Sayulita

After about twenty hours of travel, I made it to Puerto Vallarta airport just about an hour before my good friends Shannon and Michael arrived from San Francisco. I immediately needed to shed my jeans and shoes for I am now highly aware of being in a new tropical zone of the planet. My hair went from merely wavy, to full afro in about twenty minutes. I was concerned the weather would be oppressively hot way down here below the southern tip of Baja California. But the cool Pacific breeze keeps the weather perfect all day and night.

They had arranged with Marc, a friend from home, to stay on his boat which is stored here at a nearby marina. Some friends of Marc's immediately greeted us at his boat and we had an immediate welcoming committee. Cruisers are similar to backpackers ad RV folks, in that they provide a friendly, helpful community at any marina around the world. These folks were no different.

The next day we headed for Sayulita beach, a small surfing town just north of PV. Within an hour or so, Shannon used her signature mixture of luck and sociability to secure us the guesthouse of a local beachfront business owner for less than the price of a normal hotel room. She really is a secret weapon. The place is the upstairs floor of a building overlooking the water with beds both inside and outside on the large deck, complete with puffy chairs and a hammock.

I didn't do much research about this beach before I arrived. I was mainly excited to see my friends and hang out at the beach. But I became immediately aware that this is a popular beach to learn how to surf. The waves are small but constant and the water nice and warm. Teachers and rental shops line the beach.

On Wednesday I thought I might like to take a lesson while I am here, so I asked at one of the tents along the beach. He says it is $30 US for an hour of training and would I like to get started right now. I tell him that today I am just chilling, swimming, and reading, but tomorrow I will probably hit him up.

The next day when I went out to find the guy, I realized there really weren't any waves out on the water. The teacher confirmed that it was now, indeed, a poor time to try and learn. I guess that was my first lesson of surfing. If the waves look good now, go.

Duh.

Fútbol

After a delightful week in Córdoba, I began my journey back toward the northern hemisphere by returning to Buenos Aires the day before I fly out and head to Mexico.

But what should I do with my one day back in the capital city? I have seen everything I really cared to see during my three weeks I already spent here... except one thing. A fútbol game. Since I am not much of a sports fan, I had never motivated to see a game while I was here, but I regretted that after leaving. I have heard that seeing a game here is quite an experience.

Soccer is deeply ingrained in the everyday life of Argentines. On days of games, you will pass one storefront after another with a television surrounded by patrons.. people on the sidewalk watching through the window outside.. people surrounding magazine stands, and parillas.. all fixated on every moment of the game. They don't just have a national team, or teams representing each city. They have a team for individual neighborhoods. I am not certain of the actual number, but I think Buenos Aires has about fifteen proper large fútbol arenas just in this city. The fans of each team are, true to the term, fanatics. The are extremely loyal and go to great lengths to show their support.

When I arrived early in the morning and checked into the hostel, I noticed they had a sign up sheet for that day. A guided trip to a game.. Boca vs. Vélez. Transportation, local guides to keep us from touristing ourselves into trouble, and a ticket. No excuse. I must go.

They took us to the arena quite early. Eventually I realized this is so that we get good seats. Although our tickets had assigned section and seat numbers, no one seemed to heed these. The bleachers began to fill up quickly just after we arrived and became tough to find many seats together. We got there early enough to get seats underneath the upper deck. Apparently people sometimes throw things from up there (or worse), so getting seats protected from the mayhem is part of the wisdom we paid the guides for.

At least an hour before the game started, the fan sections at either end of the stadium began to show impressive life. Little by little the fans spread out their colorful banners, handed out colored doohickies to wave around in the air non stop.. a marching band showed up on both sides.. colored smoke machines began to waft their colors into the air... and then the singing started.

Each team has a set of songs that are something like war chants only more melodic. They are loud, repetitive, and come with waving arms, hopping up and down in sync, and taunts to the other side. Occasionally, the chants from the super fan area would inspire the more relaxed areas of the stadium into the chants and waves. At these times we could really feel the emotion, and see it... and hear it. The intensity I could see in porteños in everyday life got turned up to eleven. Holy cow. The loud chants and songs did not stop. Ever. The fans were always loud, always hopping, always waving their arms for the entire duration of the game, not to mention the hour before the game. I was certain they would poop out eventually. They didn't. That's loyalty.

Soccer games, luckily, are fun to watch. I enjoy basketball back home, and these games have the same constant energy and team play, so I was fairly riveted. The game ended in a tie, 1 to 1. This was actually good for our personal safety, I was told. The fans exit the arena at different times. The visiting fans leave first. Only after they are completely gone, the remainder of the spectators may exit. This is to avoid the inevitable fights that will occur between opposing fans. Apparently, if the final score favors one team too much, the taunting afterword can make for some after game mayhem, even with the sequestering measures in place.

So after an adventurous night of sports, I returned with our group to the hostel. Since May 25th is Argenina's independence day, the hostel celebrated by providing a complementary locro dinner. Not bad.

So now I am heading back to the northern hemisphere. I will fly to Mexico and head to Sayulita beach to reunite with my lovely friends Shannon and Michael from back home.

But first I have one final errand. I must find a specific brand of dulce de leche to bring to Germany. I have been promised an apartment for a few days in Berlin belonging to a friend of a friend. The part-Argentine resident has a craving, and is willing to swap accommodations for sweets.

Onward!

Cordoba

By the time my two week lease at my Palermo apartment was up, I was quite ready to see some different parts of the area. I had a few options, and had a tough time making a decision where to go even up to the last day.

I could have gone to Iguazu Falls which I hear is quite a sight to see, but it is a 20 hour bus ride. Even if I take the overnight bus and sleep for eight hours, I would still have twelve more to sit through.... for a waterfall. I would also love to see the glaciers in Patagonia, but it is winter and that is some pretty serious territory. That was tempting still, but also quite an expensive flight or a long bus ride. Both places were sort of like saying "Well as long as I am in San Diego, I may as well visit Seattle since I am right there". Too far. I just want a leisurely road trip out of town. Someplace friendly, with some nice nature and some history to explore.

I chose Cordoba, a college town about a ten hour drive from Buenos Aires. It is such a little blip on the map between other points of interest that for some reason I pictured a little village like Truckee or Flagstaff. Not so much. Cordoba is about 30% larger in population than San Francisco... over a million residents. A real city to be sure.

But a more intimate city than Buenos Aires. The city moves at a friendlier pace and is far easier to walk around without taking Advil for my aching ankles like in BA.

I arrived after an overnight 10 hour journey from the BA bus station. Bus stations in Argentina are nothing like I have ever seen. They are approaching airports in their size and level of organization. The buses are generally quite luxurious. I bought a "Cama" seat which looks something like a super first class airline seat... leather, big and puffy, and they recline into an almost horizontal position... perfect for snoozing for a few hours of my ten hour journey.

Unfortunately, because of my apartment check out time and the bus schedule, I arrived to Cordoba at 5:50 in the morning to a completely dark and foreign city.

I had the address of the Tango Hostel and took a taxi... but felt like a creep ringing the bell that early in the morning. I shoudn`t have. The hostel is a friendly, youthful, communal living type place where people cook and eat meals together, explore the area together, and go out at night together. It is not uncommon for people to buzz into the place at that time of the morning after a night out. Exactly the type of situation I needed in Buenos Aires. But I am happy to have it now... and suspected towns outside of BA would be more like this.

Cordoba also happens to be the town where Che Guevara went to high school. He grew up as a boy about an hour southwest in Alta Gracia and his home is now a museum. Some folks from the hostel and I took a quick $1 bus ride up there and checked out his house, took pictures with his famous motorcycle, and tooled around the cute little town.

I hadn`t had much in the way of recommendations from friends about Cordoba, but I am glad I made the trip up. It gives one a far different impression of Argentina and it`s folk than just getting to see the big city. I may see one or two more towns before heading back up to Mexico.

Talk

Talk is cheap.

Especially on the Internet. Although I have been a high tech professional for a number of years, I still sometimes find myself a very late adopter of new technology. This week I got my first real introduction to Skype. I had it before on my Mac back home and I have chatted online with it a bit, but never really dug into it as a way to make phone calls.

But now as a lowly foreigner stuck in a metropolitan area with no cell phone, Skype means a whole lot more to me. I have seen folks using it in Internet cafes while I have been on the road. I knew it was there, but didn´t feel particularly inclined to slide myself under the web of cords and microphones and headphones and monkey around with all that high tech nonsense. I have been perfectly satisfied with email and chat.

But this week I had a couple of instances where I really needed a phone but didn't have one. One was to call a guy I met who gave me his Argentine cell phone number. I couldn't get Skype to dial the number so I probably won't see that dude again unless I borrow a real phone from someone. So that was strike one for Skype.

But it really saved me today when I had to, after an extended procrastination, call AT&T to deal with my cell phone problems from back home. Remember that my phone was stolen back in Guatemala and, although I was able to suspend the account from the web, I was not able to make an insurance claim to get the phone replaced. They only have a phone number. I also wanted to strip down my service plan to make it cheaper (since I can't use it anyway) but since I had suspended the service online, they required me to call in order to make changes. On what phone!

I had one of those $4 per month things on my account so if the phone is lost or stolen, they will send me a new one. So I had to call them on two different phone numbers in order to downgrade my plan, and to make my insurance claim. I knew these calls would suck and would take forever.
I was right.

But thanks to Skype, which, after sliding under the web of cords, allows you to make phone calls for free from anywhere to U.S. toll free numbers, it didn´t cost me an arm and a leg, and I was able to surf the web while I toiled on the "phone".

AT&T on the other hand, totally screwed me. I was already really pissed about the fact they wouldn't just let me park my cell phone number for a few dollars a month and let me pick it up again when I come back home. Nope, they made me pay for a whole calling plan, the cheapest of which came out to about $60 per month with taxes and insurance attached. This for a phone I am not using at all.

Then after some more chat, I realized that I actually had a $50 deductible on the phone which I would have to pay in order to have a new one sent to me. Great.

So after going around and around with them about how I might reduce my monthly bill, I finally suggested to them, while reading their own website during the conversation, that I change my account to a pre-paid account which is a ridiculous, usurious per minute fee, but no monthly fee at all. But I am not using the phone so the crazy per minute fees don't matter. Then when I get back home, I will start a new contract with some company to be determined at that time (AT&T may be considered) and receive a brand new phone for free. No $50 needed. And I will get to keep my phone number.

Thank you Skype for making the call easy... and no thanks to AT&T, who´s best suggestion was for me to pay $230 over the next three months for a phone and account I cannot use. Now I am paying nothing and get to keep my number.

Now back to traveling.

Sabado

I knew if I could only find a real pub here in Buenos Aires, I could better connect with the folks here. Serendipity can be fun.

After a day of walking around downtown giving myself a Lonely-Planet-guided tour of notable monuments and a big pasta lunch, I wandered over to San Telmo for a cup of espresso. After that I craved a beer at a real pub with real people sitting at a bar... a tall order here since most bars here just have tables and no bar or bar stools. But that's what I wanted, so I walked up and down some streets peeking in places to gague each one. Nope, empty... nope too loud... nope crummy lighting.. nope nope nope. Then on my way down Calle Peru, I walked past an Irish pub. It had a bar with bar stools AND people sitting on them. I kept walking on by, mainly out of habit.. usually there is a nope in there somewhere... Then I turned back and peeked in. There are no nopes here! I plopped down at the bar and asked the two English guys next to be which beers on tap they had tried. "All of them. We are regulars". They both have lived here for ten years and were happy to give me some tips of places to hang out back in Palermo as well. They had actually tried and failed to open a bar of their own, some years back. Now one of them runs the Buenos Aires chapter of Time Out magazine. After a healthy session at the bar one of them says "Hey I am supposed to go to a party at some French girl's apartment I don't know very well. Want to come?" Uh... Yes.

So we head off to Sofia's trendy flat on the edge of barrio La Boca. It's a hip crew of folks, about half of them porteño and half English or American, all very friendly, and as it turns out celebrating Sofia's birthday. Later on my English friends left, and left me behind at the party. Ha! Am I even supposed to be here? They announced that the party was moving to Shamrock, a club across town, for some dancing and I think a merger with another birthday party. They swooped me along and I partied like a porteño until about 5 am fueled by an armada of vodka and Red Bulls. I haven't even been home since this morning!

I returned home to my Palermo neighborhood still going fairly strong. Plaza Serrano, about a block from my apartment, is a traffic circle with bars all the way around it and tables out front. Some of the bars were shut, but two still had most of their tables full. My goodness. Time for me to go to bed.

Fun random night though. As my friend Heather would say, "Whoop whoop!".

Observations

During my first week in Buenos Aires, a few things have jumped out at me concerning the behavior of Porteños (people who live in BA).

• They don´t have stop signs. They do have traffic signals at larger intersections. But it took me awhile to notice that in other, smaller intersections, it's a free-for-all. The prevailing idea seems to be: try not to hit one another. They drive fairly fast through residential streets, and it seems to be a game of chicken to see who will stop. No accidents yet that I have noticed. I suppose it's working, and it keeps people zooming along.


• Where are the newspapers? One day I went to the super market specifically to pick up something to read, like a paper or a magazine. I did a little shopping then realized at the checkout. There is nothing! Liquor stores: nothing. I realized that the only place one can buy a paper or magazine of any kind is at one of the sidewalk news stands. Also, there doesn't seem to be any such thing as free weekly papers. Somewhere to see listings of movies, music, etc. This has led me on a wild goose chase to figure out what is where and when. Maybe I am just missing something. I imagine the news stand guys will light your store on fire if you try to tread on their territory. That's all I can think of.
  
• How do you order espresso? Ask for coffee (cafe´). Apparently there is no such thing as brewed drip coffee here. All coffee is espresso. That one took me a bit to figure out.


• People are stressed out. This isn't really my observation, although the people do have a bit of an intensity to them. I read in a newspaper (once I found it) that 5% of Argentinian teens have hypertension. It could be all the espresso.. or perhaps all the Red Bull that's required to go out to a club from 3am to 7am which seems to be what the youngsters do around here. Sheesh.


• Buenos Aires is the second home of The Whopper. Burger King is a super popular restaurant here. And given that the prices seem to be about the same as U.S. prices, they are willing to pay extra to eat there. I have to admit I have had a few Whoppers myself. BK seems to fill a gap in the type of restaurants they have here. They tend to either have tableclothes or they are street vendors. There is very little in between. I have noticed a few golden arches as well, but they mostly seem to be Mc Cafe's - stores that only sell pastries and coffee drinks. Starbucks is nowhere to be found.


• Browner people are serving lighter people. It could be my imagination, but I don´t think so. The folks working as cashiers, cooks, bus people, and generally blue collar jobs seem to tend toward the darker, more indigonous look. Most of the local folks here, although they dark hair, eyes, and slightly olive skin, are caucasion. Interesting how these divisions happy even down here.


• Porteños love PDA! As far as public displays of affection, it is just so different here. People will make out anywhere. In a restaurant, on a bus, and in a park it can get almost obscene. I was in a local pub last night. There were three couples in the mostly empty bar, and at one point all three couples were making out in their booths simultaneously. I could barely conceil my laughter.


• Dog shit doesn't exist. Well yes of course it does. But I have seen tons of dogs running around town crapping and I haven't seen even one person bend down to collect it. As a result, the sidewalks are peppered with smelly shit. Folks seem to instinctively watch where they step and don't even seem to notice. I thought maybe people wait until it's a day or two old and sweep it into the street. But I haven't seen any evidence of that either. I know Argentina has had bigger problems to worry about in the recent past, but somewhere along the line this should move up the list.
  

Landed

I have a home!

Yesterday I got the keys to my very own Palermo Soho apartment. I am not sure why they call the barrio Soho except that it might resemble the New York City neighborhood with the same name. Palermo is a large area and so they have named smaller sections with more distinct names.

It is already such a different experience having a home rather than a hotel room or a hostel bed. I have a fridge! I have a bath tub! I have a key to the building! Amenities I might have at one time taken for granted are now super luxuries.

The first thing I did after settling in was to go to the grocery store to buy some food and supplies. The notion of cooking meals for myself has been off the table for quite some time. The store I found, however, was not exactly Safeway. It was a fairly small store that still billed itself as a "supermercado". I only had about ten items on my shopping list but I only managed to find about half. About 1/5 of the store is devoted to local wines (on my list), but they didn´t carry corkscrews, so I had to buy box wine (not too bad actually). They also didn´t have peanut butter, english muffins, or any microwave food. Should I be surprised about this?

So today, for the first time, I can just relax during the day, and not have to worry about finding addresses, hotel check out times, where to keep my bags, etc. Now I can get down to the business of feeling like a resident... or a tourist.. whichever I choose.

You´ll have to ask me again after I leave here, but at the moment, I really have to recommend the notion of using an agency to get an apartment here in Buenos Aires rather than a hotel. Unless you really want the things a hotel offers, like daily cleaning and...er.. what else is there?.. you can rent an apartment weekly for about half the daily rate of a comparable hotel room. It makes me wonder if there is a similar niche being filled back home in San Francisco. I met the owner of my place, Julián, when I got the keys. He seems like he has a good little business going. I know that when you buy a flat in SF and want to rent it out, the rent will likely not be enough to cover the mortgage payment. But could it cover the mortgage if it was rented short term?

Hmmm.

Pavement

Boy are my feet tired!

The past few days, my feet have been hard at work trying to figure out how and where I should live while I am here in Buenos Aires. I started out in the dumpy but ok Hotel Los Robles in San Telmo. After a couple of days and nights there, I decided it wasn´t really my barrio. I think it´s a cute little neighborhood, but it doesn´t have the feel or the social aspects I´m looking for. Also, there is something about being in a little hotel like this that feels a little bit confining. The staff must let me both in and out of the building. One day I left without my ibuprofen. My ankle has been sore so I need it especially with all the walking every day. I felt guilty about going back and asking the eighty or so year old guy to get up and let me in and out again. So I bought some more at the store. This type of thing has happened a few times. I like to come and go as I please. I don´t like waking up the guy at 3am to let me in after I return from a club.

But more important than that, you don´t meet anyone in a hotel. In backpacker hostels and beach bungalows, you tend to meet many of the folks that come through. And now I am really in need of some quick friends. So this place just wasn´t working.

So, on a tip from my good friends Shannon and Kathleen who were here a few years ago, I decided to check out the HI Recoleta Hostel in barrio Recoleta. I figured if I stay there a couple of nights, I can meet some folks and then take it from there. Right? Well not really.

I got a room there for only $5 less per night than my private room. This place is equally run down but now I share a bedroom with three other guys. One older guy from Denmark that goes to bed around 8 pm. And two Argentinian business men using the place as a cheap hotel. They are all nice folks, but not exactly partners in crime.

The bathroom is shared by eight of us, and after dealing with a crazy wet floor (no shower curtain) one morning and realizing that Recoleta isn´t really my speed either, I decided to head to Palermo to see what I can find at any level from hostel to apartment.

As it turns out, there isn´t really much in the way of hostels or hotels in Palermo either. The web listing I found turned out to be largely out of date, and many of the listings I found were either no longer there or they had been upgraded to more expensive options.

So what I settled on was to rent an apartment. This is actually quite normal here for short term visitors. The rates are cheaper the longer you stay. But I figured that, by getting a place for a couple of weeks, I would pay only a little more than the original cheap hotel, come and go as I please, have a kitchen and other amenities, and have a much much nicer place. So I contacted a realtor and I expect to have a place locked up in Barrio Palermo Soho by tomorrow.

Now I´m excited. But boy are my feet tired.