Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES

I’ve heard its been said that Buenos Aires is “the Paris of South America.” I can’t fairly judge that statement because I’ve never been to Paris but I can say that it was both a gorgeous and amazing city. My first impression upon arriving was that it reminded me a lot of Santiago: typical urban metropolitan with lots of traffic, tall building, and small parks amidst the roads. However, this view was also at about 5 a.m when we were on our way to our hostel, so my observational skills at the time were minimal at best. When we awoke from our “nap” around 8:00 a.m, we had the beautiful view of the Capitol building nearby to remind us, we certainly weren’t in Santiago anymore!

However, exploring the city had to wait until that afternoon- as we had a very important adventure to attend to. Nearly 3 months ago, Deirdre’s sister Erin sent her a link on Facebook about this absurd zoo that lets you pet, yes pet, lions and tigers. It seemed like such a long shot at the time, yet here we were: tickets in hand, on our way to Lujan Zoo. To pet tigers. And lions. And feed bears. Have I mentioned that I used to be afraid of dogs? And that I leave the room when my house cat looks at me weirdly?

Needless to say, my heart was pounding when we were in line to pet the tiger. But then I remembered that animals can sense your fear, and that inspired a whole new wave of panic. My internal conflict sure made time fly though, because before I knew it there we were. Petting the tiger, and posing with it for pictures like it was the Easter Bunny.

With adrenaline pumping through me, we headed to the next line- this time snow tigers. It wasn’t as scary because they were asleep, but that also required kneeling down, and the images I had in my head of accidentally tripping, falling on them, and the subsequent sounds of teeth sinking, flesh ripping and screaming weren’t pretty (I have dreams, no, nightmares about these things as it is!!). Thankfully my feet didn’t betray me and I left the cage alive and well.

Next up was the lions, where we strolled with Mufasa and posed with Sarabi. The wait for this one was super long, and the crazy thing was, that by the time we did such strolling and posing, the novelty that I was touching these animals, let alone in an enclosed space with them, began to ware off. It felt pretty routine at this point. Okay Deirdre you go first, then switch cameras, Amy your up. It stopped feeling like we were doing anything remotely dangerous, but I guess to everyone else, the pictures speak for themselves.

We had a bit of a reality check with the baby lion cubs however. They were much less willing to cooperate, and thus many of our pictures included a worker coaxing the lion to sit still by offering it a piece of chicken. One of them actually tried to take a little nip at Amy, but other than some snot on her sweatshirt, she was completely fine. Gross- but how many people can respond to the question “What’s that stain?” with “oh, just some baby lion boogers.”

Baby tigers were next, and they were every bit as cute and slightly more cooperative. We also were able to feed a BEAR and elephant, and ride a camel. Llamas frequently strutted their stuff past us, and the geese serenaded us with song (aka screeched constantly).

We had some time to rest and explore a little before the next event: a tango show! Our original show had to be canceled but the company we booked with got us tickets with an even nicer (and would have been more expensive!) venue and we were charged nothing extra. We also received dinner before the show, which consisted of an appetizer of our choice, delicious steak and steak fries, dessert, and complimentary wine! I wish I could have taken pictures of the show, because everything, the dancers, the music, and the singers was beautiful.

With music still playing in our head, we set out to find a “Milonga”- essentially a tango club where everyday people come to dance the tango. Unfortunately the leads we had from the hostel weren’t open that evening, and though we found a 40+ club, we settled for a typical dance club (that we were oh so generously allowed to enter in for free, #gringaprivilege) that was OPENING at 1 a.m as we were passing by. We took advantage of a few two for one specials and danced the night away.

The next day we slept in a little and did a walking tour of the city at 11 a.m. We saw some great historical sites including the Capitol and Casa Rosada (the “pink house”- the equivalent of our white house).

 Our tour guide was great- if you ever travel abroad definitely look into whether there are free tours. These guys operate solely on tips and are always great; I’ve only done a few but I’ve yet to be disappointed! It was interesting in particular how proud yet humble our tour guide was about Argentinian’s. For example, she talked about Avenida 9 de Julio- supposedly the widest avenue in the world. However, she told us with a smile the Brazil has the actual widest road, but added jokingly, that it’s a highway so it doesn’t count!

After the tour I stopped for a bite to eat, and then went to the Museo de Bellas Artes (fine arts museum). It was much smaller than I though it would be, but had some great pieces (no photos allowed though, sorry guys).

We ended the day with an evening night tour. This one went to a few more sites in the city, but focused heavily on quirky cultural facts.  Some interesting facts include:

-The people of Buenos Aires are called “porteños”, because it is a “port city”

-Their health care system offers the option for private and public health care (hmmm, imagine that!). Interestingly though, the private companies offer a host of benefits – among them, one free plastic surgery a year. I’m sorry, what?! On a more practical note, they also offer free psychological services, so the stigma about going to shrink is nonexistent, since everyone goes to the psychologist. Interesting. I’d love to research the effects/benefits of this. No wonder people seemed so happy there!

-The story about Evita’s body….is too gruesome to post here. It’s a pretty twisted story, but I’ll gladly tell you when I’m home!

-Going out for coffee is a social event- not something to take to go. Our guide guaranteed us that if we saw someone with a coffee in one hand on the street, he or she would either have a map or camera in the other. And this is exactly what Amy and I had done the previous day. No wonder all the vendors kept approaching us offering tours!

-If you want a hot chocolate, ask for a “submarino”. You receive a glass of warm milk and a little chocolate bar shaped like a submarine that you dunk in the milk. So much cooler than Swiss Miss and their fake little marshmallows.
-There is a clock tower in Argentina nicknamed by some “little Big Ben”, because it resembles, though to a much smaller degree, Big Ben, and was given to Argentina as a gift from the British

 -If you drink from a fountain that was given to Argentina from Spain, you will supposedly return to Argentina

-This one I found out the previously night, but wine is ridiculously cheap- even cheaper than Santiago! I purchased a bottle for around  the equivalent of a dollar.

Before we called it a night, Deirdre and I couldn’t help it- we wanted to see a gosh darn Milonga….even if it meant watching 50 year olds dance. But man, they were good! No one missed a beat- they started together, stopped together, and watching both the men and women subtly and silently communicate their desire to dance with each other was like watching an animalistic mating ritual. And every single woman was wearing heels. They certainly put me to shame, sitting there in my flat boots with visions in my head of curling up into bed. But I couldn’t take my eyes off them. It is certainly something you seldom see in America, but I think that’s quite unfortunate because it was beautiful to see such culture incarnate. Plus they all just looked so happy.

Our last day in B.A we were up bright and early, ready to explore El Tigre, a tourist town located on the Paraná Delta. We had signed up for a tour that included a boat tour, an asado, and two “adventure activities” of our choice (for us- horseback riding and rowing). There were some complications throughout the day in the form of misinformation/scheduling (the boat “tour” was actually just a boat “taxi” [which on another note, is kind of cool. It picks people up along a river and takes them to whatever dock or port they need to get off at] to get to the site, and left hours later than we thought it would), but we made it there and back in one piece. As cheesy as it sounds, it was so nice to get away from the city for a day and just enjoy nature. Having grown up in a suburban/rural area, I’ve been dying to live in a big city. And while I’ve enjoyed Santiago immensely, it was nice to have a touch of home.

We took another little “nap” when we got back, got ourselves up and to the airport by 4, and made it back to Santiago by 8:30 or so, and still made it to our classes on Monday. What can I say, we’re pros.

Having said that…check in with me after 28 days straight  of traveling that commences in ONE WEEK…and then I’ll reevaluate that statement again!