Stairway to Heaven

Day whatever-this-is-now saw me cruising around parts of Cordoba that I missed out on the day before. Ferdinando said that most of the museums were free on Wednesdays, so I headed up to a couple of them to see if any looked good. After weaving through hundreds of 8 year old kids I decided it was time for something else. I wound up in the Jesuit square, which is where the old Jesuit cathedral is as well as the University of Cordoba. The cathedral was probably one of the most amazing that I have ever seen. The outside wall was an old stone wall, kind of what you would imagine dividing fields in rural Europe. The inside was dominated by an architectural masterpiece of a ceiling. It looks like the inside of a cylinder, covered in gold. It probably only took them a couple hundred years to build, but hey, it was amazing. I've started to realize that nothing in Argentina is open very late- a couple of the places I wanted to go were already closed by the time I came knocking around 4:30. But I did manage to get into one of the University of Cordoba buildings. It's been around since the late 16th century, which, oh, is only about 200 years older than the good ol' US of A. It was pretty neat to think about how many people had sat where I saw students sitting with textbooks out. Their library, albeit small, was what I would think of at a university like this; floor to ceiling shelves with a sliding ladder.

For dinner I tried the local favorite called locro which is a stew mixed with just about everything, from maize to potato to pumpkin to beef (of course) to chorizo (sausage). It was really tasty, except for the part that the meat was still rock-solid frozen. I'm guessing that's not part of the job description. I don't seem to be doing all that well on first-rounders with the local cuisine. I'm sure my next bowl of locro will be better; when I told some people about my frozen meat edition they just gaped at me. Note to self: frozen meat in soup not normal.

My day ended with another bus ride, this time to Salta. The first time around, when I handed my bag to the luggage guy at the rear he put it in and off I went. This time, it was as if I said I'd never heard of Maradona when I started to walk away. I got the dirtiest look, a couple fingers shaped into a circle and some sort of indescribable noise. I held back from saying Pele was the most talented guy to walk this earth as I threw him a coin. I got on thinking that I would have a bit of a better seat, but no it was exactly the same. Although THIS time we did get the dinner and drink on board, which was pretty cool. They also played 'Bounty Hunter,' which was impressive because it's a movie that has just come out pretty recently in the US. They brought their 'A' game on this bus ride.

I got into Salta at the more reasonable hour of 7:30, and looked at my instructions on how to get to the hostel. INSTRUCTIONS: take a taxi and we'll pay you back. OK, great. The only thing is that everyone I have talked to about taxis tell me not to flag one down off the street. So, either I walk, hoping the sign 'Al Centro' means to the Plaza and follow a different set of directions from there, or throw caution to the wind and get into one of these cabs and hope that I don't go to Bolivia and back before getting to the hostel. These taxis don't have meters, which doesn't help. Watching them push their cars up the line didn't add to my confidence level. What I wound up doing was telling one of the cabbies that I had 15 pesos (about $3.50) and asked if that would get me to where I wanted to go. They said sure, no problem.

This is the part where I say that I wound up in some deserted estancia with nothing but my backpack and a mouthful of exhaust. But no, the taxi turned out to be just fine. Salta itself is a great little town nestled up in the northwest part of the country near the border with Chile. It's known for its more cultural image, with a more indigenous influence. So far it's lived up to its name- the architecture is clearly different, as well as the people. My afternoon was marked by climbing one of the mountains bordering the town to reach a viewpoint of the valley. I could either take a gondola up (that's for sissies) or take the stairs. All 1,070 of them. After climbing the 1070th stair (the sign lied. I counted 10,000), I was met with a pretty astounding view of the valley, with the beginnings of the Andes on the other side.

All in all, Salta has been pretty impressive so far. I haven't figured out what I'm doing for dinner tonight, but I think I'll be having beef. Just a guess.

An Excursion into the Interior

The day after all of the world cup fun was spent running around trying to buy a camera. Going around shopping for a camera really made me angry. I did not want to be doing that, but here I was wandering through a store looking at little point-and-shoots. I eventually settled on one- the price was outrageous, as it is for all cameras here (poop lady made bank the other day) with an obscene markup for a model a couple years old. Whatever. I have a camera.

Later on I made my way to the bus station to get on the bus to Cordoba. I found my bus parking spot number in the middle of probably about 70 berths. No joke. Every bus that pulls in is a fancy double-decker outfitted with seats of different levels of comfort. For this leg of the trip to Salta I was on the bottom rung, or semi-cama. Basically a United Business Class seat, without the warm cashews and glass of whatever as you board. I made the mistake of passing out as soon as I got on board, without fully getting settled- I paid for that later. I did wake back up and essentially became one with my backpack before trying to sleep again. I tried for about 3 hours before I finally caught some z's. We pulled into Cordoba at 6am, about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. This was probably the one time I wished we were running late, but oh no. It was still pitch black out and about as cold as it can be as I wandered up to the hostel. As I got there I looked through the window I saw the guy manning the front desk passed out on the couch so I figured I would retreat back to a cafe and wait for a more of a reasonable hour before showing up.

It didn't get light out until 7:30am - I started to wonder if it ever would - as I sat having my café con leche and mystery pastries (I asked for three croissants and got 2 round biscuit things. I promise, I can speak spanish). Finally I rolled in and Ferdinando gave me the dime tour before I went to bed and finished off a full night's sleep.

After a delicious lunch of a massive steak sandwich for about 6 dollars, I started seein' the sights. First on the list was a viewpoint that Ferdinando recommended to get a decent view of the city. He warned it wasn't that great, but I checked it out anyway. It wound up being a great view of 6 tall apartment blocks with something of the city in between. Postcard stuff, you know what I mean? A few minutes later found me walking into the main town square, and it's a great spot. It's what you would think of when you think town square of a medium-sized town: statue of a famous military figure in the middle (San Martín), benches, grass, old buildings, people, and lots of pigeons. It might be the safest spot in town though, because the plaza was bordered by a Church, el Cabildo, a tourist office and about 10 banks. I have yet to see any banks anywhere else. Walking into the cathedral gave me a few flashbacks, but I didn't turn around to find soap on my leg and instead wandered through a beautiful cathedral. Next door is El Cabildo. While Argentina was under the control of military dictatorships, it was a detention/torture facility. Now it's a community cultural center. Go figure. It was architecturally pretty fascinating, though. There was no trace of any of its recent darker history anywhere, in case you were wondering.

After walking around town a little longer, I headed back to the hostel to pick up my laundry from the lavandería (you can't do it yourself in Argentina, but I don't mind. For 4$ they wash, dry and fold it for you. Not bad!) and chill out until the barbecue, or asado, that the hostel was putting on. There were several others at the hostel, and by the time dinner rolled around I had talked to some recent UCLA grads, an LA teacher, a surfer from Lima, a guy traveling on his own from Ireland, two recent West Point grads traveling before their posting in Germany, an Aussie volunteer, and some med students from England. Now that I think of it, it was quite a mix. The UCLA fellas are headed up to Salta later this week, so I'll probably see them again. Unfortunately they're both Lakers fans, but we all agreed that Miami's recent jaunt into the Free Agent market was just ridiculous. The barbecue, despite not getting rolling until the local dinner of time of 9:30, was unbelievable. It was like a Brazilian restaurant right here in the common room of the hostel. Salad for starters (first real salad since I've been here, I gave a silent Tiger fist-pump) followed by meat. And more meat. I tried some of the mythical Fernet, which is the Argentinian beverage of choice. It's some sort of herbal alcoholic concoction that is alright - it'll have to grow on me. You're supposed to mix it with coca-cola (surprise? They drink coke like it's water). As the night wore on, and the drinks were flowing, the Brazilians at the table got into a debate with the Argentinians over the best and worst club soccer teams in their respective countries. It swiftly devolved into a debate between Pele and Maradona, and I just had to laugh. It had to come to that at some point.

Frommer (yes, I had to reload on a guidebook too) said that Cordoba is not worth visiting, but I think today has been pretty solid. So give me your plate of bbq beef, Frommer. I'll eat it.

A Nederlander!

The early part of today was spent trying to figure out what I'm going to do for the next week. I have decided to go to Salta, Argentina which is in the northwest part of the country. Since the bus ride is about 21 hours, I'm going to stop in Cordoba which is about halfway for a day or so to see the sights. Should be a good time! But I needed to get the bus tickets, which was something all in itself. I talked to one of the hostel staff about how to purchase tickets, and because this entire city shuts down on Sunday (seriously, between the holiday on friday, everything being semi-closed on saturday and the full-on closed of today, I haven't really seen the city at its fullest yet) I had to go to the station itself to buy the tickets. I thought, based on the seemingly clear instructions from the hostel staff, that buying tickets would be easy. Why would I ever think such a thing.

First, I had actually had to find the bus terminal. Estación Retiro is one of the biggest stations I've ever seen. You think Tokyo Station or Penn Station is big. Come to Retiro and New York will feel like the suburbs. Picture Paris' du Nord station plus Yokohama station plus Daly City BART and you have an idea of the TRAIN part of the station. I'm just getting started. The bus network is bigger and more sophisticated in Argentina than the trains. I'll leave it at that. Once I found the bus terminal, I still actually had to buy the tickets. The hostel guy told me that the windows to buy tickets were organized by where you want to go. I thought, great. That's a really good idea. Little did I know that a) there are about 20 bus companies per region and b) no one bus company goes to Cordoba then Salta from Buenos Aires. After jumping back and forth between windows, I finally got a ticket from BA to Cordoba then one from Cordoba to Salta. Knock on wood it all goes to plan.

This afternoon was taken up by the extremely important event of the World Cup Final. After misreading the game time start, I rushed up to Palermo (a northern barrio) to find Van Koning, a dutch bar. I wound up showing up at the door at 3:30, the kick-off time. I should have known that there would be a line out the door. The bouncer (yes, a bouncer at 3:30 in the afternoon) wasn't letting anyone in. So I retreated down the block to a different spot which was full of both Spanish and Dutch fans (I felt a little safer rooting for the Spanish) with people spilling out onto the street to watch the game. There were no seats left, so I had the VIP seat of standing on the sidewalk. No prob. I'll trade discomfort for atmosphere any day. As I'm sure most or all of you know, it wasn't an incredibly exciting game (unless you were keeping a running tally of yellow cards, then you might as well not watch a soccer game ever again), but everyone was really into the game, which was great. After Spain converted in the 115th minute pretty much the entire street went quiet - as the final whistle blew I wandered down towards Van Koning to watch all the dejected Dutch fans silently file out. Viva España!

After, I wandered around looking for a dinner joint before heading back into the center of town. This being Sunday, pretty much everywhere was closed. I found a great looking place though and decided to have my first beef in Argentina. A group of Dutch fans at the table next to me saw me sitting by myself and asked if I wanted to join them. I thought 6 rowdy Dutch and Argentinian soccer fans would be much better company than a water glass, so I pulled up a chair. They were surprised when I said I was from the US - they thought I was Dutch and that was the reason why they invited me over. That's weird, I could have sworn it was for the magazine-cover good looks. Anyhow, I did wind up ordering beef, and that's exactly what I got. In the states, you might expect some sort of side, like potato, mini-salad, something. Nope. Just. Beef. Two slabs of beef on a plate. It was pretty funny. They pretty much charred the beef, probably beyond well done, as well - all in all a disappointing experience with Argentinian beef, but I'm sure there will be many more.

We had a great time. We pretended it was someone's birthday and got a free round of champagne plus cake that we all shared. Funny stuff. Afterwards we found ourselves back in Von Koning, having a drink and pizza for dessert. Several hours later, we left and headed home. Little did I know that the subway ends service at 10pm on Sundays (and I was about to say that it is better than Philly's SEPTA, which it pretty much is), and here I was walking out of Van Koning at a quarter to 11. Not to worry, there was apparently, according to the Argentinians in the group, a bus that could get me back to the Hostel. Awesome. As soon as we get to the bus stop the bus in question appears, and the shove me on it and tell me to look for the big obelisk. Great. Here I go. I could be off to Uruguay for all I know.

My support of Spain never made it into the conversation, otherwise I might have actually found myself in Uruguay. Or off of Cape Horn in a dinghy.

A New Day, A Fresh Start

When I say Fresh Start, I mean when the night ended. The night actually didn't end for quite some time. As I was writing the post for yesterday, I got to talking with some of the staff who said they were going out that night. They invited me along, and, a few hours later at 2am, 11 of us were on our way to a reggaeton club around the corner. It was quite the experience. As a description of the music, picture the song 'gasolina' in your head then put it on repeat. No one really showed up until 2:45, and the few people who were there before weren't really moving around a whole lot. I thought we were getting there a little late at 2am, but it was in fact early. Whenever anyone tried to talk to me, all I could do was nod and smile - it's hard enough to understand people in english at these places - Spanish was a lost cause. That was downstairs. Upstairs was a little more what I'm used to, in terms of music - although when 'Funkytown' came on I had to smile. It's a whole different music world here! I should mention that before we left there was kind of a mini-fiesta at the hostel; Fabio was obsessed with music from Grease and ABBA, and kept wanting to play it. I think he's representative of the majority - if John Travolta came down here and performed Grease Lightning for a little while he would never have to work again.

After a 4:30 bed time, my day started around 12:30 with me wandering over to one of the more famous cafes of the hundred thousand cafes in the city: The Gran Cafe Tortoni. Established in 1858, its been one of the premier cafes for a large portion of Buenos Aires' history. Unfortunately it really has become a tourist trap, but still it's pretty cool nonetheless. The coffee was good; if I ordered anything else though I would have had to sell my remaining possessions that survived yesterday. In any case, the ambience of the place made me feel like I was in a cafe version of the Long Bar in Singapore. Wood panelling everywhere, a couple busts here and there and a dark, old feel. Pretty neat stuff - if only the walls could talk. In the back was a TV showing the warmup for the Uruguay-Germany game. In Argentina, there is no place too fancy for football. It was almost game time, so I jumped ship to go find a local place to watch.

On my way every TV I passed was showing the game. I stopped in front of a TV store with 10 TVs in the window just so I could say that I've watched something in the window of a TV store - it definitely lives up to the hype. I wound up at another cafe (there is seriously a cafe every 10 feet - I don't know how some stay in business, a lot of them serve the exact same stuff) and watched a great match between the two countries. The TV said 'live' but either the guys upstairs took lessons from Gandalf or my TV lied because a few seconds before every Uruguayan goal there was a loud cheer. It was noticeably silent when German shots found the back of the net, however. The Mercosur bonds are strong!

Tomorrow is the big day, though, and I've been told about a Dutch bar where I can go watch the game. I better not tell anyone I'm pulling for Spain, or bird poop might be the least of my problems.

A Day to Forget

This morning I woke up to what sounded like a freight train. Across the room the guy sleeping in the top bunk was definitely snoring the loudest I have ever heard in my life. Earplugs would have taken the edge off, but I still think I would have gone crazy. Needless to say, once I woke up I didn't take long to get up.

I decided to spend today wandering through the south section of the city, San Telmo and La Boca - both places that are quite old and full of a lot of culture. As soon as I walked outside, though, I knew something was up. It was 11am (late start, no judging please) and everything was closed. On a Friday. It didn't make sense. Either I had date and time completely wrong (which is entirely possible, because the fact that it is 45 degrees out is not helping me get my bearings), or it was some sort of National Holiday or impromptu siesta. Or maybe it was a national holiday honoring the siesta, so everyone was taking a siesta.

I discovered that today is actually the Argentinian Declaration of Independence Day; basically the equivalent of our July 4. I figured this out as I was walking through the empty streets of San Telmo (empty except for the two drunk guys singing to the huge audience of an empty alley at 11:30am), so I decided to head back to the main square to see if there were any kind of celebrations going on.

And then, my day just about became the worst day imaginable. I was maybe two blocks away from the square and I noticed a beautiful church on my right, so I decided to stop and check it out. I was about to enter when I get tapped on my shoulder. I turn around, and here is this short, middle-aged lady talking about how I have bird guano all over me. I remember thinking, oh this is going to be fun to write about. I turn around, and sure enough there is white stuff on my pack and all down my leg. As kind as she is, she offers me a tissue and leads me back outside to clean it up. She starts to wipe my pack and suggests I put it on the ground. I had my camera slung on my shoulder, and she says I should put it back in my bag so as not to get it dirty while we wipe all the poop up. As I begin taking apart my camera I notice an elderly woman, probably in her mid- to late-sixties, point up at a telephone wire and say the bird was up there. So, laughing to myself that I was pooped on by a bird, I put the camera and lens in their various cases and put it back in my bag. The lady gives me a new tissue to wipe my leg, and I gratefully take it and turn around to do just that. No more than half a minute later, figuring a tissue isn't going to do a whole lot and I might as well just walk back to the hostel, I turn back around to pick up my bag and thank the lady for her kind help. CUT. Take 2. This scene is an entire scam to make off with the stupid naive tourist's nice camera and backpack. Not to mention the cash inside it. I took so much care in putting my camera equipment away I suppose I could have gift wrapped it. My bad. To continue: I turn around and she's gone. With my bag. And my camera. I saw someone out of the corner of my eye walking quickly towards the front gate, but someone yells as I start to move after that person, 'she went inside the church!' So of course, I run frantically into the Church and of course there's no one in the small room with a blue backpack. So I run back outside and figure that was probably a third person messing with me. Any more people and their split wasn't going to buy them a big mac.

It was gone. Without a doubt. I hung around just to make sure she didn't duck inside the Church and wait for me to walk away, but of course that was wishful thinking. If I only I did see her walk away, because if it was a foot race it would have been over in the first 500m. Too bad big stupid American tourist fell for the play. I wound up talking to a cop about it- he asked if I lost my passport, and I said no, to which he replied, 'lo siento, y buen suerte,' which some might think means 'I'm sorry and good luck' but in reality it actually means 'ha sucks to be you suckaaaaaah!'.

So the rest of my day was pretty much shot. I tried to use a phone at a convenience store, but the guy said no. I don't know if they were broken or what, but after what had just happened, I felt like giving him the finger. As you can see, my day was going real well at that point.

I wandered over to starbucks to have a chai and get my head out of the city for a while and decompress. Everyone takes pictures of the starbucks queen and if you're over 25 you aren't allowed in. It seemed like quite the tourist attraction.

In the end, they didn't get my wallet, passport or phone, so I guess that's a plus. No violence either. Not even here for 24 hours though and I already get nailed. How am I doing so far?

So I've come up with a few guidelines for all of you-

1. Don't EVER trust ladies who are over 60. They can lie. If they offer you milk, make them drink it first.
2. Bird shit is never real. It apparently smells really bad. I wouldn't know though, I was hit with the extremely rare strain called showerius soapus.
3. If you're taller than everyone else, wearing a homing beacon built by the classified government firm Canon and are alone, the general idea is that you're a target. A big fat juicy one.
4. Only carry enough money to get you through the day. No need to carry Fort Knox around.
5. Pickpockets are amateurs. The pros throw soap.
6. Don't carry an adapter with you if you're not going to charge anything.
7. The bag never leaves the body. Ever. End of story.
8. Getting pooped on is like getting hit by lightning - it rarely ever happens twice. So don't put your nice camera BACK into your bag.

I know it's time to regroup and start fresh, but that was a very expensive way to learn about the con artists of Buenos Aires. I have to admit, it was an extremely well-run con. Now I know. I thought I was ready for the likes of pick pockets, but they got me like the veteran gets the rookie after his first game. I didn't have a prayer.

I don't know if I've ever been that pissed off.

Day 2

Game Over.

First Day on the Job

After having to suffer through an entire row to myself on the flight down, I finally made it south to Buenos Aires. After the slightly awkward immigration process - hi! welcome to Buenos Aires. Now pay us $140 and make sure to go to two windows - I exited into the chaos of the arrival terminal. The chaos was pretty much all personal since I had no idea what I was going to do. I spent probably 30 minutes figuring out how to follow the broken-english instructions to get to the hostel. The debate was between a $35 taxi ride or a sketch bus then an even more sketch taxi ride from there. I decided to go with the sketch option.

The bus was any typical limousine style bus, just most buses nowadays probably aren't blasting Christian Rock and ABBA. Jumping straight into spanish mode is something I'm still trying to get used to. Of course, often the first words I think of are Japanese. Go figure. In Japan the first words that come to mind are Spanish. Hopefully I'll get that straightened out over the next 6 months.

I finally made it to this hole-in-the-wall hostel and got the tour from Fabio, the check-in guy. It's a pretty solid hostel - complimentary bfast and wifi, plus a locker, communal bath and bunk that makes me glad I brought a sleeping bag liner. Hey, when you're paying $8 a night you can't expect a whole lot. I was disappointed there was no chocolate waiting on my pillow though.

I dropped my stuff and headed out to explore, since I figured I would pass out if I hung around the hostel. Which would have been pretty boring anyway. I read somewhere that Buenos Aires is known as a "most civilized anthill." That's a pretty good description - it seems like all 12 million people are going everywhere at once. The entire place is one big traffic jam. Rarely there are lines on the road, and where they are they don't matter. People just go where they like. I thought my taxi was going to take out at least 5 motorcyclists on the way to the hostel. Pedestrians don't get a whole lot of leeway either - the drivers here make Philly drivers look like saints.

I made my way to the heart of the city - Plaza de Mayo. There were a few demonstrations going on (I think that's the norm). It has a monument dedicated to the founding of the city way back in the early 16th Century. The 'Pink House' (Casa Rosada, home of the executive branch of gov't) borders one side of the Plaza, with I believe the legislature on another side among other things.

After walking around I had some dinner at a pizza joint right around the corner from the hostel, in the middle of what appears to be Bs. As.' version of Broadway. The place was awesome - you order your pizza, pick it up and eat it at a standup bar in the middle of the room Japanese Ramen Shop-style. Great stuff. Pizza wasn't bad either.

Tomorrow is still up in the air - I might head down to the La Boca barrio, home of the Boca Juniors and some of the most colorful houses anywhere. Day 1 is in the books, and so far it's great.