01/21/2020 – Tuesday in the town

Tuesday we only had one class to teach, and in the evening we were off to the town center with a whole group of friends – Danna, Maried (who wants to apply to Harvard, MIT, and the like, which we got to chat with her about!), Camila, Osmar, Arantza, and Vania. They wanted to bring us around Cordoba, especially to things we hadn’t seen before, and we did just that!

We got tacos de ropa vieja (beef cooked with tomato – a specialty of the area) at Dona Guicha, and then headed into a tour of the Coffee Museum in Cordoba (after tasting a tortilla at Osmar’s family’s tortilleria! It was pretty cool to learn about the origins of coffee in the area, the legends associated with it, and the fact that there is a support program for small growers of coffee in the area in which a larger brand essentially gives them their own brand by packaging and selling their coffee with the grower’s name. At the end of the tour, there was a presentation of the making of coffee (there are more than 40 ways to do it!) in which we got to see for ourselves the difference that alternate brewing methods made. It was surprisingly quite noticeable between la olla and a filter paper method.

Afterwards, we stopped at a specialty coffee-based treat store where I picked up some goodies for some unnamed family and friends 😉 and then headed to San Jose, where we went with Andrea as well. San Jose has a lot of really good food and another, slightly smaller park. It also is home to the sacred place that bestowed upon us our first tamales. We tried pineapple, ranchero, and strawberry, and they were so delicious, although one might not expect a simple corn meal type food to be. They were so soft and comforting but yet so tasty, and we just couldn’t get enough despite the fact that we were thoroughly full AND I still had lurkings of some traveler’s sickness too. That concluded the trip, and as it started to rain we headed home. They were just such a sweet group that was so eager to show us their home, and we’re very grateful for the night.