Zoölogical Garden, Córdoba
Of the hotels, the Plaza is the best. It is on the northeast corner of the Plaza San Martin, and is new. It is a solid four-story structure, with good rooms, and is well furnished but poorly managed. There is a sunparlor on the second floor. The manager told me that most of the rooms have baths in connection, but in this he lied. I do not believe that any of the rooms have a private bath. This same manager, an Engadine Swiss, was formerly the head portier of the Hotel Savoy in Rosario. I knew him of old, and crookedness is, with him, second nature. The restaurant of the Plaza Hotel is the best in the city. It is on the ground floor and has a street entrance; in connection with it is a café and a confectionery store. The meals are à la carte, but I understand that people staying at the Plaza for any length of time may get pension. The café is a large one, on the Viennese style, and connects with the restaurant by a passageway under a platform on top of which are stationed the orchestra, so that the musical wants of both the eaters and drinkers can be satisfied at the same time. The bar is on the United States style, and as is seldom the case in South America and not frequent enough in North America, the back bar is deep enough to give the bartenders working space, and allows them enough room to reach for a bottle without getting into each other's way.
Corner of Plaza San Martin, Córdoba
Across Calle San Geronimo from the Hotel Plaza is the Hotel San Martin, a good house, and managed by the former manager of the Plaza. This manager holds the unenviable reputation of cheating his foreign help. In Argentina, a native or a naturalized citizen always wins out in a lawsuit. When I asked some of the ex-employees of the San Martin why they did not sue the manager for their back wages which they claimed were deliberately withheld, they said:
"We would look fine as Spaniards and Austrians going up against an Argentino in court here. The manager would trump up some lie, and have us arrested on some false charge and it would work."
Another good hotel is the Roma, two stories high and built on the patio system.
The Central Argentina Railroad and the Central of Córdoba both print luxurious illustrated folders and do much advertising relative to the beauties and charming mountain scenery of the Sierra de Córdoba, an uninteresting range of quasi barren hills in the neighborhood of the city. My advice to strangers is to pay no attention to these deceptive advertisements and not to go there, for the person that "bites" feels afterwards like "the fool with his money parted." This last might apply to pecuniary losses that are apt to befall him at the green cloth tables in Alta Gracia. This Sierra de Córdoba is an irregular mass of rocky hills, which in some places attains the form of mountains. The summits are over four thousand feet high and where this altitude is reached in the mountains to the west, the Córdobese call them Los Gigantes (The Giants) for they have never seen any mountains that are greater. They are covered with brush, while here and there is a small tree. As for scenic beauty they are not worth three cents.
Alta Gracia is a great gambling establishment licensed by the provincial authorities, and as these railroad companies know the bend of the native mind, advertise this place which besides the gambling house is nothing but a large hotel, a hamlet, and an old mission church. I visited all the advertised places which include Dique San Roque, Cosquin, La Falda, Tanti, and Capilla de Monte and found none worth the while. Dique San Roque is a dam somewhat similar to the Sweetwater Dam near San Diego, California, where a greenish lake empties its waters into the Calera River to supply electrical power. It is twenty miles from Córdoba, the last five being the only part of the trip that can come anywhere near to being classified under the title scenery. The hills here are wooded with small trees, and the dangerous automobile road runs around promontories on ledges where the slightest mishap with the steering would shoot both passenger and chauffeur into eternity.