Good Winds: Part II

Where we last left off, I was about six seconds from riding unicorns on clouds of marshmallows... Well my get up and go (as well as the sun, humidity, and tremendous heat of my room in the hostel) got me up a little more than four hours later around 10:30 (already later than I had hoped to start my day). No worries, though, because my self-loathing for having stayed out so late the night before provided me with just enough adrenaline and masochistic motivation to force myself into a high-octane tour of the city. I tore off a piece of a map to use as scratch paper and scribbled a 7 point agenda (complete with sub-stops for every major landmark) based on the most convenient route to tour as much of the city as possible on foot. In less than half an hour, I had showered, changed, and created a game plan for the entirety of the rest of the day.

Arriving first at a very keechi tourist trap called La Boca, I wandered around the various boatloads of American tourists looking for worthwhile photo-ops. The best story from this leg of my journey was as follows: trying to take a couple pictures of the woe-begotten miniature ponies that some man was exploiting for his personal well-being, the "owner" approached me asking for a "propina" (basically a tip for allowing me to view these animals whose lives he had so ruthlessly wrested from them). Well, there was an older lady, about 65-70 trying to do the same thing. Only when he asked us both for the propina, she jumped and spun like a dredle (an apropos analogy considering that she wore a thick, Long Island Jewish accent), asking me to tell the man "That I don't have any coins because I gyave them all to the chuuch" (she also asked me to pay for her, but I felt no such inclination into helping some stranger who was all too eager to parade her piety to any random passer-by).

Satisfied that this tourist trap had milked enough time, energy, and spare change from me, I asked around and caught the next bus to the San Telmo artisan fair. Perhaps my favorite stop of my time in Buenos Aires, the street La Defensa (named because its residents poured boiling water on the Spaniards during the battle for independence) was littered with artists, musicians, and various venders hawking everything from fresh fruit to tango figurines. I stopped to listen to one sort of modern tango-jazz group for about 30 minutes, trying to snap some cool pictures at odd angles because of all the people that were standing and watching them. Having thoroughly violated some of the onlookers by positioning my camera over their shoulders, under armpits, and between their legs, I took off and hoped that at least one of the pictures would turn out okay.

About 10 blocks and an hour later (there were lots of distractions), I arrived at Plaza de Mayo. This historical center of the city houses the famous Casa Rosada, a governmental mansion from whose balcony the likes of Eva and Juan Peron, among others, have addressed crowds of followers in the square. As the name suggests, the mansion is the unmistakeable pink building (pictured above), originally painted using ox-blood to achieve its distinct color. On the other side of the square is el Cabilde, the sort of Spanish Mission-looking building that is the independence hall for BsAs (hence all the political graffiti). This square is also home to the national cathedral (that from the outside looks more like a courthouse), home to the Argentine war hero Gnrl San Martín, who is guarded 24/7 by a pair of very solemn, and undoubtedly very bored members of the militia.

From there, I wanted to find the financial district north of the square, which my guide book told me was called "La City." Well, apparently, the guidebook is wrong because when I asked a cop where I could find the district called La City, he patronizingly explained to me that "City means Ciudad." Thanks... Jerk! Anyway, I found the place I sought, but quickly moved on because all the sites I wanted to see were closed (Sundays in Latin America, everything is closed).

From there, I doubled back to walk down a main avenue leading from Plaza de Mayo, called Avda de Mayo. With a little help from my pocket agenda that I created, I was able to identify some of the more important historical buildings and admire at the European feel of the street and the city on the whole. Having only limited time, I was unable to tour a lot of these buildings, but I think it was just fine all the same, as the tours are usually pretty bland attempts to infuse more significance into everything about the site than is actually there. By far the most magnificent of the buildings I saw was the Edificio Barolo, which was constructed to pay homage to the Dante's Divine Comedy: its three parts represent heaven, hell and purgatory; its height in meters (100) equals the number of songs; and it has 22 floors, the same as the number of the stanzas in the poem.

Continuing along the avenue, I crossed what is said to be the widest avenue in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio. More a compilation of 4 roads than one avenue, its reputation might be warranted considering in total it is about 10 or 12 lanes, with 3 different medians to cross. On the far side of 9 de Julio stands a pretty interesting statue of Don Quixote. I have no idea why it's here, or who put it there, but the statue is cool nonetheless.

After crossing, I stopped into the most famous, and oldest, of all cafés in the city (which says a lot for a city literally overflowing with cafés) named El Tortoni. A little overpriced, but well worth the stop, I drank my café cubano, ate my churros, and parted with the tranquil refuge. I then popped into the Perú subway stop (as recommended by the guidebook), but definitely did not pay the fee to get through the gates, as whatever the guidebook said was worth seeing, was defnitely not. Back up the steps I moments before descended, I then passed the boarded facade of 36 Billares, the pool hall that supposedly introduced the game of billiards to South America in the 1880s (more on that later).

My journey along Avda de Mayo ended in the Plaza Congreso, which is where the main governmental buildings are located. I stopped to watch a few guys do some Capuera (I bet Jason is better), rested my feet for a spout, and then moved on. North of the plaza (courtesy of the compass on my watch), I found Corrientes, BsAs' version of Broadway. I popped into a number of really old bookstores and walked around an outdoor promenade with some outdoor theaters, lamenting the fact that I didn't have the time or the money to watch the BsAs rendition of Death of a Salesman or Waiting for Godot.

With the sun dipping over the horizon, I returned to my hostel to the now familiar routine of packing away my camera, changing clothes, and leaving the other estranged residents of my room who had now seen me for about 3 minutes in the two days I had been in BsAs.

From an internet café I watched my brief stint in the second position of my pool tumble as UF dispatched Oregon and Roy Williams of old returned in full force. I received a text message from another friend from Stgo who was in BsAs telling me to meet him for dinner shortly. I hopped on one of the incredibly convenient buses, paid the mandatory 20-cent (US) fare, and in half an hour met up with Matt and his (sort of) Argentine friend.

Like the day before, when I met up with Marcelo, my reunion with Matt and his friend irreversibly changed the complexion of my trip... You can read more on that and the conclusion of my trip to BsAs in the next, and final, chapter of Good Winds.