South America

Hola from Buenos Aires, Argentina!

Yes, this is the first episode for 2002. Ray and Jeanne are in sunny, warm South America, Argentina at the moment to be exact. I know Ottawa got record snow just one week ago so I just thought I would throw that in!

We are fine and enjoying life. I took some Spanish lessons before we left and it has been a help to read signs and menus, but my conversational Spanish is terrible! Many people in the more touristy areas do speak some English, but not all. Ray is getting pretty good at interpreting what is being said so when I can´t understand, he usually has guessed correctly. I am improving slowly, so by the time we finish this trip I may be quite proficient. Now, if only they didn´t keep changing the pronunciation in each country...

We received good advice from our travel agent, Lembit Lellep. He advised us to arrive in Buenos Aires on a weekday, not a weekend. That is because all businesses close up for both Saturday and Sunday. It is even difficult to find a restaurant or corner store open. They take spare time seriously here. We arrived on a Friday morning and as soon as we had checked into our hotel, we rushed out to find a travel agent to make some onward connections. The famous Iguazu Falls, on the border with Brazil, was high on our list of places to visit. We priced out a package to fly there for three days and take in the scenic wonders. We decided waterfalls, beautiful or not, were not worth the price quoted. Scratch one off our list, but we were successful in booking a flight to see the wildlife on the Valdez Peninsula, about 1000 K south of Buenos Aires. You will hear about that visit later.

In the meantime, we set out to discover Buenos Aires on foot. I had been worried that we would be easy targets for purse snatching and other nasty business, but that is not the case. So far the city is nice and safe and easy to explore. There is a large police presence in the shopping areas, but it was more reassuring than anything.

We are staying in V & S, a small hostel type hotel, in the heart of the city. We are just a few blocks from 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world, lined with hotels and sidewalk cafes. A few blocks the other way are Florida and Lavalle streets, pedestrian only streets a la Sparks Street in Ottawa, except here in Buenos Aires, it works. It is nice to walk for blocks not worrying about traffic, just sharing the space with other shoppers. There are lots of stores, sidewalk vendors, restaurants and Internet cafes to choose from.

The commercial banking district was a reminder that Argentina had a severe economic crises last year. Nearly all the foreign banks are closed and boarded up. Some have large graffiti messages painted on the boards declaring “Thieves give us our US$ back”. We read somewhere that Canadians were not held in high regard after the ScotiaBank pulled out, but thankfully that has not been our experience. Anyway, the economic crises resulted in a devaluation of the Peso, making it much less expensive for us to visit. Food, beer and wine in particular is a bargain, so we have not been stinting ourselves.

One of the top draws in Buenos Aires is the very pretty Plaza 3rd de Mayo with the Presidential Palace, Casa Rosada on one side. If you saw the movie or play Evita, this is where Eva Peron greeted her adoring public from one of the balconies.

The impressive Catedral Metropolitana is on another side of the Plaza. There seemed to be a lot of activity the Saturday we were there, so we went over to have a look. Little girls, dressed in fancy, long white dresses and young boys, dressed in their best jackets and ties, were milling about with their families. It was first communion time for them. We went inside to have a look and were impressed. High domes of cool marble and stone overlooked the main gold encrusted altar and walls covered in religious paintings. A side chapel was guarded by two men in ceremonial dress. They were protecting the tomb of Jose de San Martin, the liberator in the 19th century of Argentina, Peru and Chile and one of the most revered men in South America.

The day was hot and we deserved a break, so we headed for an almost deserted park on the other side of the Casa Rosada. We had been warned to look out for scams by people squirting mustard on you and then robbing you while apologizing and pretending to clean up the mess. They did not warn us about the pigeons. We no sooner sat on a bench than a foul smelling liquid landed on both of us, splattering our clothes and knapsack. Alex Lawson told us it is good luck to have a bird shit on you, so we should be lucky for some time to come! Two women sitting on a neighbouring bench saw what happened and offered Kleenex to help clean up the mess. They were very kind, but we decided the best solution was to go back to V & S and do our first laundry. Boy, does pigeon do-do stink!

We are learning to adjust to Spanish mealtimes. We get a continental breakfast at our hotel and then have to wait until 2 PM for lunch. We are going along with the custom of eating our main meal at lunch because dinner time is way too late for us North American types. Most people start dinner about 9 or 10 PM, much too late for us.

Just a few days before we left Ottawa we made our first change to our tentative itinerary. Ray´s back had been bothering him and he said what we needed was time in the sun on a beach. I had just been on the Internet to see if we could get an exchange condo somewhere in South America using the time share week we have. Lo and behold, there was a great sounding resort in Uruguay, just a boat ride away from Buenos Aires. We were able to reserve for one week, so Sunday morning found us on our way.

We didn´t have any problem getting a taxi just before 7 AM because all the bars are just closing then and lots of young people are looking for transport home. Apparently the best nightlife starts at 2 AM and continues until day break!

A comfortable 2 1/2 hrs trip on the Buquebus, a large, fast speed catamaran, similar to those used in New Zealand, found us in Montevideo, the capitol of Uruguay. From there we hopped on a bus for another 2 hour drive east to Punta del Este, a Miami Beach style resort. Just before we got to Punta we found out our resort, Esturion de Montoya, was another 12 K east. So it was into a taxi for the final trip. We were just as glad we were out of town as our condo was great and the area, La Barra de Montoya, was nice and quiet. In fact the season does not start until December 15, so hardly any of the huge vacation homes or hotels along the coast were occupied.

The whole coast of Uruguay is lined with sandy beaches and our resort had one of the better ones. The days were warm and sunny but the water wasn´t very warm yet, somewhere around 74 F. There were big breakers all the time making our Playa Montoya a favourite with surfers. We had fun watching them in their wet suits trying to catch the best wave. I was in a few times and it was fun to play in the waves. I also took advantage of the outdoor pool and the heated indoor pool. Most of the other guests spent their time getting a suntan on the beach.

We rented bicycles for 3 days and used them to ride into Punta and explore the coast farther east. We ended up in the port area of Punta del Este the first day, where several fishermen were cleaning and selling their catches. The local seal population anticipates this daily occurence and four big ones were right beside the dock where the fish were being cleaned, waiting for leftovers. They were so tame that you could hold up a fish carcass and a seal would lumber onto the dock and take it out of your hand. One big brown, furry daddy was too lazy for that. He just sat in the water with his head in the air waiting to be thrown a fish carcass.

We visited the gallery of a local artist, Carlos Paez Vitaro, who is apparently well know in many parts of the world. Although he is now 80, he is still a prolific painter. We admired his work, but didn´t buy, and watched a 20 minute film of his life. He was a friend of Pablo Picasso and much influenced by cubism. He has murals in many airports and public buildings over the world. We saw pictures of his current home, a fantastic 72 room complex he built just west of Punta del Este. It is all white adobe curves with towers, turrets and cornices everywhere. We met a young lady who had been there and she said it was a crazy warren of a place.

Since we had a condo with a kitchen, we were able to buy food for breakfast, but we wanted to sample some of the restaurants near us. The resort had a very nice beachside restaurant where we enjoyed an excellent mid-day meal, at 2 PM. Unfortunately, they closed at 6 PM. The first day, a Sunday, we walked towards the village of La Barra only to find the three restaurants that had been open that afternoon all closed up at 8 PM. We decided our alternative was to continue on to the local grocery and buy food for a light meal in our condo. Fortunately, the store had a good selection of fresh veggies, cheeses and several varieties of tortas, like a quiche. Walking back with our groceries, we discovered the restaurants just starting to open for business at 8:30! We found out later that since this was the off-season, the restaurants were only open on the week-ends anyway. That settled it, we enjoyed great meals at our resort restaurant each day at 2 PM and we purchased food at the grocery for light evening meals. It worked out very well.

We decided that Montevideo deserved a visit, so we cut short our beach holiday by one day and took the bus back to Montevideo on Saturday. We stayed in a small hotel on the edge of the Old City, right next to a pedestrian shopping area. Saturday is the day for an open air flea market in a plaza one block away. The activity spilled over to the pedestrian streets where vendors had set up tables, buskers performed and people stopped to listen to a singer and band perform on an outside stage.

We walked through enjoying the action, but didn´t linger as we were told to go to the Mercado del Puerto. The Mercado was originally an open air market next to the main port and is now occupied by many restaurants. There was a real carnival atmosphere about the place. Saturday lunch is the most popular day for Montevideans to visit, so all the restaurants were crowded with customers. We chose one restaurant that was offering parillas. Argentinians and Uruguayians are big meat eaters and the most popular cooking method is grilling. Steaks, chops, beef ribs and sausages are cooked over an open charcoal fire and served with french fries. Ray and I both had pamplonas and roasted red peppers. A Pamplona is chicken or pork rolled up with layers of ham and cheeses. It was good but the portions were so large that we could have split one order and had more roasted veggies.

The other patrons in our restaurant were obviously enjoying themselves. A table full of older people were up dancing and singing along with two guitarists. We were serenaded by several travelling musicians. They play and you give them what you want. Just as we finished our meal we heard band music approaching our restaurant. About eight musicians, all in matching shirts and playing drums and brass instruments were winding their way through the Mercado. They were attracting a good crowd of people following along and dancing to the music. It was great fun.

The rest of the afternoon we explored more of the Old City and some of the commercial areas by foot. There are lovely old buildings with ornate wrought iron balconies and several pretty plazas, each with its statue of a hero of the wars of independence from Spain. We stopped to admire the Canadian Embassy in a beautifully restored building right on the most important square.

By evening we were still full from lunch, so we just bought some bread and cheese and ate it on one of the sidewalk benches in the pedestrian street beside our hotel. There were restaurants with sidewalk cafes lining the streets on both sides of our hotel but most were almost empty, if they were open at all. One of the employees at our hotel told us that we should go watch the tango dancers who perform outdoors starting about 10:30 PM. We decided that was too late for us old folks, so we just spent the rest of the evening reading. Around 11 PM, sounds I had heard in the distance started getting closer and closer. It was a big drum band so I woke Ray, who had fallen asleep, and insisted we get dressed and go to see what was happening. We got outside in time to join a crowd following a lively band playing large African style drums, some with sticks and some with their hands. The beat was infectious so we followed along for a block or two before turning around. We made our way back to our hotel past restaurants that had been empty at 8 PM and were now thronged with customers, all enjoying a late meal. One restaurant on the ground floor under our hotel had live musicians, so we went in to have a glass of wine at the bar and enjoy the music. People were still arriving at midnight when we finally packed it in.

We have enjoyed staying another day in Montevideo, but decided to go back to Buenos Aires on the boat as we had planned. We were hungry when we docked at 2:45 so instead of going straight back to our hotel, we walked over to the Puerto Merado. A series of abandoned red brick warehouses along the old river port have been converted into restaurants and outdoor cafes. We had walked along them when we were Buenos Aires the previous week and now it was the perfect place for lunch and people watching.

We were glad that we had made that decision because just as we were finishing up, we noticed what looked like the kitchen crew heading out for a break. We didn´t think too much about it until we had walked to the main street and hailed a cab. He told us in Spanish that all the traffic lights were out. There were police out at a few of the intersections directing traffic, but mostly it was everyone for themselves. Luckily Sunday is not a high traffic day. The entire downtown area was without electrical power. The manager of V & S told us that it was a protest by power company workers. They had been trying to increase the rates for electricity and gas to no avail, so they waited for a muggy day and the start of the football (soccer) game to cut the power. The power outage lasted nearly four hours!

So here we are, the first rainy day we have had, doing all our city chores and I am writing episode 1. Tonight we are going to a tango show and then we will have one more day to see Buenos Aires, then we fly south to Puerto Madryn and the Peninsula Valdez.