Steak, Tango and Fútbol

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Hi from Buenos Aires everyone,

I thought I’d blog again before I forget everything I’ve seen and done in this crazy city in the space of 3 weeks. I’ve been ridiculously busy, as I always seem to be, but I’ll try not to ramble on for too long!

As promised in my last blog I’m going to start with the journey up from the far south. I decided to break up the epic 70-odd hour bus journey in Puerto Madryn, a place that many fellow-travellers had recommended. The Atlantic coast of Argentina is relatively barren until you get up towards the capital, with Puerto Madryn standing out as an obvious stop-off point due to its famous wildlife reserves. If you want to go whale-watching, swimming with dolphins or diving on the east coast of Argentina – this is the place. I planned to stay two nights in the town so that I had a full day to make a trip the one of the nearby bays. It turned out that it was the ‘off-season’ for whales and dolphins but I heard that there was a place relatively near by (Punto Tumbo) that was home to a colony of roughly one million penguins. That, I had to see.

Luckily I met two guys, as soon as I walked into the hostel, who were looking for a third person to split the cost of a rental car for the day. Coincidentally, they had also been trapped in Torres del Paine (although in the actual park, not the town) and so we shared stories about our contrasting experiences. They told me how amazing the park was; I thanked them heartily…

We headed down to the penguin colony in our knakered-out Clio (bargain at $50 per day), mostly on gravel roads, and arrived at the wind-swept, cold Atlantic coast. And we saw penguins. A LOT of penguins. I had never seen penguins in the wild before and the sight was pretty impressive. It turns out, however, that a side effect of one million penguins living in close proximity is a staggering accumulation of penguin crap. Not only have I now seen one million penguins, I have also smelled them too. I tried to get a sense of the scale of the colony with my ever-degrading camera but unfortunately you weren’t allowed to get close to the main nesting areas. As you can see, they weren’t scared of humans at all and we were told that, if a penguin wanted to cross the walkway to get to the sea, you had to stop and let it pass. It was kind of absurd to see big groups of tourists politely waiting for a fat, slow penguin to waddle past, often stopping in the middle of the path for a few minutes to sunbathe.

Despite the our initial amazement at the sheer number of them, we quickly realised that there is only so much fun you can get out of staring at penguins, so we headed back to the car. We had heard about a town nearby that was the landing-site for a Welsh colony (of people, not penguins…) in the 1860s where they still speak the mother tongue. We still had some of our Km allowance for the day left so we headed off. It was a strange sight to see Welsh flags and signs in both Spanish and Welsh all around the small ‘pueblo’ and there was even a Welsh tea room that Princess Diana had once visited. They were seriously milking this claim to fame (and the Argentine fascination with all things British) and were charging $35 for some sandwiches and a cuppa. ‘Na ffordd’, we thought...


The next day I had another bus booked and this time it was for my final destination – Buenos Aires. It was a 36 hour long-haul but the seats were comfortable and the American guy who sat next to me had a net book loaded with films. We decided that Jurassic Park would be a good choice as the area through which we were travelling is quite renowned for its paleontological discoveries (apparently they found the skeleton of some dinosaur bigger than T-Rex nearby).

We finally made it to the bus terminal in Buenos Aires and a short taxi-ride later I was standing in what would be my home for the next 3 months. It’s a nice apartment, although quite small. Carolina, the lady who owns it and lives there too, is from Colombia and speaks beautiful, clear, slow Spanish, which gives me a nice break at the end of the day! Monica, an Italian, moved in recently and she speaks quite fluently. Neither of them speaks English and they are helping me a lot with my ‘Castellano’. The apartment is in a really convenient location near to all the major attractions and hot-spots in the city. Also, there are huge parks one block away so I can escape the ‘big-city’ feel on particularly roasting days. I now realise why a lot of Argentines leave the city in January and February…The day of my first meeting at the company for which I am interning was a scorcher. The heat here is totally different to that in Santiago as it is much more humid. I managed to take the wrong bus (there are thousands and the system seems more or less arbitrary) and got to the office just in time, sweating buckets – great first impressions…

Rodrigo, the boss, was actually really welcoming, as were my other ‘compañeros’ in the office. The Porteño style of speaking is quite difficult to understand but I am slowly becoming accustomed to it now. I don’t have to ask for things to be repeated as much as I did when I first arrived and I’m finding I can speak increasingly without thinking in English first. I think fluidity is still a way off but I feel quite proficient now. It helps that I am working in Spanish and that the other guys don’t speak English (which makes meetings interesting for me sometimes!) I have been working on market research on the Argentine automotive industry so far as the company is working with Toyota and want to expand to other clients. My job, therefore, has mainly involved reading the Argentine websites and annual reports of all the major manufacturers and also reading such fascinating publications as ‘Warranty Week’ (a weekly newsletter about all-things warranty!) Fortunately I’ve now moved on to helping with the strategy side and so am helping to devise ways of marketing the company’s services and attract future clients. It’s all new to me so I’m learning a lot and, of course, getting to practice my Spanish at the same time.

Outside of work the lifestyle can only be described as bloody mental. It really is no exaggeration that the Porteños don’t even consider eating until midnight and then go out at 2am to party. There is no concept of ‘getting an early night’ and, if you are so bold as to suggest that it’s a Wednesday, you went out on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and therefore REALLY need to sleep, you are met with bewildered looks which soon turn to expressions of pity for the poor foreigner who just can’t hack it!! To be honest though, it’s a lot of fun and ‘going out’ here doesn’t necessarily mean drinking a lot (as it tends to in England!) so it is possible to go out, get back at 2am and get a solid 6 hours’ sleep before getting up for work. All without spending too much as a litre of beer costs about $1.50. I am slowly getting used to this modus operandi, but it can’t be healthy. Oh well, it’s only 3 months!
I have taken measures to dam the onrushing flood of flab that threatens to engulf me due to the combination of incredible (salt-laden) steak, cheap wine and bargain beer. There’s a 5-a-side football team here called BAFA (Buenos Aires Futbol Amigos) which is open to both locals and ‘extranjeros’ alike. There are games 3 times a week and I’ve played a few times so far. It’s a great way to meet other people who either live here or are passing through and they have regular asados and fiestas.

From the photos you can see I’ve done a bit of sightseeing too. The obelisk is probably the most famous landmark here and stands in the middle of the Avenida 9 de Julio (one of the widest avenues in the world, I am told). The Casa Rosada (the Pink House) is the presidential palace, immortalised in many films, perhaps most famously in Evita. It is situated on one side of the Plaza de Mayo around which, every Thursday at 3pm, march a group of women whose husbands were ‘disappeared’ following the military coup of 1930. They are called the Madres de Plaza de Mayo and have been following this ritual faithfully every week, hanging photos of the disappeared around their necks.

I have been exploring the city with Monica’s Italian friends who are doing internships in the Italian Embassy here. I have learnt that after sharing a few bottles of wine with them it is absolutely fatal to bring up the subject of Berlusconi (or, in fact anything vaguely related) as they will launch into impassioned diatribes for hours, hands flying everywhere. I generally just carry on eating/drinking and treat it as if I’m watching a foreign language film. Very fun.

We decided that we couldn’t really live in Buenos Aires for three months without trying some Tango and so found a place that gives lessons and then has a live performance every week. Needless to say, it’s much harder than the pros make it look! The trick is in indicating to your partner in which direction you’re about to spin/twist/stumble only using shifts in your centre of balance. This means that when you’re both novices and haven’t quite learnt to read these subtle signals, the resulting collisions can be catastrophic. Of course it’s always the fault of the ‘caballero’, as he is meant to be leading…

This last weekend was particularly packed. We went out to a ‘boliche’ (club) on Friday and then on Saturday we managed to get tickets for the highly recommended ‘La Bomba de Tiempo’ (Time Bomb), a fifteen-piece drum group that play from midnight until six or seven in the morning. Yesterday (Sunday) I was lounging around in the flat when a friend of a friend called me. I had completely forgotten but he had told me he could get hold of tickets for one of the popular local football clubs (Boca Juniors) a couple of weeks ago. It turned out he had managed to get two tickets for the first game of the new season and asked if I wanted to go. Of course I said yes and it was amazing. The atmosphere and sheer noise in the stadium was incredible and the fans really are nuts. There are huge fences all around the pitch to prevent invasions but this only encourages the nutters to climb to the top to try to get a better view. The Argentines seem to have a different mindset to us Brits when it comes to regard for their own lives – all around the stadium fans clambered along railings and scaled huge walls to hang flags and generally make noise. Unfortunately Boca lost 4-1 (a result that my friend, Sebastian, assured me was highly unusual and unexpected…) but at least we got to see some goals. The fans didn’t stop singing, swearing and shouting until the bitter end.

So that basically sums up my first couple of weeks in Buenos Aires. There’re a lot more that I haven’t included (including more details on the amazing Argentine steak) but I will try to fit that in next time.

Until then, I hope you enjoy the photos!

Tom

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Photos

The tomb of Eva Peron
Couldn't get a better pic as the alley was rammed with tourists

English Clock Tower
Donated by English expats

Comments

[Carlo]

Tango
My favourite Tango is the apple one.. Whey oh.