Category: Buenos Aires

Actually, funny probably isn’t the right word, freak might be better. Our trip was rudely interrupted the other night by a freak flash flood that created a fast-moving surge of water down the street in front of our hotel, just as we were planning to leave for a tango lesson and show.

The surge didn’t stop at the street, it forced its way into our hotel lobby sending guests scurrying in every direction. This video pretty much captures the scene.

What strikes me in this video is that folks are surprisingly calm and I have to say the members of our traveling party were pretty calm, too. Dressed in our tango show finest, we went to check that our belongings hadn’t been drenched in our rooms, using the stairs since we heard what we thought was water rushing down the elevator shaft. Seeing that all was well at the moment, we regrouped and Gai told us that she was going to work on getting us out of the hotel as soon as possible. We’d reschedule the tango show for another time. She sent us upstairs to pack while she worked on our exit strategy. We had already planned to leave the Dazzler Tower Recoleta ahead of schedule because of a day-and-half-long power outage. So, we packed in almost total darkness leaving our doors open to get light from the hallways which were still well lit.

The process of getting 10 people out of one hotel into another on short notice during a unpredictable weather event at the start of carnival season in Buenos Aires on a Sunday night is more than a notion. Gai who happened to be the calmest of all of us reminded us that there is always what she calls an “X factor” in travel, the thing that you never thought would happen until it does. If you are a seasoned traveler like many of us on this tour, you know that you kind of have to go with the flow, in this case literally. She also said this is another good reason to have trip insurance. I bought some for the first time on my trip to Thailand through WorldNomads.com and I’m glad that I had the presence of mind to get some for this trip, too. You can bet I won’t travel without it from this point forward.

Seeing as there wasn’t much use in sitting around in a soggy hotel during the rebooking process, Gai sent us off to dinner. We chose a place that Lonely Planet calls an institution in the Recoletta neighborhood, La Biela. Sitting directly behind the Cemetario de Recoletta, La Biela definitely looks like a neighborhood institution, the place generations and generations of Buenos Aires residents have been going to for good food and familiar faces. No one in the place looked to be under 65 for starters and a waiter in a green vest with a towel hanging over his right forearm greets us immediately. An older woman seated by the window catches my eye and asks in Spanish if we are Colombian. That’s a new one for us. We’ve been mistaken for Brazilians during our trip so far. I tell her where we are from and ask what’s up with the statues of two men seated at a table nearby. They are famed Argentinian writers and friends Jorge Louis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Cesares, who dined here along with other important and upper class Argentinians known as portenas. My new friend offers to take a photo and tells me that she is very pleased to me meet. I like this place already. It turns out to be a great place to take our mind off our unfortunate travel circumstances and enjoy some good food.

Before our travels were so rudely interrupted, the group split up to explore the city on our own. Kenitra, Sheneekra and I decide to leisurely walk to San Telmo’s well-known Sunday market from our hotel. At first the journey is pretty unremarkable as we pass through what looks like the Buenos Aires business district. All the shops are closed and there is almost no foot traffic. But I’m excited with we reach Avenido 9 de Julio, the widest avenue in the world, commemorating Argentina’s independence from Span with 9 lanes of traffic. You don’t realize house massive the street is until you are standing on its center median watching traffic whiz by on either side of you. If you are a pedestrian who likes to dart across the street to beat the traffic, you’d be toast here. If you don’t have the slightest clue where your are going when you are driving, you may want to avoid the street, too. We saw a taxi turn too soon almost running into oncoming traffic. He realized his error, quickly self-corrected and took off in the right direction. (By the way, we’d later learn from our guide, Luis, that this grand thoroughfare was completely submerged by the flash flood, too.)

Off 9 de Julio, we wandered upon Lavalle Street a narrow pedestrian-friendly shopping street. It’s heard to describe. I’d call it oddly interesting. The shops were a miss mash of cheap clothing stores, record stores, restaurants and movie theaters. It was clear that this is where the locals come on a Sunday afternoon. There was also a huge bingo hall that looked like it belonged in old Vegas. But the street itself was interesting to us because it seemed to offer good photo ops with is narrow-tunnel like appearance sandwiched between tall buildings.

We hit another stretch of uninteresting road on Leandro N. Alem until we make it to Casa Rosada, where Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, conducts all her business. By this time we’ve been walking for a couple of hours, we are hot, thirsty and not sure how far we have left to go to get to the market. We imagine it’s more blocks that we want to walk until we ask a police officer where Defensa is, thinking we’ll need to catch a cab from there. As we walk a short block down Defensa we realize, to our relief, that we are the start of the market. It’s sidewalk is almost invisible, taken over by vendors and artisans of all sorts selling Argentinian crafts from jewelry and leather work to art and antiques. But before we can dive in we have to eat. I spot a really cute restaurant just across from the Convento de San Francisco called Museo de Filete. It’s got a modern yet traditional feel and it is here that I decide to try milanesa, a popular Argentinian dish, very similar to chicken-fried steak where the meat is pounded out and fried. It’s pretty good and I ask for my new favorite condiment, chimichurri to go with it.

During the rest of our shopping adventures in San Telmo we’d learn several important helpful Buenos Aires travel tips:

1. You can use American dollars in Buenos Aires at some places, but especially at the market where the dollar is worth more than the peso and vendors can exchange dollars for the peso on the black market at a 6 percent rate. If you bring dollars you can get the same exchange rate if you need pesos and know the right people.

2. If you plan to use pesos, make sure they are crisp bills with no marks or tears. Kenitra tried on a couple of occasions to pay for souvenirs with dollars and vendors wouldn’t accept her torn bills. The vendors can’t easily trade marked bills on the black market. Even when she did pay with a pristine bill the vendor ran a couple of stalls down from her stall to have some guy check to make sure it wasn’t counterfeit.

3. Possibly the most important tip of all is to wear your purse across your shoulder and in front of you at all times because San Telmo is notorious for pick pockets as the locals will happily tell you. Presleith was accosted by two men who she thought were out to get her bag. But they were only very eager  to tell her the proper way to wear her purse. As Kenitra brought a pair of earrings, the vendor practically scolded her for wearing her bag loosely on her shoulder.

So, to recap, what important travel lessons have you learned in today’s blog post? Tell me in the comments and add your own.

Up next: Malbec and marvelous  Mendoza…

Our guide Luis warned us about Cerillo on the way to Estancia Santa Susana, a farm with Argentinian cowboys called gauchos just outside Buenos Aires. He said Cerillo was a naughty gaucho who loves kissing girls. We weren’t paying much attention and I wasn’t even thinking about this warning when Cerillo caught me alone and walked up to me with open arms, his ruddy, mustachioed face smiling. I thought, “Aww he wants a hug!” He kissed my left cheek, then my right and then, he went straight for the lips. Naughty gaucho. I later learned that he was very affectionate with Presleith on the dance floor after the farm’s traditional Argentinian barbecue and I saw him ride away with Kenitra on the back of his horse after the farm’s gaucho performance disappearing behind the barn. She later reveals that he asked her for a kiss.

We can’t say we weren’t warned. Gauchos, Argentina’s cowboys who roam its Pampas herding cattle atop well-trained horses, are naughty. They are the descendants of Spanish soldiers and Indian women who found it hard to fit in either culture, turning to a nomadic lifestyle. Gauchos are also cute. One gaucho named Luca had all the ladies swooning and there were women from almost every nation in the world visiting the farm from Australia and China to Bolivia and Japan. This photo pretty much says it all.

Our group of 10 got its share of attention, too. When we arrived at the estancia another tour bus had just disembarked and we were suddenly greeted by a line of international paparazzi. I don’t know where these tourist were from, but it was clear that they don’t see a lot of black people where they live and felt compelled to add us to their vacation photos. I expect it in Asian countries, but for some reason, I wasn’t expecting it here. One Japanese woman asked to take a photo with Kenitra and she obliges. Afterward the woman tells Kenitra that she looks like a Barbie doll. She’s not quite sure what to say to that and I think it’s amusing.

Once we get past our fans, the farm’s staff greet us with a real treat. The juiciest empanadas we’ve had on our trip so far. Luis explained that a good woman makes her empanadas as juicy as possible to attract the gaucho of her choice. I’m no gaucho, but these empanadas certainly have my attention with its flavorful minced meat, olive and egg center dripping from its pastry pocket after one bite. After a couple of these, we turn our attention to the 5,000 acre ranch stretched out before us. The main house has been turned into a museum of life on an estancia. We are mostly attracted to the tiny chapel with is benches decorated with native South American blankets and its simple wooden alter featuring handmade angels. This could be a chapel in the American South West or Mexico. One corner of the room is dedicated to estancia weddings with a yellowing wedding dress and old wedding photos.

But the stable is where all the action really is. The gauchos are leading horse rides across the estancia on a dusty trail and most of decide to give it a try. Few of us have been on a horse before, but travel has a way of bringing out a sense of adventure and I think its magnified in a group. It’s kind of like peer pressure, but in a good way. When you see others stretching their boundaries you want to do it, too. Take Presleith. She’d never been on a horse and she was pretty terrified when hopped up on her horse and it started to trot off. She screamed, “How do I make it stop?” But she didn’t panic, in fact she seemed to really enjoy the rush. When she came back from her ride she was grinning widely and she said she was scared, but she loved it. I love that. One by one each of us got up on the, literal and proverbial, horse and took a ride, except for the other Robyn on this trip. Robyn attempted to get up on the horse, but got discouraged. We tried to lure her out for a second try, but she declined. Kenitra, Sheneekra and I went out together and each of us seemed to have reluctant horses. Sheneekra helped hers along with positive affirmations, mostly so that her horse wouldn’t drop her. Kenitra’s lolly gagged behind the other horses along with mine, except my horse was slow and had an attitude. He nudged Sheneekra’s horse out of the way before we started on our ride. Later, he decided to drift away from the horse formation, cutting across the field toward the front of the line. But the biggest sign that my horse had a bad attitude was that he kicked an Australian man that I’d been chatting with on the ride. The Australian was riding behind me, which apparently my horse did not like, so he kicked him. I was horrified. The Aussie, not terribly hurt, said, “We can’t talk anymore if your horse is going to kick me.” I said, “Please don’t hold my horse against me!”

When the horse-riding is done the dinner bell is rung and we all come inside to eat the barbecued meat and sausage that we’ve been smelling all day. The very gauchos that led us on rides became our servers, delivering huge cuts of beef, chicken and sausage. But we probably most enjoyed the chimichurri, a South American condiment made of olive oil, vinegar and spices for eating with bread and topping your steak. We even put it on our salad. It was quite delicious. We got adventurous again when they brought out the black sausage, popular in this region and similar to the Brit’s black pudding, which is essentially cooked blood and other filler. Our knives reveal a mushy center inside its sausage casing and we aren’t sure what to make of the taste on its own, but decide that it’s much better on bread.

After we eat, we enjoy listening to old estancia songs and watching a great tango show, but what really gets us on our feet is the gaucho show outside. They demonstrate a tradition where the gauchos put a small metal rod through a small ring hanging from wooden posts while racing on horseback. If the gaucho gets the ring on his rod, he must then give the ring to a woman of his choosing. Bringing new meaning to Beyonce’s phrase, “If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it.” Here’s where Luca and Cerillo come in again. Of course everyone holds their fingers out for Luca, who happens to get the ring every time, by the way. Kenitra gets a ring. I get a ring. Gai gets a ring. Robyn gets a ring. After all the jousting and horse play, the gauchos pick ladies to ride with them and Cerillo makes a beeline for Kenitra leading to the barn kidnapping noted above. But the best ending of our day comes when Robyn wants to get a photo with Luca on the back of his horse. Still a little shaken from her attempt to ride earlier, she thinks she’ll get on, take a picture and get off, but Floyd has other plans and signals for Luca to take off. The look of shock on Robyn’s face is priceless. She comes back giddy and probably a little proud of herself.

It was a fun day on the estancia, we all agree. We board our bus back to Buenos Aires taking the route known as the Pan American Highway, the world’s longest road stretching as far south as Patagonia in South America to Alaska in North America. Once back in the city we see how Argentinians spend a Saturday afternoon. They attend flee markets and outdoor concerts or simply sit in the park beneath yellow umbrellas.

Later that night….

A few of us decide to venture out to explore Argentina’s night life. We decide to go to a Colombian dance performance that Luis recommended at an arts building in La Boca. There were six of us and we split up into two cabs, Carmen, Presleith and Alan in one and Sheneekra, Kenitra and I in another. When Sheenekra, Kenitra and I reach the destination, under a dark underpass next to a dilapidated old port, we’re thinking we are definitely in the wrong place. The taxi driver asks a security guard if he knows about an event at the building and I make out that the place is closed. Some how I manage to pull some Spanish vocabulary from my freshman year of college from the recesses of my brain and tell him that our guide told us about a special performance in the building. He goes to ask another guard behind the clearly closed building gate and he doesn’t seem to know about any event. We don’t see Carmen, Presleith or Alan, so we assume they learned the same information. We then direct our taxi driver to the Palermo Soho area, which we’ve been told is a popular area with the trendy Argentinian crowd. Along the way, while stopped at a traffic light we spot a dredlocked black man inside a store and there are others like him inside. As we pass, we see that it’s a barbershop, just like one you might see in any black neighborhood in the states. Ironically, the barber shop was on a street named Estados Unidos. Translation: United States. When we reach Palermo Soho we think this is more like it. Restaurants with bars and dance floors surround a plaza named for Julio Cortezar, many blasting American music and serving American food like pizza, hamburgers and hot dogs. We opt for a spot serving sausages and meat on wooden tablets along with vegetarian options and empanadas, of course. We review the days events over tasty food and drinks on a warm Argentinian evening.