Spicy salsa…
Monday, April 21st, 2008Hah! I wish! What I wouldn’t give for a nice spicy salsa that doesn’t taste like half a salt-shaker worth of salt was sprinkled on top of it. And a chip…they’re really not big into corn here so tortilla chips aren’t really big here…actually, chips in general aren’t really big here…
Anyway, we’re back in Buenos Aires…our last leg of our grand tour. We’re kind of sad, but are looking forward to going back to the states Sort of. Anyway, as usual, we’re conflicted. Too many options, not enough life!
So the main reason we’re in Buenos Aires for like 2 weeks is because we wanted to take some salsa lessons. Because, let’s face it, they tend to have WAY more rhythm down here. Or more Latin rhythm anyway. We saw some little kids in some parades that moved their hips better than a belly dancer…
So we started with Cuban style. Which is way different than we were used to. We go to this class at this Cuban restaurant and there were beginners and advanced people. We’re with the beginners and it’s kind of lame. Almost like an aerobics class. But scarily, the advanced class isn’t that good either. I mean, not any better than the advanced classes at the Century Ballroom. And apparently Latin people aren’t born with rhythm because man, there were some scary left-feet going on. Oh, and there were like 75 people in a pretty small space so you couldn’t really hear with the music going on and couldn’t really see the teacher with the music going on. So we’re like, okay, good experience, not going back…
So after some consideration we decide to spring for private lessons. We found this couple on the internet, gave them a call and headed to Palermo, where they teach lessons at their apartment. Wow, talk about different!
First off, they were correcting all the things we were doing wrong. All the things that made things really awkward…I mean moves that were doable but kind of uncomfortable? Plus they concentrated on feeling the music…where we had taken lessons it was about staying on beat and doing the moves whenever you wanted to regardless of the music…here they want you to listen to the music and dance TO the music. Totally a different kind of thing going on.
The only problem with being in Buenos Aires right now is the smoke. Oh geez, the friggin’ smoke. So, here’s the deal – well, in my opinion of course – the government, under the severely plasticized el Presidente Christina decided to increase export taxes on soybeans. Essentially, it was to keep inflation down since the government wants the farmers to produce domestically. Well, when you have places like China that are willing to pay a lot more for food to feed their people than Argentina – it’s kind of hard to pass that kind of thing up. So the farmers got upset. Instead of being diplomatic about the whole thing she pretty much told the farmers that they were rich anyway and to suck it up. So they struck. For something like 21 days. They went to the roads and barred all trucks from going to any of the major cities. It was amazing when we went into a grocery store around day 14 and there was quite literally nothing but scraps in the produce and meat sections.
So anyway, they ended the strikes with the promise of talks with the government. Which don’t seem to be going very well. But, coincidentally, some also decided to burn the fields to get rid of weeds. I’m sure it’s unrelated :). So, in places like Buenos Aires, they closed down 3 major roads, which means that buses were stuck in Retiro (the bus station in Buenos Aires), the airports were shut down for a day because of all the smoke and people were having respiratory problems. But they say the smoke is from organic materials so it shouldn’t be hazardous or anything. OKAY!
But, it’s slowly moving on, and we bop off back to the USA in a few days – to Houston, taking the slow trip back to Seattle. We’re looking forward to it. Argentina has been really fabulous, but we’re looking forward to returning to the states…
JohnCin