South America, Day 10: En route to Iguazu

Before getting to the meat of today's post (well, June 26th's post, anyway), more pictures with people I met in Buenos Aires. First, Chris - he of the pumpkin-puree-pie suggestion:

Chris. Runs trips for American high schoolers to South America, and knows where to find a cheap filling lunch in Buenos Aires.

 Last night while writing the last blog post (the one for the 25th...), I met a bunch of other travelers hanging out in the kitchen, including a Frenchman who'd quit his environmental engineering job to come to South America for a year with no particular plan; Francisco, a Chilean who was stuck in Buenos Aires for two weeks because the volcano was keeping him from flying to Australia, and Damian, a student studying accounting in Buenos Aires. Francisco took offense when I called myself an American (americano, rather than estadounidense), with the argument that anyone in North or South America ought to be able to call themselves "American", and that it was unfair for the USA to have appropriated the term. Better watch my language, I guess...

Damian. Studies accounting in Buenos Aires

I spent essentially all day today packing and in transit to Puerto Iguazu. From Buenos Aires, it's a 20ish hour bus ride up to Puerto Iguazu in the north. Spending 20 hours on a bus might sound like the worst thing in the world, but the long-distance buses here are actually quite nice. I booked the cama con servicio class of service on Crucero del Norte (one down from the top class, of five total) for about US$115, and got a seat like this:

Cama con servicio on Crucero del Norte. It actually reclines most of the way back; just forgot to do so in this picture.

En route, they feed you well: some candy right after departure, dinner, breakfast, and I think a couple snacks along the way too. The food is somewhat better than old-school airline food; don't expect anything too gourmet, but there's plenty of it. They do their best to keep you entertained as well, with a steady stream of movies over the TV screens. I watched Black Swan, but spent the rest of the time reading my book.

Bread, crackers, mini-pizza, chocolate/butter pound cake, and an empanada. This was followed by a main course of mashed potatoes and beef.

After a surprisingly good night's sleep, we arrived at the Puerto Iguazu bus terminal around 10am.

South America: Days whatever to whatever

I know I'm way behind on my blogging. Have a panoramic picture of the Garganta del Diablo fall, in Iguazu, as compensation:

South America, Days 10-12: Postponed

I have tons of pictures and fun stories from the last several days that I haven't been able to post because I haven't had Internet access in a few days. I have access now, but it's super flaky, so the update will have to wait till I get to Santiago!

South America, Day 9: Buenos Aires, Argentina

As far as I can tell, my room in the hostel is located right above the hostel bar. So that means that each night, it's gotten loud around 2am from the noise downstairs. However, last night was the worst: as of around 1:30, there was nothing going on, but that's because on Fridays, the party doesn't really start till 3am or so -- and then continues till 6.

So long story short, I didn't wake up till around 1pm today, scotching most of my plans to get any sightseeing in. Luckily, turns out the guy they added to my (previously empty, other than myself) room last night is an American who's very familiar with the area from his work (organizing trips for American high-schoolers). Chris had a suggestion for lunch that sounded excellent, so we headed out to the restaurant Las Cabras in Palermo Hollywood. (The Palermo neighborhood is divided into a number of districts: Palermo Viejo (where my hostel is), Palermo Soho (where La Cabrera was), Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Chico, etc., with more divisions popping up as the area gentrifies further.)

Shamefully, I don't remember what the dish I ordered (at Chris's suggestion) was called. But it was possibly the most filling thing I've had on this trip. The dish consisted of pureed pumpkin, with strips of steak, onion, and other vegetables, thrown into a clay pot, topped with a thick layer of provolone cheese, and baked. It's just about as filling as it sounds, and even tastier than you might think:

Oh yeah, there was exactly one olive there, too.

 After lunch, we wandered around Palermo a little bit, and I randomly encountered another "restaurant" Elvira had suggested to me: Persicco. It's not actually a restaurant; more of a combination cafe and ice cream shop, with a huge selection of ice cream flavors.

Los sabores de Persicco

$4.75 gets you a pretty big cone. Not amazingly cheap, but good.

 The late start to the day meant we got back from lunch around 4:30. After a little looking around on the Internet, I decided to head to the Mueso Evita, close to the hostel, and then to an Argentine opera performance in San Telmo at 8pm. On my way to the Museo, though, I got sidetracked by another random rock concert in the middle of the street, this time at Plaza Italia. The bands ranged from the vaguely post-punk/hard rock Limones, a ZZ Top-inspired band whose name I didn't catch, and the Revolvers, whose sound reminded me of modern rock like the Smashing Pumpkins. I picked up a Revolvers CD...and about an hour later realized that I have no way to play it till I get back. Oops.

Limones @ Plaza Italia, Buenos Aires 25-6-2011 from ih - on Vimeo.

I spent a while hanging out with the Limones. None of them spoke a scrap of English; the guitarist doesn't speak at all, the drummer speaks so fast and with so much Buenos Aires slang I had no idea what he was saying, but the singer did a good job of getting his thoughts across. Super cool group of people, and we grabbed a picture:

After the rock show, it was too late to make it down to San Telmo for the opera, but I think I came out ahead in that deal.

South America, Day 8: Buenos Aires, Argentina (Part 3)

The last post had not nearly enough food pictures in it. Lest anyone doubt what the true mission of this trip is, it's time to rectify that. For dinner, I decided to go to La Cabrera steakhouse in Palermo, at the suggestion of my friend Elvira. Sadly, when I got there, they said there would be a 45 minute wait, and I was already hungry. So, I had time to kill and a stomach to fill. I went around the block to La Fabrica del Taco, and picked up a carne asada taco for 10 pesos ($2.50). Pretty good, and pretty big for the price. The salsa they provided gave the lie to my ideas about spicy food in Argentina: it was marked only 1 star of 4 on the spiciness scale, but had a definite kick. Really good!

I was so hungry I ate half before remembering to take a picture.

 After the taco, I went back to La Cabrera, and it turned out "45 minutes" actually meant "25 minutes", because I was promptly seated. So far on this trip, every restaurant I've been to has served bread, but none have provided any butter (often, there's nothing; occasionally, mayo (???)). Also, oftentimes the bread has been pretty awful. Here, the bread was excellent, and it came with a tray of three condiments: butter, a mustard with olives (very strange), and ... ROASTED GARLIC. Score.

Who needs butter?

 Shortly thereafter came my salad. First fresh vegetables I've had on this trip that didn't come between two pieces of bread, I'm pretty sure. An ensalada mixta around here means "lettuce, tomato, onion". The tomatos were pretty good, though.

When I ordered my main course, it didn't specify any sides, so I assumed that, like the other parrillas I'd been to, it would come with just the meat. But here, things were different! My 400g (14oz) rib-eye steak (ojo de bife) came with a wide variety of small sides, vaguely reminding me of a Korean restaurant. After I took this picture, the waiter came by with more options, but I had to decline, given the sheer quantity of food already on my table.

From top left, in columns: roasted garlic, pumpkin puree, pickled broccoli, sweet potato and beet puree, roasted potatoes, whole olives, mashed potatoes, spinach and smoked cheese, steak, dijon mustard and cream sauce.

The standard for steak here is a punto, or medium-rare, and it's very nice. The steak was tasty and filling, though perhaps not the finest steak I've ever had. I should perhaps have tried the sirloin, as the ribeye was a bit too much on the lean side. My mistake, or theirs? Who can say. Good dinner.

A punto

South America, Day 8: Buenos Aires, Argentina (Part 2)

The last stop for the day's walking was El Salón del Automóvil 2011, the 5th Buenos Aires International Auto Show, conveniently located just a few blocks from my hostel. Awesome fun as always wandering around looking at the cars. I won't have many words here; just admire the pictures and read the captions.

First up, some classic cars:

Aston Martin DB6

Cord

Mercedes-Benz 300SL

And then we got to the meat of the show - the cars of today and tomorrow.

Ferrari 458 Italia

Ferrari 458 Italia

Peugeot SR1 concept. It doesn't look as much like a BMW 6 series in real life as it does in this picture, I promise.

Renault Dezir concept. The holes in the rear fender have color-changing lights, and just look at those "headlights"!

The interior of the Dezir is just as wild.

A Fiat 500 Gucci

Gucci-designed interior of the 500

Toyota FT-86 concept. I'd drive it.

Toyota FT-86

Toyota FT-EV electric concept car

The car that we ought to be driving to Alaska....

First auto show I've seen that had heavy trucks there too!

The "Drugstore" stand sells snacks. Eh?

I got excited until I saw the last letter was missing.

 There were also a few non-car things at the show. Several manufacturers had cut-away examples of their engines and transmissions on display, usually driven by a motor so you could see the parts in motion.

Renault engine display

Soooooo who wants to do another roadtrip?

 And of course, leave it to the Italians to spice things up. The last thing I saw in the evening was a set of performances by four opera singers (two tenors, a baritone, and a soprano) at the Fiat booth.

South America, Day 8: Buenos Aires, Argentina (Part 1)

My first stop this morning was the Cementario de la Recoleta, a famous cemetery located in the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires hosting the remains of BA's famous (or merely rich) families. The place is huge (maybe a quarter mile on each side), containing hundreds of crypts and monuments to the deceased. Its grid layout makes it feel like a city in its own right; a city of the dead.

Not all of the mausoleums are equally well-maintained. Some of them have fallen into clear disrepair - broken glass and trashed interiors. In some ways, these are even more interesting than the good ones.

But of course, the highlight (or at least, most visited site) in the cemetery is the mausoleum of the Duarte family, where Evita Peron's remains lie.

These flowers are all for Evita. Perhaps a little sad for the others in the tomb?

After the cemetery, I grabbed some lunch at a nearby restaurant to go: empanadas. 5 pesos ($1.25) a pop, or 6 for the fried one, and great value for money. The Argentine idea of spicy isn't particularly spicy, sadly. Neverthless, the Parque Thays was a nice venue to have a bite to eat.

$4 for three = win

My original plan for the day was to walk back down to the Subte, but the empanadas had taken me in the wrong direction, so I figured I'd walk along the northern edge of Recoleta back towards Palermo, past several parks. On the way, I passed a few sights not noted in my guidebooks:

One of the campuses of the Universidad de Buenos Aires

A giant sculpture called the Floralis Generica

I then turned left and headed into the Japanese Garden (a gift from the Japanese Embassy on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor and Empress), which put my 8 peso cover charge to good use. It's beautiful and peaceful - in dramatic contrast to the heavy traffic and constant honking on Av Sarmiento just outside.

Then, I made my way southwest on Av Sarmiento towards the Plaza Italia to head to the Buenos Aires car show. On the way, next to the Rural (the convention center hosting the show), I ran into a skate park with skaters, BMXers, and rollerbladers trying out the halfpipe:

Finally, I went in to the Buenos Aires International Car Show (very conveniently located 4 blocks from my hostel). SO MANY COOL CARS. But that's a whole blog post in itself.

South America, Day 7: Buenos Aires, Argentina

When I arrived in Buenos Aires last night from Montevideo, I was a bit short on Argentine pesos, and had little desire to find an ATM at midnight in pouring rain, so I paid for one night in the hostel and promised that I'd pay the remainder the next day. This morning around 9 or 10, I was woken up by a (different) hostel employee asking who I was and what I was doing there, saying I didn't show up in their system. Turns out it takes me a few minutes after waking up before I can speak Spanish effectively...nevertheless, that was resolved fairly quickly. After a bit more sleep, I went out to grab lunch and cash, and paid up with the hostel (receiving many apologies in the process!).

The first major order of business for the day was to buy my bus ticket to Iguazu Falls on Sunday, so I hopped on the Subte (subway) towards Retiro station. The cost-per-ride is hilariously low: ARS 1.10, or about 30 USD cents. "Retiro Station" is actually a cluster of several (two or three, I lost count) train stations, which seemed to host trains for varying distance trips; separated from the train stations by a small cluster of stands and restaurants is the Retiro bus terminal. All along the sidewalk by the stations there are shacks selling cheap food, gadgets, and assorted trinkets. It was the most stereotypically Central/South American thing I've seen so far, but given the crowds, I decided against pulling out my camera.

I had already looked up the bus schedule and companies using a website named Omnilineas, so after a (very long) walk down the hall of the terminal to find the window of the bus company I wanted to take, buying the ticket itself was pretty trivial. From here, I didn't have much of a plan except to wander around the Retiro area. First stop was the Plaza Fuerza Aerea Argentina (Argentine Air Force Plaza), which contains a smaller replica of Big Ben:

You can go inside and see a few pictures, but they won't let you ascend to the upper levels. Today I learned that the 1982 war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas, to Argentines) was kind of a big deal. Mini-Ben was known pre-1982 as the Torre de los Ingleses (Tower of the English), in recognition of the English-heritage Buenos Aires residents who donated the resources for its construction. Since then, its official name is the "Torre Monumental". Indeed, the whole plaza used to be called the Plaza Britannia, before the Argentine government decided it would rather honor its air force than the enemy.

Right next door in the Plaza San Martin, atop one of the very few hills in this city, is another artifact of that war: the Monumento a los Caídos en Malvinas (literally, monument to those who fell in the Malvinas):

As the roses suggest, this is hardly a dead monument.

As I was wandering around the Plaza San Martin, I saw a couple faces that I could have sworn I'd seen in Montevideo. Turns out I was right; Margot and Sarah (possibly totally misspelled) were a pair of Germans who happened to be staying at the same hostel as me in Montevideo just a couple days ago, and decided to stop in Buenos Aires for a day before moving on to Lima:

Wonder how many other people I'll run into again during this trip?

The area around the plazas has some cool statuary, but you're probably getting tired of seeing statues by now, so let's just move on. The one sight I did want to catch near Plaza San Martin was the Museo de Armas, a military museum exhibiting weapons from the Middle Ages to the modern day. I think this is the first non-free (ARS 10 = ~ USD 2.50) museum I've been to on this trip that was totally worth the price. Their collection of weapons (some cut-away so you can see the inner workings) is super interesting, with a lot of exotic pieces. They even have some interesting diversity with a room on medieval Japanese armor and several Persian and Turkish weapons. Recommended.

I await the Gillette pistol with four barrels.

My guidebook suggested checking out the Palacio San Martin, also in the area, as a nice piece of architecture. It certainly has a pretty front, but sadly, you can't get in past the courtyard - it's an official government building (something to do with taxes and imports, from what I gathered):

From here, my plan was to walk back to the Subte line I needed, and see a bit of the city center, rather than just transferring underground from the nearest stop. Here, I discovered the Av Florida, a pedestrian street jam-packed with shops, mini-malls, and at least one full-blown shopping mall, the Galerias Pacifico. The upper levels of the Galerias host the Centro Cultural Borges, a large art and culture center that I had no idea existed. The CCB had a number of interesting painting and artwork exhibits; especially striking was an exhibit of 50 years of Amnesty International posters. Some of the posters, like this one from the Tunisian branch of AI, had beautiful, arresting artwork:

The Centro Cultural Borges also was presenting a tango show tonight: "Con Alma de Tango" (With the Soul of Tango), a nuevo tango show featuring 4 pairs of dancers and a male solo singer, and dance routines that varied between traditional tango and newer forms incorporating elements of samba and flamenco. Fantastically fun to watch.

Cameras weren't technically allowed, so I had to take a no-look shot with the camera in my lap and manual focus and exposure. Turned out well, considering.

The final business of the day was to get some dinner, so I headed over to a cheap parrilla recommended in my guidebook, the Parrilla al Carbon (now styled the Galauno Parrilla al Carbon). Cardiologists, just stop reading now, or forever hold your peace. I decided to go for the house specialty, the bife de chorizo Gala Uno. We'll get to what that is later. First, a piece of bread covered in the most delicious sauce ever. I'm not entirely sure what's in it, but so far I think there's olive oil, garlic, parsley, tomato, and maybe oregano. They had it in Uruguay too...

I think it's chimichurri.

And for the main course: a sirloin steak covered in mozzarella and tomato sauce, served with freshly-made potato chips. Note that in the picture below, half the steak has already been removed and is sitting on my other plate...

Took more years off my life than is worth counting

The steak was a bit overdone, surprisingly (I was expecting the usual medium-rare and got something more like medium-well to well done), but the mozzarella and tomato sauce made it delicious. I'm going to have to try that one back home.

Tomorrow: more Buenos Aires