Argentina

We booked a 2:15pm bus out of town and to the border town of Iguazu, about 18hrs away. With a bit of time to spend in the morning, we headed out to the old port area of BA aptly named La Boca, or The Mouth, as it is sitting at the mouth of the BA harbour. It’s famous for two things: a little pedestrian called El Caminito, and home to the world famous soccer club, Boca Juniors. The neighbourhood has a bit of a rough edge about it as it is home to the working/labour class of the city, but that’s part of the charm….just don’t wander off too far from the tourist streets.

The street was colourful, and full of souvenir shops. That, or sidewalk restaurants with tango dancing right in front of you. To be honest, we felt there are more places in BA that has a bit more charm, but for the most part it was well worth our 30min visit. Short, but we that’s all we had because we needed to hop on our bus!

Considering that bus tickets were about $100USD, it was really quite expensive but flights would’ve been about $80 more, so for two people that would’ve added up to quite a bit. Then again, they give you your money’s worth. We took the “cama” or sleeper, which is the 2^nd best class next to the executive style where you can lie flat. We were served snacks twice before dinner time, which by the way was actually GOOD TASTING, the airline industry has something to learn. For drinks at dinner, there was coke, sprite, and red/white wine. Cool. One more thing we love though, is that the movies aren’t dubbed, but rather they are in English with Spanish subtitles! It was a long ride, but it was rather enjoyable for the circumstances.

And at around 10pm when they shut off the lights, the attendant came around asking the most ridiculous question we’ve heard on a bus:
“Champagne, or whisky?” HA HA HA. Awesome.

We spent what was the worst possible day as a tourist. That’s part of the trade-off when traveling without making set plans, but it is a real bummer because we’re trying to book our itinerary for the next couple of days but we’re getting some mixed signals, false information and a lack of communication from all fronts.

In the end, we spent all day waiting for information by our agent, who just ended up telling us at 4:30pm (when everything is closing) that she can’t sell us the tours because we talked with the agency she was working with first. W T F. Wasted us TWO days of sitting around.

At night, we splurged on a rather stereotypical Buenos Aires event…. a tango show! With the hostel, we paid $360Pesos (~$50USD) but online, the price is $140USD, which is closer to $1000Pesos at the unofficial exchange rate!!

Buenos Aires in general is pretty safe to walk around at night, and we did some exploring of the downtown streets outside of the usual Florida and Lavalle pedestrian avenues, but that doesn’t mean the shady money exchangers didn’t ask us, just less frequently.

The tango show is located in another touristy area, but the bright lights and dark wood all around makes it a bit of a fancy place. It didn’t help that we were dressed in our only style of clothes: hiking. It’s not even like weekend casual in university kind of laid back, we’ve got brightly coloured synthetic tops that look like we’re going out for a jog, and we have those pants that unzip at the knee to double up as shorts… NOT really working for a fancy dinner place. In fact, if we were back home we’d feel sort of strange just to wear this to go out even to the food court! =P

We got some pretty sweet seats in the middle, and the whole atmosphere is a bit old school classy without being cheesy. Service was decent and they seemed to have a system going on with the menu coming first, the bartender introducing himself, followed a pair of dancers and the photographer coming to see if you’d like a picture. It would’ve been fun, but we look like we’re about to do a 10k run and that would just look strange with a tango hat now wouldn’t it? Dinner was good, and the meats were as awesome usual even if they over cook it (They seem to like over cooking their steaks here!).

The show started at 10:15pm and ran for a full two hours. It was brilliantly planned with very little ‘boring’ parts or getting overwhelmed by crazy dancing footwork. The live band did their thing for about 10mins, followed by some REALLY crazy tango dancing for about 50mins mixed in with some singing here and there. Then out of nowhere they shut the lights and the female singer starts on a Spanish rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, and towards the end all the dancers came out and waved Argentinean flags above our heads (we could feel the gusts of wind from their waving). It was a bit strange and cheesy, but hey, it was pretty good! We expected more tango, but out came a show of the natives of Argentina doing some traditional folk music, and the performers really loved their music and you can feel the contagiousness of the performance. And the folk performers had this guy who would do some crazy rhythmic dancing with two wooden yo-yos that’d make a clicking sound when it hits the floor..so he’d spin the things in various rhythms and dancing along to it! It was crazy! Two full hours later, we were full, extremely content with the really entertaining show we just watched and was out on the street being extremely content.

BA really does liven up a lot when the sun sets and the wine starts flowing. It was a TUESDAY at half past midnight, but people were still happily dining on pasta/grills on the streets, with the waiters still setting tables in hopes of more customers coming. That’s crazy….

While eating some delicious frosted flakes at the hostel, a pretty girl in a nice retro looking attire comes over to chat with us, telling us about a local tour she was about to give, and if we would like to join we could watch the short video clip and then head out for a walk. We watched the video, chatted with her for a bit and got a bit more of an understanding about Argentina’s history and briefly understood why things are the way they are here. Like why Eva Peron is so popular, why everyday there seems to be protests. Someone pointed out that, the actual FX rate for dollars is actually 7.5 instead of 5.0 as posted by the official government.

Wait…what? You can get 50% more for your US dollars than at the bank?? W T F? We figured that’s probably because Argentina is going through some serious inflation, with the ‘official’ rate being spec’d at ~11%. Banks say they forecast 2013 inflation to be closer to 30%…… WHAT!?!? Okay, this makes sense now, and it also makes less sense that we keep pulling money out of the ATM if we can get 50% more …. but where?

Since Alan’s goretex jacket decided to pledge guilty and jumped off the boat, he needed another rain jacket for the upcoming hikes we’ll be doing. Heading over to the local Patagonia store, we browsed around and found what he needed, but we needed more pesos to pay for the jacket! (Please read the next post about exchanging money)

The rest of the afternoon was spent admiring Alan’s new jacket, and waiting at the travel agency for information updates on our upcoming trips. It was a bit tricky, and we had to work around several layers of agents and in the end got nothing. They told us, tomorrow they’ll have everything! Okay….we’ll have to trust them, but this was one wasted day.

Near our hostel, we found this Chinese restaurant, and we ate there at lunch and at dinner! The chef was from Guangdong, and made some pretty authentic stuff. Thinking we have a lot more time to eat grilled steak, we settled for more Chinese food now instead. Funny thing is, if you imagined what a Chinese triad-member would look like in South America, that’s the owner. He even walks around without a shirt, showing off his tattoos and all.

Doesn’t matter, he cooks alright and we ended up eating there THREE times!

outside our ho

We woke up too late and missed the free breakfast in the hostel, it seems like everytime they do have free breakfast we either wake up too early or too late! We had all day to see the city centre of Buenos Aires, and our hostel couldn’t be more centrally located as we’re about 200m away from the obelisk, a symbol of BA. It’s not as solemn as the one in Washington, but this one wins for being on the widest road ever.

We wandered into the pedestrian zones of Florida Avenue, where it felt more New York City with the architecture, the stores and the mix of figures. Standing about every 10m or so is a guy asking if we’d like to go to their restaurant, and if not would we like to exchange some money. Shady. For lunch, we had some DELICIOUS Argentinean ribs, or asado, grilled to perfection and a tasty bottle of grapefruit soda.

Plaza Mayo is where most of the government buildings are located, and where a lot of history takes place. The president’s office, or Casa Rosada (quite literally, pink house) is overlooking the plaza, along with several statues. Not as impressive as other government buildings we’ve seen around the world, but this one wins because it is open to the public, free admissions AND has a free guided tour!! And the president REALLY works here! How’d we know, well because we went to her office! Cool.

Casa Rosada feels more like an art gallery than government building, with spectacular paintings, hallways dedicated to arts and some modern art pieces in display in most places. Even in the reception area for diplomats and others who would meet the president, they are received in a room with an old Argentinean flag from 1910, and this massive modern art mural. Cool. We stood atop the balcony where presidents make public speeches, and to the office, and when we left we also took the same exit that the president uses (which by the way, is beautifully adorned with the busts of previous presidents, similar to a hall in the Louvre?). Neato!

Around the plaza there was also a cathedral, which in addition to its spectacular architecture, is home to the ashes of the revolutionary hero who liberated Argentina back in the 1800s. Outside though, we were trying to guess what the building was, and we both thought Supreme Court! Nope, it was a church….. the Roman columns and Latin writing totally threw us off.

We then made our way towards the Sunday market at a Dorrego Square, but not before we stopped by a nice little cafe at a shady corner of Graffiti St and Trash Blvd. The streets of BA are rather dirty, with trash everywhere, graffiti on all vertical surfaces and for the strangest reasons, patches of dug up streets that looks like the workers forgot it was there. The shop though served some really delicious coffee, and the whole store just had this NYC feel to it, even down to the green colour used in the exterior canopy. Great stuff, and we moved on with some caffeine and onto the market.

The market was one of the more interesting ones we’ve seen so far, with vendors lined up along both sides of the street offering a variety of different things. We walked and walked and walked, and eventually got to the end of the stalls which we figured was about about 2-3kms long! Every stall had different wares, people were laughing, drinking 1L bottles of beer, sipping mate from a cup+straw, and the whole atmosphere was very very lively. Street performers played some wonderful music, BBQ shops opened up in old parking lots where you can sit on plastic lawn chairs, drink beers, eat some freshly grilled meats and listen to their in-house performers sing Spanish songs as their music seeped across the concrete walls which divided them and the rest of the market. People seemed… happy!

Tempted numerous times to buy something as there were some talented vendors selling some real pretty stuff. We thought about having to carry it for 4months, and reluctantly walked away. The street is also lined with interesting stores behind the stalls, and several antique markets as well.

We strolled through the market until it closed at around 6pm, and stopped by Galerie Pacifico, which is supposed to be a mall but it had this concave dome with frescoes overlooking the shoppers. Pimp. Didn’t buy anything, as most goods in BA seems to be extremely expensive compared to North America. Seems like everywhere we go, most things are cheapest in the USA.

For dinner, we took the subway to another hot pot restaurant. Yes, there are more than one! This one was shadier than the one last night, with moldy and peeling walls, and a female owner that reminded us of some unsavoury figures in her slippers and one-piece nightgown…. sorta like the home-owners in Stephen Chow movies? The food was bad, and extremely overpriced! We had this bottle of green tea, costed 25P or $5USD!!!! Crazy.

BA Subway: We rode the subway 3 times, and only had to pay once! The first time, we walked up to the ticket booth but someone opened the gates for us and waved us over, we tried to pay him but he said “Gratis. It is free!”. Second time, we once again tried to buy a ticket, but nobody was at the ticket booth! So we had to jump the gates, while everyone just paid their fares like normal, self-respecting citizens. The third time back, we finally found an open ticket counter and a police guarding the gates…hehe, 1 for 3 is still a good deal!