Monday, March 07, 2011

Argentina is Huge

From BsAs we headed northwest, 700km west to Cordoba, then 600km north to Tucuman. Never before had we bused through so much arable land so sparsely populated, though we suspect the Midwest of the US is probably like this. Along the way there were big tracks of corn, soybean, and sugar cane, occasional orchards, and only a few for grazing cattle, sheep, and goats. There were many signs by agri-industry such as "Roundup" and "Dekalb". Argentina is one of the biggest growers of soy beans. There are more fake meat products in the supermarket here than in the US, but not readily available in restaurants. In BsAs we did notice one of the Burger Kings was selling a soy burger for $5.25US, but did not get around to trying it.

Cordoba and Tucuman are both among the largest cities in Argentina after BsAs, with stately squares, lively pedestrian malls, and tasty ice cream shops. While Cordoba with its UNESCO Jesuit quarters and 100,000+ university students may be considered to be more sophisticated, we were pleasantly surprised by Tucuman.

On the road to Cordoba.
On the road to Cordoba, Argentina

The gorgeous interior of the Capuchin Church in Cordoba.
Capuchin Church - Cordoba, Argentina

The Cordoba Cathedral sits on the main plaza.
Cathedral - Cordoba, Argentina

One of the pleasant pedestrian streets in Cordoba.
Pedestrian street - Cordoba, Argentina

The numerous modern high-rise apartments buildings in Cordoba reminded us of China.
Cordoba, Argentina

Of course Tucuman is going to rate highly with us when we see their Mercado del Norte with its trio of "airplanes".
Mercado del Norte - Tucuman, Argentina

Not to mention that Tucuman has in our opinion the second best vegetarian restaurant in South America; Fon Vegetarian Restaurant on Maipu.
Fon Vegetarian Restaurant  - Tucuman, Argentina

Which fake meat shall we try?
Vegetarian Food - Buenos Aires, Argentina

2 comments:

Crash Eddy said...

Fon Vegetarian Restaurant on Maipu looks a little bit better than Sweet Tomatoes.

Sun-Ling said...

@Ed,
1. The vegetarian restaurants at which we have been eating in Chile/Argentina/Uruguay are mostly run by Taiwanese. Most of those are by weight or all-you-can-eat, sometimes take-out only.
2. "Fon" was very good, we still think "Evergreen" in Santiago was the best. Everyday 90%+ of the selections were different. After three lunches I was ready to buy their cookbook if they published one.

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