Buenos Aires!
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2007
1
13
25
Trip End
Apr 07, 2007
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Thursday, February 1, 2007
After our sweaty two day stint in Puerto Iguazu we hopped onto a Coche Cama bus and prepared our asses for another 20 hour bus ride. Unfortunately my ass was prepared for the same comfort that pampered itīs cheek's last time. This expedition in first class did not live up to my assī standards. The baby that cried most of the way here wasnīt helping the cause either. Nor was the 80īs pop music being played on full blast at 7am to wake everyone up for breakfast. I wasnīt the happiest backpacker this morning when I woke up to some song that sounded like Prince singing over a childrenīs sing-a-long techno track.
My crusties faded as I stepped off of the bus into Retiro Station in Buenos Aires. We got our bags and headed for the metro. We paid about 25cents Canadian to ride the subway to within 3 blocks of our hotel. Yes...hotel. We checked out prices and some of the hotels are cheaper than hostels. The room is pretty basic, ceiling fan (not like the sweet air conditioner we had in Puerto Iguazu), bathroom and a TV. Eighty-three channels of crap I donīt understand. We had a purpose today though. Taso had his new debit card waiting for him at the Canadian Embassy so we caught a cab down there. Unfortunately, when we got there it was temporarily closed for lunch. We hadnīt eaten yet so we figured weīd do the same to kill the time. We went to a restaurant called Ronde Point. Itīs definitely an upscale restaurant. We both ordered steak, red wine, and dessert. Dang delicious...and really, it still only cost like $25 each CAD. Definitely spoiled ourselves for our first Buenos Airian meal. MMMMmmmmm!!!! We finished lunch, then went and lazed in the park across the street. I climbed a tree, Taso threw berries at birds then we headed back to the embassy. It was open and heavily air conditioned, such a nice feature when its 35 degrees in the concrete jungle. Mission accomplished.
We then caught another cab to the Congress Building, snapped a phizzoto and continued to wander. Taso found a bank and paid back the money I lent him, I bought flip flops and mini speakers for the IPod so we can listen to mutual music and still converse. We decided to call it a day on the town and headed back for the hotel. A block away it was decided that I was shaving my head at the next barber shop we passed. Unfortunately the next barber turned me down. Perhaps I was a little to greasy for her liking. The eventual successor was cool. At the the end of the buzz he even pulled out a straight razor and shaved my neck. Taso thought about doing it as well but passed. He couldnīt part with his hair, he just wouldnīt be the same. He is becoming very fond of the headband though.
San Thelmo is the area that we are currently staying in. It is the tango capital of Buenos Aires, though we are yet to see any professional tango. We have seen a couple of couples dancing in the streets during the Sunday market at one of the musical street corner performances. Which is pretty sweet to see average people busting out the tango. It`s quite a romantic dance if its done right. Sunday night is supposed to be the night where you can see professional tango dancing for free in the Dorrego Square (which is very close to our hotel). Unfortunately Sunday evening was chalked full of pouring rain. We had planned on leaving the San Thelmo area days ago, but it seems to be growing on us. We made a friend named Franco that we met in the Dorrego square while we were watching a girl Flamenco dance with a band playing behind her. Franco was selling crafts and shit like that with his french girlfriend. Today, February 5, is his birthday so we are going to his favorite bar with him. Franco is a commercial pilot for some tourist company that flies rich assed tourists to this one island a ways of the South American coast. I doubt that hes the first pilot, he is only 21. But still, to be co-pilot at that age of a fairly large company is pretty damn good. He`s quite the character. tonight shall be fun. I can wear my 5 peso dress shirt that I bought at the Sunday market yesterday. The Sunday market in San Thelmo is something not to be missed. There are full bands playing on street corners with buskers scattered throughout the streets in between people selling their crafts or cloths or jewelry, etc. There was a guy walking around on stilts, a Charlie Chaplin imitator, jugglers, magicians....you get the idea. It`s like the Fringe Festival back home with no theater and more culture.Sweet eh?! There was this one blues band that was just awesome. There is a picture of them, as well a picture of the old lady that loved them too. She danced the whole time they played. She was actually using this pole to dance with....not like you think though. get your mind out of the South American gutter. This lady looked old enough that she could have been one of the first hippies. The band consisted of the lead singer who also played the trumpet, with a saxophone player, a bass guitar, blues guitar and a drummer with a snare and a symbol. They fucking`rocked!
Today, Sunday the 11th, Taso and I attended our first south american futebol game (soccer for those who are unaware of the way the rest of the world says it). It was between River Plate (a Buenos Airian team) and Lanųs (some team from somewhere). The hostel we are staying at offers a package where they will pick you up and take you there with a ticket for $150 pesos. Taso and I did it ourselves for $55 pesos! The stadium was pretty big actually. I`m not sure how many fans were there but it was pretty close to being full. Everyone came dressed in River Plates colours which are red and white. The stadium was a huge sea of team colours with waves of songs chanted by everyone. The crowd would erupt with volume every time anything happened, good or bad. Obviously the pitch and tone of the volume changed with the type of play. To be honest, the play wasn't as good as I had expected it to be either. Dint get me wrong, they were still good, but just not as good as I had hoped for. They made a lot of stupid tactical decisions which makes me wonder at the quality of the coach. Anyways...the game was tied 0-0 until the 90th minute when River Plate scored off of a corner kick. Needless to say the place exploded! All the fans seemed to have forgotten that their team played like shit all game once the ball hit the netting. It was futebol euphoria in Buenos Aires! All the fans just hung out in the stadium for a while after the game ended, making no notions of leaving. Taso and I made the notion. After sitting in the scorching sun for a few hours we were ready to head back to the hostel. Unfortunately the police blocked the stairwell and the gates for a while for no apparent reason. We were confused but didn't make a stink. Once the police let the crowd flood into the streets we began our search for a taxi which took hours. Every time we were about to hail a taxi, a couple people would sprint in front of us and hail it about 10 feet in front of us, even though they could see that we were trying to hail it. This happened numerous times. I`ve never wanted to kill so many strangers before. Eventually we got one after 2 groups had pulled the old `i`m gonna out hail you` trick right in front of us. the cabbie just happened to have no where to pull over except the street that ran perpendicular which we happened to be closest too. Fucking rights. Their plan backfired! We hopped in the cab and rocked out to his tunes all the way back to our hostel. Today was a good day.
Taso:
Buenos Aires. What a beautiful city. Todayīs Monday. Yesterday was Sunday.
Curtis and I head out into the town, little did we know that our little sector
of downtown was holding a little fun fest. Street vendors lined the streets, and
people crowded them scurrying around looking at this and that, so we joined into
the movement. Necklaces, little jewelry, leather, hats, and funny men on stilts.
The sky was grey overhead, so we decided to take advantage of the cool weather
and spend the whole afternoon outside walking around. We were actually fortunate
to get some rain as we walked too, which was a perfect little addition. There
was a sweet jazz band on the corner of the street, hustlin cds while they
twanged out their trumpets and saxophones. The music got everybody moving, in
the rain, it was definitely a funky experience.
I paid 3 pesos for a freshly squeezed orange juice, made by a bigger brown woman,
with an even bigger smile. It was the tastiest orange juice Iīvie ever had, and I
thought Iīd make a note of the fact that yes, Iīm in Buenos Aires, drinking a
freshly squeezed dollar orange juice, and listening to jazz. Now I could really
dig that.
The days have been good here, we do what we want. Everything is accessible. I
wake up in the morning and I go find myself a coffee. The espresso here tastes
so much better than anywhere else. I like to sit down at the beginning of the
day and have a coffee and a few cigarettes, a good little routine. After that,
depending on what we need to do and what we want to do, we get on our way.
Sometimes just walking around exploring uncharted streets and vendors, other
times its finding one place and just sitting there for hours, watching the
people and drinking a soda or something, having an ice cream. Yes the life of
travel is wonderful and I intend to enjoy it to the fullest, because the last
thing I want to think about is serving another table back at home. You know itīs
good, when the only thing you have to worry about is keeping your beverages cool
for long enough to actual finish drinking them. Ha!
I donīt know what itīs like to party in big cities, but Buenos Aires, I found, is nothing worth boasting about. Nothing out of this world, if youīre wondering. It was good. Curtis and I started out by playing some pool at this little place down the street. We played for a few hours, and stopped around 12. Then we went back to our hostel. We chilled out for a while and then decided to make our way to the club area. We walked of course, and within 5 minutes we were standing in a club. It was 10 pesos to get in, or $4. Same with the drinks, but they were stiff. Rye and coke, half a glass of rye, half coke. It was dark on the inside of the place, and I wouldnīt say it was packed, but it was busy. And hot. It was also dark, and there were dance lights on. Curtis and I took a tour of the place before we settled in one spot, and kind of took it all in. There were people dancing everywhere, the music was sort of like samba. Some people were dancing and holding hands, twirling each other around and stuff, but I didnīt know how to do any of that, nor did I feel like dancing and trying to make conversation with some random Spanish speaking girl who wouldnīt know what the fuck I was trying to say.
As we were standing around watching, they started a live performance with dancers on a stage. The dances were very simple, and the group consisted of 6 people, 5 guys and one girl. It was a bunch of hand movements really, some back and forth shit but nothing too spectacular. I have no idea what it was. Everyone else seemed to though. The majority of clubbers were doing the dances along with the performers. Supposedly they were Brazilian dances of some kind as it was a Brazilian themed club. Brazilian music, Brazilian dances, Brazilian waxes, I dint know how deep the Brazilian theme ran. We only stayed for three drinks, before we decided to head out and maybe find something to eat. We were sitting out on the street, and some guys we met a few nights earlier at a bar walked by, Alex and his friend Sebastien. They recognized us right away, as did we, and we decided to go play some pool all together. I was tired of that ĻclubĻ anyway, and didnīt feel like being there. Pool sounded like a great idea. So we go to this pool hall, and weīre playing some dudes for the table, but we lost twice. Ha! Weīre pretty hammered by then, drinking beers. It was fun. These guys were really nice, and super generous. Curtis went on a tangent to find us some juicy burgers, because we hadnīt eaten yet, and he found the juiciest. Man those were good. After that we were set to party all night. We stayed at the pool place till about 5 in the morning I think, before they finally decided to close up shop. So the 4 of us made our way to Belagamba, which is like the 24 hour bar here. This was our third time being here, and our longest. Itīs now like 6 am, and weīre crushing beers, and mostly just sitting down at the table talking, 4 dudes. Learning Spanish mostly. I was asking a million questions a minute, and I was actually learning a shit load of Spanish... I was almost forming complete sentences before the end of the night... too bad I forgot everything the next day. ( random side note - Alex and Sebastien. Alex is 26, and is a photo editor for a magazine. Sebastien is the photographer for the magazine, and is 40 yrs old, although he looks like heīs 22. ) So we ended up staying at Bellagamba until like 9 in the morning, after which we walked to the square that lies across the street from our hostel, and parked it on a bench. Itīs bright daylight out now, and people are hustling and bustling around in the streets, having started their days, drinking their coffees and buzzing around in their cars. We chilled in the park for about a half an hour, before I was finally completely exhausted, and my body just demanded sleep. I made the notion to go to bed, finally, at 9:30 in the morning. What a funny night. We were basically awake that day for 24 hours. We went to bed at about 10:30 in the morning, and woke up around 8 at night. It kind of fucked up our schedule HARD, but at least we were getting some sleep. I donīt think Iīll stay out that late again though. We would definitely be fuck holes for staying out all night that night. It was kind of pointless. I wouldnīt mind getting to sleep a little earlier, so I donīt completely fuck over the next day, you know what I mean? But hey, I wanted to do the party scene here, and I would say now that Iīve done it. I might go out tonight for a bit, but nothing like that night. No fucking way.
After that, we decided that we would try a different area of town. So we checked out of our hostel, and took a cab to this one area thatīs supposed to be pretty nice, called Palermo. We walked around with our big backpacks in the spicy hot city, trying every hostel and hotel we passed. After about 8 tries, and every hostel or hotel being full, and if they werenīt full they were just too expensive, we decided to try another part of town. So once again we hop into a taxi and try another area called Recoletta. Once again, we tried about 2 or 3 places, and same thing. Full. We were frustrated. Weīd been searching for at least 5 hours by now, and decided to try the area of town that we first came to, called San Telmo. We thought for sure weīd find a place to stay here, and we did, on our second try. A hostel. Not bad, a dorm room. The room has 12 beds in it though, and most are occupied by smelly dudes. Itīs quite hot as well. Last night when I settled into bed at about 10:30 after playing some pool and drinking some beers downstairs, it took me about an hour just to cool off and be comfortable. And by cool off, I mean that my chest stopped beading sweat, and my back could cool off when I turned over a bit.
Cheers for now,
Taso
