Villa General Belgrano and Alta Gracia

Since Argentina is a part of the Americas, Columbus Day is a federal holiday here too, which meant that Jill got an extra day off of work so we had a long weekend in which we could travel. We've wanted to see Cordoba, Argentina's 2nd largest city, for awhile, and since Argentina's festival nacional de la cerveza (beer festival) was held this weekend right outside of Cordoba, it seemed like a great time to go. Every year for the past 47 years, Argentina has held a beer festival in Villa General Belgrano. The festival is also known as Oktoberfest because so many of the town's residents have German heritage. Indeed, the festival and town are somewhat controversial because many Nazis escaped trials in Europe by fleeing there after the war.

We decided to take the trip at the last minute, and since it was a holiday weekend, that meant we were incredibly lucky to get seats on any bus going to Cordoba. We ended up with the last two seats, which were shoved into a corner and vibrated the whole time because they were right near the engine in the back of the bus. It was an uncomfortable ride, but we made it to Villa General Belgrano, which is all that mattered. The festival itself costs quite a lot of money (by Argentine standards) to enter, and once you pay the hefty entrance fee, you have to pay for overpriced food and beer. So rather than paying $50 pesos to get in, we spent the day walking around the town and enjoying the artisan beer in local beer gardens. It seemed that most everyone else was doing the same thing and that there were more people outside the festival than inside anyway! We enjoyed seeing the town, but didn't feel like spending another day at a beer festival was what we wanted to do, so we headed onto Alta Gracia.

The tiny town of Alta Gracia has two main attractions, Jesuit Missions and Che Guevara's childhood home. The Jesuit Mission one of several in Cordoba province that altogether make up a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was interesting to see, but there wasn't that much information that explained the history of the whole place or the Jesuits in Cordoba. The museum at Che Guervara's house focused on a lot of information about his youth, and seemed to leave out some important information about his adult life. Still, we learned a lot!