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Published: January 21st 2008
Welcome
The author invites you to the story of our time in Argentina together.Welcome to our first guest blog ever! Mitch is a professional, so please don´t expect writing like this to continue in the future when we return to blogging. We had so much fun with my Mom and Mitch for two weeks. They brought us the much-needed love and cheer that comes with Christmas. But I will let Mitch tell you all about it...
LETTER FROM ARGENTINA
By Mitchell Schechter
For us, Argentina is a place where it grows late early.
Part of that is the time difference, which was 3 hours ahead of NY and 5 in advance of CO throughout much of our stay.
More is due to the late-night lifestyle, with big city and small town restaurants alike having waiting lists at midnight and dance clubs opening after 2 in the morning.
So, yes, we went to bed at hours we haven’t seen in years and, yes, we remained asleep through much of our typically frenetic mornings. But there was more.
A lot of it came from spending our days with Trevor and Liz, and the conversations we shared with them that seemed to begin spontaneously over olives, cheese and wine during
First Day in BA
We explored every barrio there is in BA, starting with el centro. each slow-waning afternoon and continue well-past post-dinner coffee and ice cream every night. Our topics embraced both the barrios, people, museums, shops, vistas and restaurants we’d visited that day, and the questions of economics, religion and history the culture of South America awakens in those who experience it.
Nearly every time we left our hotel, hostel or cabana, Trev and Liz were our guides and interpreters. Reduced to amiable, miming caricatures of our normal selves by our (inexcusable) inability to speak Spanish, they served us flawlessly in our contacts with local officials and residents, preserving our safety, peace of mind and ability to do what we wished.
In Buenos Aires, a city home to nearly 25% of Argentina’s 47 million citizens, our good shepherds showed us through the most telling neighborhoods -- from San Telmo’s West Village-like Bohomerie and Recoleta’s Rococo-to-Minimalist architecture and shops, to the plazas, palaces and boulevards of the city center where mass movements of remembrance, nationalist fervor and political aspirations have defined the country’s history. We toured the city’s necropolis, a town of neo-Classical tombs and memorials to past grandees and generals, as well as the current business and political elite. We spent time
Xmas Day
An odd activity for Xmas Day, sure. But a great cultural experience with our friends, the Andersons. in cultural institutions dedicated to Eva Peron, modern and pre-modern art, and discussed what we’d found over late lunches of ensaladas, Milanese sandwiches and cool cervazas.
We strolled the strand where sluggish, pea-green Rio Plata rolls through the city, noting the conversion of former light industrial buildings into high-end apartments and the remnants of the fishing and trading fleets that connected Argentina to 19th and 20th Century Europe. Later, in the riverside Cabanas las Lilas restaurant, we discovered that malbec wines can be sublime and that Argentina does offer the best grilled beef in the world. On our own, we found public tango performances of fierce, lyrical beauty and the outdoor flea markets where chachkas, used books, clothing items and jewelry of every description are displayed in sweltering proximity. In every barrio and quarter we encountered the homeless - families, solitary children and uncertain dogs who approached nearly silently and stared as if we might respond with a gift or word that would create an unattainable opportunity.
Buenos Aires has great and growing wealth, a plethora of motor vehicles that swirl through and clog its streets, and a full-blown consumer culture, but it also contains uncounted thousands of
Recoleta Cemetary
What a beautiful neighborhood for the after-life. people who shelter at night in doorways or hovels made of urban trash, without access to power, waste disposal or clean water. The contrasts in material circumstances are immense, far larger than those we’ve come to accept north of the equator, and the causes of the inequalities was the fuel for many of our most important discussion sessions.
After nearly a week in Buenos Aires, followed by a day out in the blazing humidity of gaucho country in the comatose town of San Antonio de Arcera, we all traveled southwest to Patagonia, to Bariloche, a lakefront resort in the foothills of the southern Andes, but not together. Trev and Liz, with prudent frugality and a commitment to travel as close to the ground as possible, invested some 20 hours in covering the 1,600 kilometers between the two towns by bus. With modest fares, well-upholstered adjustable seats and competent drivers, Argentina’s intercity motor coach industry is well-developed, as well it might be, given the country has no national railroads and almost no light rail. While Trev and Liz read and conversed as they rolled through the great pampas grasslands of Argentina’s interior, we flew above for 2 hours on Aerlinos
Empanada Delivery
A quiet Christmas dinner in with empanadas. Argentina, where the sandwiches are fresh, the cabin crew courteous and the excellent malbec is complimentary.
We all rendezvoused at Los Cabanas de Manzanos in the late afternoon and saw once more that our traveling companions had again provided for our welfare in excellent style. Our cabin slept four under its tin peaked roof, came equipped with a working kitchen, dining area, full bath and a view to the south over vast Lake Nahuel Huapi to snow-capped mountain peaks that were washed in a ceaseless blue-to-red chromatic progression in the shifting late-day light.
After unpacking and a run to a nearby supermercado for all the important staples (wines, bottled water, cheese, olives, nuts, yogurt and chorizo,) we raced into town in Mr. Hertz’ smallest Chevrolet to explore the precincts of Bariloche. First, it was cool, not surprising given the town’s 3,200-foot elevation, so the stifling, plus-90oF afternoons of Buenos Aires were replaced by 70oF and breezy mountain post-meridians. And then, it was cool, as Bariloche caters to a year-round crowd of international visitors with an array of ski-slopes, hiking trails, nature reserves, camping grounds, onshore and deep-water fishing, kayak rentals, boat trips and local estancias (ranches) offering horseback
Xmas Dinner
Mitch treated us to an amazing Xmas dinner. Check out the succulent steaks and asado hood. riding. In the steep-hilled town, lodgings from hostels and cabanas to four-star hotels abound, the cobbled streets are thronged with shops, bakeries, cervazaias, restaurants and banks, and everywhere there are exquisitely tended rose gardens filled with color-saturated blossoms the size of softballs. The architecture here leans heavily toward variations on European Alpine, with A-line roofs and heavy glazed timbers in the facades, testimony to both the snowy winter season and the cultural influence of the many central and southern European families who migrated to Argentina during the past 200 years.
Between siestas and long reading breaks, home-cooked and restaurant meals, we made time to walk gratefully through an upland tropical forest (complete with impenetrable groves of wind-whipped bamboo), circumnavigate the main lake and outlying inlets, visit a microbrewery, rode a cable car to a summit, spent a morning riding gaucho-tacked saddle horses up and through endless thorn bush stands before encountering a soul-clarifying view, and drive to Chile for lunch. Yes, the four of us decided, perhaps after just one too many steak dinner, that we needed seafood, so we piled into another tiny tinny Chevie (one cleared for international travel; don’t ask) and made a 750-kilometer round trip
Pony Mullet
We explored gaucho land for a day. And yes, even the SA version of Peanut the Pony sports a mullet here. to the Pacific coast town of Puerte Verras in central Chile for pisco sours and the local version of bouillabaisse. And, man, it was good, filled with fresh crustaceans and local white fish in a broth of saffron, garlic, white wine and stock, and it kept us in good humor over the endless highway miles and in the face of amused if somewhat contemptuous border guards (“Here come those same crazy gringos, again!”)
On our way back, having recrossed a snowy border pass through the Andes at about 6,700 feet, we stopped in the small town of Angostura for some restorative helados (ice cream). Angostura is a jewel of a place, a sort of mini-Bariloche with similar upscale shops and watering holes, but also filled with giant loony wood-carvings of gnomes, teakettles and cooking implements, which serve to express the mildly loopy town ambiance.
Too soon, it seemed to us, the days of travel, exploration, epicurean pleasure and discussions of third-party politics came to an end. We had to return to the States, our other family members, friends and businesses. Trevor and Liz had a date farther south, in Tierra del Fuego, to camp and climb glaciers and
New Year´s
Our New Year champagne toast! commune with each other and the divinity of the world. Our parting was a little sad and felt inadequate; it was hard to articulate all our gratitude, pride and concerns in simple farewells. Trev and Liz headed for Baroloche’s bus station to begin their next 37-hour bus trek. We returned our ride to the airport and spent the next 25 to 30 hours struggling to our homes.
It had been hard to get away, better to go and great to come back with our minds, consciences and spirits so opened up by our shared and unique experiences. Yet, it was the companionship that was unforgettable, and we look forward to many more such opportunities, wherever we find ourselves.
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