It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…that would pretty much sum up the day I had yesterday.
I´ll start out with the morning…and you´ll see the odd kind of luck that I have…misfortunate yet fortunate…
So yesterday morning, I had Laura at the hostel download my pictures to CD, since I couldn´t find a USB port in town. She was having trouble putting the pics on CD — getting some weird error message, but told me that she would try when it was quieter…so I left to venture out upon town.
I internetted for a while..then headed to find some lunch. I was in the mood for empanadas. Yesterday, I had found an empanada place that I wanted to try out. It was called Solo Empanadas on Cerrito. It´s like a fast food, carry-out empanada place. I got a chicken, beef, cheese and onion, and a dulce de leche empanada and a Pepsi for 4.5 pesos, somewhere about $1.50. I decided to head to the Plaza de Congreso, a plaza that I had not been to yet…and eat my empanadas in the park there. I was so impressed by all the green areas here, so I figured that is how I would spend my lunchtime…
And then a series of events happened…just being at the wrong place at the wrong time…
Well, I saw some sketchy figures around the Thinker statue, but just thought they were youngsters (late teens-early 20s) hanging out and a group of men hanging out. But I saw other people in the Plaza, other people were being touristy and taking pictures, others were walking dogs..it seemed safe.
NOTE TO SELF: Make observations…if something seems in the least bit sketchy, get the hell away! Mark that under lessons learned…
So anyways, I was done eating my lunch, then started to take pictures of the Palacio de Congreso. A young Argentinian couple with a beautiful Siberian husky asked me where I was from. The girl´s name is Maria, and she is 20 years old. The guy´s name is Damien, he´s 24 years old. Maria is originally from Bariloche, while Damien had lived in BsAs all his life. They were extremely sweet and welcomed me with open arms. We talked for a while, well over half an hour. We talked about many things from US politics, to Argentinian politics, to our education, and what our jobs were. I could tell that they were ver much in love.
Plaza de Congreso is a dog friendly area in BsAs. People go there to walk their dogs, dog walkers go there as well. Families also go there because there is a little carnival area in the plaza.
Another young guy came up and started conversation with us as well. A character, whose eyes were a bit glazed over. But it seemed like Maria and Damien knew them. So I saw no harm in him. I showed Maria the pictures I had taken…she´s been in BsAs for a few years, but has not been to the Cemetario Recoleta, nor the San Telmo Sunday markets. They laughed at the fact that I took a picture of the Bife de Chorizo I had the day before..real Argentinian food! The other guy took the camera to look at the pictures, admiring them. Then gave the camera back to Maria.
We talked quite a bit more, Damien gave me his cell # so that we could meet up again during my stay here…I told them that I had to be at the Plaza de Mayo at 3:45, which was impending. I took a picture of the group of Argentinians that I had befriended in the Plaza. Then was going to have the glazed-eye guy take a picture of me, Maria, and Damien…
And that´s when it happened…the mother fucker took of running…I have never seen anyone run so fast in my entire life. I stood there, dumbfound, in shock, like a deer in headlights, just standing there, mouth gaping open, not knowing what to do. Damien ran after him, but came back a few minutes later saying that the guy just kept on running and running and running and running…
My natural reaction was to start crying and panicing a bit. Wow. That´s the first time I´ve been robbed or had anything stolen off of me. It was that fucking easy, I was totally taken. Here I am in what I felt to be one of the safest South American cities that I´ve been in thus far…standing there like an idiot, robbed.
Maria and Damien tried to calm me down. They said that that guy (about 19 yrs old) is at the park every day, and he will probably return. They told me to call Damien´s cell, to get back in touch with them..and if they were able to get it back, they would give it to me. They also pleaded with me that not all people in BsAs are like that. That there are good people here. They knew I´d only been here a few days, and it was my first time here. And what a hell of an impression to make!
It was already 3:45pm, and I had to meet Angie at the Plaza de Mayo, which is about 12 blocks away. It was already late, and I was just stunned at what just happened. Maria and Damien do seem genuine. But well, the thing is..really, who do I trust? I want to go with my gut instinct and say that they are good people. Just by the way they dressed, the way they acted, the fact that the had a very well kept dog, and that they were educated…my instinct says they are good people. The other guy seemed more of a person I would put under the category of ´troubled youth´…he had a slur to his speech…I had a really difficult time understanding him. But he had a nice MP3 player…I bet he stole that off of someone, too!!! ugh! Fucker!
I learned from the other night´s police incident that, if a scene is caused, people like to rubberneck. I told Maria and Damien that I had to meet a friend at Plaza de Mayo and I was late. There was really nothing I could do about the situation that had just happened. Tears were streaming from my eyes down my cheeks. Curious onlookers stared.
I ran down Avenida de Mayo, dodging cars on the way, to meet Angie, crying most of the way. The crying stopped when the emotional pain became physical pain in my shins, trying to get to Plaza de Mayo as soon as I could. I hate being late…but I had to run 12 blocks in 0 minutes!!! I´m pretty sure everone I encountered thought I was crazy. Crying, running, worried, mad.
I finally got to Plaza de Mayo right at 4pm. I was hoping so much that Angie wouldn´t be mad that I was late, but I was pretty sure she´d understand..I had a hell of a story to tell. I ran to the monument, looked around, didn´t see her, then I hear her yell my name.
Out of breath, I tell her that I´m sorry I´m late and between gasps for air and sobs (I started crying again when I saw her), I told her of my fate that day. She told me that the tickets were sold out, so we couldn´t get in..so me being late was no problem..phew! We sat on a park bench in front of the monument for a while till I was able to calm down a bit. Just having her there to talk to, and seeing a familiar face, although I´d just met her the night before, was comforting. I felt a lot better.
I took a deep breath, sat for a while longer. I said to myself…It could have been much worse…I do have my passport, I do have my money…
And..with the odd luck that I have…I did ask the hostel to burn a CD for me, so even if they were not able to burn a CD, they would have it on their computer. All hope was not lost. The only pictures I lost were those that I took yesterday…
Speaking of the photos I took yesterday…they were of the Palacio de Congreso, of Damien and Maria and the mother fucker who stole my camera…just slit my skin open to a gaping wound, pour salt on the wound, then squeeze lemon juice all over it…there´s a picture of the fucker on the memory card of the camera…
It´s very sad. A part of travelling for me, is to meet and interact with the locals, learn about the life and culture through them. But who can you really trust? I don´t want this one fucker to ruin my time here, or my thoughts about the people here..it´s an isolated incident. And, with all the travelling I´ve done..I guess something was just bound to happen soon…
I knew I had to work past it. There is hope…the pictures are recoverable…AND…ironically, I have an extra camera on me! What kind of luck is that 😉 Last year, the Minolta (the one that was stolen) broke on me when huge Andean condors were flying overhead…the camera quit focusing, I got it fixed pretty recently. But still didn´t completely *trust* it. So I brought another ´just in case´camera, an old bulky Canon digital…just in case the Minolta broke, or in this case, if it was stolen! How crazy is that?
Angie and I headed over to the Museo de la Ciudad, since it was nearby. It is in a historic building. It was not a museum about the city itself, rather had random exhibits. One half of the museum had old toys — it showcased odd toys such as creepy antique dolls, and an Argentinian style monopoly game with Estancias.
The other half of the museum had an exhibit about beauty and health. It had old objects dealing with beauty and health, such as corsets, grooming tools, medicine bottles, etc. Even the toilet of the museum had exhibits in it!
Down the road a bit and still part of the museum was a door exhibit. It housed old doors and different styles of doors.
It was about an hour till whatever was happening at the Plaza de Mayo for the trabajadores. We went to a cafe, had hot chocolate and some alfajores until about 6:30. We went back to the Plaza de Mayo, and it was quiet…we thought it would be some sort of rally for the Peronistas…we went to the Cathedral, the first church in BsAs, to see what was going on. It was just some sort of memorial service commemorating Eva Peron as it was the anniversary of her death. We left the cathedral..it was just a service, nothing more, no crazy rally or anything. Then headed back to the hostel.
In the evening, Angie suggested us treating ourselves to a nice dinner. We went to the Museo de Tango nearby to eat. We got there and the guy asked if we had reservations…we told him we did not. Since it was just the two of us, there was space. It happened that we stumbled upon the night of a show. Dinner and a show, a real treat!
Next to us sat two men, who we got to know. One, the son, was in his mid 40´s, a university professor of History and Geography in Valparaìso, Chile, and his father, possibly in his 70s. It was is father´s dream to come to Buenos Aires and it was the father´s first time. The father was a singer of Tango music in Valparaìso. Tango was his life. The father smiled the entire time, sang to the music, moved his hands emotionally to the music. The son was quite reserved.
We had a good dinner..I had grilled chicken with peppers and onion on a skewer with mashed potatoes. Angie and I shared a bottle of Cabernet Sauvingnon from Mendoza.
The show commenced at 10pm with 3 pairs of amazing Tango dancers and two singers, the lady singer was originally from Russia and she was amazing. I was awed at the show. It was awesome!
After the show, dancing of the crowd commenced. It was not a large crowd at the restaurant..but enough to not want to dance in front of 😉 A man who worked at the restaurant asked me to dance, and I told him I did not know how to tango, so he taught me. I was so clumsy, smiling, lauging throughout the whole thing. Angie danced with the father, whose was having the time of his life. I danced with the father a few times..a cute old man…nothing too hard, he knew that I couldn´t dance the tango or salsa. And I danced with the man from the restaurant again, another tango, and he taught me a few tricks, like weaving your legs back and forth in front, then in back, and jumping. It was so much fun. Angie and I were having the time of our lives!!!
What started out as a shitty day ended up to be an awesome one. Funny how that happens!
Tags: Buenos Aires, Travel
Marisa