Beaches in Buenos Aires

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To my relief, and tinsy bit dismay, the clouds have crowded in and the air stirs, bringing with is a breeze that cools and the hanging dread of rain. The past two days were unbearable at 36 C and about 97 F with very little cool off in the evenings. It was the kind of weather that made you say "estoy fastidiosa" ( I am annoyed/irritated).

To fill you in on today....I have taken good advantage of the weather and have been cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Thank you cleaning lady for being a bad cleaning lady and NEVER cleaning the living room, making it 4,000 times worse than it should be. And thank you for never coming to my house to clean so that when I come home on the day I expect you to come I am greeted to a still gross house. I have had very few breaks in the past four hours and have just completed the kitchen and the living room. I have yet to clean the hall floor and the bathroom. Poor me! But seriously, you wouldnt have believed how much dust and dirt I swept up from under the couches and computer desk.

At this time, sweet little reader ´o´mine you may be getting a bit peeved. Maybe you have learned from todays spanish lesson and are thinking "grrrr, LizzZ, estoy fastidioso/a....YOU PROMISED BEACHES in your blog title" But maybe you aren´t that clever. Maybe you forgot about my free little spanish lesson. But now. Now that I have reminded you. Will you use it? Just say it in your head. No say it out loud. "ES´TOY FASTIDIOSO/A". This reminds me of my Spanish lesson the other night. Firstly it entailed rolling my r´s. I have gotten better at them.....considering that I can roll them. But my tongue still isnt in the right place. So words were being drilled. My second lesson of the night was a little like this.

Me: "hey, how do you say leave me alone."
F2: "why what happend?"
Me: "oh, I was eating my ice cream the other day and this boy wouldnt leave me alone."
F2: "did he touch you?"
Me: "no, but he was annoying me...I just wanted to eat my ice cream"
F2: "tell me what he said in Spanish"
Me: "grrr!!!....ok, I will...blah blah blah"
F2: "next time say dejame tranquila"
Me: "ok, great."
F2: "now repeat"
F2: "i dont wanna"
F2: "do it!!!" "good, now louder". "No, louder" "You need to be convincing" "you arent
convincing."

Sometimes I think F2 is lucky that he hasn´t seen me convincing. I think it might scare him...and maybe make him a little hot.

ANYWAY!!!!!

The beach the beach the beach....before "estas fastidioso"

In the past two weeks Quin and I have decided to take two trips to two different parts of the river. Both trips were on different days, in different parts of the city and on different budgets. I have decided to compare and contrast them. And so maybe when you are bored and its hot, or just bored, or you are hung over, bored and hot, or when you are lookin for some fun you can do either trip. I don´t recommend doing both trips in one day. It will require a lot of travel time, a lot of eating, too much sun, and probably too much mate.

Fun in the sun in San Isidro, 28/01/07

Quin and I decided we had some options. We knew what we wanted....sun, food, river, and bicycles. We had two options. The Costenera Sur and Ecological Reserve here a couple blocks from San Telmo.....OR....we could get REALLY exotic and go to the costenera in San Isidro which is a wealthy suburb of BsAs.

We pooled our money which in total came to an even 50 pesos.

But the options didnt just stop there. We had several options on how to get there as well!!!! One was to take a bus, boring. The second was to take the tried and true commuter train...again boring, we both take this train to different jobs.....OR!!!!!....we could take two trains one being the tren de la costa.

We decided on taking the two train option. Here´s why.

1) first you take the mitre train (which you get in retiro) and ride it to the end. This train was exciting because it goes through Belgrano, Colegiales, Coghland, and other points we had never really seen.

2) Get off at the end of the line and follow the pack out of the station through a door to the right, up an escolator, through a lame arts and crafts fair, and into the line for the tren de la costa. The first thing Quin and I noticed is "wow, the tren de la costa is EXPENSIVE." We had already payed 1.25 for our first train. Now for a one way trip we had to shell out another 4 pesos (thank god we are residents and got a 2 peso discount)

Once we got on the train Quin was getting excited. You didnt feel the lug jug jug of the normal "commuter trains". We felt like we were in Europe. It was hard to get Quin off the train at our stop, San Isidro station, because he didnt feel like he had gotten all of his money out of the train ride.

The San Isidro station is really a fancy outdoor shopping center and they have an information booth. We had two very important questions. Where could we get food and where could we rent bicycles. She recommended the eatery Ommm (I think) in the mall because as she said "everything else that is open today is not edible" We rolled our eyes. We were in ritzville and Quin and I are not ritzy. We first looked at the menu of her suggestion and decided prices were WAY too much sitting at around 25 pesos for the lunch special.

Next we struggled to find the exit out of the shopping mall and headed towards the water. Soon we came to a restaurant that had some people sitting on a big patio. After looking at the menu we sat down. Bread and an awesome creamy black pepper dip came out. Next we noticed they had a bad ass radio station that played old mariah carey, cindy lauper, and I got treated to a little "Quin singing along to Millie Vanillie to Lizzz!". My cesar salad was 9 pesos, Quin had a milanesa for I dont remember how much. We split some fries and asked for more of the creamy pepper dip. The waitress was very nice and her eyes light up when we asked for it. Kinda like, "what ingenious americans you are!" I dont think people understand how spot on the money Americans are with the dips.

After we lunched up we wandered around aimlessly. We were in a marina and didnt seem to know how to get out of it. Quin was getting impatient and finally after dragging me around to a lot of dead ends he left the navigating up to me....what a good idea. I got us out of the stinky marina and headed toward the train stop before San Isidro. Once we were there we noticed on our map that we were close to the San Isidro Ecological Reserve.

Definetly the highlight of our trip. There was an information booth and an older couple who gave the info. They were sweet and the woman spoke uncontrolably fast. They told us that regretfuly we had gotten there too late to enjoy the beach (I think maybe due to a tide) but that we should still go in. Before we headed in the lady apologized for all the garbage that gets washed up.

As I said the ecological reserve was beautiful and it was nice to get trapped into some nature for awhile. Another thing to note is that during full moons they have full moon tours there!! So go and tell me about it please.

After the eco reserve we wandered a bit and stumbled onto chetolandia (cheto means ritzy, posh, chic....blah). It was this beach/bar thing and everyone was so oily, brown, and lookin hot. We picked our way around hot bods and skinny thighs and I had to bite my cheeks. All I wanted to do was laugh because Quin and I obviously didnt belong there.

From here we started to follow our map up through the beautiful neighborhood of Acassuso and enjoyed quiet tree lined streets where you could walk in the middle of the street and not get turned into fertilizer. Finally we made it back to the commuter train stop Martinez and went home.

Fun in the sun, Costenera Sur, Buenos Aires, 03/02/07

Yesterday hit 36 C and so Quin and I made the executive decision of going to the costenerasur by our house. The Costenera Sur stretches down most of the center of town to south southern border of San Telmo. To ge there you walk towards the river past Puerto Madero.

We got down there at about 12:30 and wandered around until we found a parrilla with a lot of people. We ordered choripans (sausages on a roll) and shared a grapefruit soda. The choripans were 2 pesos a piece and the soda as well. The grilled pork sandwhiches were 4 pesos and I was a little jealous I didnt get one of those. There were way too many sauces to put on our chori and so I went for a basic, spicey pepper sauce, chimichurri sauce, salsa criollo combo....GOOOD...but I did burp a little more than my mom would have liked me to.

At 12:30 the sun was ferious and so we crossed the street and sat in the grass under a tree. After eating our chori we scraped our original idea of walking into the ecological reserve. Too much walking for doing the same thing we were doing...sitting in the sun. Quin pulled out his sunblocks (SPF 8, 30 and 50) yerba mate and thermos and camera. We put sunblock on each other, faced each other to share our mate (like true porteños) and enjoyed the festivities that were unfolding before us on the grass. My favorite was a fierce little boy that had a head of floppy curls. His grandma called him "negrito" and his dad encourage him to throw a ball at his moms head. Also in the grass was a lady in a bathing suit that was about 30 years old. Quin liked it because of its bold floral pattern and it had a cut out in the stomache and one in the back. She was laying in a tent. We arent sure why. She wasnt getting any sun...and it must have been hotter than the blazes.

After about an hour and a half of reading, drinking water, an watching people we left.

Final thoughts

San Isidro was nice because it was in a part of the city we had never seen before and the ecological reserve was beautiful. However it was too expensive over all and there were too many hot "beach" types there. I do recommend walking through Acassuso though. Take the train to tigre and get off at the acassuso stop.

Costenera Sur. IT´s really got everything. Close to the city, cheap food, plenty of sun, bike rentals and really good people watching. Go here especially on Sundays to see where are all porteños are hiding.

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Photos

tren de la costa
quin and i on our way to san isidro

still cant find the beach
entrance to the san isidro ecological reserve

Comments

[ma]

: )
this one made me belly-laugh out loud!!!!!!

[valeriavine]

speaking of the weather....
I'll be in Buenos aires on the 9th March..this Friday! i can't believe it. our post has confirmed what I thought but just as a last minute packing thing can you confirm that it's truly bloody hot and i dont need to pack anything heavier than a light cardigan? happy travels!