Egypt 2010

England 2009

Atlantic W-E 2009

East Coast 2008

Adriatic 2008

Buenos Aires 2008

Atlantic E-W 2007

Spain 2007

Ireland 2007

Atlantic W-E 2007

Maui 2002

London 2001

Yosemite 2001

Tuscany 2000

Northants 2000

Provence 1999

travelogues: Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2008

Nothing sums up my first impressions of Buenos Aires like this photo:  a whole section of a grocery store devoted to that delicious sweet stuff, dulce de leche.  These folks have their priorities straight.

It's a great place!  The people are very friendly, chatty (your Spanish-speaking ability is not a concern), and casual:  the uniform for fashionable young women is a tank top, jeans, and flip flops.  Can't argue with that!  (Except the jeans - in the heat I can't do it except in early morning.)

We're staying in an apartment in Palermo Viejo, a very hip part of town.  It's a big city (14 MILLION inhabitants), and it's daunting to get around.  Especially since you're not supposed to just hail a cab on the street -- those are notorious for taking tourists "for a ride" (if you will).  You're to use the "radio taxis" that you call on the phone. R-i-i-i-g-h-t.  Maybe I'll be ready to do that by the time we leave.  In the meantime, hand out, "CAB!"  We've survived NYC cabbies -- this can't be nuthin by comparison.

Bs As (as it is abbreviated here) is at about 34 degrees south of the equator, about the same as Los Angeles and Myrtle Beach, SC. We expected intense humidity but mostly it's been lovely.  And it stays light until 9:30 pm!   I have located the Southern Cross, which is the iconic constellation in the southern hemisphere like the Big Dipper in the northern.  [Cool side note on the Southern Cross here.]

The city is located on the south shore of the River Plate, close to its junction with the Atlantic Ocean. At this point along its length, the Plate has swollen to a width of more than 200 km, with no opposing shore in sight, giving the impression of looking out over the ocean, or at least one of the Great Lakes. There are even waves! Most of the "shore" is employed as the port, or has been recently reclaimed from disused piers & berths, so the city is curiously disassociated from the water. Which may be a good thing, given that it is so polluted that fishing and even swimming is discouraged. The only "beach" I saw was an uninspiring stretch of wave-worn construction debris, but that didn't prevent weekenders from taking in the sun & air.

Bs As is a first-world country, and has been for more than a century. But it is a long way from its economic powerhouse days in the late 1800s, when it rivaled the US, Britain & France. A long unstable political course has taken its toll, veering from corrupt democracy to corrupt military regimes. So the rule of law has a long history, but tenuous hold. For example, I saw a woman strapping her little girl securely into a car seat in the back seat of her sedan, just like you'd see in the US. Later, our taxi followed a flatbed truck through the city, on which sat a dozen men without side rails or any mechanism to keep them secure (not so likely in the US). Residents put bagged garbage out on the streets every night just like you'd see in any first-world country, but scavengers (or their horses) pull carts through the streets pulling out recyclables.  The upshot is that it feels very familiar & comfortable, then you see something that jars you & you remember you're not in Kansas anymore.

There's a reason Bs As feels like a very international city:  It's populated almost entirely by European immigrants, just like the US.  [Unlike the US, it also harbored tons of Nazi's after the war.]  Two artifacts of their European heritage: a proper greeting or farewell involves an air kiss to the right cheek, and goodbyes are the Italian "ciao" rather than "adios."

Animal Report:

• There are wild parrots here, like we have in SF, and like I saw in Barcelona.  They fly over our apartment building several times a day, making their distinctive chatter.

• Lots of dogs!  Happy dogs!  Most that we've seen in the city are well-cared for, on walks with their owners.  Sometimes on leads... In the poorer sections, there are street dogs, but they also look happy & well-fed.  There have to be a lot of meat scraps to scavenge!  Or maybe tourists do stupid things:  I fell in love with one little girl dog & bought her a raw steak at a restaurant (which took some doing, explaining I wanted an uncooked steak to take away).  She devoured it, then scampered back over to the restaurant & begged scraps from a couple dining outside!

• Evidence of the doggy presence is everywhere. Barking can be heard pretty much all the time; one night we were even serenaded by a howl. Paw prints can be seen imprinted in the concrete of most sidewalks.

• I encountered a couple walking their boxer puppy many nights; he was so irresistible that I inevitably got acquainted with his owners. If we passed on opposite sides of the street we would holler to one another & the pup would acknowledge me with a leap into the air.

• There are a lot of GSDs in the city, and even a pair at the estancia where we spent a day riding horses.

• A population of feral cats resides in the Botanical Gardens, mostly lazing around but sometimes amusingly stalking the pigeons.  They don't like petting, but are not afraid of people.

• There are horse-drawn carriages used to take tourists around the large Parque 3 de Febrero just like you'd see at Central Park, but then there are those used by scavengers to pick up cardboard & other recyclables from the street for redemption.  All look well taken care of.

Coffee Report (you all know how important this is to me):

• Availability of decaf is hit or miss so far.  What I've had hasn't been great, even though it's supposed to have been from la machina, not Sanka.  Luckily, we brought a pound of Peets.

• They have a coffee here at the local chain, Havana, that comes in something slightly bigger than a shot glass (the photo is un doble), that has sweetened condensed milk on the bottom, and espresso layered on top.  It reminds me of a shooter (pop quiz from the 70s): beautiful presentation, little, and soooo sweet & tasty.

So, the city is huge, and we've used a bunch of different transportation methods to get around.  As soon as we got here, we took a bus tour to orient ourselves to the city. (Due to the size of Bs As, even that only covered about half the tourist area, which is only a fraction of the whole city of course.)  Naturally, we've used taxis to get from place to place.  The Subte -- their subway system -- has a stop near us, so we use that to get downtown.  The other day, Barb & I took a bike tour that was a lot of fun.  Covered a lot of the same territory as the bus tour, but of course the experience is completely different & it felt more comprehensive.  Since it was Sunday, it included weaving our way through two busy street fairs but at least the traffic on the streets was light!  We also do a lot of walking.  One of our best experiences was a walking tour conducted by a native whose parents were British & who was a young man during the scary military regime of the 70s when 30,000 "dissidents" (loosely defined to include college-age long-hairs) went "missing" (loosely defined as getting kidnapped & pushed out of an airplane into the River Plate.)

On our walking tour, we encountered what can only be characterized as a peculiar juxtaposition: a tower built by the British to commemorate the centennial of Argentine independence in 1910 is located across the street from the national memorial for those who died in the failed attempt to claim the Falkland Islands. From the British. Despite a near universal distaste for that war -- recognized as a last-ditch effort by the weakened military regime to stir up some national support (and, really, what better than a war?) -- the memorial is revered and the British memorial facing is constantly defaced by graffiti.

One of my favorite sightseeing jaunts was to the Recolleta Cemetery, where, incidentally, Evita Peron is buried. Actually, buried is a misstatement, because bodies are interred in crypts, not in the earth. Although the effect of endless "streets" of these crypts is like the cemeteries of New Orleans, there are 2 key differences. First, the crypts are for numerous bodies from one family or an association, not a single individual. So the crypts are little buildings, with doors, windows, and decorated interiors. Second, unlike the crypts in New Orleans (which are built entirely above ground because of the extremely high water table), the Bs As crypts include several stories below ground, each to hold more remains. Depending upon the wealth of the owners, access may be with sweeping marble stairs or a flimsy ladder. Upkeep is the responsibility of the owner, so families who dwindle or fall upon hard times may find the doors falling off their crypts, windows broken, and coffins tumbling around the interior as shelves decay & fall apart.

There is a living, mechanical memorial to the turn-of-the-(last)-century industry of Bs As clattering north out of downtown every few minutes of every day. Bs As could boast the first South American subway, which opened in the earliest 1900s. With little more than routine maintenance, the "A" Subte line has operated ever since. I had the chance to ride 3 of the 5 Subte lines (not including the "E" line, which opened just a few years ago) but the "A" line has more charm than all the others, despite its considerable wear-and-tear (upgrades were ongoing in every station I saw). For example, the turnstile arms on the entry/exit kiosks are made of wood, not metal. The station platforms are decorated with beautiful tilework, clearly evoking century-old sensibilities. But the cars -- oh, the cars are glorious!  They look more like San Francisco's cable cars than anything else; the cars are all wood, from the walls to the seats to the doors. The tabs on the windows to pull them open & closed are made from leather. The doors have to be opened manually at the stations (though they close on their own with a solid clunk once the train starts to move.) Though the passengers expressed no apparent awareness of their delightful surroundings, they must treat the cars with respect as there is no graffiti or damage of any kind. [Curious side note: graffiti is not illegal in Bs As. Most that I saw was of a political nature; scrawls declaring Jose's love for Anna were in a definite minority.]

To make sure we covered all the transit modes we rode horses on the Pampas with a gaucho!  Barb, Howard & I spent one day out at the edges of the Pampas, the notorious rangeland where cattle are raised and the gaucho legend lives on. Many of the colonial ranches do double duty as guest houses for tourists, given the fiduciary realities of maintaining the rambling extravagant ranches. Barb & I went for several long rides, which were only loosely controlled -- no "nose-to-tail" travel here. We wandered amongst grazing herds, galloping across wide open spaces (ok, Barb galloped, I trotted) and soaked in the sun. Lunch (consisting of - surprise - meat) was served on the broad marble patio, with the ranch dogs hanging around hopeful for a treat. (We provided.)

Food report:

• Argentina's culture is strongly centered on their relationship with the cow.  They have huge expanses of rangeland, and it yields delicious, grass-fed, free-range, beef. Understandably, Argentines love their beef. If you spend a day without having eaten a steak, sausage, rib, or entrails, well, you probably haven't left bed.

• A typical restaurant is a parilla, or grill, where cuts of meat are thrown on a wood- or charcoal-fired grill and cooked to juicy perfection. Another grill style, called asado, involves a teepee-shaped grill on which whole uncut sides of meat are cooked, cut apart after cooking and brought around to the table on trays where you point to what you want.

• Typically, when ordered at a restaurant, your entree will consist only of a grotesquely large meat product. If you want that frilly stuff like fries or vegetables, well, order that separately.

• And if you eat that much beef, you have a leather. So everything is made of leather. Why make it out of fabric or synthetics when you have all this leather laying around? Cell phone holders, wallets, datebook covers, photo frames, cup holders, hats, placemats.

• The wines were terrific, not to mention cheap. The Malbec grape (of which I had never heard) is used extensively, even as a single-type varietal wine, and it has a flinty, robust character I found very appealing. Especially at a wine tasting we went to, where 6 of us finished off the better part of 4 bottles on empty stomachs. Except for what I spilled on the tablecloth toward the end...

Drivers & pedestrians have a curiously symbiotic relationship, considering one party outweighs the other by, oh, a ton. Bs As residents are sophisticated & sporting jaywalkers, excellent judges of the speed & density of traffic & their own abilities to break from a stroll to a sprint when crossing the asphalt. Most streets are one-way, and intersections are often uncontrolled, so that pedestrians can exert control over traffic flow by stepping into traffic. In the absence of a controlling factor like people in the street, drivers barrel into intersections, speeding up or stopping depending on the approach of oncoming traffic. I rarely heard squealing tires or brakes, even though obviously some pretty abrupt stops are necessary.

Traffic lights use the yellow caution signal not only during the transition from green to red, but vice-versa. Generally, the yellow-green transition is an invitation to jump the light. However, Argentines will rarely run a red light, for the obvious reason that someone in cross-traffic is likely to be jumping the green. Everyone squeals to a halt when the green changes to amber, and traffic is at a standstill when it changes to red.

Drivers don't use their headlights consistently at night. Streets are reasonably well-lit in the city, but I think it's more to reduce light pollution than anything else. Given the prevalence of one-way streets, it's not uncommon at intersections with a 2-way street for drivers to jump the light by driving in the lanes for oncoming traffic to make a left turn. This is a very unnerving thing to experience in a cab. And like Italians, Bs As drivers take the marked lanes on the street only as a suggestion; on a 3-lane street it's not uncommon for there to be effectively 5 streams of traffic.

I was consistently in awe of the skill of drivers, and I never saw an exchange where a pedestrian or a driver expressed frustration or disgust at another's actions. Even though endless games of “chicken” are essentially being played out constantly between drivers, and drivers & pedestrians! Howard & I agreed that driving in this city would be a death sentence for non-natives.

I finally feel like I have enough time under my belt to issue the Locals Report:

God save me from these tunes running mercilessly through my head:

1. "Don't cry for me Argentina" from Evita

2. "Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano

3. Anything by the Gypsy Kings

Luckily, "La Bamba" hasn't insinuated itself yet.  Ooops.  I'm screwed.

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