Argentina Part 3: Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls and the Northern Cities

Buenos Aires is huge, Huge, HUGE!!! Almost 20 million people they tell us. It is an exciting, edgy city with all the amenities you would ever want. Beautiful, upscale areas, fabulous restaurants, great public transportation including a subway and a train! It appears that a life in this city includes eating wonderful meat dishes, watching soccer games, drinking wine and spending time with friends. For those who love the tango, that is also included. What Buenos Aires also has is “traffic in crisis” (like Los Angeles at rush hour), significant air pollution and a helter-skelter rushing around lifestyle, also much like Los Angeles. And watch out for the dog poops that are left all over the sidewalks and the smoking that is allowed inside almost every building, including the guy sitting next to you at the Internet cafe. But don´t get me wrong...I´m just being honest here. We had a fabulous time in Buenos Aires. It is certainly a city to visit!

We were so fortunate to be staying with our friends Rodrigo (from Mexico) and Florencia (from Argentina) who I had met and befriended in my town of San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. They describe themselves as a nomadic couple. They make gorgeous jewelry (silver, copper, macramé, etc.) and move around to different countries selling their pieces. They are seeing the world, making lots of friends from all over, and they are two of the nicest people I have ever met! Planning on just staying with them 2-3 nights, we ended up staying 8 nights, totally disrupting their work lives. But to them it wasn´t important. It was all about being with friends and they were wonderful hosts! They introduced us to the San Telmo area where impromptu tango abounds. Pointed us in the direction of a great disco (finally) that played salsa and reggaeton. Hooray! Florencia spent countless hours writing out instructions on which buses, trains or subways to take to get to certain places when they had to work. They were staying on the very outskirts of the city in an area called Liniers, which was an hour and a half by public transportation ($.50 USD by bus or train or a $30 USD cab ride) to the Buenos Aires city center.

And guess who else was there? You´re right! Stacy´s BAAACK!!!! This is the third time our schedules matched and there we were, together again. Stacy had just finished up her trip to the Antarctic and was going back to Buenos Aires to wait for her friends Lyn and Don to arrive. Lyn is also my good friend, in fact, the person who introduced me to Stacy 3 years ago! We thought we would be way past Buenos Aires by the time she got there, but we spent a couple of extra days here and there and arrived the day after she did! We couldn´t see Stacy every day because we were staying so far away, but we did manage to meet for dinner and spend the evening drinking and dancing to live Salsa music in San Telmo, a day and early dinner at a kind of Indian restaurant (I say kind of because it wasn´t exactly an Indian restaurant), and she spent our last day there at Rodrigo´s and Florencia´s for the wonderful famous Argentina Parillada (or grilled meats). I ate blood sausage and intestines!!! Stacy also had fun making new friends in Buenos Aires. Due to conflicting schedules, we were unable to meet any of the new people she met, but we know she had fun with them.

Back to Rodrigo and Florencia. I want to wish them congratulations – they got married on April 7th and unfortunately, we couldn´t be there as we had to move on. But we wish them everything wonderful and know we will see them again, somewhere. I had them make some beautiful pieces for me and the girls (you´ll see them in December Shanna and Talia!). We had the greatest time eating, drinking, spending time with them and getting to know them better. Thanks so much Rodrigo and Florencia!

What other things did we see in Buenos Aires? We saw the cemetery (I was wondering why I would go see a cemetery until I actually SAW the cemetery).... WOW! I´ve never seen anything like it...hope you can get the idea in our photos. We spent a lot of time in the San Telmo area where all the impromptu tango is, also great food. We saw Recoleta, Palermo, lots of parks and spent a whole day in La Boca, fascinating place. Lots of tango there as well, outdoor restaurants, colorful buildings. This is the artists´haven and there are many booths of jewelry, weavings, leather products, etc. Simply a very fun place to be. Colorful, exciting, quirky, my kind of place! We went to lots of artists´fairs, heard lots of music and visited with our friends. While I loved Buenos Aires, I wouldn´t live there because it has many of the exact same things that made me leave the United States. But I certainly see the allure.

While talking to Rodrigo and Florencia, we discovered that you don´t HAVE to go to the Brazil side of the border to see Iguazu Falls. We were avoiding this trip because everyone has to pay $135 USD each to cross the border into Brazil to see the panoramic view of the falls. But the falls are IN Argentina, and you can go to the national park there for an entrance fee of about $20 USD each. PLUS, there was an even more important reason to go...while Stacy and I were talking, we realized that we could be there at the same time! They were flying on the following Monday. We then planned to take the 30-hour train, the half-hour bus from the train station to the other bus, and then the 6-hour bus to arrive in Iguazu Falls ourselves! (Much, much cheaper....) Since Stacy was going there with her friends Lyn and Don, we decided to make it a surprise for Lyn. Daughter Shanna had visited Lyn the weekend before in San Diego and Lyn lamented that it was sad that she was going to Argentina and was going to miss me by only a few days. Originally we were supposed to go to Macchu Pichu together, but couldn´t because it was closed due to flooding. So, Stacy invited us to stay in their two floor apartment with them and we were going to check in first and surprise Lyn. Well, it all worked like a charm. You can´t IMAGINE how surprised she was (but I have a photo to prove it...wait ´till you see it)! We set up a little wine and cheese party to greet them and Stacy knew to let Lyn open the door. There I was on the other side with Josue. She had also heard a lot about him from Stacy so she was doubly happy. We spent the next 3 days with them and if I may speak for all of us, we had a FABULOUS time together! And Don, poor Don, didn´t know a thing about this either. I had met Don a couple of times briefly in San Diego, but I have to say he´s a great guy and I really think he had fun too!

We spent one whole day in Iguazu falls...incredible! We were lucky because it had been an especially wet rainy season and the falls were at their impactful best. Even San Martin was closed and the ecological boat ride because there was too much water. But we didn´t mind. We saw so much that day! The water in Argentina in most places is brown in color, not blue. It´s due to the color of the earth, not to dirt. We took the little boat ride under the falls and got soaked to the skin. You will see all of this in the pictures. We decided that the rather large coatis (kind of like a cross between a rat and a raccoon) that were so cute when we first glimpsed one, were more like pests after we had seen tons of them, sometimes a bunch together. They are too big for that! But the falls thrilled. The piece de resistance was the Devil´s Throat! It appeared to be a HUGE hole that the water rushed into with such force it didn´t even look like water! It looked like the water was going in slow motion, or as Lyn thought, it looked like fur. Whatever, it was spell-binding and the force of the water on that hot, hot day made you kind of feel like jumping in. Thank goodness no one did that, but the water going over the edge was very compelling. And the way the park has situated the catwalks, you are VERY, VERY close to the water. Exciting! We passed a place with a zillion butterflies. You´ll see the photos of that too. I´m not going to go into the details of Stacy´s bee bite, but Don was a hero, and Lyn and Josue and I (and Stacy and Don too) were laughing for hours afterwards! Ask Stacy about this story. She´s the only one who can share it properly. One night we sat by the pool drinking wine and talking. The next night we played a mean game of UNO for about 4 hours, also drinking wine. We thought the fight was between Don and Lyn, but a sneaky Stacy ran right by everyone and won the tournament. I don´t even think I scored. The third night we had a terrific dinner of grilled fish (the 4 kinds of river fish found in the area) and grilled meat (I just HAD to have some more of those intestines!!!). After that we found a disco that played Latin music! HOORAY!!!!! I know everyone was tired and that they stayed there for my sake, but we all danced and I think they all had a great time, even though they are not necessarily used to leaving the bar at 3:30 am. We left after they played my two favorite reggaeton songs, LOW and ZOOMBAH (that´s not the title..I don´t know what the title is, but Pitbull sings it). On Thursday morning we all sadly said good-bye to each other and they returned to Buenos Aires and Josue and I hopped on a 23-hour bus to Salta, Argentina for Semana Santa weekend.

The plan was to see some of Argentina´s lovely northern cities before heading into Bolivia. Salta seemed like a good place since it is one of the most popular vacation destinations for Argentinians. It IS a lovely city....tree-lined streets, great restaurants, lots of upscale shopping for clothes and local artist wares. Nice parks, great people, tons of hotels and hostals. Only it was Semana Santa weekend and we didn´t have reservations. We spent the first two hours after our arrival dragging our luggage throught the streets looking for a place to stay. Every place was full. We were starting to get worried when a dormitory (where we don´t stay unless we have to) said they had two beds. We took those and made the best of it. I guess I´m kind of past the dormitory days. At least it was really cheap. Now that we were close to indigenous Bolivia, suddenly we found that Salta had all sorts of Penas, or folkloric restaurant/bars, so we went out that night and saw a great show with dancers and a folkloric band. Finally!!! Music and dance that I came to South America to see. I told the manager that Josue was also a musician and he got to get up there and play and sing three of his Nicaraguan folksongs. The crowd loved it! We also had a chance to dance as the professional dancers asked us to get up and dance with them. What fun! If I´m dancing, I´m very happy!

The next day surprised us with rain, so we couldn´t go to Cachi and past three mountains that were 22,000 feet high! Everything was shrouded in fog. So I spent 5 hours at the Internet that day working on this blog and selecting photos. Our next stop was Jujuy. Suddenly we were in a different Argentina. In the rest of the country, people are tall, light-skinned and as I said, the place reminded me of the United States. Now, we had arrived at probably the only area in Argentina that had indigenous people. Prices plummeted (that was good), and now we had interesting food choices. We went out to dinner to have chicharron con mote (pig skin with big corn kernels – not the sweet corn we are used to) and peanut soup. Both good. The next day we hopped on a 2-hour bus to another little town, Humahuaca, a completely Quechua town. Now even the architecture had changed. Rather than homes made of wood, brick and stone, all of the structures were made of adobe, so the town has a walled-in feeling. We had a fabulous dinner that night of llama in creamed herb sauce, potatoes in some kind of Andean sauce and a terrific Andean salad....goat cheese, greens, walnuts, tomatoes and bulghur wheat (quinoa in Spanish), which is a big staple in northern Argentina and Bolivia. We weren´t spending a lot of time in these towns because we wanted to get to Bolivia, so the next day we took a two-day trip to Iruya (pronounced ee-ru-zha) because everyone we had met who went to this area recommended this city. The six-hour trip wound around mountains and was all pretty typical desert with saguaro cactus until the last curve. What a picture! Mountains, gullies, and the small town of Iruya tucked into a little valley. It was like we had gone back in time. The town had cobblestoned streets all leading UP, and at a pretty high altitude (of about 3500 meters), all Quechua people and a few tourists. It was a lovely city, but I have to say that there wasn´t much to do there. We had a great dinner of lamb stew and a huge salad and waited for the next day when we could go back to Humahuaca, where they were storing our luggage. Arrived back to Humahuaca the next day and got the bus to the border with Bolivia. All together, we had spent 6 wonderful weeks in Argentina! What a great country! Now let´s see about Bolivia...... To see the photos for this blog, click here.