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Published: June 29th 2009
After a weekend of staying out pretty late (though pretty typical for Argentinean standards), it was time to explore the Sierras of Cordoba. One of the great things about Cordoba is that if you ever get tired of the city there are several small towns nearby that provide plenty of opportunities for outdoor pursuits, sightseeing and just plain relaxing. Even though it´s winter here and most of these towns don´t come alive until the summertime, when Cordobeses escape the heat of their city, I still wanted to see what they were all about. Last time I was here I saw Alta Gracia, a small town where Che Guevara grew up.
On Monday I went to Villa Carlos Paz for the day with my friend Mica. Her experience in tourism certainly helped as she was able to act as a tour guide and not only show me around the town but also explain its history. The town is situated on a big lake and we spent most of the afternoon walking along its shore to reach the downtown area. A bizarre thing happened to us though while we were on the lake. We saw two guys in a tandem kayak paddling
Lookout post
Getting up there wasn´t easy, but I´m just glad I didn´t break anythingacross the lake. It was a little chilly for being out on the water, but hey, whatever floats your boat (err, excuse the pun). A few minutes later we looked back at the water. The boat was upside down,and the two men were missing. I figured that either they really had fallen out or were just practicing an eskimo roll. The latter seemed more likely, and I tried to explain this to Mica, but instead she panicked and began to think the worse. A few moments later I saw one, then two, heads pop out of the water and was pretty confident that they would be fine. Mica was having none of it though. She ran over to a nearby house and asked to use the cell phone of a man working in his garden. He happily obliged and the next thing I know Mica is talking to the police, telling them that there are two men drowning in the river. I really thought she was overreacting, but thought it best to keep my mouth shut and smile reassuringly. I might win an Oscar someday. A few minutes later, a police car showed up and began interviewing Mica and taking
Cuckoo Clock
Tacky Central down her information. I stood there, motionless, hoping that they would ignore me. The last thing I wanted was to be a gringo questioned by the police...it doesn´t usually end well for us! The police let us go and we kept on walking, Mica still worried about the fate of the two men. We came upon another clear view of the lake and there they were, paddling to shore. At the same time a Maritime Police boat was pulling up alongside them, and once they reached the shore we watched as the two men were talking to the police. This is when Mica began to panic again, only this time because she thought the two men would get into trouble, all because of her. We walked away briskly, never turning back.
We reached the center of Villa Carlos Paz and saw its one claim to fame, a giant cuckoo clock that is probably the kitchiest thing I have ever seen. Of course I had to take a picture of it, but it was so tacky that I almost felt like I was wearing a ¨Look at me I´m a Big Dumb Tourist¨ sign around my neck. Just like with
the police, we moved on briskly. We walked around the downtown area, but Carlos Paz doesn´t have much to look at. Even other Argentines told me later that it´s a boring place to be. If it weren´t for the adventure on the lake, I would agree.
The next day Mica and I went to two other towns, Villa General Belgrano and La Cumbrecita. After about three hours and two buses, we arrived in La Cumbrecita in the afternoon. It´s a beautiful, pedestrian town, and cars can only be used at night. Belgrano and Cumbrecita are odd in one respect: the signs are in both Spanish and German. Apparently a German warship sunk in the Atlantic Ocean during WWII, so for some strange reason the survivors decided to create a home away from home in the foothills of Argentina. As you can see from the pictures, store signs are in both languages. Villa General Belgrano especially caters to the tourist market, selling all types of German meats, cheeses and beers. We walked through the center of La Cumbrecita, which takes all of two minutes, and then up into the winding dirt roads to reach the trails. After walking for awhile
Ride to La Cumbrecita
Beautiful valley on our way to La Cumbrecita we came upon a small cementery in the hills. Carrying the deceased up those trails would certainly be a challenge. In the late afternoon I did a hike by myself up Cerro Wank (no I´m not making it up) where I ended up getting lost a couple of times while Mica was waiting for me, freezing. It could have been a lot worse, but I finally arrived back at the trailhead when it was already dark.
After that we returned to Villa General Belgrano. Of course there was a German restaurant that served all the typical fare, so I ordered Goulash (a hearty beef stew) with Spaetzle (noodles) and topped it off with a nice Weizen Bier. I can´t even describe how good it was to taste real, quality beer for once. Quilmes, the national beer, is about as good as Bud Light. Ugghh. The next day we walked around the center of town. More so for being German, I got a kick out of it, from the signs to the store products to the architecture of the buildings. It was really like some small German village had somehow found its way to South America, of all places. The
town even has its own Oktoberfest. I just kept shaking my head and asking myself ¨Where am I?¨
We returned to Cordoba that night, and the next day, Thursday, I took as a day of rest. So much sightseeing and hiking over the past few days had taken its toll. My roommate Georgina came home from work in the afternoon. She was surfing the Internet and said, in a nonchalant, matter-of-fact voice: ¨Michael Jackson has died.¨ She showed me a page in Spanish that had the aforementioned headline. She said it so calmly, and even the webpage didn´t look authentic, that I thought it was a joke. Later on she brought it up again and I still didn´t believe her. No matter if you´re a fan or not, the lack of emotion in her voice when she told me he had died made me suspicious. I mean, he´s the King of Pop! So I bet her a bottle of wine that it wasn´t true, and told her to go to CNN.com. She said ¨Sure¨ and pulled up CNN. There it was in big black letters. I was dumbstruck. Even when I saw the headline, I still couldn´t believe it.
Although I was never a huge fan, he´s still
Michael Jackson, one of the biggest entertainers of all time. Gone. In the blink of an eye.
Later in the evening Georgina invited me out to a club. She works for a fashion agency and a local designer was holding a fashion show at a popular nightclub. Not having anything better to do, I said yes. But wait, let´s back up...Bernie, at a fashion show? What the heck was I going to do there? I figured it would be one of those unique experiences, like going to an Argentine wedding my last time in Cordoba. So I went, in the best clothes I had which, for a backpacker, wasn´t much. I expected a catwalk or something like that, but the ¨runway¨ was just one long part of the dance floor with all the spectators standing around. After seeing the models, I understood firsthand the debate about models being too thin. It is one thing to see it on TV, but to see a bunch of models who clearly need to eat a meal was another. I did get to meet the wife of Fabricio Oberto, an Argentinean player in the
NBA (apparently she´s friends with Eva Longoria but I´m not supposed to divulge that information), which was pretty cool. I also met a pediatrician who had to do a 12 hour shift the next day but was still out partying. Wow.
In typical Argentine fashion, the show started at 1am on a Thursday, went until 2am, and then the dance floor opened up and the place went nuts. I hadn´t planned to stay out late, and by 4am I called it a night. The dance floor was still packed. The pediatrician was still there (I feel serious concern for his patients!), and even Georgina, who had to work in the morning, came home after me. I guess for Argentinean standards I´m a weakling. The real reason I wanted to get home though is that I had a big activity planned for the next day. I didn´t want to show up totally exhausted. What did I do the following day? That´s for my next entry. Stay tuned.
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Maddalena
non-member comment
Thankyou for an entertaining commentary of your experience. Not only has it given me a moment of pleasure at a time when things are a little hard-going but it has also inspired me to want to learn more about Argentina and to visit. There is so much to learn in this world.