Buenos Aires

---

The arrival to Buenos Aires was an experience on its own. Just before landing, a storm took upon us, and we had to stay in the air for two hours, waiting for the storm to leave. In the middle of the clouds, flashes everywhere! It was 2 in the morning when we finally arrived to the city. By then, my host family was surely sleeping, and so I decided to go to the hostel instead. When I gave him the address, the taxi driver with a grim on his face informed me that it will be extra since the streets are flooded. Crap, I thought. I am getting screwed here. I also thought of Czech taxi drivers and the poor tourists in Prague who have no clue how much they really are paying for that short ride to the city center. In the end, it turned out that my driver was right, though. There was water everywhere! In fact, parts of the city lost light for several days. It rained pretty much the whole first week of my stay here. Warm, muggy, and lots of water everywhere. Last two weeks were quite nice, though, sunny and warm and so I could finally take out my camera and walk without a rain jacket.

I stayed in an ancient colonial apartment building in the city center, with three Argentinean ladies and loads of international students, most of them taking Spanish classes and traveling around. My first week it was just me and four girls: Jessica from the US, Kudrat from India, Anna Marie from Quebec, and Amelie from Germany. Second week, more people moved in - Ana from Brasil, Jordie from Netherlands, Stefanie from Switzerland, and Dror from Israel. Not quite the same home stay as in Chile when I was the only student in the family, but this set up certainly had its advantages also since there was always someone to share a bottle of wine or go out with. I also met here Nick from Scotland here with whom I later traveled to Iquazu and Salta.

Upon arriving from the mountains in the south, this never-ending and never-sleeping city at first felt quite overwhelming. With the exception of the River Plata’s delta in the north and to the west, there are no natural barriers to the urban sprawl, and with 15 million inhabitants, the city has made its mark in the landscape. Still in the hiking mode, the first week I walked perhaps 10 km every day, but later gave in and shared the fuming and overcrowded micros with the Portenos (inhabitants of BA). With its wide avenues, diverse neighborhoods, countless coffee shops, and loads of interesting people in the streets, the city keeps you entertained. Portenos love to hang out outside - sipping a cup of coffee or watching a street performance of tango. These people are obsessed with tango! Tango music, shoes, performances, everywhere - restaurants, bars, and even streets. I soon gave in, got myself a pair of nice shoes and took couple lessons as well. The two classes could not have been more different. My first encounter with this sensual dance was at a class with a great majority of men and so I soon found myself practicing also the women steps, in the arms of a man. The fact that when the dance was invented only men were allowed to practice it (then the dance was supposed to be too dirty for women), was not very reassuring when I was paired with a monstrous man from Amsterdam and he squeezed me in his arms. At the second class I was the only guy and I danced with two beautiful girls from Brasil - Ana and Claire. I wish I had discovered this place sooner than my last weekend in BA!

The food was spectacular. However, that only if you are a carnivorous type. The first week was tough, and the monstrous portions of beef sirloin made me sick. However, I persevered, thinking of my brother and his passion for a nice raw, bloody steak, and by second week I was having beef for lunch and dinner. Thank you Maggie for your restaurant recommendations! Coffee was also excellent here - influence of Italian coffee makers? Walking in the city and stopping in a random coffee shop to read a book and watch people was definitely one of my favorite pass time activities here.

The city’s reputation as being one of the top party spots in South America proved to be quite correct. Clubs are open until 6 in the morning and you can even go to after-hours parties that continue until noon. Techno and Latin music clubs seemed to be most prevalent. And be prepared - people go quite wild. In general, this is quite an open culture, and so you can see people dancing barely dressed, making out on the stage or in the park (I felt like I was back in Prague!). Avenida Corrientes is the Broadway of Buenos Aires. Countless theaters, restaurants, bookshops. We went for an interesting Tango musical there, and also many times to movie theaters since there happened to be an international film festival in BA at that time. And then the many museums and numerous parks scattered throughout the city’s diverse barrios inviting for exploration. After three weeks, I felt like I barely started getting to know the city.

One of my more memorable moments in Buenos Aires was the visit of Boca, its historical port and also home to the celebrated and sanctified football team Boca Juniors. The contrast between the small touristy super-clean microcenter and the surrounding streets could not be greater. The port is pretty much dead now and serves as a graveyard of ships, many of which are now occupied by questionable types. The guide book strongly recommends not diverting from the center of this neighborhood, but we did, to see how the real people in Boca live, and to have a lunch in a spectacular restaurant recommended by an Argentinean friend Maggie. The presence of Mercedes and BMW cars in the streets (parked among rotting trucks and semi-naked kids running in the streets) indicated that it was not that unsafe after all. Only later did I realize that these cars belong to the rich locals that no longer live here and come to the barrio in their secured vehicles just for a visit. Just two days later, a friend of mine was jumped there and his two friends were robbed of everything, at the daylight and with many people watching.

Many Portenos head to Uruguay on the weekends - for the beaches and to seek tranquility. I, too, felt compelled to see this country that many Argentineans consider just another province of their nation, but which in fact is a very interesting country in its own right. The fact is that while Uruguay has always been overshadowed by its larger neighbor, it has its own distinct culture and has maintained a very independent internal and external policy. Contrary to Argentina which has experienced many fluctuations, both economically and politically, Uruguay has been, with short interruptions, a stable and democratic country. Colonial de Sacramento is just an hour away by a boat, but could not be more different from its neighbor on the opposite side of the river. A quaint, historic city with immaculately maintained streets and parks, and citizens moving slowly like the many ships parked in its harbor. The most exciting part in the city is its 5 mile beach stretching to the north of the city, reaching to its poor brother Real de San Carlos. Mate and bikes are the two obsessions here. Essentially the whole stretch of the beach was occupied by couples, families, and groups of friends sipping their mate drinks and leaning on the bikes or historic cars. A shock comes when one approaches Real. 100 years ago in an attempt to make this a resort town, a large bull stadium was built here, only to be abandoned two years later because of ban on bull fights in Uruguay. The visit of this barren and decaying building is quite eerie. In a bold move a few years ago Sheraton built a new resort complex with an 18-hole golf course and a luxury hotel just few hundred meters away from these ruins. I wonder how long will they last?

Quite like in Santiago, there was the price for staying in BA. Albeit a very limited use of cars in the center, its many parks and wide avenues, the city seemed suffocating in pollution. Interestingly, the city does not sort garbage. This is done by the poor. The whole families come here to break the plastic bags in the streets and painstakingly sort through the rubbish to select paper, steel, plastic, and load them onto small portable carriages to be later sold at the recycling centers in the suburbs. The government even sends special buses and trains for them; apparently this is the cheapest way to recycle. It makes for quite a surreal sighting when in the morning hours the city is full of these laborers mingling with those returning home from clubs and bars. With over 50% of population in Argentina below official government poverty level, there are many hands willing to come here take part in greening of the city.

While the country has recorded an amazing economic growth in the recent years (with GDP expanding by 5+% per year), most Argentineans that I talked to seemed to be quite depressed and skeptical about the future of their country. It was obvious that they loved their country, but were disillusioned by the hardship they suffered in last few decades. This was in stark contrast to some more well-off Argentineans who were definitely optimistic and predicted further growth of the economy. The military regime in the 60s and 70s, the inflation in the 80s and mid 90s and the devastating 2001 recession essentially wiped out most of the middle class. It is now hard to believe now that Argentina was the top 7th economy in the world in the 20s. What remains as the evidence of the country’s golden age are the awesome mansions sprinkled throughout the capital, most of them built by the rich estancia owners and the urban elite 100 years ago, and the wide promenades and plazas. Can Argentina rise again? It certainly has the land size and population to do it. Unlike Chile, much of Argentina’s natural resources remain to be untapped. Furthermore, most of the recent growth has been accomplished without any substantial foreign investment and very limited internal bank loans (both deposits and bank loans are at a substantially lower level than before the 2001 crash). Export, mainly of soy, has driven the growth and maintained inflow of cash in the economy. The hope here is that once the foreign capital does reach the country, the growth could accelerate further.

What remains to be a deterrent to a more stable growth and confidence of foreign investors and the citizens are the shady political climate and the moribund of hyper inflation that continue to haunt this nation. In the latest scandal, the directors of the statistical office were sacked by the President - according to media due to their unwillingness to manipulate the latest inflation figures. Now, the inflation seems to have escalated to double digits, despite the administration’s efforts to fix prices of utilities, signaling that the economy might be overheating. Pretty much everybody I talked to seemed to be disillusioned with the country’s leadership (a bad sign for Mr. Kirshner’s ambitions to be reelected?), and most seemed to be concerned about inflation, which had been artificially contained by government fixing of utility prices, a situation that seems unsustainable. It is yet to be seen if Mr. Kirshner will choose to run for the President again this year or instead he will support his wife, now the senator, to take the office so that he could be reelected after her term would be over in the next decade. Sounds like the Bush/Clinton dynasty in the US?

---