples out).

For dinner, I had found a bar that had all vegan food. Online, the bar was listed with several others, so I wasn't quite sure what all that meant other than there was something vegan and I was probably dragging Yani to a vegan place. During the walk there, it felt like we were leaving Güemes and entering a random, busy looking part of town. As I navigated us toward the destination, I got a liiiiiittle bit nervous since I had chosen our dinner spot, and we walking past all the cute bars and restaurants and were headed towards what looked like the opposite. I'm super stubborn, though, so I didn't mention my fear/nervousness as we walked to the supposed destination. Yani later told me she had had the same thoughts but didn't want to be a party pooper and mention it while I was navigating us.

When we arrived, I'm sure Yani could sense my relief because it looked like a really cool place (this was later confirmed when we left and there was a significant line outside). As we approached the entrance, a man working there a bit aggressively asked us if we had a reservation, strongly implying that we needed one to get in, which would've been a problem since we didn't have one. Thankfully, he just told us to head to the back towards the elevated tables. These were rather simple directions until we walked in and realized the place was huge!

We made our way to the back and ended up sitting in what used to be a bus! Super cool! The way the place worked was also super cool. There were servers who took your order at the tables, and you had to pay on the spot, which was really nice because trying to flag someone down there would've been absolutely impossible. There were four or five restaurants to choose from, which was perfect because I was able to order my food and Yani her food.

The view from the back:

We sat in there! Do you see the bus?

I ordered a salad with seitan. I was already at the point in the vacation where I was craving vegetables.

Peep all the couples behind us lol.

After dinner, we were making our way back to the apartment when Yani heard tango music and insisted we follow it. In a nearby plaza, a group of people were dancing tango, so we sat and watched for a while, and Yani even got a few dances in!

I had never really seen so many different people dancing tango before, so I really enjoyed just sitting and watching. I made a game out of it and started to rank my favorite dancers, particularly the older women who I could tell had been dancing tango for quite a few years. This bit of time sitting and watching people dance was probably one of my highlights of the trip. I don't know what it was about it, but it made me so happy watching everyone!

Eventually, we made our way back to the apartment to get some sleep because it was only Tuesday!

Wednesday was yet another explore the city day. Don't worry. This is the last explore the city day!

For the first part of the day, we hit more old churches and museums!

Stop one was this church that surely has some type of significance, but neither of us cared quite enough to look, so we just enjoyed the fan it had inside while we looked at the ceiling.

Since we were just wandering around "exploring the city", we decided to pop into this museum right next door to the church. Spoiler alert: While we probably could've guessed that this was the case, it was Catholic art not "religious" art more generally as the name implies.

In the museum, there was this patio surrounded by rooms to go in and read a little about x, y, or z pieces of art. It was interesting to read about some of the art until this one room where there were these doll type things. They were wooden and from the waist up, they looked like regular dolls, but their legs were just like thick sticks of wood. Several had what looked like real, human hair. That was the end of that museum for me.

After this museum, Yani and I were a bit over the whole religious section of the city and were ready for something a little more secular, so we walked to the art museum.

Not only did this museum have pretty art, but it also had ac, which we were very happy to take advantage of! In all seriousness, I really did enjoy the art in this museum. We just happened to be a little museumed out by the time we got there, so we ended up kind of running through half of it.

From this museum, we headed back to the apartment. Yani went to go make lunch, and I went to a vegan restaurant that was about two blocks from where we were staying. It was a really cute place! I love exploring different vegan restaurants in cities I visit. While they always tend to be semi-similar, I love supporting vegan places, and I love to see how they've created their versions of "normal" food.

I ordered a [ginormous] sandwich that was super yummy and a frappuccino, which I was excited about because there aren't too many vegan frappuccino options out there. I have no recollection as to what was on the french fries, but I can confirm that it wasn't cheese or mustard.

Of course, I had to order dessert, too! I got the cheesecake, which was lemon with chocolate syrup. It was huge! It was sooo much food! For those curious, I was reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I would recommend.

Afterwards, I made my way back to the apartment to tutor a few students. Here is some organic chemistry I embarrassingly fumbled through.

Once I finished tutoring, Yani, her friend Melissa (the one we were staying with), and I were off on yet another adventure. We took a bus from the city to Carlos Paz, a town about an hour and a half from the capital. There, we were going to see a comedian. Melissa and Yani were both very very excited about this guy, and I was, too, until the day of. Then, I got a little cranky. I don't think I had thought about what it meant to go to a comedy show until we were actually on our way. Normally, I don't mind comedy. That is, when it is in English. Comedy in a different language in a different country is totally different. So much of what makes comedy funny is understanding the context. It's like inside jokes. You need to have been there to get it.

In the bus on the way there, I was totally regretting agreeing to go with them. I was nervous that I wasn't going to understand the Spanish. I was nervous that I wouldn't understand any of the jokes. Most of all, I was nervous I would just be sitting there awkwardly while everyone else had a good time. While that wouldn't have been the biggest deal in the world, it's still embarrassing and miserable to feel like everyone is in on the inside jokes but you.

Thankfully, I understood most of the show. Although there was quite a bit that went over my head, I was, at the very least, able to follow what the comedian was saying. However, I can imagine the man sitting next to me thought I was a major party pooper because I ended up laughing at max 2 jokes. It's not that it wasn't funny. It's just that I, personally, couldn't relate to most of the jokes. A lot of what the comedian joked about was his experience growing up, so, naturally, the jokes were really funny for people who had similar childhoods. It's not like I couldn't even imagine what he was describing. It's just that my childhood was juuuuuuust different enough. Had he joked about Lunchables, for example, then I probably would've giggled.

After the show, we went across the street to grab a bite to eat before getting a bus back. We found a table; Melissa and I used the bathroom; we realized that we wouldn't have enough time to eat; and we left. All before the server even brought us the menus. Oops. We needed to make sure we got a bus, though!

We ended up getting back a bit late. Maybe around 2 or 3? For some reason, I had quite a bit of energy unlike on an average day around 2 or 3 am, so I pushed through like a champ.

Thursday was a pretty chill day. We, finally (finally!), made our way outside of the city. We took a bus around noon to Cosquín, another town about an hour and a half from the city.

Once there, we wandered around a little before finding a place for lunch. Although the food took forever and we were absolutely convinced they had forgotten about us, the restaurant made up for the wait with their amazing chips. These chips were life-changing. These were the type of chips you put on the sandwich you make after a day at the beach. Their crunch was impressive to say the least.

We fangirled over these chips for quite a bit and then went to sit and hangout next to the river. It was a really nice day out like the perfect day to just sit and hangout outside without sweating miserably.

We headed back after a couple of hours. It was really relaxing, though, just hanging out near the water. We had done so much sight-seeing and walking around the previous days that it was nice to chill a bit.

On the way back to the apartment after getting off the bus, we made a quick stop at the vegan ice cream shop! I was super duper excited about all the options so much so that the girl working there asked me if I had ever had vegan ice cream before haha.

Look at all those options, though! So exciting!

I got chocolate (of course), mint chocolate chip, and dulce de leche! I was really excited about the dulce de leche because it's a flavor in all the ice cream shops, but I've never found a vegan one up until this one! Normally, they allowed two toppings, so I chose chocolate syrup (of course) and the truffle things because Yani wanted one, but I clearly must've been very very excited because the girl let me try the piece of cone, too, so that "I had the opportunity to try everything."

Naturally, this obscene amount of ice cream filled me up a little too much to want any dinner, but I went to bed a happy camper.

Friday (Yes, we are still going!), it was National Park day! I was really excited to be able to get to go to this park. Apparently, the best way to get there is by car, which Yani and I didn't have, so things were looking pretty bleak. However, Melissa came to the rescue and somehow managed to get a friend to loan her their car so that she could drive us! SOOOO nice of everyone!

We set out around 9:30/10am to get the car and hit the road!

The park was about an hour(ish) away in the sierras of Córdoba.

Here's the park entrance! It was called Quebrada del Condorito. Quebrada is gorge in Spanish.

Here's the park map! We chose the shorter of the few hike options to the north balcony/lookout. It wasn't really that short. The hike was about 6 miles total (3 there and 3 back). Thankfully, not much of it was uphill, so it was relatively doable.

I love parks like this when it feels like you're completely alone in the wilderness. I find it so cool to be surrounded by so much nature! I really really enjoyed this hike. We chose a really good day to do it, too. There was basically no shade at all in the park, but the temperature was so low that day that in the mountains it was cold! We were cold! It would've been absolutely MISERABLE in the heat. Granted, it was windy, but I'd take windy and chilly over the sun beating down on us any day.

Here's just a lot of pictures from the hike!

The scenery was so pretty!!

Here's the gorge! Can you see the water?

There is a waterfall tucked in there!

Unfortunately, we did not see any condors, but I was totally okay with that because it was all so pretty! Nature is so cool!

We stopped at a cafe/restaurant place for a small little merienda on the way back. I just had some coffee to keep me awake because after that hike, we were all a bit worn out.

We got back to town just in time for dinner. We all ordered pizza. I went downstairs a few minutes early to meet my delivery person. I hate having to answer the phone when they call just to tell them I'm on my way, so I always try to be outside or ready before they get there (since I can follow them on the app I order with). I, however, did not really communicate that because I thought it was pretty normal to do so, so when I didn't immediately come back up, Melissa and her boyfriend came running into the apartment lobby looking for me. They happened to do so right when the delivery man pulled up. This poor delivery guy was clearly very nervous as he fumbled with my order and then my money and then my change as Melissa and her boyfriend held the door open so that it was beeping in the background. I was so embarrassed I was sweating.

Not sure why no one just texted me asking if everything was okay, but I appreciate the concern.

The pizza that caused all the concern:

It was really yummy and really big! I appreciated the amount of mushrooms they gave me!

After dinner, I stayed up chatting with Melissa and her boyfriend a bit about U.S. things, which made me realize that 1) I really don't have the Spanish vocabulary to go on talking comfortably about the economy or politics and that 2) my limit for speaking Spanish with people is around 1-2am if I've had a really long day. By the time I went to bed, I was exhausted.

I couldn't be too exhausted, though, because Saturday was another full, fun, action-packed day!

On Saturday, Yani and I went to Capilla del Monte, which is known for Cerro Uritorco, a mountain that is popular for supposed UFO sightings and other mystic, alien-esque vibes. I had wanted to climb the mountain, but that's a whole day thing which didn't really work for us plan-wise, so that's a next time adventure.

To get to Capilla del Monte (a 3 hour bus ride normally), Yani and I got a bus at around 11:30. Unfortunately, neither of us really thought this day through. I'll be honest, I didn't really even know where Capilla del Monte was until we got to the bus station, and I realized we were headed in the same direction as everyone going to Cosquín Rock, the music festival we were initially going to go to. As you can imagine, this delayed us quite a bit. The three hour bus ride turned into 5. We rolled into Capilla at around 4:30/5 o'clock. I can confirm that those 5 hours were absolutely miserable. They were hot because the air on the bus really didn't work. We were hungry because we hadn't prepared for such a long ride. We were thirsty and had to pee.

But we eventually made it! Look how cute this town was!

First order of business once we arrived was eating. We found some food trucks that had options for both of us. I got a sandwich that was ridiculously large but super yummy!

Then, we did some exploring! Saturday happened to be the first day of this extraterrestrial festival, so there were some fun activities including an artisanal market with lots of handmade jewelry and things to explore. I bought a necklace and some stickers!

While there, we also took the bus to the base of Cerro Uritorco so I could at least say that I have seen the mountain.

I made a cairn!

The sun started to set while we waited to take the bus back, so the mountain looked really pretty!

It was almost 9 by the time we got back to town, so we wandered around a few more minutes before stopping to grab a bite before heading to the bus station. While we had agreed that we were going to grab something to go to eat on the bus, someone (I won't name names, but it wasn't me) decided to order guiso, which is a type of stew, which one cannot eat on a bus.

After said person with the guiso finished eating, we made a mad dash to the bus station to make sure we wouldn't miss the last bus of the day. We made it there around 10/10:15pm.

We were the second group of people to get in line for the last bus to Córdoba. Slowly, the line started to grow and get a little antsy with anticipation as 10:50, the scheduled bus time, came and went. While we waited, three or four buses for other destinations came through. Each time, the line became juuuuuuust a little more aggressive and impatient.

During the wait, the person who did not order the guiso ate their vegan empanadas.

Finally, FINALLY, at around 11:50 the bus pulled in, and the line became a mob around the door to the bus. Yani and I pushed forward, making sure that the woman who was first in line got on first and that we were soon after. It was a survival of the fittest moment.

I'm kidding it wasn't that aggressive, but I'll be honest - I would've done more pushing to make sure that I got a seat on the bus rather than a place to stand. That is because I knew we had to go through Cosquín yet again. I knew we would be passing through right around 1:30/2am when the music festival would be ending for the day. We had originally wanted to head back to the city earlier in the evening because of the music festival, but that was kind of impossible because we arrived so late, so we were stuck.

This bus ride was one of those travel moments where you sit and consider never traveling ever again. It was that rough. Thankfully, I knew we had no plans on Sunday, so that kept me going, kept my spirits up during this long harrowing journey.

At 1:30/2am the music festival had just about ended and thousands of people were gathering and attempting to get on buses to head back to Córdoba. So as you can imagine, once we made it to Cosquín, we were essentially stuck in Cosquín. I checked my watch a few times while there, and at one point, we had literally moved once in the span of an hour.

To make things worse, the bus was significantly more crowded now because of a few groups of people from the music festival who had boarded. These people were standing in the aisle (note this was more of like a coach bus than city bus). I felt bad for us but even worse for them because they were stuck there in the aisle for hours. At one point the two guys directly next to me sat down, and then one of them laid down on the bus floor. He must've been so tired because EW. I felt really really bad for him, though, because I kept forgetting he was there, and every time I stretched my legs I stepped on his shoulder.

Then, to make matters even worse, the bus temperature control was nonexistent. It was either one of two extremes: incredibly warm and so humid you could feel yourself breathing in the breath of everyone around you or so cold that it felt like you were plopped into Antarctica.

We ended up getting back to Córdoba at about 7 in the morning.

While this sounds absolutely miserable I'm sure, I really wasn't that miserable. I wasn't particularly happy about the situation, but it was one of those moments where you had to accept that that was the situation you were in. There was no way for me to have changed the situation unless we had decided not to go to Capilla del Monte that day. That would have been best, but it was a little to late to make that decision. Therefore, I sucked it up. I tried to sleep. I was very cold. Then, I went to sleep once we got back to the apartment.

Like I said, we had no plans for Sunday, which ended up working out for the best. We went to grab some breakfast/lunch after sleeping in a bit, and then we slowly made our way back to the apartment for a siesta.

I thought it was absolutely wild how there was no one on the streets like at all. These streets that had been absolutely packed previously were completely empty!

During our siesta time, I journaled, read (I really needed to finish my library book), and hung out with Melissa's cat. We were pals.

HE'S SO CUTE OMG!

After a bit of rest, we gathered enough energy to venture back into the real world for some more vegan ice cream.

That was about it, though. We both realized we had no desire to go out to eat so we went back, ordered in, and watched the series División Palermo. We watched all 8 30-minute episodes that day. I would recommend.

Yay veggies!

Monday was our day to head back to Madryn. We didn't really do anything but pack up and have some lunch before waiting to hit the road around 4pm. I brought lots of snackies and some vegan empanadas to make sure I was all ready to go. Initially, while Yani chatted with the two others, I snuck in some audiobook time!

This ride, unlike the ride there, felt a bit more eventful. This may be because I slept maybe a total of 3 hours max the entire trip.

We stopped at lots of gas stations. They were not all this new looking...

We saw the sunset.

We played some word games like our own version of Scattergories in which we had to say three words each that began with a certain letter. I was not good at any of these games because it was late, and my Spanish brain was turned completely off.

We stopped to pee on the side of the road, and a car stopped right behind us right before I started to pee (like right before), so we were convinced we were being followed.

We stopped to see the Milky Way. No one believed it was my first time seeing it. It was so cool and so big!

We got a little turned around in La Pampa and made a detour through an industrial park.

Yani and I were likely unbearable and started playing our own game of "Do you know...?" where we just asked each other if we recognized very famous singers and actors and movies. We got a KICK out of it, too. This probably went on for an hour at around 3 or 4 in the morning.

We saw the sunrise.

I got an upset stomach about three hours from Madryn. I asked to stop on the side of the road for what everyone else thought was to pee, while in reality I needed to vomit.

Then, we finally made it to Puerto Madryn, and I made it to my apartment at 10am, 18 hours later and immediately went to bed.

We had survived!

This was a really long, and productive trip. Yani and I did SO much in Córdoba, and I had so much fun! It was this really cool reminder that I really love to explore new places. It was really handy, too, because Yani had already been, so I got to lead a lot of the exploring.

We were both really happy, too, with how it went. We both identify as solo travelers meaning that we both prefer to do our own things and not have to deal with other people, so this trip could have ended very poorly for our friendship. Thankfully, though, I think being solo travelers helped us in that regard. We were both okay with just doing whatever. For example, I wanted to go to the vegan restaurant, and Yani wanted to make food at the apartment, so we just did what we wanted to do, and it was no big deal.

This trip was a really fun way to start the year. I'm really looking forward to whatever trips come next, but I have been very happy to also just relax a little!