South America Explorations: Week 19 - Buenos Aires

Saturday, February 15^th, 2014
After landing in Buenos Aires, my friends (Kishore, Renuka, and Sharon) and I took a taxi to our hotel, El Conquistador, in the Retiro area of the city. Renuka had found the hotel on Expedia, and it turns out that this is a significantly cheaper way to get a hotel – the front desk even told me this. I have to admit, it was nice to be in an actual hotel room with an actual private bathroom. Renuka and Sharon took the king bed so that they could get some cuddle time (kidding) and Kishore and I had single beds that ended up being far less comfortable than the dorm beds we had been sleeping in for the past week.

It was a bit late and we were famished, so on the hotel dude’s recommendation, we crossed the street to a relatively non-descript restaurant for dinner. The food wasn’t non-descript though, it was rather descript, in fact. I believe Kishore had some pasta while the three of us enjoyed some nice juicy wonderfully cooked steaks.

After dinner, we went to hit da clubs! Okay, not really. We went to a couple of Irish pubs that were within a 10 minute walk from the hotel. When we got there, it was kinda dead and empty and wee bit on the depressing side. But it seems Buenos Aires bar scene can be a bit scattered in the evenings, and so we didn’t have a ton of options without hopping in a cab (as far as we knew). So we picked one of the two bars that appeared to have more than 3 people – first up was Pirate Bar, which had a large creepy pirate caricature out front. After finishing a pint each, we went across the street to Kilkenny, where a cover band started playing lots of oldies, albeit in an Argentinian accent.

We all stumbled home a bit. Given everything we had gone through the previous week, we kinda needed that though. It was good night, as you can probably tell by the pushups that Kishore and I decided to do in the middle of the street on the way home for who knows what reason.
And yes, we were wearing the same colored shirt, though we didn't realize it until we had left the hotel.


Sunday, February 16^th, 2014

This morning, we grabbed a breakfast at the hotel that was just kinda meh, and headed to the Palermo Soho area of Buenos Aires. Prior to joining us last week in El Calafate, Kishore had spent a few days here in Buenos Aires on his own, tangoing the night away, and he left his tango gear with a tango friend. So we figured we’d pick his little bag up and then just walk around a bit.

The area is a bit upscale and renovated in a sense – lots of nice condos and apartments around. It easily could have passed for a nice neighborhood in NYC, full of bars and quirky restaurants, along with upscale clothing stores and other kitschy interesting shops. We wandered aimlessly for a few hours and then we wandered aimfully for an hour or so trying to pick somewhere to eat. We ended up eating at a restaurant that Kishore’s friend had recommended and had some burgers. The toppings on the burger were good, but the burger itself was a bit crappy. I’m not exactly sure why this place was recommended to be honest; it was far from special.

In the afternoon, we joined a walking tour for a few hours through the City Center. Our guide, Mariano, talked our ears off for the next three hours and showed us many of the amazing buildings around the city. He shared with us that the city itself is not so old, but the city was an important hub for South America and as a result, there were a significant number of wealthy people here. Those wealthy people built lots of buildings in very varied architectural styles, side by side, and sometimes atop one another. Mariano showed us a corner from which, we could see 8+ buildings with different architectural styles – from Victorian to Classical to Gothic to Post-Modern to Art Deco to Adobe to Duplo Blocks.

We walked along Avenida de Mayo from the Congress building all the way to Casa Rosada (Pink House, where the President’s offices are) and discussed lots of buildings in between. Near Casa Rosada is the Plaza de Mayo, where all protests or all large social gatherings are held. Mariano shared that if a group is planning something, they don’t even talk about location, because it’s widely understood that it’ll be at Plaza de Mayo. And the police and government expect this and are present to ensure everything remains peaceful. It’s almost as though “protesting” is part of everyday life here. They even have some ugly temporary metal barricades up between the square and the Pink House that have been in place for well over a decade.

Nearby is the national church/cathedral whose exterior looked more like a courthouse in architectural style than anything else. The inside was more typical per se, although we did happen to arrive at the right time for a “changing of the guards” ceremony. I wasn’t exactly clear why they had guards to begin with, but I guess I didn’t care enough to ask either. In any case, it’s odd to think that this used to be the main church of the current Pope only a year ago.

In the middle of the walk, we had to cross the massive tree-lined 9 de Julio Avenue, a boulevard with four separate sections of car lanes and two sections of bus lanes plus massive dividers… it was pretty gol’darn wide. In fact, the Argentinians claim that it is the widest boulevard in the world and that it is impossible for a pedestrian to cross the entire thing in one stop light without running. I tried a few times and twice got within one section at a brisk walk only.

We had to leave the tour a little early unfortunately, just as the tour was headed to the Washington Monument they have erected in the center of the city (they seem to refer to it at the Obelisk for some reason). I found it strange that they would build such a huge iconic structure in memory of the first President of the US, but I suppose that’s just how big our cultural influence is. Merkuh!

We had to go back to the hotel to freshen up and change clothes for a tango event that Kishore had booked for us this evening. As we left the hotel, I had this gem of an exchange with Sharon:
                me: “Danggit, I left my phone in the room!”
                Sharon: “Who are you gonna call?”
                me (without missing a beat): “Ghostbusters!”

I was giggling and snorting to myself and out loud for a solid 10 minutes after that one.

Our tango show was a combination lesson, dinner, and show spanning a good 3 hours or so. The lesson was first, and we were directed to sit in a largely empty room. There was a striped black fedora hanging on the wall, so I put it on and rocked it. It fit me perfectly and just looked like it belonged on me. I was planning to walk out with it, but I didn’t. I totally should have though – it wasn’t that valuable, but it would have made for a solid story to tell any time I wore it.

The tango lesson was quite basic. There ended up being about 15 couples learning in a hot crowded studio. I spent more time trying to avoid a few European couples who seemed completely content to run over other people (like us) if we happened to be in whatever they determined was their path. Sharon and I danced together while Renuka and Kishore danced together. Since the man is supposed to lead and the woman is supposed to follow at all times, I especially enjoyed getting halfway into the steps and then just stopping as Sharon tried to take over the leading responsibilities. It was good fun. There were a shortage of men, so there were easily 5-6 quite attractive single women in the corner attempting to learn on their own. Men who can move definitely have a big advantage here. Then again, I'm guessing a significant proportion of Argentinian men can move well, so that’s probably a moot point really.

Dinner at the tango place was solid, but not spectacular. More spectacular was the all-inclusive nature of the drinks, so we ended up knocking back 4-5 bottles of wine between us. The show was pretty wonderful as well – they were clearly acting out some sort of mini-drama, but given the rapid-fire Spanish, we spent more time gazing longingly at the tango women’s legs than anything else.

Monday, February 17^th, 2014

Today was the last day for all three of my friends – their flights were late this evening. Since I had no interest in paying for a 4-person room for myself, I was going to move to a hostel – the same one that Kishore stayed in for a few days at the beginning of his trip. So we packed up our bags after showering and having breakfast so that they were ready to go when we needed them.

Our agenda this morning was to take another walking tour. The one yesterday only hit half of the sights, so we were going on the sister tour this morning to get the other half. And lo and behold, the guide was Mariano again, so we’d get to hear many of the same stories about the city’s history and so forth. He was really a pretty solid guide all around, so we weren't too miffed about this in the least.

A significant portion of the tour was spent in a very large square at the northern end of the city called Plaza San Martin. General San Martin was the guy who liberated Argentina from the Spaniards way back when, and apparently he and Simon Bolivar from the north more or less joined forces to kick the Spanish virtually off the entire continent. After the revolution, Argentina went into a civil war but San Martin wanted nothing to do with this so he stayed out of it. As a result, as Mariano says, there is not a single person in Argentina who has anything but positive associations with this guy. The same can’t be said of the two other most famous people, Eva Peron and Diego Maradona.

Around the plaza were lots of old gorgeous stately mansions that were built by the uber-rich families back in the early 1900s. Many of these have been converted into state buildings or into foreign embassies, because no family can really afford to live in them anymore. As we were walking by one of the embassies, a policeman stopped by to let us know that it was illegal to take pictures of embassies. Ummm… okay.

Also of note in the square was the existence of these ridiculously massive trees, called gomeros. These were present in several of the other squares as well, but many of them were fenced off so that you couldn’t sit on them. Supposedly, there was another one that was twice the size of the biggest one we saw, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see it. We had to leave a bit early to get back to the hotel so that we could move our bags to storage. This wasn’t poor planning on our part; instead the group today was too large – almost 30 people. This meant that what should max out at a 3hr trip was running on close to 4hrs. The only thing we missed was Recoleta Cemetary.

After moving the bags, we set out to go to an Indian restaurant called Kathmandu that the hotel staff recommended, only to find absolutely nothing at the address they gave us. So we stepped into another Indian restaurant called Delhi Mahal that we passed along the way. We weren’t too pleased with this place because they charged us for water and for rice, and that’s just cheap. I also have a sneaking suspicion that they turned the wifi off when they saw that we were using it. This is all odd, since as we learned from the owner, there are only about 700 Indians in the city. You would think they would be thrilled to see us and greet us like old friends. Nope. Cold shoulders everywhere. Indian people suck. Yes, all Indian people suck, since the entire community should clearly be held accountable to the actions of a single group of jerkwads who obviously represent all 1.21 billion of them.

We had just over two hours before my friends needed to take a cab to the airport, so Kishore and Renuka headed over to the Recoleta Cemetary (I’ll describe this place later) while Sharon and I went to a Havanna Café. There’s a Havanna on every other street corner in this city, kind of like Starbucks in Seattle, except that there are also Starbucks all over this city too. There’s also another chain of cafés called Café Martinez that seems to be everywhere. Basically, I guess they like their cafés.

After a few hours, we met back at the hotel and I bid my friends a fond farewell as they loaded into the taxi cab for the airport and I loaded my backpacks onto my shoulders for the 45 minute trudge in the heat to the hostel.

As I mentioned last week, it’s been really nice to have my friends with me for a bit. I found it very interesting also to see how the very different personalities blended and contributed to our “unit”. Kishore and his outgoing personality is an endless source of stories – he chats up anyone and everyone more than anyone I’ve seen before. I don’t think I heard a negative word from Renuka the entire time – she was peppy and perky the entire time from start to finish. And my old friend Sharon knows me better than the rest – she’s as steady as they come and I really enjoyed her company because we somehow know when to be silent and when to be chatty with each other.

After settling in at the hostel, I grabbed a few slices of pizza at the parlor just below the hostel on the street and headed up to the rooftop, where I was treated to some outstanding views. It turns out that one of the buildings that Mariano had shown us on Sunday afternoon is directly across the street from the hostel. The tower on the building had lots of curves and rounded segments and was crowned with a lighthouse at the top. I sat there in stunned silence, enjoying the cool air and the incredible scenery over a 1L bottle of local beer and my two slices of pizza. This… this was just incredible. Indescribable even.

Tuesday, February 18^th, 2014

This morning I decided to walk over to an area of town called Puerto Madero that my guidebook said was always easy to find a nice place to eat. When I got there, I thought I might need to turn around. It was really kinda blah – it’s an old port area that has been completely renovated and looks nice and modern and fancy, but given the charm and soul and architectural wow of the majority of Buenos Aires, I fail to understand why anyone would possibly want to live here or even be associated with it. They even had a TGI Friday’s and a Hooters. I was starving so I grabbed a bite to eat at a little café for an hour or so and then I headed out to do something, errr… anything else.

I spent a little bit of time today while I was traipsing around just trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the week before I head back home next Monday night. There were a few options for longer trips, but mostly I decided to just hang out and relax a bit here in Buenos Aires. But it reminded me of a gem of an exchange I had with Renuka yesterday on the same topic...

Renuka: “There’s that one city with a huge statue of a lady on a mountain – there’s photos of it everywhere and it’s in movies, but I’m not sure where it is.”
me: “You mean, Cristo Redentor in Rio? The one that looks like this?” (shows the pose)
Renuka (excitedly): “Yeah! That’s the one.”
me (cracking up): “Ummm, that’s Jesus. He’s a dude.”

On my way back towards the hostel from Puerto Madero, I passed a youngish guy on a street holding a child in his arms and asking for some money. As I waved him off and walked forward a block, I thought about this a bit more – I never know what the right thing to do is. I don’t want to hand out money, but he was standing outside of a Subway sandwich shop and I easily could have bought him a sandwich which might be all he was looking for. I turned back, but given the lack of language command, I was still hesitant to do even this as well – I also don’t want to enable nor do I want to propagate any thought that tourists should be a source of charity. It’s so very hard to know where humanitarianism ends and enabling begins. But I remembered something that a visiting ex-Prime Minister of India said at a lecture in Lexington KY a number of years back. One of the Indian-Americans in the audience asked him how the Indian population in the US can best help the less fortunate in India. His response was that our responsibility was first to the less fortunate in the US, our adopted country (or for those like me, our birth country). For real social change to happen in India, the people still in India must make the changes, not those from outside. After thinking about this a bit, the response makes perfect sense. As I turned back around, I resolved again to make sure that I increase my volunteerism and charity when I return to the States. This was one of the 19 resolutions I had written and shared with friends as the New Year arrived as well.

Danggit… I totally should have bought the guy a sandwich. At the end of the day, humanity should win out. Period.

On the way back to the hostel, I passed by a place called Kentucky Pizza & Bar – I had seen a few of these outlets around town, so apparently it’s at least a local chain. It seemed kind of odd to name a pizzeria after Kentucky, a state with almost no Italian heritage that I know about at least. Nor does the name Kentucky conjure up anything at all that would be associated with good pizza. Alcohol? Yup – we got the bourbon industry, so we can do that. Agriculture? Yup – we got Kentucky bluegrass and have a strong association with horses, of courses. Pizza? You lost me there, even though Papa John’s started in Kentucky. Argentinians wouldn’t know that. Heck, most Americans don’t know that. The slice of pizza wasn’t that spectacular here anyway.

For a late dinner that night, I headed to a restaurant near the hostel called Chan Chan that got great reviews. You would think with a name like that, it would be a Chinese eatery founded by Siamese twins or something, but like me you would think wrong. It was actually a Peruvian place and it was really popular. I ended up waiting outside for 30+ minutes to get a table. I would have gone elsewhere but there wasn’t really anything else open in the area. The hostel just isn’t in a great place for bars & clubs at night apparently. I didn’t actually think the food was all that spectacular either, though I met at least two others later in the week who were raving about it.

Wednesday, February 19^th, 2014

After running over to Avenida Florida briefly this morning to partake in the blue market to exchange some more USD into pesos, I walked over to the Recoleta Cemetary. Generally speaking, I find the very concept of a cemetery to be on the creepy side of things. And since I grew up in a Hindu household, our dead people are generally cremated. Not only that, most of my relatives were in India so I didn’t really get directly exposed to death all that much – even today, I’d still say that’s largely true. But for a cemetery to be a primary tourist attraction? You have to admit – that’s kinda creepy.

So the cemetery was more of a mausoleum, with all sorts of large and small structures erected to house or entomb any number of caskets. The mausoleums were largely built aside one another in an almost city-grid like fashion, with streets and avenues criss-crossing the cemetery complex. Some of the structures have been restored to former glory while others are crumbling and awaiting TLC while even others are relatively new and still getting new tenants.

Overall, the place was more or less a Who’s-Who of Argentinian history. Everyone who is anyone is buried there, making this an extremely important facility from a national perspective. The most famous, of course, is Eva Peron. I think I mentioned before that not everyone in the country loves Evita – most revere her (and her husband) for fighting for the poor and the laborers, and for advancing women’s rights. Others despise her and her husband Juan claiming that they were a wee bit on the fascist side of things. Regardless, even today, she remains very visible as a symbol of Argentinian pride. A large building in the middle of the Avenida 9 de Julio boulevard even has a masssive likeness of Evita on either side – on one side, she is speaking into a microphone, though it almost looks like she’s about to take a bite out of a huge cheeseburger.

That evening, I joined a group of 15 other hostel-dwellers to see an authentic futbol match between a local team called River Plate and a team from Mendoza called Godoy Cruz. I had never seen a futbol match live and this was definitely on my “to-do” list, so I was thrilled when the opportunity arose.

I wanted to go and buy an authentic jersey or something but apparently, River Plate is the “rich” team – think the New York Yankees of Argentinian futbol. I would have preferred getting a jersey from Boca Juniors, which is the team across town in one of the poorer neighborhoods. In retrospect, any authentic jersey is better than no jersey, so I should have sprung for it. Oh well.

We arrived about 90 minutes early to the match in a Wednesday evening, so we were some of the first in the building. And over the course of the next 90 minutes, the stadium slowly filled up. About 20 minutes prior to the start, massive cheers erupt and everyone on cue starts singing the team’s fight song – on the upper deck of one of the end zones, a swarm of fans emerges from a tunnel and completely fills up a huge section of the stands. Our guide, Flora, told me that this section is controlled by a very powerful group that runs the concessions and parking for the stadium – it’s a mafia of sorts, and they also are the leaders of the cheers. They’re like Fireman Ed of the New York Jets, except that they’re also a mafia.

Similar to American football, the rowdiest fans are in the endzones, which is where the group I was with was sitting. It wouldn’t have mattered though, because everyone in the stadium was loud, chanting and singing songs the entire match from start to finish. And when a call didn’t go their way, all of the fans were passionately objecting – not just vocally, but with their arm/hand gestures as well. They seemed very… Italian in a sense. Even while singing, the predominant hand motion was to pump your arms up at a 45 degree angle with an open, yet limp, hand – which is very different from the “woo, we’re #1” or the middle finger salute that we Americans tend to give at our football games.

Most interesting was the fact that there were zero beer sales at the game. None. In fact, as we walked in, they stripped us of anything not valuable that could be used as a projectile – pens, lighters, water bottles, etc. This was probably pretty smart given that people got very animated.

The game itself was fun to watch. The home team was clearly a better team, but it was tied 1-1 for the majority of the game. And while the fans complained loudly, the players weren’t the big cry-babies that we associate with the Southern European teams (Italians – you’re definitely on notice). They didn’t go down clutching their shins every 14 seconds, so it was completely watchable.

As the game neared the end, Flora asked our group, mostly younger Kiwis, if we wanted to leave now to beat the crowd or if we’d rather stay to the end and then hang back for most of the crowd to dissipate before walking out (so that we could stay together more easily). Surprisingly, our group decided to leave now. I definitely would not have expected this from Kiwis.

On the way out, there were lots of food vendors along the streets. At Flora’s recommendation, we stopped and had choripan, which is a chorizo sausage sliced in half, grilled, and placed on bread as a sandwich, which we then added generous amounts of chimichurri atop as a condiment. It was positively exquisite. So much so that another guy and I went back for more while we were waiting for the other groups in our bus.

It turned out that the opposing team, Godoy Cruz, scored a last-minute goal after we left and the crowd got extremely rowdy and started throwing stuff that they had snuck in onto the field and at the opposing players. Danggit. I wish I would have told everyone to sit their whiny asses down and let’s finish this thing. Stupid lame Kiwis.

When we got on the bus and started moving, we were driving by some city parks on the opposite side from where I was sitting. I noticed that the Kiwis were hanging out of the windows on that side, catcalling, and taking pictures, so I went over to see what was going on. Prostitution is legal in Argentina and apparently the city park is the locale of choice for finding one. Many of them were stripped down and showing all of their, ummm… assets. And then one particularly attractive lady had an unexpected frontal asset that she flopped out for us as we drove by. As we collectively groaned, our guide Martin confirmed that the majority of the ladies are in fact transvestites.

Thursday, February 20^th, 2014

Way back on Monday morning during the second walking tour with my friends, the tour guide Mariano told us that a guided tour of Teatro Colon was well worth it, and so this was the first thing I did this morning. This theatre was built in the early 1900s after 20 years of construction and is considered acoustically one of the top 5 opera houses in the world. In fact, Pavarotti is said to have remarked that he doesn’t like performing here because if he messes up slightly, everyone would hear it.

The building was magnificently beautiful and opulent with stunning marble architecture that would easily rival what you would expect to only see in Europe. I liked that they had a very cheap (about $5) standing-room only level so that even the poorer folks could get access to these performances. I suppose it looked extra special magnificent because the theatre had just undergone a massive 5-yr restoration that was completed only a few years ago. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a performance available that I could see to experience the acoustics. That probably wouldn’t matter much, since I don’t believe I’m enough of an audiophile enough to even be able to tell the difference. Boston’s Symphony Hall is one of the other top 5 venues acoustically and when I saw a performance there, I don’t think I could tell. On the contrary, I fell asleep kinda quickly – it was Handel’s Messiah.

After the building tour, I hopped on a bus to go to a Latin American art museum. I had saved up coins for this very trip because the buses don’t take paper money and don’t give change. All of the locals use a prepaid swipe card that they recharge periodically. But since the coin machine on this particular bus was broken, the driver just told me to sit down and not worry about it.

The museum was really nice and had more contemporary art than anything else, which I am a much bigger fan of myself. But it was really quite small unfortunately. Some contemporary art is quite boring and annoying – like that one piece I saw in New York that was a canvas just painted straight blue. That ticked me off. Of course, you could make the argument that the artist was successful since I am still talking about it 7 years later… but I don’t buy that argument.

But what I really like about contemporary art museums are the gift shops – this is something that my ex Julia opened my eyes to. And for whatever reason, I really have a thing for earrings in particular. Ummm… so… why hello there, ladies. If we were in a relationship, you could expect my natural tendency to be to shy away from most jewelry as a whole like necklaces and rings (absolutely no diamonds – not a commitment thing, but a blood diamond thing), but you’d see a fair number of earrings. I almost bought a few pairs to give to whoever is silly enough to date me in the future. Yes, it’s a quirk but I’m totally owning it, and no, I’m not getting my ears pierced any time soon. But in the meantime, my nieces will probably just get lots of earrings from me since they are getting old enough.

A few blocks away from the museum was a Japanese garden, so I paid the admission and walked around there a bit. There were too many people there for my liking, and it was really quite hot outside as well. So I went into the café and had part of a crappy dessert and some green tea before calling it quits and leaving. As I made my way back to the hostel, I walked for almost an hour through a part of town called Recoleta, which is apparently another region where all the yuppies in Buenos Aires live. Though devoid of really old and near architecture like the central part of the city, the area was very nice and peaceful, had plenty of trees and shade, as well as little shops and cafes. It was quite the pleasant walk.

The hostel was having a barbeque this evening on the 6^th floor patio – all you can eat for 100 pesos (about $10 USD). I got up there a few minutes late, but I found a seat and chatted with Nathan from South Africa and Tim and Erin from Germany. Tim unintentionally cracked me up because he kept referring to his girlfriend as “my girl”. I was thiiiiiis close to asking him “do you got sunshine on a cloudy day?” or “when it’s cold outside, do you have the month of May?” But I didn’t. I definitely didn’t know him well enough to tease him just yet nor do I think he would have had the slightest idea what I was talking about.

The barbeque was quite wonderful – and I had more than enough platefuls. My plate was about ¾ full of gristle and other discards by the time I was done, so I know I did well. Chicken, beef, sausage, corn, and salad – mmm, mmm, good. We were sweating a bit by the time we got done, both because our stomachs were undoubtedly working in overdrive due to the mass consumption, but also because our table was a bit closer to the grill than I think any of us would have liked. So, we hopped upstairs atop the roof to chill and hang out for a few hours… with 2 more 1L bottles of beer.

Joining Tim and I was a lady around my age from Spain and later, her beautiful dormmate from Italy. The Spanish woman and I were talking US politics and you might be surprised to know that I was generally defending George Bush and many of the Republican positions – sharing my belief that in many cases, our true positions are not that far apart. The problem is that extremists love to propagate a level of unnecessary hatred because it serves their interests better (votes or viewership) since everyone pays more attention when something is “outrageous”. Just look at the headlines on CNN – all of the adjectives and action verbs are extreme, like “blasted” and “chilling” and “nasty” and “massacred” and so forth. The 24 hour news media knows that their business model requires that there is a steady stream of out of the ordinary items to drive viewership and clicks.

Heck – it’s the same reason we have so many utterly foolish reality shows (which most often are not that “real”). For whatever reason, our brains are programmed to love scandals – but the real scandal is that we actually could probably get along if we were actually talked real to one another and made honest attempts to genuinely empathize and understand one another. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though this will happen any time soon.

But I hope I see the Italian girl again – she reminded me of Gabriela Sabatini, the most jawdropping women’s tennis player ever (who, coincidentally, is Argentinian). Then again, I might get a bit tongue-tied, and then I’d get nervous and start dripping with sweat, and then I’d be self-conscious because I was dripping with sweat and I’d start dripping more with sweat, and then I’d excuse myself to go to the bathroom and stick my bald head under the cold water tap to cool down (seriously, it works!), and just generally make an overall fool of myself. I think I need to date a blind woman. And while I’m at it, make it one with no sense of smell so that I can squeeze out some silent ones whenever the need arises.

Friday, February 21^st, 2014

Today, I took a day trip to Colonia in Uruguay, which is just across the river from Buenos Aires. Although, I guess it’s more than just a river since it’s a 90 minute ride by boat. The schedule was to leave BA by noon and return by 10pm, so this wouldn’t leave a ton of time in Colonia unfortunately. And the boat ended up getting delayed for a good hour for a reason never explained to us. I was asleep anyway – the excessive food and beer from last night necessitated that a bit.

When we got off the boat in Colonia, many of us had a walking tour included in the price of the ticket in both Spanish and English, for the 5 of us in the group of 40 that didn’t know Spanish. The tour guide was very friendly and walked us through the old town in Colonia, where many of the original buildings along with the city walls have been restored as best as possible to their original grandeur. She explained the history of Uruguay as well and gave me a somewhat quizzical answer that I no longer remember to my question of why Uruguay didn’t end up being part of Argentina or Brazil.

During the tour, one of the other English speakers and I struck up a conversation and I thought she looked familiar. As it turns out, she (let’s call her Leanne) was hiking Torres del Paine when we were the week before and was the same woman I found rather fetching on the last day of our hike to Grey Glacier, exactly one week ago. However, she didn’t seem to remember me and my bright orange backpack with my three other Indian friends at all. Oh well. I guess I need to work on being more memorable.

Once the tour was complete, we split up and I went to get some food. It was late afternoon by this point and I was starving since the hostel breakfast doesn’t hold me over much. Per the guide’s recommendation, I went to a restaurant and had a traditional Uruguayan sandwich called a chivito. I figured why the heck not and I had a beer with it. It was nothing to write home about, and it ended up being quite expensive, especially by Buenos Aires standards. I was not impressed.

I had a few hours to kill yet, so I wandered around the old town a bit more and climbed up a lighthouse to get some beautiful views of the surrounding ocean and of the town itself. There’s really not much to the rest of the town at all, especially for non-locals, and I could kinda tell from the view atop. Even so, I figured I had time to kill and went exploring for about 15 minutes before throwing in the towel. I walked back to the old town, picked a spot on the crumbled city walls near the ocean, and sat down to read waiting for the sun to set. The sunset was pretty, but nothing spectacular compared to other sunsets. Even so, I wouldn’t trade it – all sunsets are nice.

On the way back, Leanne and I got to talking a bit and I learned more about her. She’s from South Africa and used to work in the UK for a bank. Then she got a little disillusioned with that and went to work for World Bank in Washington DC. She just quit that job because she was frustrated with all of the bureaucracy and is travelling for a bit before she’ll return to Cape Town and work on a start-up that is trying to expand the realm of personal finance in developing countries using cell phones. Just an absolutely fascinating person all around. I often wish I had the balls to make changes like that.

When we got to the port, we shared a cab back to the central city near Leanne’s hostel. My hostel was a short 15 minute walk away, and I love walking around Buenos Aires at night – the temperature is perfect, the air is perfect, and the lights and people-watching are a perfect accompaniment to a leisurely stroll.

Saturday, February 22^nd, 2014

I hung around the hostel this morning for an inordinately long time and started talking with a young couple, Clint and Leah, from Sacramento. They were just finishing up 2 months of traveling and were returning home tomorrow. Clint seemed to be thinking what I was thinking and commented, “if you’re still in the hostel at noon, it’s probably a pretty good sign that you’ve hit travel fatigue.” So with that, I got up and headed over to Café Tortoni – the oldest café in Buenos Aires. I was told by our informative walking tour guide Mariano a week before that it’s worth going in just to have a coffee and take a look, and yesterday, Leanne confirmed the same as well. So I hopped in and had a coffee and tres medialunas (three sweet croissants). This after having coffee and two sweet croissants for lunch. My eating plan was clearly a low-carb low-fat plan today, which I might add, was being executed flawlessly.

After lingering for almost two hours, it was getting clear that it was time to leave because there was a small line forming at the door to get in. So, I headed over the Pink House (Casa Rosada), which was Argentina’s version of the White House, even though the President doesn’t actually live there. It was open for tours on weekends and as luck would have it, today was part of a weekend. And as luck would also have it, they had a tour in English starting a few minutes after I got there.

The tour was interesting on a few fronts. There was a lot of contemporary art in the place and the décor itself was a mix between contemporary and Victorian. Some rooms seemed like a normal building while others had a grandeur and statelyism about them. And in other spots, the paint was peeling, hardware was falling off, and some basic maintenance could probably afford to be done.

After the tour, I realized I hadn’t really had a meal at all yet, so I found a little place on the way back to the hostel and ordered a chicken dinner that I thought would be small enough to hold me over a few hours until dinner. Unfortunately, it was quite humongous, and it wasn’t really that good – breaded chicken with a slice of ham atop it and covered with melted mozzarella. With a side of fries and bland all around.

That evening, Leanne and I met up to go to Palermo Soho to grab a bite to eat and hopefully scope out a place to listen to some live music. On the boat yesterday, I had mentioned to her that I have this recurring image in my head of sitting in a hole-in-the-wall type of place listening to some live soulful music over a bottle of wine. Apparently, she thought that sounded great too and was hopeful we could find such a place.

So we hopped onto the subway and got to Palermo and walked up to an Armenian restaurant about 10 blocks away that some people from my hostel were planning on going to later in the evening. But when we got there, there were about 30-40 people waiting outside and it was clear that it would be a very long wait. We wandered a bit and eventually settled on a little Spanish-style place. I was still pretty full from my late afternoon unfortunate feast, so I had some hummus and pita. I’d been craving Middle Eastern food for a while now, but unfortunately this hummus wasn’t very good.

Leanne had been wanting to learn & watch tango, and so we decided to do that instead of search for a place with jazz or live music. The venue appeared to be a ballroom in a rec center of sorts and when we got there, there were a handful of couples dancing quite nicely in the middle of the room and lots of other people scattered around the periphery and I almost felt like we were intruding on a private function in a sense. My instinct was to bolt, but Leanne appeared to want to try it out and my new mantra “say yes more than no” reminded me that it was time to jump in with both feet.

So we’re standing around trying to figure out what to do next and how we would possibly learn anything watching advanced couples dance, since their moves are very well coordinated and seemingly random to us. All of a sudden, an announcer-type guy grabbed a microphone and had us all in the dance floor together before having us self-split up into beginner, intermediate, and advanced groups – so I guess there would be lessons and practice after all. This was good.

We naturally got in the beginner group but after about 10 minutes of watching and trying to grasp whatever we could from the 110mph Spanish being muttered, we realized that beginner here meant “I’ve never danced before in my life and have no concept of movement,” which I would have thought would be unbelievably odd for Argentines. Leanne was a bit bolder than I, and pulled me over to the intermediate group and we tried our best to catch up quickly. The basic moves were slightly different than what I had learned earlier in the week with my friends at the tango show, but we were able to get on track with some help from a friendly neighboring couple that spoke a little bit of English.

After about 45 more minutes of instruction, we had gleaned enough from watching the instructors’ movements and their hand gestures to get the basic steps down plus an additional variation or two. And then after every few songs, we were told to switch partners and I ended up with an older lady that I had a hard time dancing with – she was patient and let me lead, but wasn’t following what I was intending to lead. That’s probably more my fault than hers though. But finally, beginner’s hour ended and Leanne and I grabbed a seat at a table we were probably not supposed to sit at (there was a “reserved” sign that we conveniently moved to another table). We had another hour of watching people dance and getting up and joining them from time to time before we called it a night and grabbed a cab back to the hostels.

Tango is a bit fascinating. It’s an extremely passionate dance, yet people seemingly have no problem dancing cheek-to-cheek and chest-to-chest with complete strangers. True, much more groping occurs in dance clubs around the world, but I generally think of that as being youthful exuberance greased a bit by alcohol. Most people here were not that young, and while they were serving alcohol, this was cursory and not really “greasing” the dancing by any means. I guess it feels like a strange violation of personal space when booze and/or nookie are not involved. But ahhh, you know… the Argentinians are also quite the passionate people.

Sunday, February 23^rd, 2014

Almost every person in BA will tell you that the street market in San Telmo is not to be missed on Sundays. Seeing that today is a Sunday and that not going today would mean that it would be missed, I put 2 and 2 together and figured I should head over that way.

The San Telmo neighborhood is a bit on the gritty side – not nearly as renovated and refurbished as some of the yuppier neighborhoods, but I liked it this way. It seemed more authentic in a sense, as though real Argentinians actually lived here, whatever that means. There seemed to be a small amount of graffiti culture on several streets as well. As I wandered through, I could see the street market straight ahead, on Avenida La Defensa. Along the outskirts of the market were numerous shops that were interesting on their own – from leather goods to random antiques to clothing to even more random antiques. This seemed like a neighborhood you could just wander around for hours.

The street fair itself was… well, tiring. I’m not generally the biggest fan of street fairs because they get so crowded, and this one was no different. On top of that, the street was a neat cobblestone, but the bricks were in the midst of upheaval and I found myself constantly tripping. And it didn’t help that it was crazy hot outside as well.

After walking all the way up La Defensa, I noticed a small museum a few buildings down on a major street, which ended up being the actual museum of contemporary art. I paid admission and looked around, but basically all of the displayed arts were only of geometrical patterns. It didn’t take long before I was bored out of my mind, but at least admission was only about $1 USD. I also made sure to walk a few blocks north to go see the Russian Orthodox church. Sharon asked me to take a picture of it for her before I left Buenos Aires.

I figured I ought to make one more pass through the market since I hadn’t bought anything yet. I didn’t have a ton I wanted to buy, but since I hadn’t bought any gifts at all the entire trip, I knew I should get a few things for my nieces and nephew since I had missed Christmas and a birthday or two. I also wanted to find a hat for me, because I had already decided that I’m going to start a hat collection because I think they look good with my new beard. A number of stalls had hats for sale, but it was really hard to figure out if any of them were good quality or what the right price should actually be. I really hate haggling. Finally, I just picked one and paid about $5 for it.

For dinner, I wanted to get one last nice juicy steak before I left Argentina. I wandered around a bit looking for a place, and then just asked some policemen where to go after explaining that this was my last night in town. They told me that I needed to go to La Estancia, which I had heard of before as well – if memory serves, Renuka’s friend had recommended it to her too. I only had about 300 pesos on me, so I told the waiter this limitation and we decided together it would be best to get the best cut of meat and a bottle of water. Out came a massive hunk of meat on a mini-grill, though there was plenty of fat and gristle on it as well. Basically, the plan was to slice up the massive hunk into 3-4 smaller hunks and let the mini-grill finish cooking them to a medium rare before eating them from my plate. The steak was so good I honestly probably could have eaten another one.

Leanne and I met up briefly for a quick drink to toast my last night of my trip and her last night in Buenos Aires before she leaves for Iguacu Falls by bus tomorrow. The only problem was that we couldn’t actually find a bar, as strange as that seems. Finally, we found a small restaurant that was still serving drinks. So we sat down at a sidewalk table and shared a ½ bottle of red wine, right on the main thoroughfare of Avenida 9 de Julio, just across from the towering Washington Monument (or Obelisk as they like to call it). I think I would have liked to stay out longer, but the restaurant was closing and they were kind of shooing us away. But I sat there and thought to myself, I’ve had one hell of an experience these past 19 weeks and I envied Leanne for just having started her own.

Monday, February 24^th, 2014

I woke up this morning with bites all over me, itching like crazy… although not entirely unexpectedly. Yesterday, Clint informed the front desk that his bunk, which was in the same room as mine, had bedbugs. He was telling me that I should switch hostels, but since I was going home in another day and the critters were likely already in my luggage, I figured it would be better for me to just stay put. I had a few bites from the day before, but not this many. So I went and slept in the lounge for a few hours. The reception manager apologized profusely and told me he was going to clear the room today and fumigate it. With so many travelers crossing in and out of multiple places, it’s no doubt that bedbugs get transmitted quite quickly. Looking back, there were at least three other instances where I woke up with lots of bites on me… I had thought these were mosquitoes that got me though a few times, I did actually see mosquitoes in the room. But I started to wonder if I was that jackass traveler who was carrying the bedbugs with me.

I’ve started to get a bit under the weather as well. Sharon told me that she was getting a bout of bronchitis as she left BA last Monday. My throat is quite itchy, so perhaps I’m coming down with the same.

So the only thing to do today is pack up and leave really. I was thinking about buying some wine to bring home, but I don’t want to mess with having to pack it securely in my big backpack to make sure that it doesn’t break. So I figured I’d buy a few bottles duty-free at the airport with whatever leftover pesos I have and look for the recommended names that my friends gave me.

But I did still want to buy some quality hats – upon further examination, the one I bought at the market yesterday was “Made in China” and that made me grumble a bit, though it’s my own fault for buying on the cheap. After checking on the internet, I found a few reputable hat stores back in San Telmo, so I returned there and ended up picking out two – a warmer winter black hat made in Argentina and a summery Panama hat made in Ecuador. That made me feel much much better. Then it was back to the hostel to wait my time out before the taxi swung by to pick me up.

The taxi ride to the airport was largely uneventful, as was the stay in the airport itself. I had about 180 pesos to “kill”, so after getting a reasonably decent sandwich and a beer at a restaurant, I was left with 50 pesos that I promptly used to purchase two bags of overpriced peanut M&Ms. But since you can’t really exchange Argentinian pesos back to USD, I didn’t really have much of a choice. Even if I could change the pesos back, with the fees that the money launderers exchanges charge, I would actually owe them money for the opportunity of sacrificing my pesos, which would net me with a sum total of ZERO M&Ms.

I didn’t end up buying any wine, per the original plan. As it turns out, the airport prices looked the same as the prices back home in the US, and so this was a complete missed opportunity. Even so, I don’t know my wines very well, and a $10 bottle is usually plenty fine for me. So all I really missed was the opportunity to enjoy a $60 bottle of wine for $5, while still getting the enjoyment level I would have gotten from a $10 bottle. But that’s because I’m not a wine snob… errr… aficionado. Some of you may have not heard my theory on wines, so allow me to expand. As I mentioned, I’m just as happy when I drink $10 wine as when I drink $50 wine. As a result, I’m not sure I understand the benefit of learning a lot more about wines when the end result is that I’ll more often need a $50 bottle of wine to achieve what really nets out to be the same level of happiness as today, while also creating plenty of opportunity to be unhappy with wines that no longer meet my new standard, most likely including those very same happy wines from today. Net: I only see a downside.

The plane was beautifully new and modern, with a gorgeous TV screen that even had a USB port. I’m not sure why it had a USB port, but maybe so that people could bring their own porn to watch since that wasn’t a selection available from drop down menu. Note to self...

Tuesday, February 25^th, 2014

I had a rough time on the planes – over the last 24 hours, I had become more and more congested and being congested on a plane doesn’t work so well since it prevents you from equalizing your ears. So I kept on trying to pop my ears and it sucked, though chewing gum did help a little. But all in all, it was a relatively short ride on the planes – leave at 10pm and arrive in Cincinnati at 9am the next morning with only a 2 hour time change. That's not so bad really. And customs & immigration didn’t hassle me too much – the dude was a bit suspicious that I had been traveling for that long and only had about $100 to declare. I told him that since I was traveling for so long, I didn’t really have space to carry anything else… which was really the truth. In the end, I suppose I was just happy that he let me pass without a full body cavity search.

Since I came from a hostel with bedbugs, to be extra safe, Mary brought me a change of clothes when she came to the airport to pick me up. I changed in the airport and left all my clothes & bags outside in the garage. The conventional method to kill bedbugs is to wash in VERY hot water and then dry on high, but since all of my clothes are synthetic, that won’t work very well without melting all of the clothes to oblivion. But then I found out that the suckers die below freezing too. It just so happened that I had bought and placed a chest freezer in my garage to store the homemade dog food (long story) that I had to make for the pups while I was away. By this time, of course, the freezer was almost empty my backpacks fit right in there quite nicely. On top of that, the weather is supposed to be below freezing the next three days, so the suckers should be freeze-dried by Friday in or out of the freezer. I guess that’s one of the few positives from this polar vortex crap that everyone’s been dealing with while I’ve been cavorting down south.

So that’s that. I hope you enjoyed reading about my latest adventures. If I get around to it in the next few weeks, perhaps I’ll summarize the trip a bit – good choices / bad choices, what I packed vs what I should have packed, books I read, friends I made, and any overall impressions that stuck with me. If I get around to it...

In any case, it’s good to be back home. I’ve been looking forward to a hug from my mom for quite some time.

Yes, this picture is from Antarctica, but it was too funny to not post.

 Tidbits

1.       There are lots of dog walkers in Buenos Aires. All of the dogs are very friendly and seem to behave quite well, and I finally saw someone pick up after their pet for the first time since I’ve been in South America.

2.       Red lights turn yellow briefly just before they turn green, so the “caution” element of traffic signals are in both directions.

3.       I found Argentinians to be generally very friendly, but they don’t care to give you space on the sidewalk – the manners don’t exist while driving or while walking. Or perhaps their definition of manners is different than ours.

4.       It seems that Argentina is still a bit hung up on the Falklands / Malvinas debate. Mariano told us that Argentines don’t hold any ill-will towards the British for the war, given that their military dictatorship started the war seemingly randomly. But there were memorials and signs and declarations and all sorts of stuff all over the place about these islands.

5.       The women here really are just ridiculously beautiful… I mean, just wow. All of them. I think it’s because there’s not a lot of northern European blood here or something. Think about it – what countries would you associate more with beauty? Spain, Portugal, and Italy; or England, Ireland, Scotland, and Germany. You don’t need to answer out loud, because I think we have an understanding. By the way, I’m sure you could probably say the same about the men, but I wasn’t really looking at the men so much. Probably because the women were really just… wow.

6.       Sharon had been wearing a pair of bright red Toms around Buenos Aires. This is only noteworthy because she was wearing bright purple hiking boots last week and she’s not a flashy dresser at all. Apparently, she bought her purple boots so that if she were to fall head first into a snow bank or a ravine, we would be able to identify her from the bright purple footwear. And the red Toms? Well, she just wanted to make my blog. Well played, Sharon. Well played.