I left Santa Rosa de Calamuchita early this morning. I was sad to leave Andrey behind but I was also excited to go home. Alex and Natalia will return tomorrow from San Luis where Alex is running a marathon today. They left babushka Nelly with Andrey. At least our friends will stay here for a while and Andrey will not feel so lonely.
I have to catch the train in Cordoba City. It is 90kms from here and I always use the Lep Bus Service. They are fast and reliable. I have never used the train here in Argentina and this will be a first for me. Finding the train terminal in Cordoba was easy. It is right opposite the bus terminal. There were already a lot of people waiting when I a arrived.I checked my luggage in and boarded. It is a really beautiful train terminal and very clean. The staff was friendly and I patiently waited for all the people to board.
Finally we left and as I was looking out of the window I could see people waiting next to the railway waiving at the train. It made me smile because the little ones love trains! I have noticed some very poor areas next to the railway as we were rolling out of Cordoba city. Why do you always find poor areas close to the railway?
The train was moving very slowly and people started to chat and drink mate. It was not very long after we left when a man came to introduce himself and offered to share his mate with me. We chatted for almost an hour and then he went back to his friends. You have nothing else to do on the train but talk, drink mate, play cards or listen to the music on your ipod. It gets very boring but at least you can get up and walk around!
By 8pm they made an announcement that dinner will be served in the restaurant area and what is on the menu. By this time I was starving! I didn’t pack any snacks! After 30 minutes I decided to go and have a look what there is to eat..too late! By the time I got there all the food was gone. They didn’t sell any snack apart from coldrink. We made a couple of quick stops but it was only after 1am that we finally stopped for 15 minutes. A woman was selling sandwiches and she saved my life!
The train journey is in total 17 hours and I quickly fell asleep after I had something to eat.
