Travel Diary – Argentina December 18th 2011
I woke many times but never for long until finally rising from bed at 2pm. My head and stomach twisted from the hangover. Lorna was also feeling the effects of overindulgence but Sarah apparently was not. We had originally planned to go to Puerto Madero but opted instead for San Telmo because of the Sunday market.
The subway in Buenos Aires is excellent. The stations are cleaner than New York and the trains appear newer. Though they are covered in graffiti on the outside, the windows are unscratched and the seats are clean. The tunnels have no particular odor and are not piled with garbage. The stations are an older style and the one closest to Sarah’s house even has a wooden escalator.
Exiting Bolivar station, I saw a very interesting park with statues and surrounding buildings of the beautiful colonial architecture we usually expect from Europe. I wanted to explore, but we were also on our way to the market. A few blocks down we turned onto a small street that I thought only housed a few tables and carts of tourist merchandise. Instead, I realized the market stretched on for almost 20 blocks, seemingly never ending as I looked up for the end of it.
I resolved immediately not to buy anything right away to avoid impulse buys and carrying armloads of stuff. It turned out to be a good idea because I’d already seen 15 things I wanted in the first three blocks.
We stopped near a cathedral that I wanted to take some pictures of and first noticed a museum of toys across the street from it. The entry was 1 peso or about 23 cents. There were lots of interesting off-beat toys from bygone eras but the most interesting part was that the museum used to be a private residence circa 1910. A three story townhouse with twice the square footage of our apartment on each floor overlooking a gorgeous cathedral in downtown Buenos Aires seems like a pretty awesome pad, if you ask me.
After leaving the toy museum I discovered that we could look inside the cathedral as well. I have no background in catholic history and the signs were all in Spanish, but there were some really beautiful artifacts. There was also a room of self flagellation items and some pretty gruesome carvings of a dying Jesus.
We began searching for food when we left the cathedral, which took my attention away from the market. We walked past many places but nothing that particularly caught my eye. The street performers began to make their appearance, including one famous man who dresses like he is caught in a gale force wind storm.
It was a long walk to the restaurant that Sarah had in mind but worthwhile. I had a cold banana milkshake and part of Lorna’s ham & cheese sandwich. The walls of the cafe were carved up with decades worth of names of lovers and hooligans who’d sat there before us. Our waiters wore tuxedo vests and seemed quite confident in the quality of their establishment. Sarah said she thought they were all drunk on the job when someone broke a third glass behind us near the kitchen.
Making our way out of the market we were going to head to Boca, famous for Tango dancing in the street and at the restaurants. Sarah originally wanted to take a taxi but Lorna noticed that they were very close on the map and we decided to walk because of the weather.
We walked a long time and it started to seem like we were lost. To take a bus we would need coins to pay the fare but no kiosks were willing to give coins as change. We stopped in a hostel and got a map which showed we were quite close so we continued walking. On our way we found a very beautiful park with terrace steps and a view of the city. A band was playing Pink Floyd with a backdrop of political graffiti on a war memorial statue.
We still had not reached Boca and continued walking. We were lost again. We stopped for directions two more times, continuing to walk through quiet neighborhoods and along roads of rubble filled empty lots. I saw lots of amazing graffiti murals and two burned out cars. There were bums and packs of teenagers and pleasant retirees around each corner. Stray dogs and their ever-present droppings were the sign we were not in a tourist district. After more directions from a helpful man at a stop-light, we reached the waterfront. The smell of rotting fish or garbage came on with a force. As we began to walk along the water, some police blocked our way and told us it was too dangerous to walk that way, pointing us back and toward the Boca district we had been searching for for hours.
The streets of Tango dancers and restaurants was actually less impressive than I expected. Or maybe I was too tired from walking all afternoon. We made two passes by but soon wanted to go home. We’d tried to get coins for the bus again only to have an argument with the booth owner about their availability. I relented and suggested we take a taxi home.
Later, Sarah took her housekeeper, Olga, out for dinner in farewell before her vacation. Sarah ordered empanadas to be delivered for us and Juana before leaving. Lorna and I helped Jauana get dinner and put her to bed before watching Ghost in the Shell on Lorna’s laptop and retiring for some much needed sleep.
