In Argentina’s central sierras, there’s a small town that attracts an older crowd of vacationers and full time retired residents, favouring its moderate climate and fresh air. It’s called Villa General Belgrano, named after a hero of Argentina’s war of independence, VGB for short.
VGB is more a Swiss Alps theme park than a town. Residents have a taste for all things German, like pastry, chocolate, and artisan beer. They also enjoy dwarfs. Wood signs commonly feature the likes of Disney’s Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, or any number of anonymous gnomes. Carved in relief, painted on buildings, sculpted life-size, moulded into chocolates, beaded or stitched in needlepoint, VGB’s dwarfs are, ironically, given their size, in your face.
We run into an expat American working in a local restaurant. He insists that the Austrian themed towns in this area are for real. German speaking people developed a good part of Argentina and Chile’s interior early in the twentieth century and they built for themselves here the kind of communities they left behind in the mountains of central Europe. I reflect on this piece of history as we sit down on a bench opposite seven leaping dwarfs partly whittled out of a log. They appear frozen in mid flight, caught in an unsuccessful prison break.
In spite of its continuing economic struggles, we observe that small town Argentina does not seem stressed about money. Stores close for whatever reason during the day outside of the usual siesta hours. We’ve encountered only one tout, a small narcoleptic man whose pitch about a restaurant trailed off mid-sentence. There are also few advertizing billboards once you leave the big cities. At least advertisements may not be where you expect them. Last week, as we drove around a blind switchback on the Sierra de Achala, my eyes were dangerously drawn to an invitation to taste one of Cordoba’s finest cookies.
Since we need to find accommodation for the weekend, we head to the tourist office which everyone says we can find on the main floor of the bell tower next to city hall. We’re told we can’t miss it. But we’re not told that the street holds any number of distractions which might deter us: someone is yodelling in front of a beer hall and wants to pull us inside. There’s a chocolate shop which commands my immediate attention. Dopey is pointing to a selection of freshly baked kuchen, a rich and luscious cake to which I attribute all of my weight gain in Argentina. Once we find the office, however, we’re in and out with German efficiency, on our way to the recommended Blumenau Bungalows, a few streets off the main drag.
Pablo is the owner of the rustic but comfortable Blumenau Bungalows. Retired for several years now, he developed the property when he discovered he could not retire out of country as he had planned. During the economic crises here in the early years of the new millennium, you could not take your money out of the banks. You could, however, move it around between banks to purchase property. Pablo and his wife accepted the reality of the times and settled in VGB as new owners of a small hotel.
Pablo tells us not to miss the festival in town that night. Not only is it the long weekend holiday of the Immaculate Conception, but it’s the official start of the summer tourism season. There’s going to be a procession to city hall.
It was here, in VGB, that I learned one should not roll up all Spanish speaking cultures together. Argentina is not Mexico, nor is it Ecuador or Panama, nor Spain. Language is a piece of culture, but not the whole thing. All Feasts of the Immaculate Conception are not the same between countries.
On the walk to town, we wonder if we’ll be able to get a good view of whatever happens at processions when there are hundreds of people lining a cordoned-off downtown street. As a mostly Catholic country, we’re expecting a devout gathering, speeches and a priest’s blessing, not unlike what we’ve seen in small town Mexico or Peru at similar festivals. “Hey, do you remember ever seeing a church in town?” I suddenly ask my husband.
Admittedly, we’ve seen nothing to suggest that the festival will be a religious one. It’s early evening and so far, Mary Immaculate is a no show. Not a priest in sight, instead, half a dozen young pastry chefs-in-training shovelling out samples of hot strudel from enormous pans along three rows of banquet tables.
A film is in progress on a huge screen erected across the face of the city hall. A promotional film, it celebrates the local scenery, the mountains, lakes, forests, and architecture, an occasional dwarf. In time, politicians and media celebrities lead the crowd to count down the last seconds to the beginning of the long awaited procession. In a blast of fireworks and drums, crowds part and I’m wondering if now is when Mary Immaculate will make her entrance, perhaps as a life-size effigy in wood, solemnly transported by the faithful.
Instead I see an ATV approaching. Huffing and puffing down the street, it tows a very long, narrow wagon supporting an equally long narrow platter. On the platter is an unbroken stream of sauerkraut swaddling what’s claimed to be the longest sausage in the world. Cameras flash, and children squeal. Clicking a gaucho’s knife against a sharpening stick, a smiling chef awaits its arrival. A buxom young lady beside him holds a basket of buns pressed against her hip. A cheery big man dressed in traditional mountain shorts and shoulder straps shouts to his friend over the din as he fills plastic glasses of beer one by one from a wooden barrel. I pick up a program discarded on the street. It describes the scheduled events of a Fiesta de la Gastonoia Centroeuropea.
We stumble on Pablo the next day during his early morning walk around the resort and thank him for the tip about the last night’s entertainment. He is puzzled why we would have expected a religious ceremony. He explains that every year, the summer tourism season begins on this holiday weekend. It just happens to be a religious feast day too. “Tourism is really important for the town, so we throw a party.”
So indeed, Argentina is not Spain. Economics trump religion. (by C. Moisse @maturetraveler.blogspot.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment