Tango

Milonga at Confiteria Ideal.  This couple is so into it!

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tango of Buenos Aires and the culture and music that goes with it, definitely deserves its own post.  Its probably the most unique form of dance that I have come across in my travels.  With Salsa, Merengue, even Samba its possible to witness them or a form of them in CA in clubs, or on TV.  But Tango, was something that I was completely unfamiliar with and absolutely fell in love with.  Not only is the dance beautiful, but it’s also the most intensely romantic and dramatic dance I’ve ever seen performed.

In BA you can find people performing it on the street for tourists and others to watch.  The very first time you see someone dance it, its exhilarating.  My mom and I managed to see three different kinds of Tango shows/events.  The first we went to was called a Milonga, which was held in one of the oldest cafeterias in BA, called Confiteria Ideal.  A Milonga is where regular people come together to dance Tango.  The tables are all set up around a dance floor that sports a live Tango band, and a host that sings.  We paid 30 pesos to get in, sat at a table and watched as others danced.  Some were really very impressive (check out the videos below).

The second Tango event we went to was a professional tango performance that was accompanied by dinner at El Viejo Almacen.  The dinner and show included pick-up and drop-off at our apartment, a three-course dinner with wine, the show, and champagne during the show.  The dinner was great, we had an awesome waiter, the food was fabulous, and the wine was delicious.  But the show, the show was unbelievable!  The dancers were absolutely amazing.  I’d never seen anyone move quite that fast; they were even doing acrobatics on stage.  Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for anything better, it was well worth the money we paid.  Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to take video during the performance, so all I have are pictures that hardly do it justice (they’re a bit blurry b/c they were moving so fast).

The third tango performance we saw, we caught by accident.  On Sundays, in the San Telmo district, they have an antique and art fair that my mom and I attended.  San Telmo is also a very picturesque part of town, with some of the oldest buildings, cobble stone streets and old cafes and restaurants.  Honestly, when we arrived at the market, I thought I had just turned the corner and ended up in Montmartre in Paris.  After browsing through the art, jewelry, photos, and vintage clothing, my mom and I decided to pop into one of the café’s that line the square for a beer.  The café we ended up eating at was super cute and ended up having a stage on which a couple were doing a tango performance.  My mom and I shared a plate of the best raviolis I have ever had and enjoyed the Tango performance.  It was a really great, relaxing afternoon.

My first time seeing tango danced - in the street on Calle Florida

La Confiteria Ideal

The host/singer at Confiteria Ideal

What my mom ordered...meat, cheese, and beer

The band at La Confiteria Ideal

Dinner before the tango show at El Viejo Almacen

Main course - Atun

The stage at the Tango show

Outside El Viejo Almacen

Graffiti in San Telmo

Plaza Dorrego market

Tango at the Plaza Dorrego market

Check out these pups!  I have no idea why they were there.  It was like they were on display

Tango at the cafe we went to in Plaza Dorrego

The most delicious raviolis EVER

Buenos Aires - Week 1

I arrived in Buenos Aires around 10am, at which point I had to take another bus to the Ezeiza int’l airport to meet my mom.  I was so fortunate to be able to see my mom after being so sick in a foreign country; it was literally the most consoling thing.

My mom and I spent our first week in Buenos Aires in an apartment we rented located right downtown, in the hustle and bustle of it all.  Our studio apartment’s only window, a sliding glass door, looked out on the pedestrian walkway Calle Florida, lined with all kinds of shops, street vendors and restaurants.  Unfortunately, the first three days I spent in Buenos Aires, I had to spend watching my mom enjoy the food and drink…while I ate white rice and drank water and juice.  However, after three days on the meds, and spending nearly an entire day sleeping, I was feeling better, and we went out for our first official dinner together, and it was an awesome return to eating real food! I definitely realized that I would never be able to starve myself…I was just so hungry the entire time.  I certainly made up for the not eating with all the eating I did as soon as I could eat.  Honestly, most of my BA pictures are of food, and meals, haha!

My mom and I spent the first few days relaxing, and walking around some of the historic/tourist sights around our neighborhood, mainly the Plaza de Mayo, Gallerias Pacifico, the obelisco, and Plaza San Martin.  We then decided to try out this tourist bus, that operates by a hop-on, hop-off system and has 20 different stops at the most touristy sights in the city.  I DO NOT recommend this bus to anyone, it was called “Buenos Aires Bus,” and it was big and yellow.  First of all, the bus was always late, but never late on a consistent time interval, it just basically came whenever, regardless of the advertised schedule.  The company says the bus comes every 20-30minutes, however, there was one morning when we waited for over an hour (after that I tried to get my money back, which didn’t work, but they did give us an extension).  The timing thing wouldn’t be that bad if it was spring or summer, however, we were in BA at the end of winter, and it was freezing cold and rainy there for a couple of days, it even got to below 0ºC during the night.  Not pleasant when you have wait for a bus.  On top of all that, the bus was horribly designed, it had an open top with tons of seats, but the lower level, which was inside, only had about 12 seats.  The bus workers were sending people up top even though it was freezing and raining…so not cool.  The actual tour on the bus itself was ok, but not the best, they just gave you headphones and you’d listen along as the bus passed some important landmarks.  The bus tour that I did in Arequipa was way cooler, despite the cold at night!

We did manage to get to a couple of cool places on the bus, when we first used it.  Namely to the Caminito in La Boca, the casino, which is on a boat!  The Caminito is one of the oldest parts of BA, where early immigrants settled.  It has a ton of character due to the colorful tin houses, the cobblestone streets, and the belle époque style restaurants and buildings; all of this lining the waterfront.  I can only imagine how nice it must be to hang out their during the summer.  My mom and I had a really nice set lunch there at a restaurant called “La Perla.” 

Buenos Aires truly has good food and great restaurants.  A lot of them offer a set lunch for around 40-60 pesos Argentinos ($10-15), which is usually at least three courses, if not more, with wine included, and they have healthy options on their menus….I was quite happy!

Anyways, check out my first week pics:

View of the pedestrian Calle florida outside our apartment

First thing my mom did - headed to a hotel (the marriott, which was actually really nice) for a cosmopolitan.  Any beverage you ordered there came with all those snacks. 

Inside Gallerias Pacifico, down the street from our apartment

the ceiling in the Gallerias

The obelisco

Mum in front of the obelisco

McDonalds is universal - check out the belle epoque building its in though.

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Plaza de Mayo - la Casa Rosada is in the background, this is the seat of the national government.  The president, who is female! works there.

View down the Avenida de Mayo which leads to the Plaza del Congreso, from the Plaza de Mayo

Plaza de Mayo

My triumphant return to eating food

Quiet dinner in our apartment with snacks and wine

San Telmo

Cafe in San Telmo

Caminito

Caminito

The retaurant we had lunch at

Caminito with all the brightly painted tin houses

Mendoza

Mendoza, Argentina

I went to Mendoza because 1) its Argentinian wine country (wasn’t about to miss out on that), and 2) Kate and Ben were there (wasn’t about to miss out on that either).  I arrived super late on a Sunday night, around midnight, and was greated by a cheery group of Kate, Ben, and a few of their hostel friends, all of whom had been imbibing before I arrived.  Specifically, they had been drinking Fernet Branca mixed with Coca-cola.  Now, I had had Fernet before, but was accustomed to drinking it with ginger-ale, Manny-style.  But, apparently, Fernet and coke is an immensely popular drink all over Argentina.  They sell loads of different brands of the liquor in stores, and it’s a popular drink to find on any drink menu. 

The next day, which came far too quickly, I went on a wine tour with Kate and some others from the hostel.  We took the bus outside of town and rented bikes, which we rode to about four different wineries.  Surprinsingly (not sure why I was so surprised….) Mendoza was really cold, even during the day.  Granted I was there in the middle-end of winter, and so I should have expected it, but for some reason, I thought it would be slightly warmer…The winery tour was great nonetheless, and lasted all day long.  I even bought a nice bottle to bring with me to Buenos Aires to share with my mom.  The scenery was beautiful, the wine was awesome, and we learned quite a bit about wine.  Two small facts I didn’t know about Argentinian wine: 1) they are known for their Malbecs, 2) Argentina makes a unique varietal of white wine called Torrontes, which I ended up loving.

The next day, I went and hung out at Kate’s house, outside of Mendoza city, and just relaxed.  That night, we all headed back to the hostel for Spaghetti night.  Spaghetti night was an awesome experience, it was my first time in a hostel where literally everyone staying there came together for an organized hostel activity.  Basically, you paid a set amount, and you got all you could eat homemade spaghetti pasta with tomato sauce, homemade bread, meatballs, meat, salad, and wine.  Perfect dinner.  Every part of the meal was super tasty.  To top it all off, we had a massive karaoke session, facilitated by a brazilian’s guitar skills and ipad. 

All of this was wonderful, until I got sick at 4am, after being in bed for only two hours.  Yup, I finally got gastroenteritis.  The girl who used to do all those communicable disease interviews finally got a taste of what it was really like.  I felt like I was going to pass out from the pain.  After an hour of continual bathroom runs and crying from pain, I decided that something was really not right, and that I needed to go to the hospital.  I made it downstairs to the reception, who called an on-call ambulance.  It arrived, in what seemed like forever; the doctor examined me, gave me a shot in my butt for the pain, and told me that I needed to go to the hospital.  However, by now it was like 6am, and I had no one to take me there.  So the guy working the reception offered to take me, but I would have to wait until 7am when he got off.  Thankfully, the shot helped immensely with the pain, and I managed to pass out for an hour.  We then walked the two blocks in the dark to the public hospital ER.  Lets just say, the hospital doesn’t get an A for cleanliness.  The part of the waiting room floor next to the bathrooms, was flooded, I tried not to even think about what it might consist of.  The doctor examined me, asked me some questions, diagnosed me by writing down what I had in a huge oversized notebook (no medical charts or e-records here), and sent me to get a blood test.  By this time Kate had gotten word of my illness and made it to the hospital.  Thank god I had a familiar face to comfort me…at this very point, all I wanted to do was go home, see my parents, and Matt and go to Kaiser.  Nevertheless, I got my blood drawn, and the woman who did it wiped away a spot of my blood on the table with her bare hand.  No gloves, no formal paperwork, and a hospital that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since it was built in 1970.  The only comfort is that I saw her unpack a sterile needle. Thank god!  Anyways, turns out I had a very high white blood cell count, and the MD used that to confirm that I had gastroenteritis (no stool samples…).  He sent me off to the pharmacy with a prescription and put me on a white rice and liquid diet until my symptoms stopped.  Not the best way to be arriving in Buenos Aires, the steak and wine capital of South America.

As I felt better late in the day, I ended up taking my overnight bus to BA as originally planned.  Thankfully, as long as I didn’t eat any solids, I didn’t have any symptoms. 

On a side note, I think I got gastroenteritis either while I was in Peru or Bolivia.  I had been having milder symptoms the two days before I got really sick, and I managed to eat a not so pretty salad and drink a bottle of water with a gash in it in Bolivia.  :0(

Argentina <3 Fernet

Had to stop over in Buenos Aires on my way to Mendoza.  This is an aerial view of BA at night from the plane

First stop on our wine tour

All smiles

Aged bottles

Oak barrels

the scenerey on our bike ride wine tour

Taste of a very young cabernet at an organic winery, it was still in the fermentation tank

Mendoza wine country skyline

Spaghetti nigth!

Need I say more?

Kate and Ben!

Kate and I taking our turn at Karaoke

12 Hours in Bolivia

La Paz, Bolivia

I took an overnight bus from Cusco to La Paz.  It was pretty nice.  I actually slept, but I think its thanks to the decongestant antihistamines the pharmacist gave me for my sinus infection that had been going on for a week.  We went through the border crossing, and did the whole customs thing around 7am in a really small town called Desaguadero.  The town is located on Lake Titicaca, which we then drove around for bit before veering off to head to La Paz.  I'm glad I at least got to see the Lake, even though I wasn't able to spend any time there.
Bolivia is a lot like Peru.  However, having only been here a few hours I did notice a difference in the way the traditional women dress.  It’s similar to Peru, but they wear different hats, and tend to wear shawls, and skirts made of plain cotton, not wool.  The hats are really interesting.  They look like a man’s bolero, but just sit right on top of their head, instead of around their head, as if they’re too small, and don’t fit.  Then there are two super long dark braids that fall down their back.  The braids are usually hidden though, because the women carry their children and babies on their backs wrapped up in a blanket.  It’s honestly a beautiful sight to see these women in person.
Unfortunately, I didn't like my hostel in La Paz.  I was staying at the Adventure Brew Too hostel.  The hostel was totally under construction and deserted.  It was also freezing at night.  They gave you wool blankets, but I ended up having to use a hot water bottle, because it was just too cold.  Their associated hostel, the Adventure Brew hostel B&B, was a lot nicer, and had an upstairs bar, and had way more people in it.  Thankfully it was just two doors down, so I hung out there, and just went back to my hostel to sleep for a mere 4 hours before I had to get up to catch a 6am flight to Mendoza with stop-overs in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and Buenos Aires.

The border - Welcome to Bolivia.  It was freezing at 7am

Lake Titicaca at the border in Desaguero, with La Bandera Boliviana (the Bolivian flag)

View from my bus of bolivia

La Paz

Complimentary beer from my hostel

View of La Paz from the bar at my hostel