It Takes Two to Tango

I think I was just in a mood yesterday. I had been walking around the center in the middle of rush hour, people bumping into me, dodging cars, I was a bit annoyed…luckily, it only lasted for a few hours.

Being in the city was really getting to me today. The hoards of people, the car dodging, the constant squeeking of bus breaks…

I know I´m not much of a city person when I travel. That´s why I never stay in the big cities very long. It´s day 4, and I´m ready to leave BsAs. It`s fun when it`s new and everything. But man, now it´s just become overwhelming…gotta stick it out here till Sunday tho, that´s when Sean will come, then we´ll be off to Sierra la Vigilancia.

I have some things to do here still, like find out about busses to Iguazu, lodging, trains to Mar del Plata, etc etc etc.

Not sure what´s on the plate for tomorrow, but I think I´m going to check out the Madres marching at the Plaza de Mayo, see what that´s all about…maybe do the Casa Rosada thing tomorrow — it didn´t work out today. You have to get the ticket yourself — only one per person. So I may try to stand in line tomorrow for it…

Still lots to do around here…like going to La Tigre, and I´m thinking I may want to make a daytrip to La Colonia, just to get away from the hustle and bustle of BsAs.

I have yet to go to the rock climbing gym…it´s a bit aways, have to take the subway to get there. I emailed the guy from rockclimbing.com who is here in BsAs, mentioning that I may want to check out the Realization gym on Friday or Saturday. Sounding like a bum…

Will try and put some more pics on the site tonight…

Laura at the hostel was able to burn my pics onto a CD…yes!!!

Here´s a teaser pic from my first day in BsAs…

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!

Yup, it finally happened to me. After these years of travelling and experience, I finally got robbed…more details to come tomorrow…

Don´t worry, I´m okay, still have my passport and money, it´s just my camera and my pride that is gone…

Julio 25, 2005 – Lunes

I had typed out quite a bit, then it mysteriously disappeared (mystery keystrokes that make your entire post delete..ugh)…so here´s a shorter version of what I did yesterday…

…I went to the tourist office on Santa Fe to pick up a map of the city. From there, I headed on to Plaza San Martìn since it was just down the road.

Plaza San Martìn is an area with a park, huge trees, and a few sculptures. There is a monument with General? San Martìn on a horse, a 3D sculptural relief on the bottom depicting a battle.

I walked to the other side of the park to find a nice view of the Torre de lost Ingleses, a clock tower in the middle of a park. And then walked down the steps donated by American Express to find 2 armed military men standing in rigid military form in front of a memorial wall (similar to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC) with the names of fallen soldiers from the Falklands/Malvinas war in 1982. Their names etched in stone, with an eternal flame on the top left corner of the memorial wall. As I left the memorial, one of the guards gave me the evil eye.

From there, I decided to make my way up to Recoleta to see the cemetary made famous by the Amazing Race. Along the way, I encountered many beautiful plazas in Recoleta. A note about Recoleta — you have to watch where you step because there is dog shit everywhere!!! Professional dog walkers walk many dogs at a time. I saw two fo them, each with at least 7 dogs. And I can´t even walk the 3 of mine!

I arrived at Plaza Francia, a shaded green plaza with a huge tree and a large monument. Then headed on to the cemetary.

The Cemetario Recoleta was inaugurated on Nov 17, 1822 as the first public cemetary in the city. It is 54,843 square meters in area and has about 4800 vaults. The mausoleums in the cemetary are anything but simple. They are the most ornate I have ever seen. You can see varying styles of architecture, sculptures, and stone material.

The cemetary holds many of Argentina´s elite and famous, and military heroes. The most famous mausoleum is of the Duarte family. That is where Eva Peròn lies at rest. At the Duarte Family mausoleum, it is all about Eva Peròn. there are posters decorated with drawings of her, plants and flowers. There are plaques lining the side of the vault, dedicated to Evita — the good she did for the workers, a plaque commemorating the 1 year anniversary of her death, and more.

Besides the Duarte Family mausoleum, the cemetary was eerily quiet. I walked around there alone, not encountering a living soul for most of it. It was a bit…creepy.

After that, I headed back to the center. I hadn´t eaten lunch, and it was almost 4, so I stopped at a cafe and decided to be adventurous and try Argentinian food. I had no idea what i was up for!!!

I ordered a Bife de Chorizo, a steak and fries. The steak ended up being bigger than my head, and the fries swamped the rest of the large plate it was served on. I ate about 1/4 of the steak before throwing in the towel and becoming delierious. Next time, I´ll ask for small portions!

It was a treat, at about $7 of a huge honkin steak, appetizers, bread, and fries. Something that would have cost about at least 4 times as much in the states!

After gorging out, I decided to explore a bit. I was near the Obelisk. I took the stairs down into a ´pasaje subterraneo´not really knowing where I would end up. But I just ended up on the other side of the Obelisk. Then headed down Cerrito, where in reality, I wanted to go to Plaza de Mayo, got turned around and lost, then found my way to Plaza de Mayo near dusk. There were many police around the park, so I felt safe. Then headed back to the hostel for a short rest.

I headed back out to the Lavalle ped mall to find an internet place. I passed by a huge place and figured, thye must have USB compatible computers. Boy was I wrong! I was on an old IBM PC 300somethingorother that had gunk caked on it, the computer and keyboard were blackened with finger dirt…yum!!

I decided to head back to Viamonte on 9 de Julio rather than Suipache for a change of scenary. I somehow missed Viamonte (not paying attention) and ended up at Av. Cordoba, where I then felt like i was in the middle of a COPS episode.

The scene — 4 cop cars with flashing lights in the left 2 lanes, a man cuffed laying face down on the ground in the street with a sweater covering his head, a girl standing — cuffed, one man in the back of a police car, a taxi stopped in the middle of the mess, and a crowd of people gathered to find out what happened.

I became one with the crowd. Probably not the smartest thing to do — at night in one of the largest cities in the world, about 7 feet away from a crime scene, in a foreign country. But I was curious as was the rest of the crowd. I stood there with a core group of people. Rumors started flying. That´s when I wish I really understood them. But what I got from the conversations was that the 2 guys and girl tried to rob the cabbie with weapons. I´m so unsure if that´s what happened, but it is what I understood as to what happened.

We watched as the guy cuffed on the ground was read his ARgentinian verision of the Miranda rights. They picked up his ass violently from the ground, shoved him in the back of a cop car, the cops turned on the sirens and took off. Then the car with the guy in the back took off. It was the girls turn, a well dressed youngster, maybe about 20 years old. The crowd moved to see her get read her rights. I was 1 person way from her — so close, I could touch her…and the police did not care that we were so close. Then they put her in the car and left, with sirens blaring. The show was over, so I headed back to the hostel.

I met up with one of my roommates in the evening. Her name is Angie, from Wisconsin. She has a grant from her university to do research about the Dirty War. She said that there are children here, about 25-ish years old, who are the descendants of those executed during the Dirty War. She is here to interview various groups, like the Madres, the Abuelas, and the Hijos. From what i understand, the Madres are a group of women who march around the monument at Plaza de Mayo on Thursday, with pictures of lost ones pinned to their dresses; the Abuelas are a different group, who are looking for the children; and the Hijos are the children, who go in front of the assassins´old houses, tell of the story of what happened to their family, and throw red paint on the house as a symbolic vengeful gesture. I don´t know much about the Dirty War, but I am now curious.

Angie and I are going to meet at Plaza de Mayo at 3:45 to visit the Casa Rosada, which you need permission to see. She is going to get us two tickets this afternoon. Then, she said that there will be some sort of gathering at Plaza de Mayo at about 6pm, possibly in commemoration of Evita Peròns work. I did see signs around the monument, about the trabajadores (workers), but just glanced..did not read the signs. We´ll check it out this evening.

fuck, i just pressed some series of keys and erased my whole entry..have to start over..shit shit shit…i remember this happening to me last year, too..doh!

Note…since most of the readers are English readers, I have decided to change the format and put the English first and the Spanish (shorter version) below…

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¡Llegué! He sido un día ocupado. El vuelto de DFW a BsAs no fue muy dolorosa (en mirando hacia atrás). Pude tener bastande sueno (me despertí muchas vecest durante la noche).

Me desptertí por la última vez al olfato de croissants frescos y tostadas. Vi mí reloj y dijo que era 5am. ¡Mierda! ¡5am! Entonces, cuando estuvieron finito de recoger las bandejas, el piloto se dijo,¨Asistentes de vuelo, preparar por aterrizando¨ Me olvidé que BsAs es 2 horas adelante de Austin. En realidad, era 7am cuando sirvieron desayuno, y íbamos a aterrizar pronto.

BsAs recibó a mí con nubes, frío, y lluvia.

Las formalidades de aeropuerto fueron suavamente. No preguntas sobre el polvo blanco en mí bolsa de tiza. 😉

Andes de salí las aduanas fui a cambiar dinero a una casa de cambio en el aeropuerto. El rato era mierda — 2.5 pesos por un dolar. Iba a cambiar $200 para empezar. Entonces una mujer me dijo que no cambiar $200, hay ratos mejores in la ciudad, y me avisó para guardar mí bolsa en todos los lugares. Agradezó a ella para su adviso, solamente cambí $100 (todos los billetes que tuve eran de cien), entonces fui a Munuel Tienda León servicio de transport, como advisó por Joe E. Era 25 pesos al estación de bus, y luego 1 peso para el colectivo a Portal del Sur.

Soné la campana de Portal del Sur y ellos me recibieron. Dije la mujer que tuve un reserva. Sin embargo, ellos nunca recibieron mí reserva por Internet y no tuvieron espacia. ¡Mierda! No llene de pánico, éste se ocurrío a mí antes…yo estaba cansada, quise un locar a ir…la mujer fue muy simpatica y llamó un hostel otro, Hostel V&S, más o menos 8 bloques de distancia, y llamó un taxi para mí. Dijo que eran más o menos 40 jovenes de 16 anos de edad de Inglaterra allá (Portal del Sur), y ellos no tienen espacio.

Tuve el taxi de Portal del Sur a V&S para 5 pesos, y hablé con Lina allí. Probablemente se sintiendo un poco comparsiro, pudo tener un cuarto privado, de 3 camas con baño privado por mí por lo mismo precio. Dijo que tengo éste cuarto por 4 noches y luego voy a movarme a un dormí mixto. No quiero mover hosteles, pues, voy a quedarme aquí. La mujer a Portal del Sur me dijo que V&S es una de las hosteles más mejores en el centro.

Era más on menos 11:15am por el teimpo que terminé las cosas y se pone mís mochillas en mí cuarto. Me encontraré con Gabriela at Portal del Sur a las 12:30pm.

Me sentí muy sucio despues de no bañarse o cepillar los dientes despues de ayer in la mañana. Mís dientes son muy asquerosos y tuvieron comida en los. Necisité usar hilo dental mucho antes de cepillar mís dientes. Y luego, me sentí más mejor.

Caminé al Portal del Sur y me encontré con Gabriella allá a las 12:30pm. Comimos el almuerzo en un lugar de comida rapido. Y le di la bufanda que tejido por ella. Se aparece muy buena en ella!

Salímos y caminamos a dentro de las ferías Domingos de San Telmo. ¡Me amo ferías! Estos ferías tuvieron muchas cosas atiguedades. Mucho plata, botellas decorativos, joyas, fotos viejos, y ropa cosecha.

Vimos a una programa de tango en la calle. Tango es un baile muy hermosa. El hombre seleccionó mujeres al azar de la audiencia y baile con ellas. Afortunadamente, no seleccionó a mí porque hacía daño a sus pies!

San Telmo tuvo muchisima vida en los Domingos, cuando mucho de la ciudad estaba cerrada. Tango, actores de las calles, ferías.

De la fería, iramos y caminamos por la casa historica de la Defensa que tuvo más tiendas.

Comímos cacahuates dulces y fritas (no me recuerdo el nombre de ellos), caminamos por una otra fería, y Gabriela me acompañó a mí hostel.

No Spanish for this entry…too lazy for now…plus, trying to figure out these keyboards!

July 23, 2005 – Sat

6:20pm. I am here at DFW, waiting for my connection to BsAs. I will board in about 30 minutes…

Airports are interesting. In Austin, the clientelle were many a blonde, fake busty women with sun damaged skin. Those ever so popular straw cowboy hats you see the trendy people wearing…were rampant at ABIA. As well as the occassional Stetson.

In DFW…well, maybe it is the fact that I am at an international terminal…regardless, I still see the straw hats. There are two women in their mid to late 40s both wearing pink straw cowboy hats. And now, two little girls with felt lobster hats with its claws sticking above their heads. and here we go — the blonde lady in her 50s, who is almost as dark as I am. always interesting to see the mix of people at the airport.

On another note, I either swallowed too much nasty lake water this morning (went wakeboarding) or my subconscious nerves got the best of me. I was fine, until we landed at DFW…as I waited at the back of the airplane to get off, I got an intestinal cramp. As always, it takes people forever to get off the plane. I hit the Skytrans — a train that takes you to other terminals, found my terminal, and ran for the bathroom.

This is not a good way to start a 10.5 hour flight! Luckily, I had my meds on me. I{m only 45 minutes away from home and already broke out the Immodium!

Solamente hay dos días más hasta que salir para Argentina!!! Me siento muy excitado, pero el viaje no siente real.

Quisiera dormir durante el vuelto, que, de Dallas a Buenos Aires, será diez y media horas. Pues, mañana, despues de trabajo, voy a escalar en el gimnasio. Y en Sabado, voy a ir de ‘wakeboarding’ muy temprano en la mañana. Sí, estoy un poquito loca! 😉

Mí vuelo sales a las 5 en la tarde. Esta noche, he confirmado mí vuelo. Un paso próximo!

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