Oktoberfest The Finale

Our final day in Villa General Belgrano was the biggest fiasco of all. We all woke around 10, everyone except for me so hungover that they wanted to die. Horacio and Finn had just gotten back an hour or so before we all woke up and couldn't even function. Having a hunger in our bellies we found that all we had left to eat was canned corn and rice. It was breakfast. Well, we tried to have it for breakfast, but Finn put half a bag of salt into it. It was almost heart attack inducing but we were just hungry enough to swallow it down.

We packed up our things and were sitting around on the porch trying to produce thoughts and drinking the last of the beer we had in the fridge because according to Haukur, "You never waste beer." when Javier comes over to hang out. He talked with us a bit, and couldn't wait to brag about how he cheated on his fiancee with the fat girl in the cabin next door. Way to go Javi, your fiancee was pretty hot too. Affter a couple of minutes Javier decided that he wanted to share his taste in music with us and ran over to his cabin to bring over a stero. None of us were enthused, considering a majority of our group had splitting headaches, but we were even less exited when we found out what he liked to listen to. The first selection, ZZ Top. Ok not horrible, but I happened to like the peace and quiet of the country and the music was killing the vibe. It got worse though when he took out his ZZ Top cd and replaced it with none other than Shania Twain. When 'Man I Feel Like A Woman' came on Horacio, Haukur and I couldn't take any more so we hopped the fence to play with the horses in the pasture.

An hour later, Javier was to drive us the 2 kilometers to where the bus was to pick us up, which was great becasue he had been drinking till 9 am and was drinking again on our front porch. But it wasn't far so we figured it was safe enough and we hopped in the back of his pickup truck and headed to our stop. After about 20 minutes a little white bus drove by, the same company we were to take, at exactly the time when we were to take it. The bus came by and continued on it's path without stopping. Nobody even thought twice about it. We continued to sit on our respective stumps, throwing bits of wood into puddles because our brains were too clouded for higher motor functions. 30 minutes passed without event when a thought suddenly occured to me.
"Do you guys think that was our bus?" I asked our team.
Everyone kinda stared at eachother for a good 15 seconds. "Yeaaaaa," responded everyone.
We sat for another 30 seconds pondering what it was we were to do. If nothing happened quickly we would miss our connecting bus in Córdoba and be stuck in the woods with Javier for another night. We had only one option, Javier had to drive us into town to the bus station and get everything sorted out. The only problem was that as we were sitting around waiting for our bus, Javier had been off to the side drinking Fernet and Coke with some friends that he ran into. We had no other options. We got into the back of his pickup truck and started our 10 km ride into town along a slick, freshly rained highway. Haukur had the good sense to get into the front where there was a seatbelt, while Finn, T Bone, Horacito and myself got stuck in the bed hanging on for dear life. As if it wasn't bad enough, right before we hit the highway, Javier's friend pulls up beside the truck and hands Javier the Fernet and Coke, in case he gets thirsty on the ride home. We flew down the highway at 120 kmphr (kilometers per hour? Fucking metric system). We made it to the bus station in one piece, but my knuckles were white from hanging onto the truck.

We got our tickets sorted out and ended up getting a better, more direct ride back to Buenos Aires. We had an hour to kill so we sat down in the cafeteria and got some pizza and water while Javier and his friends continued to drink standing over us. It was there that we met Carlos, the 7 foot tall, at least 300 pound drunk blind man who decided to top off the Oktoberfest celebration for us. Javier invited Carlos to come sit with the four of us and then subsequently left him with us as he headed back to his cabin. Carlos was, as described before, enormous, and wore a complete set of navy blue sweats with matching T-shirt, which he was constantly using to wipe the sweat off of his mustache. He was probably one of the most digusting human beings I've ever seen, but God dammit he was entertaining. He would try and tell us everything he knew in English, which included singing Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen song, and famous quotes like "I'm sorry I am FAAAT!" or, "I like marajuana and women of the night." or my personal favorite, "My girlfriend is a fat prostitute." He asked us where we were from and when we told him we study in Buenos Aires he responded with, "I jerk off in Buenos Aires," which he followed by hawking a lougie and spitting it right on the floor. Oh Carlos, you made Córdoba wonderful. Fortunately our bus was ontime because after an hour with him it had gone past entertaining and was then annoying. We hopped on our bus and 12 hours later we were back in our wonderful beds in the Capital Federal. Epic.

Oktoberfest Day Three

Day Three. Waking up was a little rough to say the least, although considering how much we drank it wasn't so bad. We needed some breakfast, and what do men eat for breakfast? Meat. Some of the guys headed into the grocery store to stock up on some dead cow while the rest of us sat and nursed our hangovers. We made a royal feast with chorizo, a ton of steak, and Finn made us some chocolate banana boats. We met our neighbors while we were cooking, they asked us to make some chicken patties for them, and we were glad we had kept our expectations low. Argentina is full of the sexiest women in the world, but unfortunately the cabin next to ours wasn't.

Finn, being old, needed a nap after that and Travis and I followed suit. Horacio and Haukur decided it was adventure time. Hopping over the fence into the field next to our cabin they headed into the wild. Horacio, who is more man than you even know, caught a horse with his belt and Haukur hopped on to get some good training in for this summer. He is now an official cowboy.

At around 5 in the afternoon the general consensus was to head back to the festival. I had to start my antibiotics, so drinking was not in the cards for me and was probably the only sober person in 100 kilometers that night. We crammed into a taxi the size of a old Honda Civic hatchback and made our way into town. We decided to wait to head into the main area and went to this little garden off to the side where Argentine biker guys with big beards were selling beer. The cool thing about this place is that it had a urinal that started at waist level. You had to be at least 6'3" to pee in this thing, that is if you could pee with your dick pointing upwards while everyone was watching you. Finnur, the tallest of us succeeded in using it amidst the cheers and amazement of the spectators.

Once everyone was good and warmed up we headed into the main garden and immediately found our ladies where they had been the night before. The next few hours proceeded as the day before, drinking, watching Argentines try to pick up our blonde friends, and altogether madness. It was a lot different watching this whole spectacle from a sober perspective. Drunk people are silly. Especially Christina.

It was only when the night was dying down when the fun began. Around 1 am:
Haukur - "I'm drunk and I hate this and I want to be in my bed."
Travis - "I can't do it anymore, I will fall over if I drink more beer."
Horacio and Finn - "RAGE!"
I was sober and tired and decided it was time to head home as well so Haukur, Travis and myself made our way for the exit. They have a rule in Oktoberfest that you can't take the beer out of the designated area, and Haukur had a full beer. But rules don't apply to Haukur. An ambulance came through the gate and Haukur used it as his opportunity to get out. A cop tried to stop him and grabbed him by the arm but Haukur kept walking and simply told him to 'fuck off'. When we made our way out it was around 1:30 in the morning. The next 3 and a half hours proceeded like this:
- There are about 5 cabs in that little town so we walk to the end and try to hitchhike.
- One guy stops in the first 20 min but is heading in the other direction. No luck.
- Haukur is yelling what I assume are obsenities in Icelandic.
- We walk back into town to try and find a cab.
- Haukur passes out on the street.
- We give up on the cabs, not gonna happen, and head back out once again.
- Haukur loses his mug, there is anger in his eyes, he is cursing even more.
- I chase after Haukur who goes to look for his mug and come back to find Travis asleep holding on to a tree.
- We continue to try and hitchhike, Travis passes out with his thumb extended in the street.
- Run into Gavin, our Irish friend, and discover that Irish people are the greatest people in the world. Muy buena onda.
- I finally drag them up to the bus station to try one last time for a cab.
- Haukur "This is never going to work."
- 2 minutes later I had a cab.
- Haukur "Chris, I can't believe you did it."
- I save the day.

We arrive home around 5 am take 15 steps out of the cab and Travis starts to vomit all over the side of the cabin. I'd say it was a sucessful day.

Oktoberfest Day Two

Saturday morning we rose early on our own around 10. We had had our fair share of tranquility and we were ready to drink. Only problem was that we were missing the other two members of the team. A taxi pulled up around 11 with the big cat from Iceland inside. Finnur, our faithful companion had arrived, ready to drink and toting a... hacky sac? Yes, a hacky sac. My stoner days had come full circle. I threw on Travis' Birkenstocks and got some good hackin' action in as we waited for our final teammate. Horacio arrived around noon, walking down the path, gear in hand. Apparently the Argentines don't get the full service because he had been dropped off 2 km back at the grocery store and had to walk his way in.

At this point Javier comes by and does his jive talk with Horacio and tells us that there are 4 girls that are arriving that day from Buenos Aires to stay in the cabin next to us. We didn't end up meeting them that day, we tried to keep our expectations low, but the girls being next door is an important fact to keep in mind for later on in the story.

It was time for some beer. Of course, we are too cool to be taking taxi's back and forth from town all the time, so we decided to get down with the people and take the colectivo into town. This was no colectivo like us city dwellers were used to. We crossed the river (literally had to walk across it) and walked down a series of dirt roads looking for where to take the bus. Passing by a number of half-built and delapidated houses we finally asked some locals where to catch it. They told us it comes down the 'avenue' every thirty minutes and all we had to do was wait on the corner of any of the streets. The 'avenue' was just the widest dirt road they had. At this point it was around noon and close to 90 degrees outside. We ended up waiting at the bus stop, which was next to the chicken coup, for about half an hour until we finally caught what would be the slowest bus of all time into town.

Now, I should mention that I had had an eye infection brewing for the previous two days. Thursday night the annoyance in my eye had turned into a stye, and by Saturday morning it was infected and looked like I had eaten a knuckle sandwich. Before the drinking was to begin I had to see a doctor. Problem was, I had forgotten my insurance in Buenos Aires. But wait, we are in Argentina where anything is possible. So of course when I arrived at a private clinic with Horacio, he simply used his insurance for me, and I got everything for free.

So the doctor told me that I had an infected stye and that it was time for some antibiotics to fix it up. The problem was, I couldn't drink. I had come all this way, 12 hours on a bus for a BEER festival, and this asshole thinks I'm not gonna drink any beer. No, no, no. My eye could wait. I put the medicine in my bag and went bought a beer. The cool thing was that you had to buy your own Stein to drink the beer out of so we each had our one liter mugs with us and a belt so we could wear them over our shoulders. We were strapped and ready to drink.

Entering the gates of the festival we come upon a huge open field with people everywhere, surrounded by a large stage with performances by every European dancing troupe in South America, and a beer tent from all the companies in the area. We did our initial scouting and headed for a tent. I had decided that I was gonna try all the weirdest beers I could find that day so I started with Strawberry. I bought a full liter. The first half was delicious. The second half was disgusting. One can only drink so much syrupy fruity beer. We all found a spot in the center of the beer garden and set up for the day. We had the stage on one side, and all the craziest assholes dancing on the other. It was the best day ever, everyone was friends and everyone wanted to celebrate the gift of beer.

Throughout the day I drank a great red beer, a green beer, a honey flavored beer, and more beer, but after that I forgot what kinds and was just drinking whatever was in my glass. At around 6 in the evening, after a good 5 hours of hard drinking, rain drops started falling and in 2 minutes it was full blown pouring. We tried to get under a tarp with a bunch of people, but that just turned into a dance party so we figured it was better to just start taking off our clothes and dance in the rain. Problem was after about 20 minutes of being soaked to the bone, it got cold. Everyone headed into town to take refuge from the rain. In town Travis and I were reunited with some of our lovely ladies from school. The rain stopped and everyone headed back in where we found everyone else and the celebration continued. We were wet and cold but happy and together again. By this time in the evening my drunken state was beyond describing, and in between kissing every girl that I knew I was dancing like a madman in the rain. Unfortunately after another hour and a half the rain came back with a vengeance and they had to shut down the tents. We tried taking refuge by holding tables and chairs over our heads but it was futile and we decided it best to head back to the cabin.

But before that we of course needed more beer. How much? Well as much as we could buy of course. We ended up buying another 10 liters and switched of struggling to carry our boxes full of goodies as we made our way through town. We walked to the edge of town where we met two guys that said they would drive us home. We figured this was a great idea in our state. Just get in a car with two strangers and let them drive you to your cabin in the middle of nowhere on wet country roads after drinking all day. Who needs good judgment when you have beer? We ended up getting home fine and the guys were really nice and we gave them cab fare. It was an early night, getting back around 11, had more beer and a smoke and we all slept soundly like little babies in our beds. Well that is until about 5 in the morning that is when the rain turned into hail. Hitting the tin roof over the cabin it sounded like bombs dropping, and it was at this point we all woke up and agreed that we were glad that we had decided to rent the cabin instead of camping in our tents.

Oktoberfest Day One

Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is what happens when you put 5 guys in a cabin for 4 days in the middle of nowhere, give them lots of beer and let them run free as nature intended. But what really happened? Everything that could have happened, did. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. We were stranded in the dim world of drinking, debauchery, Javier, and Carlos.

The Characters:

Christopher Brendan - The moderately sexy one, there's more to this guy than his dashing good looks. Some say he has a way with words, others call him a bullshitter. Chris tends to get into trouble by running his mouth to much, usually to the benefit of the other members of the group.

Haukur - The silent, mysterious one. Haukur plays it cool, well at least until he has 6 beers in him. Everyone knows that he is the true brains behind the whole operation. His underwear also says "Mr. Big" on it.

Travis - This big guy is all about fun. Never a care in the world, he can snap better than your mother could 30 years ago. He's a dancing queen and has no qualms about breaking it out anywhere, anytime.

Horacio - The Argentine member of our group. He keeps us in check with the Argentine culture, and he can catch horses with his bare hands. Watch out ladies, if he can do that, you better believe he could lasso you into bed.

Finnur - One guy from Iceland is a party, but two is a God Damn celebration. The big daddy of our group. Finnur, 31, can drink like a 25 year old, but unfortunately the effects of the hangover hit his old bones a little harder. He also cooks a mean breakfast of the saltiest rice and corn you will ever sink your teeth into.

On Thursday, October 9th the first part of the group which included Travis, Haukur, and myself, hopped on a bus for Villa General Belgrano, the home of the German beer festival in Argentina. We hopped on the semi-cama bus (we are, after all, men) close to ten o'clock that evening prepared for a 11 hour bus ride. Every country outside of the US has a fantastic bus system. If you have ever ridden on our Greyhound then you would understand that it just doesn't compare. Haukur was asleep in literally 10 minutes, and was out the entire ride. I settled in a watched out the window, the first time I had had a chance to see any countryside in 3 months. Dozing in and out throughout the night, we eventually arrived at around 9:30 in the morning.

After a good stretch we strolled through the town, not a soul in sight. Everyone was still sleeping off the drinking from the day before. The town looked so clean and quiet, not like we would come to know it in the next couple of days. After 10 minutes in the town one could tell that it has built it's entire economy off of this festival. The place is made for tourists, full of stores with little trinkets that you should be finding in Germany. Walking in the tourism office we come upon 2 Argentine women dressed up in little German outfits, like every sterotype you have ever seen of German girls. This is the formula...
1) Argentine women, probably the sexiest in the world.
+
2) Sexy little German fantasy outfit.
=
3) Erection.

We stocked up on the necessary supplies. Meat, bread, cheese (with holes), beer, and headed to our cabin. Our team did not actually stay in Villa General Belgrano, we had a cabin situated 10 km outside in a little place called Villa Ciudad Parque. We drove down a bumpy dirt road until we came upon our home for the next couple of days. Our cabin, one of three in the area consisted of a front porch with a table, a living area/kitchen in the main room, a bathroom, and a bedroom with 3 beds.

Now would be a good time to describe Javier, the manager of our delightful cabin. Javier, from Cordoba, came up and introduced himself when we arrived and seemed like a really awesome guy. He showed us our cabin, gave us a run down of how everything worked, and told us that if we needed anything, all we had to do was ask. Throughout the day he was nice enough to tell us where the 'grocery store' was, where we could swim in the river, and even brought us some stuff to help us with our asado. What a nice guy Javier is. But wait, is he? No. Throughout the weekend we discovered that living out in the middle of nowhere too long makes you fucking weird. He also almost killed us. I'll get to that later.

We threw our packs down on the floor, stepped outside and listened. We heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. After three months in Buenos Aires where the noise of colectivos, people, and dogs never ceases, we were in Heaven. We had a breakfast that consisted of salami and cheese sandwiches, bananas, and beer. For the next hour we sat on the front porch staring at each other. I think we said less than 50 words. We were full of bliss. Slowly, somehow we all shifted into the living room, Haukur and myself on the daybed and Travis on the floor. In 10 minutes we were all asleep. Eventually Travis and I moved to our respective bunks, and we took the nap of all naps. The Cordoba nap. There was no alarm clocks, nothing to wake up too, we slept in the pure happiness of not having any responsibilities.

We woke with a hunger in our bellies and headed to the shop for some meat. Along the way we met Frank. He was a real swell guy. Never said too much and was always down for hanging out. Frank would keep us company whenever we needed some supplies. Back at the cabin a couple of beer bottles and 3 pounds of meat later, we had some time to kill before we started cooking so Haukur decided it would be a good idea to climb the water tower. Haukur, when it comes to climbing shit is basically an albino monkey. Making up to the top, it was Travis and I's turn to try. This is the point where I learned that limberness is not one of my foremost qualities, being blessed with more of a stocky build. I stayed at the bottom while the other two talked about the awesome view, or whatever.

Travis, our good southern boy, took over the cooking and made us some of the best chori and steak that has graced my taste buds. We drank, ate, and told embarrassing stories. Suddenly, Haukur looks up, and in the most nonchalant manner one can say it, he says, "Hey, there's a wolf." Turning around Travis and I discover there is indeed a wolf behind us. Well, it was a dog, but in our drunken state we thought for about a minute that he was a wolf. Wolf dog was cool, we gave him some meat bones and he went on his way. We finished a couple more liters of beer and hit the sack around 10 o'clock, concluding one the most peaceful days of our lives.

Thank You San Martin

Photos courtesy of Haukur Sigurðsson. http://www.flickr.com/photos/haukurr

La Boca and Palermo

Recoleta

3 Weeks

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Buenos Aires

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