Deutschland in Argentina

Greetings fronm the village of General Belgrano. Like George Washington, this general never slept here. Nevertheless, the place is terrific! I traveled for about 2 hours out of Cordoba heading into the "Central Sierras." This name is actually a bit presumptuous. It makes it sound like mountains. It´s actually more like foothills.

When I stepped off the bus, I could smell the odor of freshly cut wood. I had to walk about a half mile to the place I´m staying. Along the way, I could see where people had begun stacking their firewood. It´s the end of summer here. Any place where people have to "get their wood in" ranks very high in my book. The landscape reminds me again of the CA foothills: scrub oak, but lots of green vegetation, not CA "golden" or brown.

In 1939, the German warship (Panzerschiff) Graf Spee decided to sail down the coast of South America sinking English merchant ships along the way. Due to faulty English navigational charts (it absolutely could NOT have been faulty German engineering or seamanship), the Graf got a little too close to shore, got trapped by the English battleships, and was seriously damaged. It pulled into neutral Montevideo, Uruguay, where the crew was ultimately interned in Argentina. Over 100 crew members ended up in the lovely foothill town of Belgrano. For some reason, many of them found life in this rural village much more attractive than a sailor´s life on board ship during wartime. They sent for their wives. The result is this little town, which looks like it was transplanted from the Black Forest or Bavarian Alps. The houses are 2 to 3 stories tall (I think we would call them Tudor style), with large wooden beams, arched red tile roofs, window planter boxes and large wooden shutters. Church services, to this day I´m told, are offered in both Spanish and German. There are stores offering chocolate and pickled herring and other German delicacies. There´s Tante Liesbeth´s Cafe, several Hofbraeuhaeuser, Haus der Musika, and many others. As California´s Solvang is to Denmark, so is Argentina´s Belgrano to Germany.

The bus station is about the size of the Quincy airport office. There was a little old lady walking nearby and I asked for directions, in Spanish. She brightened up and said "Sprechen Sie deutsch?" I said yes and she was absolutely delighted at the opportunity to tell me in German that my hotel was just a good piece ("ein schoenes Stueck") up the dirt road. It´s funny because I have subsequently learned that the number of folks in this town who can speak German have dwindled considerably and understandably. And the first person I spoke to responds in German!

My "hotel" is something of a hostel at the end of a dirt road in a small ravine with a creek running through it. This place is idyllic. I have a room which looks out onto the coutryside and a roll top desk in my room to write on. It rents for $10 a night, including breakfast, and for another $3.50, I can get the main meal of the day at 1 p.m. This is the greatest!

I am sitting now in one of the several outdoor kaffee und kuchen shops and agonizing with indecision. Should I have Black Forest cherry cake (Schwarzwaelder kirsch kuchen) or apfel strudel, or pflaumen torte or this great looking strawberry torte or Dresdner stollen. That´s only the beginning. There´s several other great-looking things as well. Before the waiter came, I had a sudden burst of inspiration. I thought to myself, what would my good friend Don do under these trying circumstances? That´s easy, he´d order them all! So, I´m now eating schwarzwaelderkirsch and it´s absolutely scrumptious. I will take the stollen home for later tonight. I´ve got about 4 days here. I´ll have 2 delightful kuchen a day and that way, I will have sampled most of them by the end of the week! Thank you, Don, for your unwitting but very effective extra-sensory communication. The risk, of course, is that I won´t have enough room left to do justice to the Germnan-inspired local beer I intend to sample tonight. I´m just going to have to steel myself to face the challenge!

As always, I remain your intrepid reporter, ever ready to leap into the chasm of yet another sinfully gluttonous gastronomic experience. Excelsior! and Guten Apetit.