Cordoba and its Sierras

Cordoba is Argentina´s second largest city, and is a university town buzzing with students during the week but eerily quite with shops shut and deserted on Sunday which is when I arrived. So I wasn´t overly impressed. The Jesuits set up the first university here, which is considered one of the 4 most important in latin america. So there are some nice old colonial buildings, and shopping malls, but not really that much for tourists... So after taking a tour of the old uni building I headed out to Alta Gracia, a town set in the mountains.

Alta Gracia has a was nice with a Jesuit Estancia (farm- but see photo left) and was also home to Che Guevara when he was growing up. Interesting little museum there with lots of photos of him, and tales of childhood exploits. And a whole room devoted to the visit of Chavez and Castro last year! It also happened to be childrens day, so there was this concert put on for the kids, jumping castles, clowns on stilts etc.

I also visited Villa General Belgrano, a German town about 2 hours away. With wooden carved signs, artesenal beer, chocolate, and restuarants serving bratwurst, sourcrout, spatzle, liverwust etc its kind of odd. Walked up to a lookout on the top of the hill and got a nice view over town.