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What a quality trip! Set off thursday night on the overnight bus to cordoba(long distance buses here have seats that are pretty much first class airline ones!), after watching avatar and having a chicken/rice meal(which was preceded by a spinach tart that can only be described as vile) on the bus I managed to sleep until 7:30 when we arrived in Cordoba. We managed to check into the hostel which was pretty cool(even if they did try to fit 7 people into dorms the size of a single room!) but in a pretty awful neighbourhood! After that we went to the market for the breakfast of champions...a donner kebab, then on to the bus to Villa General Belgrano. In Belgrano the 2nd largest Oktoberfest outside Germany was well underway. Willing away the hours in the sun drinking beer out of massive steins listening to various central european musicians has a lot going for it, Sam enjoyed it so much he smashed more than one expensive ceramic stein... At this point I would like to spare a sympathetic thought for Julian who despite suffering from severe food poisoning still made it to Oktoberfest. As we left the festival we had a brief, if rather amusing, meeting with the Vice-President of Argentina who was attending the festivities. The day ended with us chilling at the hostel until fairly late. Saturday followed essentially the same pattern as Friday, bus to Oktoberfest, sitting enjoying good beer, good company, good patter. Managed to blag a free stein of beer and convince the beer stall workers to fill my 750ml stein for the price of a 500ml. As an aside, if you ever get the chance to drink Duff beer(as in the Simpsons), then don't do it as it tastes like what I imagine stale urine would taste like. I was pleasantly surprised to see on the programme that there was a pipe-band playing at the end of the night...they were ok but not great! Managed to get an entire stein poured down my front when walking through the crowd, the man apologized profusely though so its all good! Upon returning to Cordoba, me, Tom, 3 americans and the hostel owners daughter decided that the best thing to do was to go to the dirt cheap bar across the road and play pool until the early hours...and it was a good idea! Sunday saw us have a far more cultured day, after walking round the main plaza in Cordoba(cordoba is nice but there isn't as much to see/do as in B.A) and a breakfast of pastry from one of the few bakeries open on sundays, Sam, Henry, Josh, Chirag and I took the bus to Alta Gracia, a town in the mountains south of Cordoba. A fairly quiet town but the former home of somebody you may have heard of, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, we spent a good while wandering around the excellent museum which is in his childhood home, which has letters he wrote to his children before departing on his last trip to Bolivia, the motorbike he used to travel Latin America(as in motorcycle diaries) among other cool stuff. There is also pictures of famous visitors to the museum including Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, interviews with childhood friends/teachers etc. After the Guevara museum we had lunch in a hotel with grounds overlooking the high peaks of the Central Sierras(great chicken and tomato Ciabatta and fresh squezzed orange juice for 17 pesos(just under 3 quid). Followed by a massive ice cream from a ice cream shop for 4 pesos. Then after walking through the park(which had some sort of festival on) we went to the old Jesuit Estacia which the town grew up around which had a cool museum and grounds. Then the bus back to Cordoba, pick up the bags, to the bus terminal and the overnight bus home to B.A and a well earned sleep. Having visited Cordoba now also makes travelling after leaving b.a easier, will pretty much follow the Ruta 40 from the Bolivian border in the north, straight down the Andes to Tierra del Fuego and the Straits of Magellan in the South.
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