Argentina: Crazy contradictions

Things to note about this country: buses cost about $100 each but you get food, movies and bathroom with running water, coffee and comfy seats(so basically it’s a flight!). No one goes to dinner until 9:30, out until 1:30am and home until 5am (at least). Everyone is good looking, and it’s so much cleaner.  I haven’t had gastro since getting here and it is awesome!

Salta

Salta is a colonial town in the desert and our first stop in Argentina. It is surrounded by amazing, beautiful villages that we couldn’t afford to visit. We’d planned to spend a day here, my birthday, but because of the strikes we got stuck awhile longer.

While here we hung out with our new friend Nicolas, a French(very French!!!) man from Buenos Aires, who spoke only in Spanish to us and took us to all the good places in town, taught us about the Argentinean culture and bought us pastries(his family come from a long line of French pastry chefs). We visited museums with perfectly preserved Incan children sacrificed 500 years before and frozen in time in the mountains. We drank coffee at the cafe our friend Brian worked at. We went out for dinner with Pepe, our newest addition(a bolivian llama who wants to see the world) and had a great time drinking wine and eating bread and dip. Everyday I walked 1000 steps up a hill where free gym equipment was and had a work out. I was in heaven.

Introducing Pepe: small town Llama with a dream to see the world

Birthday hike, Jade loves it

Not a bad view

We made a point to get into the night life and wine. The first night we made friends with everyone in the hostel(5 people)and stayed up all night playing pool, drinking wine and talking(no one here speaks English so my Spanish got a million times better). For my birthday, Jade and I shared a piece of the best cake in the world(milhoja) and hot chocolate and then had a mulled wine party(same as last year). At 2am Nicholas and Jade declared it was time to go out. At the age of 24 I was ready to go to bed. We headed to the nightclub street for beer and music. Finally, after the best hot dog in the world(a super pancho) at 4:30 am, we walked 10 block home where I collapsed and the others kept partying.

Birthday cake

Everyone in Argentina has a nickname apparently. Mine became Abuelita(little grandmother) because I went to bed so early every night(between 2:30 and 5am). Jade was out of control, I don’t think she slept the whole 3 days we were there. I do not know how these people do it!

Iguazu falls

Eternal rainbow

The most touristy stop since Machu Picchu, we caught a 24 hour bus to some of the most famous falls in the world. Deep in the dense, treacherous jungle on the border between Brazil and Argentina are the Iguazu falls where there is a constant rainbow. The sheer expanse of this natural wonder is enough to make you forget your past and future; talk about instantaneous mindfulness.  We spent the day wandering the jungle and exploring under and over and even thorough the waterfalls (via speed boat).  Pepe,  from the driest desert in the world who’d never even seen rain, was beside himself with excitement. Definitely the most awesome waterfalls in the world.

Pepe seeing his first big body of water: the devils mouth

Puppy love

Before we took a speedboat under

Buenos Aires: the city of contradictions

Where do I start? What started as one week turned into one month, what started as one bottle of wine turned into 7, what started as one alfojor turned into three- this place is out of control. BA is the craziest city with the craziest people I’ve met. It is so beautiful in the architecture, streets and parks and gardens but there is rubbish and dog poo everywhere. It’s possible to dance every night whether it’s Tango, improvisation or Salsa and the people live for the nights. Every night there is a concert, party or soccer game- it’s fantastic. The city functions on an average of 3 hours sleep a night and no one is a morning person. The people are beautiful, especially the men, everyone has  gorgeous designer dogs and make-up is a must. The city is full of paradoxes, dirt, love, violence, dancing, music and life!

The park of roses

A drumming concert

Your average BA tree

Real cowboys dancing

Our first week we tried couch-surfing for the first time, staying at our new friend Pablos apartment. It was fantastic staying with a local- he introduced us to afojores(getting a free supply from his work) and  the most amazing salsa dancing where everyone danced, spun and shouted and no-one spoke English. Even Jade had a good time and pretty soon we were dancing salsa or tango at least twice a week. Every night we would chat till 3am with Pablo, drinking red wine and going out to small bars. During the day we visited the famous sights from the amazing and beautiful recolletta cemetario where all the tombs were like palaces to la boca, a maze of colourful winding streets filled with little shops selling churros and people dancing tango. By the end of the week Pablo offered us a luxury apartment in the best suburb in town (at half the price!), we’d booked Spanish lessons and we were set.

Obelisk...apparently it's famous?

Cemetry

Flower

La boca

La boca

La boca

La boca

Real cowboys

Real people street dancing with real cowboys!!

The next two weeks was a blur of dancing, markets(with real cow boys and not a tourist in sight!), dinner parties at our new place,  wandering the cobbled streets of Palermo, eating empanadas and exploring the town. Our class was a mixed group; an Australian who I heard speak English for the first time the day before he left(and we talked a lot), a priest from Chicago and a German law student. Our teacher was the stereotypically beautiful Spanish teacher, Nancy, who was patient and lovely but knew that I didn’t really speak Spanish and was pretending to understand most of the time. This was a good crew to have and we practiced a lot in the form of lunches out, dinner parties at each others houses and even the best Argentinian bbq ever.

Enjoying an Argentinian coffee

Birthday Steak(thanks Jade)

4am and still looking fresh Jade

House party with our class: solo hablamos espanol 

Nico bonding with pepe

Reunion with Bolivian friends

Girls day at the milk bar

What gets me about Argentina is that nothing really works but people just deal. The metro broke down for ‘3 days’ which turned into ’10 days’. We waited for 1 hour and 10 buses passed us crammed full of people. Finally we gave up. Why weren’t more buses organized? The pass between Chile and Argentina had been snowed in for 1 week yet they still sold tickets and refused refunds. When I asked about getting a letter for insurance they’re response was ‘why should we write you a letter-it’s common knowledge’. It took two of my friends arguing for me in Spanish over 48 hours for someone to write me 5 lines for insurance. Apparently a few years ago all the banks got shut down and no one could get money for about 12 months- how do these people survive?

Which one is my wish?

Pepe experiences some culture at the Japanese gardens

Argentina is a beautiful, vibrant and gritty city with some of the best parties and night life I’ve experienced. It is easy to become a part of this place but you feel like you are constantly lost in translation ad trying to understand the motives and reasoning behind peoples words and actions. This was the place I had to say good bye to my travel buddy Jade. We have had some of the craziest and best times over the last 4 months and had practically become the same person. I’m going to miss my other half- safe journey home!!

Goodbye Jade- Eres la mejor amiga!!!!