Posada Chamonix Villa General Belgrano

An hour's journey on a minibus to the south west of Cordoba is the small town of Alta Gracia where Ernesto "Che" Guevara spent much of his childhood. Germa and I went to visit his childhood home which has now been turned into a museum. The house looks deceptively small from the outside but actually has quite a few rooms and a reasonable back garden too.

There were a huge number of pictures of Che on display. Each room of the house deals with a ...

So we got to Cordoba to find out that the hostel didn´t have our reservation and the whole of Cordoba and surrounding area was booked up due to the infamous Oktoberfest. Sooo we ended up meeting some guys in the hostel lounge area while we were deciding what to do who had rented a house close to the festival. 17 of us in a 2 bedroomed house which was meant to sleep 5....

... in the mountains. The second time we took an afternoon hike...which was a bit more intense, but still worthwhile.

Villa General Belgrano was founded in 1930, and since then has attracted immigrants from Switzerland, Austria and especially Germany mainly because it's a close to the Alps as you're going to find in Central Argentina. Actually, while I was there at least five people asked me if I was really from Germany because of my blond ...

... so we really landed on our feet. It had a cute little kitchen with dining table and a living room with futons and satelitte tv. The bedroom was dotey too, all woody. We initially were only going to stay 2 days as already mentioned but decided that the place was so nice we'd stay for 2 more and rest up for a few days. We strolled down to the town to have a look around but we were in siesta country now - everything shut from around 1-4pm so we had lunch in a place ...

Le lendemain, je pars avec Alba, Cayo, Johan, Juliana et Maren à Alta Gracia, un petit village au Sud de Córdoba célèbre pour avoir vu grandir Ernesto "Che" Guevarra, la figure charismatique par excellence de toute l'Amérique latine. La famille Guevarra s'est installée à Alta Gracia suite aux problèmes d'asthmes du petit Ernesto. En effet, dans cette région, l'air est très sec et convient trés bien aux ...

... Chavez (president of Venezuela ) and Fidel Castro visited the musuem together to pay homage to him. After the museum, we ate the packed lunch that we had brought sitting in the relaxing garden of a hotel that was in the middle of the town, no one seemed to mind, then we made our way down to the town´s other important historical site, the Jesuit estancia. The Jesuits were a Christian sect and group from Spain, who were very active in the area of Northern Argentina ...

... of people drinking beer. There were a couple microbrews in town, so tried both of those. The town has a disney world german look, with german restaurants and about every second store selling steins. Was pretty wild, met a lot of different people and had a good time. Nothing really was going on there other than just people drinking beer, but it was still a lot of fun. I did my best to fit in.

... became increasingly worried as night was falling, the roads were deserted, there was no network for the mobile phones - we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, an hour and a half from the next village! When finally a car came round the corner, we flagged it down. They could only fit two people in so Patrick and I set off with them, abandoning poor Livio and Ange on the top of a hill with a car losing petrol, a bottle of water and some biscuits. My ...

After a short stint in the town of Cordoba we headed off the beaten track to La Cumbrecita. La Cumbrecita is a small mountain side village surrounded by waterfalls, rivers and pines. Unlike Buenos Aires, La Cumbrecita is a pedestrian only village with ZERO pavement and pollution. We spent each day hiking and/or swimming in the fresh springs. La Olla is the closest swimming hole in town, but your options are unlimited if you are willing to hike around ...

... a mini disaster struck - for no obvious reason, the cash machine swallowed my cash card at 830pm - aaaaaahhhhhh!!!! I called the number on the screen, & after my panicky spanish explanation, they advised to cancel it.I had to get the bank's emergency number from the internet, buy an international phone card & then tried to call my bank.... after being put on hold (more aaaaaahhhh), I had to give ...