Street Life in Buenos Aires

When our bus from Iguazu Falls pulled into the Retiro bus station, we were met by my friend Cesar... it was an exciting reunion, since I had not been back to visit Buenos Aires in 5 years. That started off a crazy 2 weeks in the city, where we abandoned our sedate, beach bumb lifestyle (honed in Brazil) and actually went out drinking every night... way past midnight! ;) It was like we were 20 again (OK, maybe 25). It was great hanging out with Cesar and reconnecting with my Peruvian friends living in the city. Since my local friends don't speak much English, Jake got to practice his Castellano (the Argentine version of Spanish) and his understanding really improved in 14 days. By the end of the first week he was using the Argentine vos (instead of tu). Go Jake! Unfortunately I still have-- and will never lose-- my heavy American accent, which apparently makes me sound Asian (e.g. the person I talked to over the intercom at Cesar's residence told him his Chinese friend stopped by! lol).

Finding a place to stay

After we dropped our packs off at Cesar´s residence, we bought some beers for the road (mind you, this was at 11AM) and set out on foot to find a hotel. It was great having a local with us when we visited a bunch of hostels in the Microcentro (the downtown), since Cesar immediately got each place to drop their prices by AR$30 by saying a place down the street was charging less (a lie of course). After seeing a few hostels, we were really disillusioned... they were insanely expensive (some charging nearly US$50 for a basic double room with private bathroom), considering the dilapidated condition of the rooms, the lack of any ammenities like AC and TV, and the fact that we KNEW no Argentines would pay that much for a hostel. Plus, they all had ridiculous signs posted saying you could not bring drinks into the hostel, and had to buy beer from their overpriced bar... outrageous! We decided to check out one of the many small family-style hotels in the neighborhood, and found one right off of Avenida de Mayo charging less than a typical hostel, for a double room with a large bathroom, our own private balcony, AC and cable TV (with English channels!)... all for AR$100 per night. Woop! It was called the Gran Hotel España and there was actually an authentic old Spanish man at the reception. Every time Cesar called the hotel and spoke to the Viejo (we never learned his name), the message would make no sense whatsoever... apparently the Porteño (Buenos Aires) and Spanish dialects are not mutually understood.

Sidenote: The microcentro was filled with young Anglo backpackers, including some tool who was walking around barefoot on the city streets. We actually saw some hippie tourists doing the same thing in Bangkok (of all places)... this is a trend that should definitely not continue...

Street life = night life

We have never been into expensive, fancy bars or touristy dinner shows, so we skipped the tango scene and spent most of our nights walking around the city with Cesar, drinking beers and getting into mischeif. We didn't have a fridge in the room, but discovered we could hide wine in the refrigerator at the supermarket (behind the beer), so we could buy wine that was already chilled. We had some fun times on the balcony sipping white wine and admiring the city view, until we got burnt out from drinking 70 cent wine... it was very hangover inducing, as you can imagine! Drinking on the street (or in a plaza) is legal in Buenos Aires, so you can have a really inexpensive night walking to a bar with a litro of Quilmes beer and stopping along the way to take random and silly photos. You might even meet some interesting people this way! We should write to Lonely Planet with this suggestion ;)

The food

We are still missing Brazil's per-kilo buffets, but Buenos Aires has many good quality, inexpensive places to eat. My all time favorite local food is Uggi's pizza, which is probably made out of cardboard and chemicals, but is tasty and super cheap (AR$10-12 for a large pie). The Argentine empanadas are also delicious, but we miss the hot sauce we used to get with Colombian empanadas at home in New York City.... I had forgotten that there is NO HOT SAUCE or spicy food anywhere in Buenos Aires! Most of the time, you don't even get black pepper on the table, just salt. Occasionally, we would be offered chimichurri sauce or some other dressing and warned that it would be spicy, only to discover there was no heat whatsoever. I once brought Cesar some Taco Bell packets from the US and he thought they were the most amazing invention. The total absense of any spicy flavor does not bode well for the Mexican restaurants that are popping up in the trendy neighborhoods... we think we'll wait until we get home to the US to eat nachos!

My Peruvian friend Magda made us some awesome home-cooked meals... veggie tortilla (similar to an omelette with potatoes inside), papas fritas, ensalada, her special rice, and my favorite dish, which consists of spaghetti, pesto sauce, slices of boiled potatoes and a creamy white sauce with some pureed pepper... and it was actually a bit spicy! I'm excited for the food in Peru. Maybe Jake will even try the local delicacy there, guinea pig.

Breakfast is mainly coffee with tostadas (toasted bagette slices) or medialunas (croissants). Our hotel didn't include breakfast, so we'd go to a local cafe every morning and stuff ourselves with medialunas for about AR$7-AR$9 each (in cafes, the coffee usually comes with a shot glass of selzter water and a few sugar cookies). Alfajores are also really delicious... they are basically 2 shortbread cookies with dulce de leche in the middle. If you are a vegetarian, just make sure to read the ingredients, since just about every cookie in Argentina has 'grasa vacuna'(cow fat), even Oreos! Guess they produce so much meat, they want to use all the parts...

It's interesting how different the juice is in Brazil and Argentina. In Brazil, there are tons of juice bars (especially in Rio), where you can get inexpensive blends of exotic fruit juices. In Argentina, juice ('jugo') usually refers to Tang or Clight (basically diet Tang). It's a taste we acquired in our short stay... by the end of 2 weeks, we were adding Clight mix to our bottles of water! So healthy!

Day trip to Escobar

Cesar's parents invited us to their home in Escobar, a quiet town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. His parents offered to make a traditional Argentine asado (BBQ), so Jake could finally eat some of the famous Argentine beef. After a long bus ride, and transfer to another bus, we arrived at their home. We had seen some pig's heads for sale at the local supermarket, but Jake opted to get the standard ribs for the BBQ. Probably a good choice, since Cesar's parents would have no idea how to cook a pig's head... not sure who is buying them. Jake really liked his steak and developed a taste for the Argentine beef.

Random Observations on Argentina

... There is a nationwide coin shortage and many stores have a sign warning 'no hay monedas'(no coins). Cesar warned us from the start NEVER to offer change when making a purchase, since coins are so scarce, so we started hoarding coins and ended up having so many we had to unload them before we left the city since my coin purse was getting way too heavy. Apparently, a while back the situation was so bad that people were lining up for a couple of hours just to change bills into coins... and there is now a black market for coins, where you can change in your bills for a fee. So odd... I never experienced this before on any of my visits to Argentina or when I lived there. It seems like the government should get started instituting a MetroCard system for the buses, since they only accept change. That seems to be the main reason demand for coins is so high. Although there is a side benefit-- sometimes they would open the gates to the subway station and let everyone in for free, since the agents couldn't make change!

...1980s fashion is big all over the world, and Buenos Aires is no exception. However, the local women have taken it to an extreme by embracing MC Hammer pants (those baggy paints with cinched ankles). Not a good look! At least we aren't in the full-on early 1990s yet, with high-waisted 'mom' jeans being the norm...

...Hip Hop and Rap still haven't hit Argentina or made any impact on the music scene (though there is an old Missy Elliot video that sometimes makes it into rotation). Raggaeton has really taken off, though, and seems to have replaced Cumbia as the most popular non-rock music. We even saw 3 random guys walking around with do-rags and corn-rows! I'm thinking they must be from out of town... I doubt the headkerchief market in Argentina is very big. It probably costs US$20 in a fancy skateboard shop to buy one!

...The Simpsons are huge in Buenos Aires, and a hand-drawn Homer is on many ads promoting products FOX would probably never approve of. Reruns are on at least 2 local and 1 cable channel, although always dubbed into Spanish (though we've seen the episodes so many times, we can understand what Mexican-accented Homero is saying).

...Baby pressure: In New York, we were always asked 'when are you getting engaged?'or 'when is the wedding?' Here, my Peruvian friends want to know when I am havign children! We don't even have a wedding date set yet and I am falling behind. It must seem odd to them to be 30 and not have any kids... one of my good friends (who is a bit younger than me and has 2 kids), said goodbye to us with the blessing 'Que tengan un hijo'('May you have a child'). Jake was not impressed!

...We had an annoying encounter with a local man that left us really angry, when we took my Peruvian friend Johanna and her 2 kids out for snacks at a local cafe. Apparently this man, another customer at the restaurant, thought we were extremely naive tourists being taken in by a poor local woman and her street kids. He played the hero and scrawled a message (in English) on a napkin reading 'Be careful. I am friend.' We ignored him, but he decided to come over to the table, and start a conversation with Jake. If you could call it a conversation-- it was basically him speaking horrible, broken English and warning us about 'trying to help'these poor people and that he was stepping in to stop something sketchy from happening. He wasn't actually listening to anything we told him, when we repeatedly said in Spanish and English that he should get lost, since these were our close friends. This was extremely frustrating, since he obviously thought Johanna was homeless or a con artist just because she has darker skin-- meanwhile, she and her kids were very well dressed, clean and well-behaved-- he could only be making this assumption because she was Peruvian. Also, he assumed we were idiots with no knowledge of the language or culture who would be putting ourselves into a dangerous situation. Ugh! We were upset for the rest of the day but Johanna told us not to worry about it. I suspect this is something she deals with on a daily basis.

The tourist city vs. the residential city... some unsolicited thoughts

When I lived in Buenos Aires in 1999-2000 (during a year of study abroad in college), the peso and dollar were 1-to-1, and the prices of food, movies, and just about everything else were comparable with New York City. It was a very expensive city (particularly for locals, who were earning much less than their New York counterparts), so it is amazing to me that Buenos Aires is now such a budget destination for foreign visitors. The exchange rate is currently 3.7 pesos to the US dollar, and that seems to be fueling a massive increase in backpackers (vs. 10 years ago)... particularly younger travellers who don't speak any Spanish. As a result, the youth hostels (many of which offer Spanish classes, tango lessons and other activities) are charging insanely high rates, while local family hotels that cater to regional visitors are just as cheap as ever.

If you speak Spanish, and are an independent traveller who doesn´t need a hostel to organize your social life, then a small hotel is definitely the best option for you! There were at least 3 of them within 1 block of our hotel. We were really happy with the Gran Hotel España (located at Tacuari 90), and ended up staying there for 2 weeks. Interestingly enough, my Peruvian friend Magda thought I was paying way too much for a hotel. Apparently there are many in her neighborhood (Once) charging a fraction of what we paid (AR$100 per night). It definitely pays to shop around if you are staying for a couple of weeks or more in Bs As (and definately avoid places listed in the Lonely Planet, or that have websites... those are signs that you will be paying way, way more than the locals). Just for reference, a local friend was paying AR$800 per MONTH for a 2-bedroom apartment in a residential, non-touristy area... so whatever deals we tourists manage to find on hotels, our lodging is still extremely expensive by local standards.

It's funny to see how the image of the city is promoted to tourists-- it is a stark contrast to the day to day reality for my friends from Buenos Aires. The Lonely Planet actually says that most residents probably spend their days shopping, walking and dancing tango (paraphrasing here), which is totally outrageous! I don't know a single Argentine that actually dances tango or goes to tango shows... that is like saying most New Yorkers wear cowboy hats and dance to country music. Tango is almost exclusively a tourist activity in Buenos Aires... if you want to experience the real Bs As nightlife, hang out in the plaza instead. Or try meeting friends that don't work in a hostel and aren´t using you as a free English language partner.

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Part of trip: Round-the-world Trip

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