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We spent a couple of nights at Silvina´s mother´s place (Sonja). She made us very comfortable: cooked us lots of great food and laughed (in good humour) at our bad spanish. Capitan Sarmiento is a nice town. A real town. It was good to walk around a place that real people live, and live seemingly comfortably. There were not any super extravagant houses, like there are in Bariloche, but there were no slums either (like there is in Bariloche.)
Aside - I forgot to mention, in my earlier writing that the second time we came in to Bariloche, it was from the other side and it involved driving through the slum suburb. A town of shanties around and in the rubbish dump. Quite a different picture to the German themed cobble stoned centre full of ice cream and chocolate shops. We talked to Daniel about this and he said it was one of the roughest and poorest Argentine neighbourhoods outside Buenos Aires and Santiago. He said there happened to be some really good rock near this neighbourhood and he had tried to put up some climbs there but some of his friends went to climb there and got robbed at
the family lunch
Daniel, Silvina, Zenon, Sonja and me gun point, so he gave up on that place. -
So, it was good to see some towns existed without that degree of socioeconomic divide. On our first day we met a particularly friendly local when trying to find the supermarket. All I got to say was ¨Disculpe¨ (excuse me) and she exclaimed ¨Touristas!¨ (I don´t think they get many tourists in the town!) She promptly hugged us and kissed us, and on hearing the rest of my question walked us to the ¨best¨ supermarket. Then she gave us her address and phone number if we wanted to come and stay with her! So if we can use that one random example, plus Silvina´s mother as an indication, the locals are very friendly!
Not wanting to let the grass grow under our feet, dust settle on our packs, or the itch on our feet grow too bad though, we stayed only two days here before heading to the Big City - Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Unfortunately I don´t think we made the most of what the city had to offer, as we were both feeling very tired and found it busy, chaotic, noisy, polluted and muggy.
Jono taking it easy
in Sonja´s courtyard, Capitan Sarmiento We also happened to stay in a hostel full of nocturnal 20 something year olds who seemed to think the whole world could either party with them or suffer, so that did not help. I think, in my new phase as an over, gulp, 30 year old, I need to have quiet places to sleep if I am to muster the energy for city life. but it wasn´t all bad. We stayed in that particular hostel ´cause Laurence and Phillipe and a Dutch guy that we also met on the gringo trail in Patagonia, were all staying there, so it was good to hang out with them a bit. On the first night we went out to see a percussion band in an open air venue, so that was fun. It was great to dance - something I have missed a lot since leaving home, and the venue was really cool, fenced off from the street but open air. Atleast, it was open air until the rain storm when we all had to move inside, but before that it was awesome dancing and watching lightening streak through the dark brooding skies, as though nature was doing the lighting for the
band. I love lightening storms too. Something else I had not really experienced since being home. The muggy hot build up, the electricity, the refreshing down poor and then the freshness and cleanness that even city streets can have afterwards. When the band had finished, the party continued out on the streets. People dancing, drumming and singing and partially blocking the traffic, which had no choice but to slow to a crawling pace to get past. One car beeped its horn in time with the drumming as it went and its passengers were dancing out the windows. And this was only a Monday night! This city definitely knows how to party. I kind of wish I was in my younger 20s and it was a weekend. Or atleast, that I had more energy than I did. I guess you do not have to be in your 20s to party, its just that I can not seem to party any old time any more. I have to be in the mood.
Anyhow, enough self indulgent reminiscing. We spent the rest of our time wandering the streets in Recoleta, the expensive fancy suburb in Buenos Aires. We went to the huge
cemetery there where all the rich and famous are buried. It is like a suburb of its own, and the graves are like houses. We also saw an excellent Cuban photography exhibition. The next day we went to another neighbourhood: San Telmo and wandered its cobbled streets, checking out its food, craft and antique markets, and then on our last day we had lunch at an out door restaurant in plaza Dorrego (also in San Telmo) and watched a tango performance which was pretty special. Such a complex and beautiful dance. Our guide book tells us that san Telmo used to be a fashionable place to live until around the 1850´s when 20 years of epidemics spread through the area and meant the rich found new places to live to the North (Recoleta). The large buildings were subdivided and turned into budget accommodation for less wealthy first generation immigrants. Now the suburb is a mix of working class and artists, but is slowly becoming trendy (and expensive again) for many of these people to continue affording to live here. 20 years ago the area would be full of art studios, now it is full of galleries and expensive boutique stores.
It is interesting how suburbs in a City shift over time, displacing and replacing people as they do.
Speaking of the displaced, Buenos Aires, not surprisingly has plenty, and most disturbing are the amount of children alone on the streets begging for money.
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