Argentina Part 1: Impressions

As many of you know, I recently spent a couple of weeks down in the wonderful, interesting, and exciting country of Argentina. For those of you who may not have heard of this place, it is in South America, below Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and just about everything really. It is thus, sadly, very far away.

Rather than giving you all a play-by-play of my two weeks down there, I will instead start with a few impressions I had of various Argentinian things, and later perhaps give you a detailed account of certain adventures you might find amusing.

The People

I know usually they say to leave the best for last, but I am just so freaking excited about the people of Argentina that I have to talk about them first. Then again, I am not quite sure exactly what to say. I can't really express how freaking awesome and kind and generous and welcoming Argentinians are (for the most part). You will just have to take my word for it, or hopefully, visit one day.

In Buenos Aires, Anna and I stayed with some old family friends of my mom's. When I say old, I mean that they hadn't seen each other or been in touch for some 20 years (short of a very brief stay last year). I have never met these people, yet they (Millie and Martin) picked me and Anna up from the airport, cooked us dinner, gave us a bed for three nights, spare keys, and more or less anything we could possibly want or imagine, including food, comfort, DVDs of House Season 6, wine, and more food. Plus, Millie's brother Eloy and his girlfriend invited us to their house for dinner, spent a couple of hours cooking an awesome asado (aka meat. Lots and lots of amazing grilled meat) for us, then took us out to a club in Buenos Aires with some sweet live music. Pretty darned awesome if you ask me.

Okay, you might say that this kind of treatment isn't that unusual, and that I'm practically family, and of course you are going to treat your guests well. But I am telling you, that sort of kindness was apparent from more or less all the Argentinians we met. As another example, people tend to ask cab drivers in Argentina for directions. In the middle of the road, while driving. Not only do the cab drivers roll down their windows, but they actually give directions. Correct ones! Usually with pointing and smiling too! Imagine that in NYC.

Another thing about the cab drivers: they love to chat with you. I mean, nearly every cab driver we met (which was quite a few), asked us how we liked Buenos Aires and Argentina, told us all kinds of interesting things, wished us good luck, gave us advice, talked soccer with us, whatever. It was pretty awesome, except for the mental anguish of having to think in so much Spanish.

In nearly every hostel we stayed in, the hosts or people who worked their went out of their way to be friendly. Not just in the you're-giving-me-money-and-business friendliness, but honest curiosity and concern. Patricia, one of the women who worked at our hostel in Cafayate, sat down and played cards with us for a couple of hours. The guy at the Tilcara hostel was so friendly I thought Anna was going to take him home with her, and I may have been slightly tempted myself.

The laundry man we went to in Cafayate talked to us for no less than 30 minutes when we dropped off our dirty clothes. He told us all sorts of things and seemed genuinely excited to get to talk about his town. And he didn't just do this when we brought in our clothes, but continued our conversation when we came to pick them up later that night sometime around 11:30, despite the fact that the place closed at 9 and he had no other customers.

Luis, the mechanic we met through circumstances that I will describe in another blog (dun dun dunnnn), gave us his personal cell phone number and asked us to come by his place whenever to check up on things, which we did.

When Anna and I were in need of help (again, I'll get to this in another blog), at least four or five groups of people stopped to offer advice, help, and friendliness.

Anyway, I don't know if my stories quite conveyed the overall feeling of trusting and generosity and kindness I got from nearly everyone we met in Argentina, but it was simply stunning. The people were perhaps my favorite thing about Argentina, and it makes me a little sad to say that Americans just don't have that reputation of being so laid back, sweet, and helpful towards strangers and visitors to their country. We should change that!

The Driving

Now that I have given you such a wonderful and idealistic image of Argentinians, I am ready to crush it all. Because, let me tell you, they drive like maniacs. They may or may not actually have rules of the road in Argentina, but they certainly don't follow them. Things like stop signs, traffic lights, lanes, speed limits, and road signs are more like suggestions than rules, and fairly poor suggestions at that. Most intersections have neither stop signs nor traffic lights, and it's something of a first-come first-serve battle of the vehicles to see who crosses first and fastest.

Now, I know this is coming from someone spoiled from the first world, but when you see a highway marked on a map with numbers and a nice steady black line, you are inclined to think that people actually might use said road, and that it might actually be a road. Think again. A thick black line on a map labeled "Highway 32" or some such is just as likely to be a tiny dirt road than a paved highway. It may or may not ever pass conveniences like gas stations of people.

Something else about driving in Argentina. Here, we predominately drive our cars on gas (gasoline). In Argentina, they drive their cars not only on gas, but also on gasoline. Which is to say that in the trunk of every car is a giant tank that looks like it would be more comfortable on the back of a scuba diver than in a motor vehicle, which is filled with compressed gas, on which the car can also run. Somewhere in each car is also supposedly a regular gas tank. This confusing state of affairs will be touched upon at a later time. Suffice to say that Argentinian drivers are insane, as are their roads, and their gas/gasoline stations.

The Water Problem

I should perhaps have titled this little section the Water Distribution Problem. It isn't that Argentinians don't have enough or have too much water. They just have a really poor idea of how to distribute it. For example, in the north, the majority of your "rivers" look about like this:

Which is to say, there is quite a large trench where water should be, but perhaps only a tiny muddy trickle of anything resembling water, and in many "rivers", no water at all. Anna and I came upon at least four or five such rivers which all seemed very prepared to contain a great deal more water, and perhaps were a little sad about their pathetically dry state. In no fewer than two of these river beds did we see large construction equipment. It seems as though Argentina is preparing to widen and deepen their river trenches in order to coax more water to flow. I wish them the best of luck in this endeavor.

In other parts of the country, however, like in the northeast, we have a vast abundance of water. Perhaps an absurd amount of water. Way more water than any reasonable river really needs:

This image is perhaps only a third or a quarter of the river, but I couldn't fit it all in one shot. I tried telling the Argentinians that they should work on their water distribution, and perhaps try to even it out a bit, but my Spanish is a little rusty, and I think they missed the point. Perhaps they were convinced their bulldozers and rototillers were already on their way to making more water in the too-dry areas, and the tourists were enough to soak up the extra water in the too-wet places. I just hope that one day, they will manage to have a little river equality in their country.

The "Winter"

They told me, "It's winter in the southern hemisphere now! It's July! Bring warm clothes!" So I did. I brought layers and sweaters and a ski coat and boots and extra socks and long pants. Little did I know, "winter" in Argentina (admittedly, only the parts of Argentina farther north than Buenos Aires), really means t-shirt weather. Some days, I maybe needed a light jacket. The cacti and palm trees that were more or less ubiquitous indicated that "winter" this close to the equator really means mild to perfect temperatures ranging from 65-75, almost perpetual sunshine, and chilly nights to keep the mosquitoes at bay. This may or may not be a con for you, depending on how you like perfect weather, t-shirts, etc... I'm inclined to love it, especially since I was missing 110 degree weather back home, and my lack of t-shirts proved only slightly problematic.

The Food

Okay I know I said that the people were the best thing about Argentina, but I may have been lying. The food was amazing. Amazing and cheap. Really cheap. I'm usually an almost-vegetarian and haven't missed steak or really any kind of red meat (or chicken for that matter) much at all in the past couple of years. On occasion I would get a craving for bacon or lamb, but that's about it. In Argentina, however, I discovered what steak can be. It was divine. It was wonderful. It was perhaps one of the most delicious and flavorful things I have ever consumed. And, I could buy a giant steak (the size of your face, if you have a large face), two sausages, two pints of beer, and a giant basket of fries for fifteen US dollars. I can't get over that.

Argentina is also famous for empanadas, which are little pastry things filled with meat or chicken or veggies or whatever, and they are delicious. They are also dirt cheap. Like seventy cents each cheap. Even I couldn't eat more than maybe five at a go, and that's after hiking all day.

Other than meat and empanadas, Argentinians love themselves some alfajores. These are something like little cakes, and something like cookies, and are filled with chocolate or dulce de leche and are amazing. They are like the Argentinian candy, and so much better than candy. Which brings me to dulce de leche. I wasn't a huge fan at first, since dulce de leche is basically spreadable sugar with a hint of vanilla or caramel, but it grows on you. Also, it's cheap, and everywhere, and insanely sweet.

The only bad thing I can think to say about the food from Argentina is that it's all in Argentina, and not here. Frig.

That about sums it up for my general impressions of Argentina, at a glance. Next up: Adventures with POS.