Cordoba, Argentina

Tuvimos la oportunidad de ir de vacaciones durante una semana a Córdoba, mas específicamente la localidad de Los Nonos, cerca de Mina Claveros.
Last week we had the opportunity of going to Cordoba which is one of the provinces in Argentina situated in the central part of the country. This province has the characteristics of being a place where the transitions between the pampas and the Andes takes place. Although the mountains in this province are not quite the Andes yet, they are pretty high and suddenly erupt from the flat fertile pampas which stretch towards the east. El viernes pasado salimos con los abuelos para pasar la semana. Alquilamos dos casas en un hermoso predio que se llama Aires serranos. El lugar es muy tranquilo y ofrece una variedad de actividades que van desde cabalgatas a caballo, bochas, ping-pong, metegol y después esta disponible un hermoso arroyo de montaña limpio y bastante frio.
Besides us my parents and Gisela´s parents also come along so we had a full house!. We went in two vehicles and took to the road last Friday to cover the 600 km to the place where we hired two houses called "El Nono" (google earth fans: 30 degrees, 48´and 34.52" South and 65 degrees 00´and 16" West) The drive from the capital city Cordoba towards El Nono takes us through a mountain crossing which is quite nice, then down to the valley on the other side.
The resort where we stayed was very nice, with high mountains that made a wall towards the east with a magnificent view. A swimming pool, barbacue facilities (including mud and cement ovens) various diffrent games, horse riding, bke riding and a nice crystal clear and very cold mountain stream completed the scene. En Córdoba hay varios embalses que se han construido en los años 30. Estas fotos son del dique la Viña.
Cordoba has a number of artificial lakes that where formed by building dams to retain the water in the early 1930´s. These lakes are a real beauty, and although there has not been much rain lately are still quite impressive. Sacamos muchas fotos de todos. A continuación un montón de todos para que nadie se ponga celoso!
We took many pictures of the family and of course the kids with their grandparents. Not sure which ones to put so I have put a whole lot so no one feels left out.El horno Chileno no tuvo tregua durante las vacaciones e hicimos desde asados varios hasta pizzas. El Mathy organizaba el fuego.
One of the pastimes during the holidays was eating. Due to the great mud oven and the "Chilean oven" that we had next to the houses where we stayed we made sure everyone was well feed with a lot of great Argetinean beef and other delights. Dishes cooked in the oven where mostly meat although we did make pizza the one night. Making the fire for the oven was great entertainment for everyone, and Mathy was always ready to help the "expert" fire makers! Of course he always ended up full of charcoal dust. Below a picture of the Chilean oven on a rainy day. This is a picture of some lambs cooking over a split in a restaurant, too complicated for us to replicate, but this is the usual way the Argentinean cowboys eat their barbacues, takes around 5 hours to cook! Los suegros cumplieron 37 años de casados y lo celebramos con una buena comida al atardecer. My parents in law had their 37th wedding aniversary while we where there so we had to cook a special meal for them too (with ice cream for dessert) Although it´s summer it was pretty cold in the mountains, freezing if you compare it with New Guinea.

Disfrutamos del arroyo cristalino que corría cerca del predio. We spent some of the afternoon in the nice mountain stream close to the house. Although the water was pretty cold we all enjoyed it. Water was nice and clear and the sand great to play and make sand castles.Mathias tried to drive us to different places and is a real fan of cars and anything that moves fast.