fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

Or anywhere... But enough of the cheesy pop music and besides, I'm getting ahead of myself...
Cordoba could not be Germany (but it could be in Spain!). Even though I had just been there for a couple of days, I've nothing but praise for the place. I'd always assumed that as far as cities go, bigger is better. I have had to live and learn. Albeit Cordoba being only Argentina's second city after Buenos Aires I find it a lot more cool (though it is still scorching hot during the day!). For starters, Cordoba central area is eminently walkable and to anywhere else you can catch a taxi for the price of a cheap burger - the meters here move in units of $0.05 or so. The streets are narrow and lined with trees providing a degree of shade all day long to prevent the severe burnage that would otherwise ensue. There are loads of parks, pedestrianised areas, shady plazas, shops, lovely buildings, restaurants and anything else you could desire for. On top of that it is a university town loaded with students and corresponding facilities like lots of bars and clubs and finally it also has the widespread reputation of being home to the most beautiful girls in Argentina and so far I can do nothing but corroborate.
In short, Cordoba is an exceedingly pleasant and laid back place to spend time in; even though there isn't as much stylish Tango as in Buenos Aires. I did finally understand a large part of the appeal of the dance though: there are few things old, balding men can do to get this close to consenting, young, pretty girls and feel like a macho again, Viagra notwithstanding and also a possible exception.
The area surrounding Cordoba has the Sierras, a series of hills and lush green valleys. One of the villages nearby is Villa General Belgrano and that's where the title of this post comes in. Around the second world war most of the crew of a German war ship, the Graf Spee, made their home in this village. Correspondingly, it is essentially German and seems to have a reputation amongst some Argentines for being full of old Nazis.
Basically, the place is quite unremarkable and I'm only using that word because I didn't want to use 'shithole'. Its essence is that of a backwater village your dog wouldn't want to get lost in and of those there are hundreds in Germany. Apart from being in a pretty area its German-ness slap-bang in the centre of Argentina, however, is the only redeeming feature which makes it attractively exploitable for tourism. Thus, in the last twenty years the main road has sprouted over-priced Artesania shops, over-priced kiddies and stylish women's clothes shops, dozens of ice-cream parlours for the children and lots of Argentine steak restaurants that serve over-priced faux-German food as novelty 'typical dishes' of the region [see picture for an appetising example of 'livercheese']. Thus it has made a perfect holiday destination for the average Argentine family (many of whom have preferred staying within their country and currency after the financial disaster of the last few years).
But no, I'm being a tad too scathing here. It is cute if you look past the tourist traps and there is some authentic food including good Black Forest Gateaux and some good local beer. And they have an Oktoberfest! And Sauerkraut, that only German dish of international fame - or more probably infamy - which, in a linguistic twist of Argentine Sperman (yes, that does look bad!), they have called Chukrut. And they have houses here that from the inside look more yester-year-German than most in Germany, complete with Formica kitchen tables! Yes, it's been a bit of a trip for me! :)

[Ok, so I uploaded loads of pictures of random things this time (Albums Argentina 2 and 3) and I'm sensing there may be some more voices of dissent. Please vote on the poll on the right (again?) to let me know whether they're too many to handle and next time I'll do more editing. That's the problem with digital cameras and large mem cards, I start playing around too much... :)]