The Cult of Wade

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Geo: -34.6118, -58.4173

Breakfast - another decent spread, with meats, cheeses, fruits, and pastries. But the buns ... hard, dry, and crappy! Off to San Telmo with R&D and Wade - Sundays are quite busy here, because of the antiques and crafts market. Wade had purchased a beautiful hat in Chile, but unfortunately, left it on the bus to Mendoza. He bought another one today at the San Telmo market, and Ranjit bought the same hat, immediately after.

This got me thinking ... Wade seems to have developed quite a following amongst the tour group members. Danie seems to be quite taken with Wade, as evidenced by their duet last night, and also when the two of them, along with Rachel, sharing a shoe-fetish moment together after dinner.

It seemed far too easy for Ranjit to buy the EXACT same hat as Wade today. And I must also admit, that I have adopted Wade's signature rolling of the eyes as my own move, as have numerous others. Could there be a cult forming, with Wade being the leader? The Cult of Wade ... it has a nice ring to it, no? This situation warrants further monitoring by local authorities ...

Unfortunately, it was too hot to enjoy the market today - we did a bit of walking and a bit of shopping ... then had to stop for a drink! After, we slowly made our way back towards BA's city centre and were starving, so hoped to grab something quick and delicious at the Palacio de Pizza. But unfortunately, it was closed, as were many other restaurants in the centre. We had a bit of an adventure trying to get cash for R&D - it took several attempts at several different banks before they were able to extract any cash. We couldn't figure out what the problem was ... until ... Ranjit realized that they were entering the PIN for a different account.

What was stupid about the whole thing is that the ATM still lets you go through the motions of withdrawing money, and never rejects the card nor says that you entered the wrong PIN. You end up thinking that there is some other problem. And even when they were finally able to withdraw money, it was only 200-300 pesos, about $65-100 CAD, which doesn't go very far.

Not having much luck finding a quick place for lunch, we decided to grab something in the food court of Galerias Pacifico. They had a fairly fancy fast-food pizza joint, where they actually came out and took your order, and also served you.

Back to the hotel for a quick siesta, before our tango lesson and show. Tango Complejo was a VERY touristy experience - they picked us up, and started off with a lesson. It was kind of fun, but they totally try and make a ton of money by cramming far too many people into a small dance studio.

There were people from another GAP tour group there, but they had already completed their tour and were about to head home. It was hot in the studio, with no A/C, and the instructor closed the windows because of the traffic noise. We finished up the lesson and started dinner.

The meal was pretty bad, but that should've been somewhat expected, given that the whole experience is so touristy. It was open bar, but the wine they served was dreadful. I know that there is no incentive to make it a good meal since they will probably never see any of their customers again, but given that we paid $100 CAD for this evening, a semi-decent meal should be possible, no? I guess their whole plan is to ply customers with cheap alcohol, hoping they will forgot about how atrocious the food is!

The service was also terrible - they took all of our orders individually, but with every dish, they were asking "Who had this?" As a waiter, it shouldn't be that difficult to keep track of who had what. You might as well just serve a buffet, because it would have been simpler for both the customers and waiters.

At least the tango show was enjoyable, despite some cheesy touches to the show. The dancers were quite impressive; I'm not overly familiar with tango, so I didn't expect the dancing to be so athletic, with lifts and tosses. It would've been a much better evening had we eaten elsewhere, and came only for the tango. Oh well, you live and you learn!

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Photos

a
Ranjit and our leader ... uh ... I mean ... Wade, posing with their shiny new hats. Notice some of the neat architecture in the background.

b
Chillin' in the shade and brainstorming - how could we attract more people to our cult?

b1
In BA, you can get ice cream delivered to your door. They must pack it in a lot of dry ice, because it is friggin' HOT here!

b2
Cold, freshly-squeezed OJ - keeping hydrated is a necessity in this heat.

c
We came across this building and inquired as to its availability - any good cult needs a nice building to practice their cult-like activities, no?

d
Any good cult needs to have some icons to revere. This is Santa Gelato, patron saint of ice cream - she looks over the gelato delivery guys in BA, making sure that your ice cream gets to you before melting.

f
Small obelisk in Plaza de Mayo.

g
Catedral Metropolitana.

g2
On our way back towards the hotel, we came across a movie being filmed. Which movie, I have no idea.

g3
Wade is psychic!!! He really had to pee, and joked that he was ready to go right around the next corner, but that with his luck, there would probably be a cop there. And there was!!! Wade, the prophet - the legend grows, as will our cult membership!

h
Neat little plaza in central BA.

i
The big obelisk in town.

i2
When Da Vinci drew the Vitruvian Man to demonstrate ideal human proportions, I highly doubt that Homer Simpson was his inspiration!

j
The inside of Galerias Pacifico.

j1
While waiting for our pizza, Ranjit went shopping for a massaging recliner.

j2
They first brought out some yummy little dense, parmesan-encrusted buns - excellent flavour.

k
We ordered two of their specials that included a pizza for two, and two drinks. Tomato, basil, mozzarella, and ... olives ... yech! I gave Wade all my olives, and one thing better about the pizza here than in Canada is that they only put a single olive on each slice, so it's easy to remove. Once the olives were gone, the pizza was pretty tasty - thin crust, and actually tasted freshly-made, unlike other pizza crusts we have encountered, so far. The fresh basil gave a beautiful, vibrant flavour to the pizza.

k
The instructor started us off by teaching us how to walk like a tango dancer, and commented how we weren't doing it properly . Well, if you can't even take a step without kicking the person if front of you, how could you do it properly???

l
Wine connoisseur, food aficionado, tango dancer, cult leader - Wade's got quite the resume!

m
Our tango instructor, taking Darcie out for a whirl. I think he chose Darcie because there weren't many women in attendance that were shorter than he was!

n
Ahh ... an open window to let in some fresh air into the studio ...