Oktoberfest

Argentina was, for want of a better word, a very lazy month. Whether this was due to utter exhaustion after four months of travelling, or just down to the fact that no-one else was doing anything either, I can't be sure. Cordoba is a gorgeous, culturally rich location surrounded by lush landscapes... or so I have heard. Mikael left for Buenos Aires, leaving me to enjoy the good-natured fun of Cordoba's Tango Backpackers hostel. A week passed and us residents had avoided ever leaving the premises unless absolutely necessary. The days were spent sleeping, eating, playing Risk (it's called Conquest here - and amusingly South America has a lot more countries), go-karting, watching movies, and unsurprisingly a considerable amount of time was also spent "sampling" the local beverages. And this brings me nicely on to one day trip that was definitely listed under "absolutely necessary": Oktoberfest.

Oktoberfest is the famous german beer festival held in Munich, that the Argentinian's have cunningly decided to copy. Despite the noticeable lack of lederhosen, trachten (the women's outfits) and bratwurst, Villa General Belgrano had a fantastic german feel to it and the festival lacked anything but atmosphere. Everyone had to buy their own drinking tankard - I found a classy one with a sexy woman's bossom - and you then proceed to go from stall to stall filling up with any and all of the flavourful beer ranges available. Christophe, my multi-lingual belgian amigo, found that taping his tankard semi-permanently to his drinking hard not only helped him to devour beer at a significantly faster rate, but also meant that the staff had no choice but to always let him pull his own pint. Unfortunately it also meant that releaving his own bladder on a regular basis was made a considerably more challenging task.