Jesus Maria!

All continues to go well here in Argentina, especially with the weekend here; the freedom of weekends allows for quite a bit more fun than during the week, when we have classes. Thursday evening, we all met up with our speaking partners in a restaurant downtown. Most of them are around our age, but their level of English varies greatly, from nearly fluent to very basic. My partner is a girl named Belu, whose English is fairly basic and limited, but is very nice and friendly. After meeting with our speaking partners, we split up into several different groups and explored the city as we walked, talked and ate. Friday was the first day that we didn't have classes, so I took that opportunity to sleep in, for which I was very grateful.


Then in the afternoon, the whole group went to the town of Jesús Maria, a town about 50km north of Córdoba that hosts a festival of doma and folklore every year. Doma refers to the Argentinian equivalent of rodeo, in which people ride around on horses performing various tasks, such as lassoing horses, guiding them through a course, and riding a bucking bronco, all of which is supposed to be in honor of traditional gaucho culture. Folklore referes to a certain type of music also from the same culture, although I don't know it well enough to identify any defining characteristics. This festival happens each night in Jesus Maria for about two weeks, so we were really only seeing a snapshot of the whole thing. After arriving in the afternoon, we toured the city, visiting several spots in particular. The first spot was a Jesuit mission, hundreds of years old that is now a museum of sorts. We took a guided tour and heard about the history of the mission and looked at various rooms, paintings, and artifacts. Interestingly, they allow cameras on the grounds, but not inside any of the buildings.

A serene pond scene, and the main building of the mission, below.

After visiting the mission, we went to a winery, where we toured the place, and saw all the equipment that they use to produce the wine. The place was quite expansive, and they showed us all the places where they make and store the wine, which was interesting to see.

Our next stop was a meat-packing place where they packaged and sold various cuts of meat, including salami, which was their specialty. It was really just a small house-looking place on a street, that didn't look like anything special from the outside. Inside however, were rows and rows of salamis hanging from the ceiling. We got a tour of the place (if you can call it a tour, considering it was a pretty small building), and we learned about the process of getting the meat, and doing everything they have to do to sell it - store it, season it, package it, etc. While the information was mildly interesting, the real focus of the tour was the fact that having tons of meat hanging everywhere gave the entire place a rather distinct aroma, and not an entirely pleasant one. Like some sort of weird challenge, the smell got stronger the further into the building you went. There were two rooms on the first floor, and then two rooms in the basement, and each room had a stronger smell than the last. Some people couldn't even stand to be in the first room and had to go back outside. As the tour progressed, more and more people bailed out as we ventured further into the depths the meat rooms. By the time we got to the last room in the basement, probably only 1/4 of the original group was left. Although the smell was strong and unpleasant, I didn't find it as horrific as others seemed to find it, and it was relatively easy to avoid smelling it just by breathing through your mouth only. All in all, a most interesting experience.

After this, we went into the center of town, where it steadily got more crowded as people gathered for the events of the festival. We ate at a roadside stand, where we got choripan, which was a delicious sausage sandwich (chorizo [sausage] + pan [bread] = choripan). Afterwards, we ventured into the center of town, where they had blocked off all the streets for the festival. The streets were filled with people, and there were roadside vendors everywhere, along with the restaurants and such that were all open as well. After walking around and exploring for an hour or so, we went into the stadium, where the actual festival was happening. The stadium was fairly large, and could seat probably 25,000 people, and it was filled to capacity and then some. All the seats and benches were filled, and people were standing all around the stadium behind the seats as well. In addition, there were more people walking around the inside of the stadium, eating, sitting, and talking. All told, there might have been 30,000 people in the stadium, plus thousands more out on the streets. The events consisted of various rodeo-type events, such as lassoing horses, guiding them through a course, and riding a bucking bronco. In between the various events, there was music performed on a big stage by different performers, all of whom are apparently known in Argentina.

Overall, it was a unique experience for me, and

really interesting to see the celebration of this culture. There were all sorts of different people there, from Argentinian city dwellers, to people had come in from the country, to foreigners like us. I'm definitely glad we got the chance to go to this festival, especially because I don't know if I'll see something like this ever again. I'll keep updating here, so stay tuned! ¡Hasta luego!