Cordoba and Oktoberfest

Puerto Iguazu to Cordoba was another long haul bus ride – 22 hours.  We were excited when we when finally got in, especially since it was the first “big city” we’d seen in a while.

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We spent the first day walking around, checking out the sights.  The sights included some cool churches and parks, and that was mostly it.  We also might have found a movie theater playing Gone Girl in English.

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I visited Cordoba when I studied abroad and while it is a nice city, it wasn’t originally on our list of places to visit because there isn’t really much to do in the city as a tourist (at least not compared to other places we wanted to visit).  Cordoba quickly got added to our must see list when one of our roommates in Cochabamba reminded me that there is an Oktoberfest celebration nearby!  Luckily the timing was perfect, so after our first night in Cordoba, we jumped on a bus for a two hour ride to Villa General Belgrano.  Villa General Belgrano is a village of about 6,000 people settled by German sailors in the 1930s and was also apparently popular with Nazis escaping to Argentina after WWII.  The town is adorable with tons of Bavarian influences and it seemed like the village belonged in the Alps instead of the middle of Argentina.  And there was lots of German food and beer!

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We went to the festival on a low key Tuesday about an hour after the gates opened and were some of the first people to arrive, but eventually the venue filled to about half way.  There really wasn’t much German beer, but there were around 20 craft breweries from around Argentina.  In most of South America, there isn’t much craft beer (and if there is some, you probably don’t want to drink it!) so we’ve been drinking a lot of Budweiser-type beer.  While not all of the craft beer we had was great (mint? no thanks), it was at least a nice change from the usual tasteless stuff.  And the day was beautiful  – 70’s and sunny – so we had a great time sitting outside drinking beer and listening to polka bands.

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