All good things...

We woke up Sunday morning and acknowledged something we'd been denying for days: I was sick. I had a deep, dry cough, and I was very tired. I adopted a don't ask, don't tell attitude about my temperature, which was probably two or three degrees higher than it should have been. See, we have a nasty habit of getting sick on vacation. My sister-in-law Laurie has a theory that you power through life, but the day you leave for vacation, you relax and inadvertently let down your defenses. We'd planned to spend our last morning at the Jardín Japonés, but instead we spent most of it relaxing at the hotel. We spent some time chatting with our B&B's other guests, and then went to our room to finish packing. Our flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago didn't leave until 9PM, but Lorena advised us to get to Ezeiza three hours earlier. We decided that our last meal in South America should be at a classic old Buenos Aires establishment-- not at the airport. We took a taxi to Talcahuano 937 to try El Cuartito, a pizza place that's been a favorite among locals for nearly 75 years.

Argentina has deep ties to Italy, and those ties are reflected in the cuisine. Pasta and pizza are very popular here, and even the ubiquitous empanadas look a whole lot like calzoni. We'd had neapolitan pizza at Piola and Filo, but real Argentine-style pizza is different. For starters, it's thicker. As we discovered at El Cuartito, it's also cheesier.

El Cuartito is a classic old pizza place. The waiters are terse, and the walls are covered by sports posters and old magazine covers.
We ordered a small muzzarella pie, and another with jamon (it's under the cheese!) and sweet peppers. Unless you specify otherwise, all pizzas in Argentina seem to be topped with aceitunas even if olives aren't in the description. We also ordered a single slice of fainá. Fainá is a flatbread that's made with chickpea flour, and it's a traditional accompaniment to Argentine pizza. It's got a crisp crust, but the texture is a little like polenta. I'm not exactly sure what purpose it serves; we nibbled at it and then abandoned it to focus on our pizzas. El Cuartito's pizza is thicker and cheesier than the Neapolitan-style pizzas we generally prefer, but we enjoyed our lunch. More than the food, we just loved the old world vibe.

El Cuartito is in the center of town, a very short walk from Avenida 9 de Julio. Moments after we left the restaurant, and for the very first time on a street in Buenos Aires, I was concerned that we were about to be robbed. Buenos Aires is pretty quiet on Sundays, and the only other people walking along Paraguay toward 9 de Julio were a couple who were ripping open garbage bags on the street and searching the contents for... anything worth anything. Mostly, they found shreds of paper, and they didn't seem happy about that. We didn't speak, we just walked confidently past them. As we did, I noticed the woman's face-- she was completely strung out on something. She looked crazed. Several months ago, I read an article in the NY Times about paco, a cheap, highly addictive form of cocaine. Despite the scourge, we'd never seen any indication of drug activity in Buenos Aires before that moment. The couple moved on to the next set of garbage bags, and we reached the corner of 9 de Julio.

9 de Julio is a wildly wide avenue, with six lanes of traffic in each direction. We'd passed the Obelisco dozens of times during our stay in Buenos Aires, but we'd never bothered to take a picture of it before. Generally speaking, we prefer to take pictures of things that we can't easily find in Google-- ourselves, a certain old tree that caught our eye, maybe, or the label on a bottle of Uruguayan rosado that we'll never see again. We rarely take pictures of prominent landmarks because, well, someone else has already done it far better than we would. This wasn't so much a picture of the Obelisk as it was a picture of our last view of downtown Buenos Aires before we hopped in a cab to check out of Casa Palermitano and then leave for the airport.

Back at the hotel, we popped in to have one last chat with Lorena and Lucas. I'm really not a bird person. I've never been creeped out by anything more than the giant aviary at the San Diego Zoo. Lucas was different. He was like a cat with feathers. I enjoyed watching him eat peanuts, corn, and pickles, and I started to get a sense for his moods. One day I said to Steve "Lucas looks tired." As if on cue, he yawned ten seconds later and we both cracked up. On Sunday, Lucas was kind of moody. Just look at that cold shoulder! We said our goodbyes to Lorena and Andrea, who gave us a bottle of one of their favorite Argentine Malbecs and a pair of embroidered Casa Palermitano washcloths to remember our stay with them. We hugged them goodbye, and took one last look at the urban casa that had been our home for the past twelve nights.

When we got to Ezeiza, we were grateful for Lorena's suggestion that we get there early. The line to check in was very long, but we had entertainment. They guy in front of us boogied to whatever was on his iPod for a solid hour, occasionally singing audibly or doing a full turn. There was a dark side: every time the line moved, he bent his lithe frame in half to pick up his luggage and showed us a shocking amount of butt crack.

Within five minutes of boarding the plan, the passenger in front of us pooped himself.
We paid our exit tax, passed through security, and made it to the gate with half an hour to spare. Our flight to Santiago was packed, but it was on time. When we got to Santiago, though, we were stunned to see our flight to LAX was already boarding. We hurried to the gate only to find that our 11 hour flight was populated by a huge group of pajama-clad, giggly teenage girls returning to LA, and a large group of good looking male Uruguayan soccer players. When we boarded, the reality of our seat assignment was far worse than we imagined: the teenagers were scattered about and keeping to themselves. We had a functionally deaf older couple behind us who had to scream to hear each other, and a sick, screaming toddler and his clueless dad in front of us. We grasped hands, took a deep breath, and prepared ourselves for the worst. Within 5 minutes of boarding, dad was changing the world's stinkiest diaper right there in the seat. A flight attendant pleaded with him to use the bathroom, but when he didn't budge, she brought all the wet wipes she could muster. My thoughts immediately turned to the next occupant of that seat.

Then, shortly after take-off, we learned that LAN's amazing in-flight entertainment system was malfunctioning, and the countless movies, TV shows, documentaries, streaming music, and video games that had kept us and everyone else so happy on our LAX-SCL flight two weeks earlier would be unavailable. The flight crew rebooted the system a few times, but it never worked perfectly. In some seats, such as Steve's, it never worked at all.

The flight got off to a bad start, but shortly after the dinner service, the lights dimmed. Like Lucas does when Lorena puts a towel over his cage, Steve and I-- along with the toddler, his dad, the almost-deaf couple behind us, and nearly two hundred teenagers-- fell asleep. We hit some wild turbulence over the Pacific, but when I finally pulled out my ear plugs at 5AM, almost everyone was still asleep. With insistent button-pushing, I convinced the TV screen in front of me to play a movie. The flight attendants served breakfast-- an omelette floating in some sort of liquid. It was so unappealing that even Steve, who ate thymus glands in Argentina, wouldn't taste it. We landed on time, and although we expected a long, tedious trip through customs at LAX, we were out in the sunlight with our luggage an hour after we landed.

South Americans have a curious custom that we noticed on each of our seven LAN flights. As soon as the plane stops, the passengers applaud. Are they just grateful to be alive? Or is it a way of thanking the pilot for a job well done? We have no idea why they do it, but it's endearing. And on that final flight, we gave in and clapped too.

Rodents of Unusual Size

After our big meal at Bar Uriarte last night, we slept like babies. We stumbled out of our room for coffee at 11:30, and bumped into Casa Palmeritano's newest residents, who'd just arrived this morning. They're from Brooklyn-- like me!

This is our last full day here, so we wanted to tie up a few loose ends. Norma doesn't work on Sundays, so we wanted to tip her personally and thank her for taking such good care of our room. Norma has radar; the moment you wander into the dining room, she drops whatever she's doing in another part of the house to squeeze oranges for your jugo de naranja exprimida. She always offers to make us some eggs, but we're usually too stuffed from the previous night's dinner to eat anything more than a couple of medialunas. Norma whistles while she works-- really.

We also wanted to pay Lorena today, in case we didn't see much of her tomorrow. I've said it before, but I've never encountered a better value that Casa Palermitano, and I've never encountered more welcoming hosts than Lorena and Andrea. In addition to providing us a very attractive, clean, comfortable, and spacious room for the bargain-basement price of $58 USD a night, Lorena and Andrea have helped to make every aspect of our trip better. They've not only called cabs, drawn maps, and made dinner reservations for us, but they've been friends to us here. They've given advice on how to stay safe, and chatted with us extensively in their office about Buenos Aires, their home, their plans for the future, and their hilarious, pickle-eating parrot, Lucas. Lucas plays in Lorena's hands like a puppy. She can turn him over, rub his belly, and put her fingers in his mouth. By contrast, Lucas will only speak for Andrea, but he won't let her play with him. Our flight is tomorrow night, but we reserved the room through Monday because we didn't want to check out early. Since Lorena had the room open anyway, she wouldn't take our money for Sunday night. She's just like that. We didn't want to risk offending her, so instead of insisting she let us pay for Sunday night, we asked her if we could take her and Andrea our for dinner. We have a 9:30 reservation for four at (drumroll) Bar Uriarte. We hoped to get back to El Establo, but we're kind of beefed out.

Dinner plans in place, Steve and I left for the zoo. Jardín Zoológico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires is in the Palermo Barrio, not far from our hotel. We've walked passed it more than once, but never quite made it through the gate. Before she and Larry left for home yesterday, Marcia warned me that the zoo here is more old school. "It might be upsetting to an animal lover," she explained.

There are several species of birds and rodents that wander freely through the park and approach people for food. There are kiosks everywhere that sell "animal food," and you can hand feed almost anything that lives in the Buenos Aires zoo. Animals with major fangs are out of reach, but for safe animals that you can't hand-feed, there's a chute you can use to pass food into the cage. We have petting zoos in the U.S., but it's hard to imagine a zoo that would allow animals-- any animals-- to wander freely.

The majestic aquatic turtles live in a glass tank the size of a small bathroom. Granted, they don't move much, but the enclosure had a goldfish-in-bowl look to it. Then there was this guy, a beautiful blue and gold macaw surrounded on one side by bricks, and on the other by a chain-link fence.

Animals from all over the world are represented at the zoo, but our favorites were some of the more unusual local speciments. The carpincho (capybara in English) is a rodent that's bigger than a large dog. Carpinchos are valued here for their leather. In fact, one of the current residents at our hotel, Chase from Los Angeles, showed up to breakfast in his handsome new carpincho slippers. The craziest-looking animal we saw was the giant anteater. Although these are usually harmless, an anteater attacked a zookeeper here last year and left her in critical condition.

It was about 70 degrees and sunny the whole time we were at the zoo. Not bad for winter, huh? It was a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed ourselves. We walked back to the hotel, and stopped at Munchi's for one last taste of Argentine helado-- frambuesa y chocolate amargo. Mmm, mmm.

Andrea and Lorena called a taxi to take the four of us to Bar Uriarte for our 9:30PM reservation. The staff recognized us from the night before, and they were extremely friendly and welcoming. We started with a sparkling Trumpeter Rosado de Malbec and some cheese croquettes. We ordered a couple of starters to share, and then moved on to our entrees and the best vino tinto of our trip-- the Flecha de los Andes Malbec. Steve and Lorena both ordered ojo de bife (ribeye) with goat provoleta and chimichurri. This may be total blasphemy, but Bar Uriarte's meats are better than a top notch Parilla's. Our waiter overheard us debating the various desserts and offered to make up a "special dessert tray for four." It was more like dessert for forty! We made a valiant effort, but the four of us barely made a dent in this tray.

I started to doze off on Steve's shoulder between entrees and dessert, and I suspect that's how Lorena and Andrea will remember me: ¡La chica que se durmió en la cena!

The same, but different.

We'd tentatively planned to spend our Friday at the Buenos Aires Zoo, but then we bumped into Larry and Marcia from Seattle. It's their last day in Buenos Aires, and they invited us to join them at Caminos y Sabores, the "roads and flavors" expo at the La Rural Exhbition Center. It sounded like fun! Artisans travel from all over Argentina with their chocolates, oils, vinegars, spices, cheeses, salamis, beers, wines, licors, Fernets, leather goods, wool, silver, etc.

Larry and Marcia suggested we take the subway; the Bulnes station is about five blocks from our hotel, and La Rural is only two stops away from there by train. Cabs are so inexpensive here that we'd never bothered to try the subway. We pay about $4 USD for a typical cab ride across town; subway fare is $0.30.

The subway in Buenos Aires feels oddly like the subway in New York. The air is heavy, warm, and moist, and hits your face at high speed every time a train arrives. We got off at Plaza Italia, and walked up to La Rural. We've seen so many professional dog walkers in Buenos Aires, but this time, we actually had our camera at the ready. We counted sixteen, but there were leashes and paws everywhere.

As we approached La Rural, Steve noticed a majestic old tree. The trunk was huge! Here's a picture with Larry in it, just for perspective. We've seen several trees like this here, and every time I see one, I expect to see a door open up and a family of elves to scamper out.

The expo was interesting. It's open to the public for a small admission fee, but most of the vendors traveled to the big city in hopes of finding stores to sell or distribute their products. There were some really interesting wool and leather goods. One thing that caught our eye was a cow hair "agenda" that was designed to conceal a handgun. Might come in handy with the Supreme Court's recent interpretation of the Second Amendment!

We particularly enjoyed trying the cheeses. We tried one (I think they called it Queso de Campo) that looked like swiss cheese, but was mild and springy like day-old macaroni that's bloated from soaking up cheesy bechamel. Most of the cheesemakers call their goat cheeses "Queso de Cabra"-- goat cheese. We tried several different kinds, all with the same name. We finally bought a disc of a moist, firm one with a texture somewhere between a slicing and crumbling cheese, and took it back to Casa Palermitano (along with a $6 USD bottle of sparkling "Lambrusquino") for a light lunch. We also bought some wildly fragrant vinegars and a chimichurri-inspired dip to take home to the States.

We lingered over our wine and cheese in Lorena's diningroom for a long time, and then decided to read for a bit and take a nap. I know, it's a hard life when you're on vacation! For dinner, Andrea made a 9PM reservation for us at Bar Uriarte. Restaurants often struggle to create spaces that are both attractive and comfortable, but Bar Uriarte is both. It's a gorgeous space, but it's warm and inviting. The service was better than any we've encountered in BsAs, the wine list was extensive, and the food was delicious. And per the post below, we tipped like Americans, not like Argentines.

We started with a burrata and tomato confit salad. Burrata is the freshest cheese you'll ever taste, and it's as milky white and pliant as marshmallow fluff. We've had a lot of bad tomatoes in Buenos Aires. It's winter here, but that doesn't stop restaurants from throwing pale, flavorless tomatoes into their salads. The tomato confit was a much better idea! One thing we've really enjoyed here, besides the meat, is the mushrooms. Hongos are very popular in Buenos Aires, and they're usually delicious. We had a grilled polenta and mushrooms appetizer at Filo that we loved. Bar Uriarte's mushrooms are served alone on a plate with a few shavings of pecorino, but that's all they need. They're like little hunks of succulent, fatty meat. We relented and scooped up the smaller ones with some grilled flatbread that they'd left of the table, but only because we couldn't get them with our forks.

We've been drinking a lot of Malbec here, but it's always very primary and fruity. I suspect the better ones can age, but we never see older bottles on restaurant lists. I don't remember the producer, but we chose a reserve Syrah with dinner last night that was a little older and had a lot more character. It had a slightly herbaceous and coconutty American oak flavor to it, but not to the point of distraction. It worked well with our skirt steak and sweetbreads. Why isn't skirt steak more popular? We've had our share of tenderloin, sirloin, and ribeye here, but nothing packs more meat flavor for the buck than a good old fashioned skirt steak. As a kid, I used to order these "Roumanian tenderloins" for dinner at the Kosher deli. I hereby resolve to cook more skirt steak in 2008.

By 11PM, we'd moved on to coffee and crème brûlée flavored with (what else?) dulce de leche. A man with what had to be hair plugs came and sat next to us. He was at a sunken table for ten, so we were a couple of feet above him and totally fixated on his head. The hair around his head's perimeter was typical-- just coarse, graying, middle aged hair. The stuff in the center was soft, fine, darker, and stuck up like a baby duck's fuzz. We couldn't take our eyes off it. I had an almost irresistible desire to touch this man's hair-- and so did Steve.

Bar Uriarte could have been in Portland. Hell, it could have been in New York or Paris. When we got up to leave, we encountered a sobering reminder of how Buenos Aires differs from those other cities: the front door is bolted shut. A charming hostess peered out the window, and decided it was safe to let us out.

Random thoughts

Fast salt - use salt shakers in Argentina with extreme caution. Their normal-looking shakers release ultra fine salt from ultra big holes.

Small feet - I tried to buy a pair of Merrell all-weather mocs to hike around Iguazu Falls, and discovered that my feet, which are size 9, are freakishly larger by Argentine standards. I was laughed out of two shoe stores (they tried to convince me to wear 8s at both. "They stretch!")

To drink or not to drink the water - we use tap water to brush our teeth, and we haven't had any problems. We keep bottled water for drinking, and always order a bottle of agua con gas in restaurants. Even the locals seem to prefer bottled water. I don't think the tap water is dangerous, but if you're on vacation for only a week or two, it's not worth the digestive adjustment period.

Traffic lanes are mere suggestions. On a four lane street, it's common to see six or seven improvised lanes of cars. The cars are small, and they weave through traffic with so little room to spare that you feel you could be crushed from either direction. It's really terrifying, but it works. Traffic flows relatively smoothly, and most of the cars have seatbelts.

Cars are different - The ones we see in Buenos Aires are primarily Renault, Peugeot, VW, Ford, and Chevy. We've seen a handful of Mercedes (mostly tiny A160) and BMWs, and a lone Volvo wagon. Other than a handful of Honda Fits and a lone Toyota Corolla, we haven't seen many Japanese cars at all. The vast majority of cars seem to have manual transmissions, and we haven't seen a single airbag in any car in Buenos Aires. We take half a dozen cabs every day, so we've been in a lot of cars!

Two yellow lights - in Buenos Aires, traffic lights turn yellow before they turn red, but also before they turn green. My observation is that they blow they yellow light that comes before the green one regularly, but they seem to heed yellow before red. I guess you have to heed one or the other if you want to stay alive here.

Table charges - many restaurants charge a small cover fee for each person at the table. They range from about 2 pesos to 6 pesos, or about $0.66 to $2.00. This is NOT a tip; it's the restaurant's "cover charge." If it sounds like a scam, consider this: restaurants do not ever-- ever-- rush you here. You can order a cappuccino, and sit at a table all night. At one restaurant, Señor Telmo, we eavesdropped as a woman at a neighboring table tried to dispute the charge. Her husband had lunch, but all she'd had was a cup of coffee. She pleaded for ten minutes for them to drop the 2 peso charge, but the restaurant adamantly refused. Some of the higher end restaurants don't have a table charge, but most do. We've spent 250 pesos on dinner, and still been hit with the table charge. In Uruguay, our check also had a charge (that worked out to less than 50 cents per person) for the musicians who played during dinner.

Tips are appreciated here, but they're smaller. In restaurants, a tip is never guaranteed, but servers expect about 10%. Quite honestly, the service level rarely warrants more. The server takes your order, and brings your stuff to the table. You flag him down if you need anything else. You flag him down for the check. You pour your own wine and water, and you grind your own pepper. Not all restaurants accept credit cards, but even among the ones that do, you can't leave a tip on the card. Be prepared to leave cash. We've had a couple of experiences (notably at El Establo) where service was outstanding, and on those occasions, we've tipped 20-25%.

More on tipping - Porteños generally give taxi drivers no tips at all, or small tips by rounding up to the next peso on cab fare. We've left small, 1-2 peso tips for the most part. We've deviated from this local practice when a driver has gone out of his way for us. For example, the driver Lorena called to take us to Chacarita made multiple stops. We tipped him 20%. Our B&B's housekeeper and breakfast cook, Norma, has taken very good care of us. We leave what's considered a good tip (by local standards) for her every day-- 5 pesos, or about $1.67. It takes very little money by American standards to reward good service here, and the locals are truly grateful. We plan to leave a significantly larger, American style tip for Norma on our last day.

Las Madres

The Littles are half Argentine. Their dad was born in Buenos Aires, and lived there until his parents emigrated to the United States when he was five years old. Grandma Nelly was an only child, but Grandpa Richard was the youngest of seven children. My kids have history and extended family in Argentina, and I wanted to see some of it for myself. Their dad dug up an old picture and the address of his father's house-- Puntas Arenas 1861. It's in the Paternal Barrio, a straight shot west about twenty minutes from our hotel in Palermo. It's well outside central Buenos Aires, so Lorena (we love this woman!) gave us a more extensive map, called a taxi, and instructed the driver to take us to the house, give us a few minutes to get out and take pictures, and then take us on to our next destination. The picture we'd seen of the house looked so much like the beautiful old houses we've seen in San Telmo. When we found it, we were surprised to see that it looked nothing like the picture. We double checked the address. Punta Arenas 1861 has had a complete facelift.

We got back in the cab, and headed to Cementerio Chacarita. Grandpa Richard's family has a mauseoleum there. It's an imposing sight; it's as beautiful a cemetery as Recoleta, but much larger. The archivo, which had as many books as a small library, was closed. We had no way to look up Grandpa's family's "address," so we just went for a walk and hoped we'd find it. We knew it was pointless-- it was sort of like walking up and down random Manhattan streets in hopes of spotting a single familiar name on a single familiar mailbox. We never found Grandpa's family, but near the entrance, we spotted Grandma's maiden name on a mausoleum. A relative? We'll ask her when we get back to Los Angeles.

Chacarita has its famous residents, but it's a living, breathing cemetery. Most of the visitors we saw today were there to pay respects to a relative, not a celebrity. We saw a procession of cars pull up, presumably for a funeral. There are florists near the entrance, but I noticed that unlike at Recoleta or in the States, where visitors leave flowers in bud vases and empty soda bottles, they simply tuck them into the tombs at Chacarita. Vases, or any other vessels that hold water, are forbidden at Chacarita. Still water provides a happy home for mosquitoes, and mosquitoes here spread Dengue fever. The flowers for the dead don't live as long at Chacarita, but they're safer for the living.

We left Chacarita, and took a cab to Plaza de Mayo. The U.S. State Department website had one strict warning for Americans who visit Argentina: avoid political protests. We timed our visit to Plaza de Mayo, the political center of Buenos Aires, to coincide with a left wing march. Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo have marched in protest every Thursday afternoon at 3:30 for thirty years. Las Madres is an association of mothers who formed to protest the disappearance of their adult children during the Argentine "Dirty War"-- a military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983. Initially, we were very interested in the Mamas and their cause. What could be more odious than a dictatorship that abducts people during the night, tortures them, murders them, and never even returns the bodies? As we learned more about the Mamas, our affection diminished. Many of them have been radicalized by their experiences; they're not just little old ladies in headscarves who protest egregious human rights abuses anymore... they're hardcore socialists. The banner they carry says "distribute the wealth." One of their founders, Hebe de Bonafini, has publicly stated her support for the September 11th hijackers. We saw a lot of tourists in the square before the march (which is actually more of a leisurely stroll) and many gave Las Madres donations. That really hardened my feelings about charity: I do not ever, under any circumstances, donate so much as a dollar to a cause just because someone holds out his hand. Your money has power, and it's your political voice; be sure you agree with how it will be used before you hand it over.

The Mamas inspired much stronger feelings in me than I expected. All fired up, I took Steve's hand and headed to Munchi's to chill out over a couple of cones of delicious Argentine helado.

9 de Julio

July 9 is Independence Day in Argentina. At Lorena's suggestion, we spent the afternoon with several million Argentines at Feria de Mataderos. There are a lot of street fairs in Buenos Aires; we went to the Feria San Telmo last Sunday and enjoyed ourselves, but it's intensely touristy. The Matador's Fair, which is far from the center of Buenos Aires (but still only $10 US by cab) has a lot more local flavor.

Lorena called a taxi for us, and arranged for the same taxi company to pick us up a few hours later. At the outer edge of the fair, which is in the Mataderos barrio, it looked like a cheesy outdoor flea market. There were some freshly baked churros (note: stuffed with dulce de leche. The Argentines stuff dulce de leche into everything) for sale, and table after table of assorted crap. A block or so into the fair, it changed before our eyes. We watched artisans hammer silver, and we admired table after table of handcrafted stuff. Some of it was ridiculous; in keeping with the gaucho theme, a lot of folks make random objects like clocks and wine racks out of horseshoes. Some of it, though, was really unique. We found a young glass artist who makes jewelry and bud vases reminiscent of the 50s era Higgins pieces that I've been collecting for years. We picked a vase with fun design, and gladly handed over nineteen pesos-- about $6.30. We bought a few souvenirs for friends and family, and then we found a couple of native women from Salta who were selling alpaca sweaters. We both spotted a gorgeous white and gray alpaca scarf, and decided to share it. When the woman who made it asked us for treinta pesos-- $10-- we thought we'd misunderstood.

Food and drink are not regulated here the way they are in the states. At fairs, people wander around with baskets of homemade pastries and empanadas for sale. One woman set herself up on the sidewalk and laid out her beautifully made cakes on milk crates. People sell bottles of homemade "licor" without any special licensing. One woman offered us samples, and we loved her stuff. Her dulce de leche ($2 for a nice sized jar) had a deeper flavor and lighter texture than most of what we've had here, and her dulce de leche licor ($3 for a 500ml or so bottle) could put Bailey's out of business. Who knows if we'll get either package through customs.

As we strolled past more sellers, I reached down to pet a large dog that brushed up against my waist. I jumped back a couple of feet when I realized that the large dog was actually a small horse! The horses are an attraction of sorts. For a couple of pesos, you can plop your child up on to the horse for a few minutes, go for a walk, and take pictures.

At the center of the Feria de Mataderos, there's a stage for live entertainment. The music is familiar to everyone who lives here, with mostly older men and women dressed in traditional gaucho clothing who dance along. We loved seeing so many people, young and old, sing every word to songs we'd never even heard.

We had food fatigue from all the big meals we've had here, so we decided to skip lunch. We were still curious to see what the locals were eating. In some ways, a street fair is a street fair is a street fair.
There are asados everywhere, and they serve hamburgers, sausages, grilled chicken, etc. Then there are the more uniquely Argentine empanadas, which cost about $0.30 US each. Mexican tamales are very popular, too. If there was meat to be had, there were locals in line for it. One of the stranger offerings involved popcorn. Fruit is dipped in goo, threaded on to a skewer, and rolled in popcorn. We agreed that we'd never seen anything quite like it, and that we wouldn't feel like we'd missed an important cultural experience if we walked on by. We made our way back to the center of the fair to watch the dancers, but by late afternoon, the crowd had swelled and the square was unbearable. There were traffic jams-- traffic jams of people-- in every direction. What had been a very pleasant experience turned into my own personal hell. We escaped back out to the fair's less crowded periphery to do some people watching, and then studied the map Lorena had drawn for us to find the spot where we were supposed to rendezvous with our taxi. He arrived within a few minutes, and flagged us down. It's humbling to realize how much we stick out here. Argentines aren't homogenous by any stretch, but with our fair skin and curly blond hair, we're just too far from the average to blend in.

We headed back to Casa Palermitano for a much-needed siesta, and decided to make dinner reservations at an Indian restaurant just around the corner called Katmandu. There's only so much beef and so much pasta you can eat, and we knew we wouldn't find either at Katmandu.

It was a nice dinner. Typical stuff, but well executed. Some tandoori paneer and vegetables, and some rogan josh. We ordered a Catena Zapata rosado of Malbec. It was 46 pesos on the restaurant's list, which works out to $15.30. The owner came over to compliment us on a good choice, and told us it's worth the extra money. We were dumbstruck. Can you imagine ordering a really good wine from a restaurant's list for $15? He told us a little about the wine, and then asked where we were from. We told him "the United States." He asked where. "Oregon," we told him. Then he said something that surprised us: I know Oregon. We know the United States. People there don't know Argentina, though.

It's true, I suppose, and it's neither an unreasonable statement nor an unreasonable reality.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

Argentines love their corpses, and none more so than that of Eva Perón. Perón was thirty three at the time of her death from cancer in 1952. Her husband, President Juan Perón, had her embalmed so thoroughly and artistically that her corpse could be displayed to the public permanently, just like Lenin's. Things didn't work out as planned. Perón was overthrown in a military coup a couple of years later, and Eva's body vanished for sixteen years. When it finally surfaced, Juan Perón kept Eva's body in his home, where his subsequent wife, Isabel, brushed the corpse's hair every day. When Perón died, Isabel buried Eva's body in her family's tomb in Cementerio de la Recoleta. The Recoleta Cemetery looks like a small city. The tombs, which all look different, sit side-by side in streets and alleys like a Manhattan neighborhood in miniature. Some of them look like mansions, carved from marble with elaborate detail. Others look like rundown brick shacks where a troll might live. The Duarte family's tomb is somewhere in the middle. It's well-maintained, but in no way ostentatious. The cemetery's other residents are... cats. It's a recurring theme here in Buenos Aires. The cats are friendly and well-cared for, and they're absolutely everywhere. Some of them seem to stand guard in front of some particular tomb, as though it's home.

After we toured the cemetery, we walked around the neighborhood a bit and then hailed a taxi to El Establo. Margaret's El Establo. This time, we wrote down the address. The palmitos were as to die for as Margaret described, and the waiter, who absolutely charmed us, demonstrated how tender our meat was by cutting it cleanly with a fork and spoon! One thing Margaret didn't mention was the french fries. The "papas fritas" at El Establo were the best fries we've ever had-- far better, even, than any frite we ate in Belgium. We often order more than we want to eat just to try different things, but we finished every bite at El Establo. We actually split the last fry on principle. As we finished up our Malbec, the waiter brought us a couple of shots of limoncello, gratis. Then a couple more. We left the restaurant, and wandered up Calle Florida to peek into store windows and walk off lunch.

Tonight, we'll be asleep by 10PM. Tomorrow morning, we'll be up by 4:30AM to catch a plane to Iguazu Falls.

San Telmo

This morning we took a taxi to San Telmo. Taxis in Buenos Aires are dirt cheap. Plaza Dorrego, in the heart of San Telmo, is about as far from our B&B as any place in Buenos Aires; the 25 minute taxi ride was $6.

Plaza Dorrego is home to Feria San Telmo every Sunday, a huge, open air antique market. The Plaza was empty this morning except for a few vendors selling assorted junque. We wandered around the Galería Mercado de San Telmo. It's a 100+ year old indoor market. We usually hate such places, but this one wasn't the "two sweatshirts for $5" variety. There were antique cameras, antique suitcases, beautiful wool scarves, jewelry, fresh pastries, and several butchers. We watched as locals ordered meat and supervised every detail of how it was cut and packaged. We both noticed something interesting at all of the pastry counters-- a crunchy thing. It looked like a large, deep fried flower formed from filo dough. We plunked down two pesoes (about 70 cents) and got one to share. There was a blob of some sort of jam in the middle, but we both agreed it was gilding the lily and tossed that part in the trash.

San Telmo has dozens of antique shops, but it also has a lot of leather shops. There are beautifully made Hermes look-alikes, available in a zoological panoply of different animal hides. Cow hair Kelly? Check. Crocodile Birkin? It's there too. The bags aren't inexpensive, except by comparison to the genuine articles. Then there are the lighting stores. They're everywhere! Do the people of Buenos Aires really buy so many more lamps than the rest of us? We window shopped, but we only went into one store: El Rincon de los Duendes. Our friend Warren has a thing for gnomes, so we left with a couple of souvenirs for him. His wife is going to kill us. We walked around San Telmo for hours, and we loved its funky vibe. Another thing we loved was the dearth of dog droppings. Not only do the dogs seem to walk on leashes in San Telmo, but professional dog walkers, paseaperros, take them out in packs. We saw one man handle a dozen large dogs with Cesar Millan's "dog whisperer" finesse. We stopped at El Hippopotamo, a famous old café across from Parque Lezama. We ordered cappuccinos, and people-watched from our table at the window.


We paid a visit to Casa Bolivar, the San Telmo B&B where we originally planned to stay. It's a beautiful building, and it's representative of the architectural style we saw all over San Telmo. We never found out why Casa Bolivar canceled our reservation, but we learned at TripAdvisor that they canceled a lot of reservations. The buzz is that they, like so many Buenos Aires B&Bs, are unlicensed and were shut down by the city until they comply with licensing requirements.

Not far from the Gnome shop, we spotted El Establo, a restaurant that our friend Margaret highly recommended to us. Margaret told us she visited El Establo three nights in a row for the incredible palmitos and sweetbreads. We made a mental note of its location, and returned at 2PM for lunch. Our table had a nice view of the grill, which was in the middle of the restaurant, just as Margaret had described. We started with the ensalata de la casa, the only salad on the all-Spanish menu with palmitos. Margaret had described it as a dinner plate covered with a triple layer of palmitos - nothing else; no sauce or dressing. Our ensalata was not Margaret's ensalata. Ours had lettuce, tomato, corn, beets, small pickled palmitos, and a giant blob of mayonnaise in the center. Margaret hates mayonnaise. We shrugged and pressed on. The steaks were good, and were served with a very pungent red chimichurri. We ordered a 35 peso Malbec just to see what a $12 restaurant wine could be like. It did its job-- it was tooth-staining and tannic, which was a nice complement to the steaks. It was a nice enough lunch, but it seemed all wrong. It just didn't seem like the kind of place Margaret would visit three nights in a row. On the way out, we took a closer look at the sign. We had lunch at Del Establo; El Establo is halfway across town.

Not to worry. We have eleven more nights in Buenos Aires.

Segunda Noche

This afternoon, we wandered around Palermo. We set out at about 2PM, and dodged doody for four hours as we explored the bustling barrio on foot. At about 4:30, we noticed a lot more activity along the streets, as parents lined up to pick up their kids at school. I had a "small world" moment when I saw a student walk by with the same polka dot backpack that Caroline uses for school! The highlight of our walk was Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires-- the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden. It's winter here and there's not a lot that's blooming, but the giant old oak and eucalyptus trees are beautiful. The garden has hundreds of permanent residents: cats! These aren't feral animals; they're fluffy, healthy pets. Jardín Botánico is an unofficial refuge for unwanted cats. Porteños provide food for the animals, and local vets keep them healthy.

Lorena made a dinner reservation for us at a local wine bar, Diseño Liquido. After our big meal at La Cabrera last night, we needed to temporarily shift gears. We had an '03 Angelica Zapata Cab that we really enjoyed. It was almost black in color and very primary, but not the slightest bit hot or goopy. It was a nice match for Diseño Liquido's mushroom-cabernet risotto.

We're spoiled by the ubiquity of English speakers in Europe. We traveled twice to Amsterdam in the past year and a half, and never spoke more than a couple of words in Dutch. Even in smaller towns in Belgium, we got by with very little French. In Buenos Aires, our (admittedly rudimentary) Spanish skills have been essential. Outside of the hotels, we've found that most Argentines don't speak English any better than we speak Spanish. Fortunately, they're very friendly, and they try their hardest to meet us half-way. It's amazing how well you can communicate without verbs!

Tomorrow, San Telmo.

¡Culo ducha!

We're checked into Casa Palermitano, where our stuff will remain for the rest of our stay. It's so reasonably priced that we decided to keep the room every night, even when we're in Uruguay. This will allow us to travel with nothing but backpacks. No suitcases!

As soon as we got here, I understood why this place is the top rated Buenos Aires B&B on TripAdvisor. It's a gorgeous old house, with high ceilings, polished wood floors, spacious and beautifully tiled bathrooms, comfortable beds, Frida Kahlo prints on the walls, more closet space than I've ever seen in a hotel room, and Lorena, our charming hostess. Every B&B on Earth has a house cat or two; Lorena has a house parrot named Lucas. Lucas is a gorgeous green and gold boy. He wouldn't talk to us, but Lorena reported that he chats with himself occasionally. His primary phrase is "hola, Lucas."

Our baño has a bidet. A bidet! I've never felt fresher.

Primera Noche

After a long and much-needed nap, we set out to find dinner. Our innkeeper, Lucila, advised us that we could go anywhere for an early dinner (which means 8PM in Buenos Aires) on a Tuesday night without a reservation. Anywhere, that is, except La Cabrera. La Cabrera is one of the best parillas in Buenos Aires, and it's a ten minute walk from our hotel.

I was intrigued.

We set out to claim a table at La Cabrera, and learned our first lesson about the streets of Buenos Aires: there's dog doo everywhere. When I was a kid in Brooklyn, back before people walked around with little plastic bags to scoop up canine caca, the grassy areas near trees were major danger zones. In Buenos Aires, everywhere is a danger zone. There are steaming heaps, literally, in the middle of the sidewalk. The corollary to lesson number one is lesson number two: porteños walk their dogs off-leash. Most of the dogs here are extremely well socialized and stay close to their owners, but we saw one rambunctious and enormous young sheepdog barrel through an outdoor café. The diners didn't mind at all; they cooed at the happy fella and egged him on.

I like it here.

We found La Cabrera, and learned lesson number three: it's a dog eat dog city. We were the first customers to arrive at the restaurant without reservations, and simply expected to get seated first. Three very unapologetic couples pushed past us in line and got tables; we got the first spot on the restaurant's waiting list. We sulked for a little, but then we snapped out of it and enjoyed free glasses of Argentine sparkling wine. We had an outside table on the heated patio by 8:45.

The Argentines butcher their cows differently than we do, and the cuts have different names. We planned to try two of the most popular cuts, Lomo and Bife de Chorizo, but when we saw the sizes of the steaks, we decided to share one. We went with the Lomo, which was a mistake. Lomo is tenderloin; it's tender, but even in Argentina, it's relatively mild in flavor. It was an excellent piece of meat, but as Steve remarked, it didn't transport me. We'll go for the bife de chorizo next time, or maybe the ojo de bife. We washed it down with a bold Argentine Malbec

Margaret-the-Penguinlady advised us before we left to try the hearts of palm. I've never liked hearts of palm; the stuff in the cans is kind of gross. Here, they're incredible. They're like little towers of heavy cream with the faintest vegetal flavor. Mild, tender, lush... you can slice them from top to bottom with the dull edge of an old fork. Steve momentarily worried that it was wasteful to slaughter a palm tree for its decadent heart, but then he remembered that palm trees grow like weeds. He ate the rest of our salad without remorse.

Street crime is a problem in Buenos Aires. At La Cabrera, the hostess came by and strapped a female diner's purse to her chair when she left it on the ground. We were concerned enough from what we've read that we planned to take a taxi back to our hotel, but we were so stuffed that we needed the fresh air. A couple of people approached us for money, but we just ignored them. We never felt threatened.

Tomorrow will be our first day to explore the city! We'll start in Palermo, and work our way out from day to day.

La Otra Orilla

Our flight from Santiago took off at sunrise in dense fog. For a few glorious minutes after we reached our cruising altitude, the clouds separated, as if on cue, to show us the snow-capped Andes wrapped in a soft pinkish-purple morning glow. It was beautiful. The clouds returned and swallowed up the entire landscape, and didn't retreat until we were over the flat, delineated Pampas. It looked weirdly like Kansas.

The cab ride from Ezeiza to Buenos Aires took us past some of the poorest neighborhoods I've ever seen. There were houses without windows that looked like remnants of a lost war-- they were literally sagging and cracking. The warm, homey clotheslines outside mean that people live there. I've never seen poverty like that in the United States. 

Buenos Aires proper feels like a typical European city... glorious old row houses, tiny cars, crazy drivers, and a funky mix of lux and grit. Tomorrow we'll check into Casa Palermitano, which will be our home base as we explore Buenos Aires, Tigre, Colonia del Sacramento, and Montevideo. For tonight, we're in the lovely Bamboo Room at La Otra Orilla. 

It's naptime. When we wake up, we'll be ready for some bloody bife de chorizo and a big, tannic Argentine vino tinto.