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Luxury Travel to Cordoba, Argentina
Cordoba,
Argentina, was founded on July 6th 1573
by Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera, promoted in 1571 by
Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo from his
position as administrator and mayor of Potosi to the
governor of Tucuman, responsible for Spanish
exploration and colonization of new lands in the
Americas. The name of Cordoba was a direct tribute
to Cordoba in Spain in recognition of the similarity
between the two places with regards to the lush
vegetation, fertile soil and abundance of rivers,
and at the same time, was a fulfillment of a promise
made by Cabrera to his wife to honor the land of her
birthplace and of her ancestors.
With the
birth of the city in such a spirit of conquest and
romance, it is perhaps not surprising that Cordoba
is also known for its “wilder” nature of rebellion.
The University Reform of 1918, a push to democratize
academics, was started by students of the
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, a movement that
would eventually result in the universities of
Argentina obtaining independent governance. In 1969,
the “Cordobazo” Uprising, involving a general strike
by students and members of the working and middle
class against the regime, also took place here. The
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba is the oldest and
most august university in Argentina, and the second
oldest university in the south Americas.
A
prominent part of Cordoba’s development in terms of
its history and cultural infrastructure is the role
played by Jesuit priests, who were, in point of
fact, also the founders of the national university
(which begun as a seminary school) in addition to
all else that they accomplished in the city. Cordoba
has some of the best-maintained colonial
architecture in the region, and many of these
buildings were prayer houses constructed by the
priests in their attempt to convert a large
indigenous population, the Comechingones, to
Catholicism. From Jesuit directives also came some
of the most distinctive buildings of Argentina
today: Estancias, agricultural plantations or
ranches that were built extensively in Cordoba
during the Jesuit period as training and employment
grounds for Indian labor. Many of these estancias
are now holiday homes and ranches, an accommodation
option to tourists looking for something more
atypical and with extremely local flavor.
Notably, it is in Cordoba that the gaucho spirit of
the Argentina arguably lives on the strongest. This
traces back to history in the 16th
century, when Cordoba was the main designated ground
for horses to be bred and sent to Peruvian silver
mines. Partly also to do with the gorgeous geography
of Cordoba, with its green hills and clear streams,
horse-riding in Cordoba took on—and still
maintains—a certain aura of romanticized nostalgia.
Horses bred on estancias today also happen to have
the reputation of being extremely well-mannered,
responsive and steady-footed, as befitting the image
that comes to mind of the tall, strong and sensitive
four-footed companions of the age-old prototypical
Argentine cowboy.
Another sparkling remainder of colonial architecture
is the spectacular Cathedral Church, a national
historical monument most famously comprising the
Silver Shrine. Constructed in 1804, the shrine
houses the remains of Dean Funes, a much-celebrated
local priest and writer at the turn of the 19th
century. Jesuit monasteries abound in Cordoba, and
there is even one where an apparently natural
phenomenon has been witnessed—the floor tiles of the
building appear to have been dislodged from what was
surely an original neat laying-out, and instead,
float (somewhat in place) in the air.
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