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Marcela and her dogs

A common sight in Buenos Aires is the professional dog walkers, some with as many as a dozen dogs walking along the street. I don’t know how they keep the leashes from getting tangled, but for the most part the dogs know what they’re supposed to do and stay in order quite well — although the occasional little yapper can disrupt things quite nicely!

There are several parks and green areas that seem to be popular gathering places for the walkers and their charges.

This is Marcela. I met her on my morning walk today. I quickly snapped the first photo as I walked behind her, but when I caught up with her at the crosswalk I started to chat to her. (Vida and Patti, you should be proud of me!) She has sixteen dogs in her charge, although only twelve with her(!) Some of these ones are small and were lost among the bigger ones, but I counted them and there were indeed twelve. One of them, a black lab, belonged to her.

Interestingly, several of the dogs belonged to visitors, one from Houston and two from London, and they seemed to be fitting in nicely. I asked her if it wasn’t difficult to control so many dogs, but she said no because they get a nice long walk and then when they get to the park they are ready to lie down!

It turned out Marcela is from Salta, so I told her about my trip there a couple of weeks ago. Small world indeed.

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Aaaah — Limonada casera!

On a sweltering hot day in Buenos Aires, there’s nothing like this delicious homemade lemonade that many of the cafes serve. It’s usually flavoured with fresh mint and ginger — yummy.

Yesterday was one of those limonada days. Here’s mine. I had to wait a while for them to make it, but boy was it worth the wait!

At night, after eating at home, I went to my favourite outdoor cafe for a cool glass of white wine and some people watching.

Yes, this is definitely the life for me!

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Christmas Day — and something new

Having celebrated Nochebuena with my Argentine “family”, I celebrated Christmas Day quite differently.

In the afternoon I went out to sketch. Not a great one I’m afraid, but I enjoyed sitting in Plaza Vicente Lopez making it. People were lying around in bikinis sunbathing, which was surprising enough that I had to record it!

In the evening, a small group of women from one of the expat groups I belong to got together for a potluck dinner at one of their homes. She has a beautiful apartment in Palermo, with a lovely little outdoor area filled with plants. We spent the evening out there chatting, eating and drinking — the perfect girlie night!

Standing waiting for the bus home around midnight, with the temperature still hovering in the high twenties, I actually said out loud, “It’s Christmas!” just to remind myself. We’re now looking forward to New Year’s Eve, and hoping the weather holds up because it will be an outdoor celebration.

Something different

It occurred to me that I could give you a better feel for Buenos Aires if I made some little short videos of some of the places I like to go. I won’t schedule them on any particular day, but just when I’m out and about and think you would enjoy seeing where I am.

In today’s video I’m on Avenida 9 de julio, near the beautiful building that is the French Embassy. I hope you enjoy it.

 

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Nochebuena

In Argentina, the celebration is more Christmas Eve than Christmas Day. It’s called Nochebuena, or literally the good night, and it’s a time for family and friends.

So of course I spent it with Cecilia and her family, who have become my Argentine family. This year my friend Venetia joined us — a former chef, so a good person to have around the kitchen! We had a delicious dinner featuring a huge, delicious roast ham, lots of salads and a lovely traditional plate whose name I can’t remember but it was basically beef with a creamy tuna sauce. Apparently Nochebuena dinner wouldn’t be complete without it.

I’m rubbish at cooking most things but I do quite well with dessert, so I went old school and made a trifle — generously dowsed with rum!

I wish I could remember to take photos of the food at these events, but I never do, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

It’s a beautiful day and I have a few hours before getting ready for the next event, so I think I’ll go out for a walk and maybe even get a sketch done.

Hope you’re having a great Christmas wherever you and and whatever you’re doing.

Feliz Navidad from beautiful Buenos Aires!

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Twas the Day before Christmas Eve…

… and we had a thunderstorm last night that broke the humidity and brought the temperature down to 23. Yesterday was unbearably hot, so this feels pretty good right now.

Down here we celebrate Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day, and I’ll be going to Cecilia’s place for a family dinner. I’m not much of a cook, but I actually do rather well with desserts, so I planned to make one to take. Only thing is, I have a gas stove here and, being used to electricity, I’m a bit afraid of the oven! I’ve mastered the stovetop, but the oven…not so much. So I have to make something that doesn’t need baking and I’ve decided on a traditional English trifle. Going out soon to get the fresh fruit and berries for it and then I’m pretty much ready for Christmas, so I can relax the rest of the day.

Happy Christmas everyone!

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About those Coca Leaves…

OK, somebody asked me about the coca leaves we chewed to fight altitude sickness up in the mountains, so here’s the straight goods.

First, you don’t chew them. You just roll up a few and stick the lot in your cheek, much the same as some people do with tobacco. I took the instructions literally and chewed it the first time, and I had a helluva time getting it out of my teeth! Lesson learned.

Anyway, for those of you worried I was picking up an addiction, let me clear it all up. Cocaine is a manufactured product, and coca leaves are just the base ingredient. It’s all the chemicals that are added, and the process itself, that make it narcotic. The leaves are described as a mild stimulant, similar to strong coffee or tea. They definitely help with the altitude sickness.

So to sum up, coca leaves do NOT make you high. They do, however, make you pee a lot!

 

 

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Christmas Shopping in the Sun is just Weird!

I just have a few gifts to buy for friends here, and I finished buying them yesterday. It’s very weird to be thinking of Christmas and buying gifts when it’s 30 degree or more outside and the sun is splitting the trees. I quite like it, but it takes a bit of getting used to.

When I mentioned this to my tango teacher last week he laughed and said he had spent Christmas in Japan a few years ago and had the opposite experience. He kept thinking, “This isn’t Christmas, it’s cold. Christmas is hot and sunny!” I guess it’s whatever you grow up with.

I had a new Buenos Aires experience last night — I went to the movies! I’m not a big movie fan even in Toronto, and I’ve never been here before. But my friends Venetia and Raul go often and they invited me to go with them last night. We met at Raul’s place first and had “picada” — cold cuts, cheese, nibblies and wine, which is a good way to start any evening in my book.

Is this your idea of Hercule Poirot?

We saw the new version of “Murder on the Orient Express”, and I didn’t like it much. I found it quite boring really, although the scenery and the production were certainly beautiful. The cast was outstanding — Johnny Depp (one of my faves), Judy Dench (another), Michelle Pfeiffer and more, but somehow none of them had much of a chance to shine.

Kenneth Branagh was the director and also starred as Poirot, and honestly I just couldn’t get into his portrayal. Venetia suggested I was just spoiled by all those years of David Suchet, but it wasn’t just that. I just didn’t think he was true to Agatha Christie’s original — he was too “ordinary”, and Poirot certainly shouldn’t be ordinary! And he had no twinkle in his eye!

I’d love to hear what anybody else thought of it. I enjoyed the picada more than the movie!

I have another tango lesson this afternoon, always something to look forward to. I think I might be ready to venture back to the milonga soon, and I’ll report on how that goes when I pluck up courage!

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Gifts of the Heart

Many years ago I wrote this article for the newsletter I published at that time. It was so popular that I’ve reproduced it in many places over the years at this time of year. It has nothing to do with Argentina, but this is the best place I have to share it with you, so I hope you enjoy it. I call it “Gifts of the Heart”.

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The stores are gearing up, shoppers are shopping, there’s music in the air and the
cash registers are making their own music. Despite the pleasure of buying and
giving gifts, sometimes the process gets out of hand and the January credit card
bills bring us back to reality with a crash. But there are gifts we can give over
and over throughout the year, gifts that cost no money at all.

The gift of understanding

The basis of good communication is understanding, both at work and in our personal lives. When someone is explaining a problem or a difficult situation, sometimes a simple “I understand” is the gift that helps that person begin to find the answer.

The gift of respect

Often we give total strangers more respect than we offer our nearest and dearest. When you truly listen to another point of view and realize that the other person’s opinion is just as valid as yours, you offer a gift that helps build his or her self-esteem.

The gift of humour

Sometimes we take ourselves much too seriously, particularly at work. By all means take your work seriously, but when it comes to human interaction, lighten up! When you take a moment to share a joke or a laugh with a co-worker or a friend, you give a gift that lifts the spirits.

The gift of conversation

In this age of mass entertainment, television and video games are increasingly usurping the place of good old fashioned conversation. By entering into meaningful discussions with people, you give a gift that honours their humanity.

The gift of time

We live in times of frenetic activity, in which quality time with family and friends often becomes a casualty of misplaced priorities. By making time to be with people, you offer a gift that lets them know they are important to you.

The gift of friendship

There’s an old saying that you can’t choose your relatives but you can choose your friends. By choosing to be a friend, you give a gift that lasts a lifetime — and there’s no law that says you can’t be a friend to your family too.

The gift of a smile

A smile doesn’t exist until you give it away. By smiling at people throughout your days, you offer a gift that lifts your heart as well as theirs.

My December holiday is Christmas, and I will be offering again the age old prayer for Peace on Earth, one that is especially poignant given the current state of our world. Whatever holiday you will be celebrating, may you give and receive all these gifts of the heart, both now and throughout the coming year.

My best wishes to you and yours!

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Salta trip, Days 5 and 6: Cachi

We found a lovely hotel just around the corner from the main plaza, and soon found Cachi to be a delightful little place. Although it does get a lot of visitors, it doesn’t feel crowded at all and in fact it has a sleepy air that probably comes from its altitude.

Cecilia went for an exploratory wander while I sat at a table outside a little cafe on the plaza and did this sketch. At that point I decided I wouldn’t even try to sketch these mountains any more, because their magnificence was way beyond my meagre skills. But it’s enough to bring back the memory for me any time I look at it. That’s what my sketching is, by the way. Although I do share them in my blog and in my book, these images are really just for me. Taking the half hour or so to sketch a scene makes me really look at it, taking in details I would miss with a quick iPhone snap.

It’s a small world after all

We both needed cash, and we found that the “bank” was just a little room with two bank machines — and it seemed the entire population was lined up to get at them! Cecilia fell into conversation with an elderly man, Orlando, who told us he was holding a spot in line for his daughter, who would be along in a moment. He told us they were from Buenos Aires and were building a retirement home up here in Cachi. While doing so, they are living in a container. All I could think about was how on earth they got it up here, and Orlando told us quite casually that of course they brought it by truck up that winding road. I have no words.

Orlando’s daughter, Marisa, arrived and we were soon chatting to her. She told us she was a professor of history at the University of Buenos Aires, at the campus quite near where Cecilia lives in Olivos. Cecilia said she had a young woman staying with her at present, the daughter of a friend from Peru, who was in Buenos Aires to study at the university. Marisa said, “I have several Peruvian students in my class. What is her name?” Cecilia told her and — you guessed  it — she was in Marisa’s class! What are the chances of that? We were a thousand miles away, high up in the mountains, standing in line for the bank machine and we met someone who knew Cecilia’s guest. I took a photo of Cecilia and Marisa and we sent it to Nicole, who was totally gobsmacked! How’s that for a small world story?

They invited us to come to their container that afternoon and drink mate (pronounced matay) with them. Mate is a very popular drink in Argentina, made from a herb that is a mild stimulant. It’s a very sociable activity, as there is only one cup (also called a mate) with a silver straw called a bombilla (bombeesha). It’s passed around from person to person while the conversation is going on. Took me a few tries to get used to it, but now I love the mate ritual. Here’s a photo of us enjoying mate outside their red container.

Dinner

We found this lovely, cozy little local restaurant called Viracocha in time for dinner. The food was good and the service relaxed and charming. While we were there we met Mika, a delightful, friendly German woman traveling by herself, and arranged to have dinner together the following night in the same place.

Day 6

Another bright, clear, sunny, HOT day in Cachi. It’s one of those places you could wander around in for days, just breathing in the healthy air and giving your body and mind a break from the busy-ness of everyday living.

Cecilia’s friend, whom we had met in Salta, had a connection with the Automobile Club of Argentina, which had a beautiful club and restaurant on a hill looking down on Cachi, and she invited us to have lunch there. It gave us quite a different perspective on the town, and the only sounds around us were birds singing.

The previous day, Marisa had told us a strange story about Cachi. Apparently there is a long history of people reporting UFOs in the skies over Cachi and in the mountains surrounding it, so much so that they built a runway for them to land! No planes or helicopters land here, and as far as anybody knows neither has a UFO, but the strip is there anyway. No kidding, here’s a picture of Mika and me right on it. It’s a weird sensation walking on this deserted airstrip, built for who-knows-what to land who-knows-when!

Now I know I’m pretty obsessed about this, but I couldn’t help thinking that if we had caught even a glimpse of a UFO on that road it would have sent us right over the edge — literally as well as figuratively!

When we went back to Viracocha for dinner, we found Mika already ensconced with more new friends, this time a couple from Holland. Marisa, her husband Leandro and her father were also there, but elected to sit upstairs because the men wanted to watch “futbol” on television!

It was a lovely ending to our visit to Cachi, and I  hope to stay in touch with Mika and perhaps meet up with her again one day.

Back down the mountain

Having learned our lesson the hard way, we began our return trip very early in the morning. Sure enough, the weather was completely different, high blue skies and warm sunshine and not a sign of low hanging clouds. Now we could really appreciate the splendour of the mountain scenery, complete with llamas, mountain goats and other wildlife — including this lone bull standing right on the edge!

Being able to see the road like this, though, made us shudder to think how we had driven up it a couple of days before with visibility limited to the hood of the car!

We were happy to get back to Salta, check into a nice hotel near the plaza and have a relaxing evening before our flight back to Buenos Aires next day. It was an unforgettable trip into an incomparable landscape. I feel immensely privileged to have experienced the High Andes, despite the white knuckle mountain roads!

Now I’m back in Buenos Aires, which has its own beauty and allure, and I’m happily getting back into the social swing of the city.

 

 

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Salta Trip, Day 5: Cachi

Our time in the Province of Jujuy was now ending and we would drive back down past Salta into the small town of Cachi, which everyone had assured us was beautiful and not to be missed. I’ll insert a little map here with the time and distance, but as you’ll see as you read on, this was obviously for optimum weather conditions — we took a little longer!

We set off after breakfast, and as we took the highway back instead of La Caldera, we made good time back down past Salta. After stopping for a couple of empanadas for lunch, we were soon on the road to Cachi. I don’t know why, but for some reason because it was south of Salta, I assumed it wouldn’t be as mountainous as Jujuy. I had envisioned gentle slopes across rolling green meadows — kind of like Julie Andrew in The Sound of Music. Boy, was I wrong.

Again, as in Jujuy, the climb began slowly and the vegetation was lush and thick and dark green, but the road was already winding. It was lovely though, each turn in the road bringing another view, with the sun creating patterns in the green. Eventually, though, the vegetation thinned out and again the mountains were bare rock. And again, they were full of wonderful coloured patterns and jawdropping splendour.

Everybody had told us the road was beautiful, but nobody told us we should get onto it in the early morning because the afternoon weather could be iffy. As we drove ever upwards I noticed clouds on the higher peaks, and I hoped desperately that they wouldn’t come down as far as we were on the road. Unfortunately, they did.

You know when you’re in a plane and you fly through a cloud and you see absolutely nothing but white? Well that’s what we drove through! We couldn’t see anything in front of the car. We had to crawl along (up!) at about 10 miles an hour, and every so often a curved arrow sign would loom out of the whiteness warning us of a curve.

The road was just barely wide enough for two cars, and we did in fact meet traffic coming down — that was hair raising.

At one point we came to a place where they was a small lay-by on the right, which was covered in rubble. In the middle was the road, and on the left was the sheer drop — which we couldn’t see. Cecilia said, “I don’t know which way to go!” I could just barely see the rubble on my side and was able to guide her around the curve while staying on the road, but it was touch and go. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. And it just kept going up — and up — and up!

We had been on the mountain for at least two hours, when quite suddenly we broke through the cloud and onto slightly flatter terrain. Wonder of wonders, after quite a lot more curves, there in front of us was a straight road, no curves, a yellow line painted down the middle and lots of room for two cars passing each other!

This last part was lovely as we could relax a bit — although poor Cecilia was suffering from aching shoulders from urging the stick shift car up the road and fingers almost frozen to the wheel. But now it was meadows on either side of the road – and wildlife! We saw llamas and vicuñas, wild donkeys and goats. Wonderful!

On arrival in Cachi we literally ran into this herd of sheep and goats, which the farmer was trying to get into a field while they obviously preferred to surround our car! That made us laugh and broke any tension remaining from the mountain. We did, however, decide to stay in Cachi for two days instead of moving on to Cafayate, and when Cecilia suggested this I was vastly relieved. Now I could relax and enjoy Cachi.

Well, kind of. I actually didn’t sleep for two nights worrying about going back down the mountain!

I still have quite a bit to write about Cachi, including the most amazing “small world” story I’ve ever experienced. So I’ll finish this in tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned.