Lunch one day with grand-parents. The next I went to the Cordoba Car Rally with Patricia’s 25 year old son, Maxi, and seven other guys.
The rally is an annual event, a serious car competition and part of the international rally drivers’ circuit. But more than that, it’s a party – three days and nights of drinking, meat and music. Maxi’s friends had set up camp – an awning, picnic chairs and a dozen or more 5 litre flagons of wine - by the side of the race course, in the rolling hills above Jesus Maria. By the time Maxi and I arrived the track was lined for miles with tents and trucks and huge speakers and fires. Everyone had been drinking for hours and they went on and on and on. Wine and then vodka and pint glasses of Fernet Branca, broken up by slabs of meat handed round and bouts of singing and huge screams of laughter from the boys. In the gloom hoards of roaming girls and guys wandered through the encampments, flirting and dancing and drinking more. It was very good natured – Maxi’s gang endlessly filled my glass up and asked me questions and generally made an effort to talk to the old English lady. Nice boys.
I spent the whole of the next day holding my head while the boys carried on drinking, barely disturbed by the race. Just before it began patrols of police cars and security cleared the track of drunken bodies and then, with whirling clouds of dust visible in the distance and a loud growl, the cars raced past, covering everyone with a fine layer of gritty brown dust. When we left later that day the sun was setting and the boys, awake and partying for well over 24 hours lay in a comatose heap across the back seat of the truck. Hasta el proximo.
The rally is an annual event, a serious car competition and part of the international rally drivers’ circuit. But more than that, it’s a party – three days and nights of drinking, meat and music. Maxi’s friends had set up camp – an awning, picnic chairs and a dozen or more 5 litre flagons of wine - by the side of the race course, in the rolling hills above Jesus Maria. By the time Maxi and I arrived the track was lined for miles with tents and trucks and huge speakers and fires. Everyone had been drinking for hours and they went on and on and on. Wine and then vodka and pint glasses of Fernet Branca, broken up by slabs of meat handed round and bouts of singing and huge screams of laughter from the boys. In the gloom hoards of roaming girls and guys wandered through the encampments, flirting and dancing and drinking more. It was very good natured – Maxi’s gang endlessly filled my glass up and asked me questions and generally made an effort to talk to the old English lady. Nice boys.
I spent the whole of the next day holding my head while the boys carried on drinking, barely disturbed by the race. Just before it began patrols of police cars and security cleared the track of drunken bodies and then, with whirling clouds of dust visible in the distance and a loud growl, the cars raced past, covering everyone with a fine layer of gritty brown dust. When we left later that day the sun was setting and the boys, awake and partying for well over 24 hours lay in a comatose heap across the back seat of the truck. Hasta el proximo.
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