Argentina (or: Why My Efforts to Become a Vegetarian Failed)

By the first moment Colleen and I arrived in Buenos Aires, I had already gotten the music from "Evita" stuck in my head and indeed the first thing I said to the taxi driver was to go to the Casa Rosada. As it turned out, the Plaza de Mayo where the building is located was close to our hostel and we returned there several times. I also ended up buying a book called "Santa Evita" about the reality and the myth about Eva Peron, which went well with my book about that OTHER famous figure in the musical, "The Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Guevara.

We stayed at a place called Milhouse Hostel, which had a fantastic word-of-mouth reputation despite not being in Lonely Planet that it certainly lived up to. Colleen definitely had some reluctance at staying in a hostel, but ended up partying more than I did. The people running the hostel were really suave, flamboyant Latin American types who were a lot of fun and organized walking tours and pub events. On the first day, we went on a walking tour through the upscale and historical Recoleta neighbourhood, which was followed by a walk through the Recoleta cemetery where of course Eva Peron is buried.

We followed that by looking at the Buenos Aires Museum of Latin American art, which was interesting and had stuff by all of the great Latin American masters including Frida Kahlo, etc. We had flown in overnight so decided not to go out that night, and the next day we went on another walking tour through the San Telmo neighbourhood.

This was where we saw a lot of the best architecture of Buenos Aires, and it wasn't for nothing that it reminded me of Paris, because that was what it was exactly modeled after. On the walls we saw lots of tango paraphernalia as Buenos Aires is indeed the world capital of tango culture and I became very entranced with the sexy, sultry music that played everywhere we walked. For lunch that day, we went to a restaurant that served the famous Argentine steak for which I sacrificed my long self-imposed red-meat fast. Let me tell you: it was worth it. It was the juiciest, most succulent steak I have ever tasted, and this is from someone who doesn't even especially like steak. North American steaks seem to be a lot tougher.

The tour ended at the Plaza de Mayo where we saw a protest of the mothers of the disappeared, who have been protesting for many years about the disappearance of people during the recent time in which Argentina was run fascist-style by the military. After China, it was kind of refreshing to see a protest, although there were still many police on hand to make sure that nothing too much happened. At the plaza I bought some Yerba Mate, which I have been completely hooked on for several years, and later that night I learned how to drink it Argentine-style. From here we went to the Museo de la Casa Rosada to learn more about Argentine political history (many, many presidents who ran for very short periods of time, and a large painting of the Perons) and then to an old, classic-style bar (of which there are many) with a guy from our hostel and we got to see a live tango show! Obviously I was very excited to watch some tango and the dances were interspersed with live versions of tango classics (including "Volver," which was central to Pedro Almodovar's latest movie). After this we returned to the hostel, rested for a bit, and were ready to leave at 2am to go to a club. I must say, it was the craziest club I have ever been to. There was a live show cross-dressers, dancers, and as much sexual innuendo as I've ever seen. We pushed our way to the front of the stage, where we were able to do shots of champagne from the dancers. At around 6am, innuendo gave way to a female stripper, all the women vanished and were replaced with scores of men taking pictures with their cell phones, and it was time to go back to the hostel.

The next day we were obviously a little bit tired and decided to take a bit easy, sleeping in and going down the street where for USD $1 the vendors destroyed about 12 oranges to produce a fresh cup of orange juice for you. We went to La Boca, which is the working class district that has buildings painted many different colours. We then went to the Museo de Evita to appease my Evita fixation that began when we entered the country, and the Museo des Belles Artes where we saw lots of classic paintings in a world-class collection.

From here, we took an overnight bus to Cordoba. This would have seemed a bit easy, except that our bus from Cordoba either did not come or did not have anything indicating that it was going to Cordoba, and found a way to leave without us. When we tried to board another bus with the same company, the driver took our tickets to let us on, only to change his mind and tell me to go to the office to change our tickets. I asked him to give me the full ticket back, instead of just the stub, but he said it wouldn't be a problem. It was, however, and even though I went running back to get the full tickets, I was too late. We then went back to the office where we argued with the company saleswoman for about half an hour. It was here that I got to use the full extent of my Spanish, such as "el conducteur VA con YO TICKET!" There were a couple of nice Argentine ladies who argued on our behalf, and I picked up such words as "turistas... no bueno impresion de Argentina." We ended up paying full price from another company. Fortunately, we still arrived at Cordoba on time, and took a day trip to Alta Gracia to see Che Guevara's childhood home. It was interesting to visit this place having been to Cuba, and on the way there a local woman told me that Fidel Castro had recently visited the house before he got sick; it was even because of his extensive travelling in South America that he started to fall ill.
From here we went around Cordoba, doing some shopping and seeing the university, which is the oldest in Argentina, before heading back to BA for another day of sightseeing and shopping, and then headed back home via George Bush International Airport (no joke) in Houston.

Back from South America...

I actually came back several months ago, but I haven't had a chance (or haven't gotten around to) updating the blog. So here goes:
By the time my sister Colleen and I arrived in the Lima airport, I was a little exhausted. Still, I was not exhausted enough to go with the cheaper option for the taxi to the hotel. I soon learned that I made a mistake when the driver crossed himself and proceeded to take us through a maze of dangerous-looking sidestreets... and keep in mind that this was at 1am! There were a lot of scary-looking locals. Finally, we arrived at the hotel with the thought that we might just not leave it for the three days that we were there. Then, when we signed in, I learned something about Peruvian customs: you need to keep a tiny slip of paper they give you upon entering the country. Of course I had managed not to do this, and was therefore alarmed at the possibility of being turned back onto those dangerous streets. Fortunately, we were allowed to stay and the next morning we learned that it wasn't a big deal, it just meant that I would have to pay USD $25 upon leaving. I think it's just a conspiracy to rip off foreigners.
Once we managed to sleep off the trip and muster up the courage to leave the hotel, we learned that Lima is much safer-looking during the day than at night, although the hotel clerk still wrote down the license plate numbers of the taxi cabs he stopped for us. In Peru, anyone can be a taxi driver. It's just a matter of putting a cardboard sign on the roof of your car. We went to an old colonial church, one of the oldest in Peru and one of the most spectacular as well, with a dust-filled library and scary catacombs.

The next day we headed for Pachacamac, which is an archaeological site located close to Lima. After trying with broken Spanish (I've had exactly one lesson) to find out how to take the bus there, we headed back to the hotel and got a cab. The site was interesting with the Temple of the Sun being a highlight, as well as there being some other Incan ruins. We managed to take the bus back to Lima, and were dropped off not far from the museum of erotic art. It was news to us that the Incans were so famous for their erotic art, but indeed they are, and it made for some interesting photo-ops and souvenirs.
The next day we went to the national museum of Peru, which holds the largest collection of Incan antiques. It was interesting, but the highlight was really a photo exhibition of the recent civil war from which the country is still recovering. What made it even better was that we met some locals around our age who spoke good English and were able to tell us quite a bit about it, and then invited us out to a restaurant to try the local ceviche, a dish of raw whitefish, onions and lemon juice that was really good, and then back to one of their houses.

Unfortunately, it was time to leave for Cusco, which is half modern city and half ancient colonial style city. You can take a wild guess which part is meant for tourists and which we stayed in. There were a lot of beautiful cobblestone streets that winded around and lots of big, open plazas. We enjoyed it while frantically trying to book a trip to Machu Picchu the next day, which was a little difficult because it just happened to be peak tourist season AND a national holiday in Peru. We still managed fortunately to book a trip there, where we went the next day, and all I can say about it is that words cannot do it very good justice. Maybe pictures can be a bit better. I don't know. I was interested to see it because parts of the area were used in Werner Herzog's nutty, mystical, brilliant movie "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and I could understand why he was drawn to such an intriguing place. There's something about a small city on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere that gives it a sort of transcendent quality.

After this, we quickly jetted to Puno, located at the mouth of Lake Titicaca, which is close to the Bolivian border. The titi is for Peru, the caca for Bolivia according to the tour guide. We took a cheap night bus there and got the most comfortable seats that lean back for the trip. Unfortunately, we were not aware that the bus would not have heating, and we nearly froze to death in the high altitude late at night.

Lake Titicaca, once we got there, was definitely one of the highlights, as it was fascinating to see an indigenous culture that has been largely preserved, even though it raises the question of how much tourism impacts it and to what extent the influence is positive. I tried to rationalize it by believing that at least the tour group was locally owned and treated the locals well according to Lonely Planet, but I was still left with some questions. We saw the locals who worked on islands made entirely of reeds (historically, but mostly for the benefit of tourists today) and then went to a bigger island where there was a festival, put on mostly for tourists but which was interesting nonetheless. The lake offered some stunning views and once we returned to Puno we got to observe some locals who dressed traditionally but normally, not for the sake of tourists. This got me interested although there was still an extent to which we were kept at arm's length.


From there we moved on to Argentina... more on that later.