I knew this would have to be done soon and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Most Argentine women wear their hair long and straight, so I wasn’t sure how well the hairdressers would work with short hair. My friend Susan grew her hair long when she moved to Ecuador for just this reason.
But this morning my hair was such a disaster I just walked into a local salon and took a chance. I think Oscar did a great job though — what do you think?
Although I haven’t strayed very far from Buenos Aires over the past several days, it has been all go. Let me see if I can remember some of it, not necessarily in order.
On Saturday afternoon I went for a tango lesson with a small group from InterNations. It was in a wonderful little place called Apassionata Tango Hotel — and yes, it really is a hotel built around a tango theme. There were ten of us, miraculously five men and five women. Here’s a photo of us having a break, and a shot of the hotel interior.
Our teacher was Fabian, I believe one of the owners of the hotel, and he was marvelous. Of course, anyone can dance with the teacher because he knows how to lead, but dancing with others who are just learning is more difficult, especially when you are just learning yourself. There was a Swiss woman called Claudia who immediately changed into proper tango shoes, and I thought to myself that she’d better know how to dance wearing those shoes. Well, she did. She had danced a lot in Switzerland and here as well, and it was a pleasure to watch her dance with the fellow who organized the event (also a lovely dancer). And she was also nice enough to help me get on the right bus after the lesson, which I very much appreciated.
This afternoon I go for my next private tango lesson, so let’s see if I’ve improved!
Yesterday I had breakfast with a lovely lady I met through InterNations. She is about my age and we share quite a few interests. She is from Albany, NY. She came to Buenos Aires first for a couple of holidays. Then she came for a couple of months and took a furnished apartment (sound familiar?). Then she took an unfurnished apartment and furnished it herself. Then, ten years ago, she bought an apartment and moved here permanently. I seem to have met quite a few people who came here for a visit and loved it so much they stayed on. Just saying…
Last night we went to a Chinese New Year celebration with a huge fireworks display in a park near Chinatown. Funny — watching a South American show in Buenos Aires, drinking caipirinha (Brazilian yummy cocktail) and wishing people Kung Hei Fatt Choy!
The place where I have breakfast every morning is called La Biela, which means monkey wrench, or spanner for the Brits. Why? Because in the forties, this place was a well known hangout for famous racing drivers! There is a life size statue of one of them outside the door, and people get their photos taken with him all day long. Donna and I thought we might as well do the same.
Donna also took these photos inside my apartment and I thought you might like to see them.
I don’t think I’ve posted any pictures of Cecilia, so here she is with Donna outside our cabana at Los Esteros.
OK, that’s it for now. I’m off to dance with Alejandro!
It still amazes me to see parakeets and other exotic birds flying around in the park. Yesterday I watched this one get into a fight with a bunch of pigeons for food people were scattering.
Parakeet among the pigeons
And the parakeet wins!
I remembered this amazing sculpture from my last visits, and was determined to sketch it this time.
It’s called Floralis Genérica, but most people just call it The Flower. It was given to the city by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano in 2002. It is made of stainless steel over a skeleton of aluminum and reinforced concrete. At 23 metres high, it is very impressive.
Its petals open every morning at 8 am and close at dusk. So far I haven’t seen it closed, but I’ll have to make a point of doing that one day.
Here is my sketch, with a photo taken from the same vantage point to let you see what it actually looks like!
I guess it was inevitable. The bus system in Buenos Aires is chaotic and, to my North American eye, totally illogical. (I’m OK with that, because it’s all part of living in Buenos Aires.) I have a little book I carry round with me, containing my own notes about where to get which buses, and so far I’ve done all right.
Well OK, twice I got so frustrated wandering around looking for the bus stop I just took a taxi, but we won’t count that. Anyway, last night my luck ran out.
I was going to a social event of InterNations, a great international organization for expats around the world. I’ve gone to some of their events in Toronto and was looking forward to my first one here. I had an idea where the place was (a bar/restaurant) , and I knew which bus I was supposed to take. As usual, though, the problem was in finding where to get the bus. But I looked at the map and found where it was, and I realized it was in Palermo, where I have been several times and I know which bus to get. I figured I could take the 110, get off at my usual stop and walk up Honduras to Fitz Roy.
Well, maybe you’ve noticed this, but when you look at a map sometimes it’s hard to gauge distances, and that was definitely the case last night. I walked for miles — literally — and by the time I was even in the general area my feet were killing me and I was still not sure how far away it was. Fortunately, Palermo is a happening kind of place, so even though it was dark I didn’t feel uncomfortable because there were lots of restaurants and people about. But finally I gave up. I turned around and walked all the way back to get on my usual bus home. Disappointing, because I was looking forward to the event. Lesson learned: don’t guess at distances and make sure I get on the right bus!
On Saturday afternoon a sub-group of InterNations is going to a tango thing, so let’s hope I find that OK. I’ll post about it afterwards.
This is a sketch of the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Engineering building. It’s a beautiful building and I’ve been wanting to sketch it for a while, but the trouble was I kept passing it when I was on the bus and I wasn’t quite sure where it was or how to get to it.
Yesterday, again on a bus, I caught a glimpse of another landmark up a side street and that positioned me. So today I walked up there — took me about half an hour — and sketched it. So this represents a small triumph in finding my way around my beautiful Buenos Aires.
Another thing happened today, a small thing but fun. I took part in a teleseminar, and you know how at the beginning they invite people to say their first name and where they are calling in from? Well I jumped in and happily said, “This is Helen in Buenos Aires” — how cool is that?!
We arrived home from Los Esteros del Ibera on Friday night, and it has taken me all this time to settle down and post. That’s because, first, it was a long drive home, but more importantly I had to think about everything again because I want to try to convey to you what a wonderful experience it was. I have quite a few photos here, so I hope they will help illustrate what a great time it was.
Outward Bound
Argentina is a huge country, and we covered just one part of it here, but nonetheless it was a journey of 800 kilometres. We set out last Sunday morning at 7 am, with a plan to stop in Mercedes, a town in Corrientes Province where Cecelia had a friend (Cecelia has friends everywhere!). We stayed at a lovely little hotel called La Recova, and had a chance to visit Cecelia’s friend Claudia.
The journey to Mercedes took 9 hours, and the last hour was on a less-than-optimum road. We complained about it a lot, but that’s only because we didn’t know what was in store for us next morning. People had told us it was a bad road and we would have to take it slowly, but really you had to see this to believe it. The journey from Mercedes to Colonia Carlos Pelegrini is 115 kilometres, and it took us 4 hours — these pictures of the road will explain why!
Apparently they started to build the road, got 40 kilometres done and then for some reason the government took the money and stopped the road. If this was in Canada, there would be a yellow tape across, warning people not to go on the road construction site, but here it was just the way to get there!
Colonia Carlos Pelegrini
Anyway, we arrived in the small “settlement” (the best way I can describe it) around the middle of the afternoon. We were staying at a cabaña, which turned out to be a lovely vacation home with big bedrooms and enough beds to sleep a family of about ten! It had a good kitchen and — thank goodness – a pool! All three of us jumped in there before anything else, as the heat was so intense.
Our time there included three excursions — one on a boat and two walking. I don’t have pictures of the walking tours because we were too busy gawking at all the animals, and (seriously) avoiding the crocodile that was eyeing us from just beside the path!
My favourite was the boat tour on our first day. Our guide, Pedro, told us the laguna we were on was 5,000 hectares, and the entire ecosystem of Ibera was over a million hectares. If you look at the map of Argentina you can get a good idea of the size.
“Ibera” is a Guarani word — Guarani are the indigenous people of the area — meaning “brilliant waters”, and it is certainly appropriate.
We saw so many animals, birds and flowers I’m just throwing in a representative bunch of photos here to give you an idea.
Donna in the boat with our wonderful guide, Pedro
My quick sketch from the boat on the laguna
Cayman, known here as Yacares, were exciting to see
Beautiful water lilies were everywhere on the laguna
Even though we have deer in Canada, I was excited to see this beautiful stag right in the laguna beside us
Capibarras, commonly known here as carpinchos. These are so common they are kind of symbolic of the region. We loved them!
Sunset over the wetlands, sketched from the pool at dusk
I loved these trees with the beautiful red flowers
Carpincho skin makes beautiful leather which is quite distinctive, but Donna said she liked the little guys so much she wasn’t going to wear them. I, on the other hand, have my eye on some red carpincho ankle boots I saw in a shop in Buenos Aires …
Social Life in the Wetlands!
For such a small place, Carlos Pelegrini has an active social life — although you won’t find it as easily as at home. That’s because every building looks like a house. There are butcher’s shops, general stores, artisan studios and restaurants, but at first glance they all look like somebody’s house. We went to buy meat for our barbecue, and we followed the little map we got at the information booth. When we got there, we weren’t sure if we were in the right place, so Cecilia called out to the people sitting in their front yards across the street, “Butcher meat?” And they told us that was the right place and we should just knock the door. Sure enough, that’s where we bought the meat!
Our cabaña had a great open air barbecue area — not a pit, but a traditional Argentine asado, with a built-in charcoal platform and a grill over it. We had decided to have our barbecue on our last day, and we liked Pedro so much we asked him to join us. He agreed, and said that in fact he would do the cooking. Even better — we said we’d just wait in the pool until he was ready!
In true Argentine style, Cecilia bought enough meat for twice as many people, mainly ribs and sausages. We all looked forward to the ribs, which looked fantastic. They did taste excellent, but unfortunately they were so tough we could hardly chew them. Pedro explained to us that the cattle there have no place to go because everything is swamp and marsh, so they just hang around by the sides of the roads — which we had already seen. That, of course, means they don’t get any exercise and that’s why their meat is tough. Makes sense to me. But the sausages were good and we had a good time anyway.
Happy Birthday, Cecilia!
The main reason for our trip was to celebrate Cecilia’s 65th birthday, and she didn’t hesitate to tell anyone we met about it! We arranged to go to one of the local restaurants for dinner on her birthday. When we went in the afternoon to look at the place, she told the owner and she said she would welcome us there for this big event.
We had a delicious dinner, with no tough meat! I had taken a bottle of champagne, and when we arrived we found the owner of our cabaña had sent another bottle, and the owner of the restaurant gave us yet another. So there were were, three people and three bottles of champagne. Cecilia wondered if we should share with the other patrons of the restaurant and we decided we should.
There were two other tables with people, one a young couple and one a couple with two young children. Cecilia called out to the world at large that it was her birthday and they were welcome to share the champagne. What happened next was so-oo Argentine!
In Canada, people would probably have smiled self-consciously and maybe some would have accepted the bubbly. But here, immediately everyone was swarming our table, kissing Cecilia, kissing us and raising their glasses of champagne to toast the birthday girl! As everyone was around our table, we thought we might as well have the waiter and the owner too, so they joined in and made the party complete. What a great night!
The Oldest Inhabitant
Pedro told us about an old lady of 104 who was famous for having her own private chapel, so we decided to pay her a visit. We followed directions to her house and found her sitting outside with her caregiver and the latter’s grandson. We just called over to say we’d come to visit, and they welcomed us with the usual kisses all round. We looked at the little chapel and said how lovely it was, and they invited us to pull up a chair and have a chat. A few other people saw us and decided this was too good to miss, and soon we had a little gathering. It was just lovely, and the old lady actually bestowed a blessing on each one of us before we left, which I found very touching.
After we got home, we were all in the cabaña getting cool when there was a knock at the screen door. A young boy had brought round some craft items made by his mother and sister and asked if we would like to see them. We did, and of course we all bought things from him.
His name was Jonathan and he was eleven years old. Here he is, posing with Cecilia and me and the baskets we bought form him. He was lovely.
On Thursday we left Los Esteros, but our adventure wasn’t over yet.
Traditional Asado on the Way Home
We stopped again at Mercedes on the way home, and Claudia’s husband Jorge was delighted to give us a traditional Argentine asado at their second house. Although it is a little small to be called an estancia, it did have a big field at the back with two horses.
Jorge did us proud. The meal included home made sausages, blood sausage (which in Scotland we call black pudding — sounds much more appetizing I think), ribs (not tough at all!) and lamb. It was absolutely delicious and we all ate way too much. We had a traditional dessert of a local fruit called mamom, which I really enjoyed.
And here was a little bonus surprise! After dinner, Donna and I were chatting with Jorge when I looked down, and there sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor was this enormous toad! These guys are at least eight inches long (not counting the legs!) We had seen them on our night excursion with Pedro, but never expected to see one up this close in this setting. But what really made me smile was Jorge’s reaction. “Oh, don’t worry, he lives around here. Sometimes he passes through on his way to the back garden.”
We had a long drive back on Friday, and in the end I was happy to get home to my little Buenos Aires apartment. But it was a wonderful trip, and I’m grateful to Cecilia for taking us to a place we would never have found by ourselves.
It truly is a “different Argentina”.
I had hoped to post by this time about our visit to Los Esteros del Ibera, but there is so much to write about that I haven’t quite got it done yet. But I’m working on it, and I hope to post it, with pictures, tomorrow night. Stay tuned!
Yesterday I decided to sketch the Presidential Palace. It is called the Casa Rosada, or Pink House, because — well, it’s pink. I found the right bus and didn’t get too lost — mind you, it’s kind of hard to miss!
It took me over an hour to do the sketch, and it was right at the hottest time of day. And there was not an inch of shade in the square, so I was really exposed to the sun. Fortunately I had plastered myself with sun cream before I left, so although I got a lot of colour I wasn’t too burned. (And where was my genuine Panama Hat, made in Ecuador? At home in the cupboard of course! I’ve taken it out now though and am making a point of wearing it because the sun is very strong.)
If you saw the movie “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” you may recognize the building, as it was from one of these balconies that Evita addressed the crowd in the square.
Today I went out to sketch, but didn’t end up doing anything because it was way too hot. (Oh shut up, Helen, I hear you say!)
From there I went for lunch to another cafe, the Cafe Tortoni. This is the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires, and they have kept it more or less the way it was. There are pictures on the walls of the famous writers and paintings by the artists of the thirties and forties, and there is art deco glass all over the place. I keep expecting Ernest Hemingway to walk in and sit down!
Tomorrow I am going away with Cecilia and a new friend, Donna from California, for five days to some kind of wetlands area in another part of the country. I don’t think there will be wifi, so I probably won’t blog again until I get back next Friday and then I can tell you all about it.
Coming from Toronto, where the choices in bookstores are limited mainly to Indigo and a few smaller places, I am amazed at what I found here in Buenos Aires. It’s a city that honours books and writers, and that shows in the number of bookstores all over the city. I snapped all these photos on the same couple of streets, and I’m sure I didn’t get them all. They all seem to have people browsing in them all the time.
Most of them have cafes inside, where people happily drink coffee while looking books over to decide whether to buy them or not. Try that in Indigo!
This one is my all-time favourite bookstore anywhere. It’s called El Ateneo Grand Splendid. It used to be a 100-yearold opera house (presumably called the Grand Splendid), but it wasn’t being used any more. In Toronto it would have surrendered long ago to the wrecker’s ball and been replaced by a condo building. But here, they made it into what they justifiably describe as the world’s most beautiful bookstore.
The photo is taken from the stage, which remains complete with curtains and serves as the cafe. There you can have anything from a cup of coffee to a full course lunch complete with wine — and all with a pile of as yet unpurchased books by your side!
I didn’t feel like sketching today, so I cheated. This is a sketch I did on my last visit. Ever wanted to find a quiet spot to read and have nobody bother you? Check out the buy in the bottom box!