Thank God We're Not Naked...en el Autobus

Criminal Element.

Hooptie(s).









Safety.

It's always quite striking how cities and countries so aptly manipulate their tourist experiences. Buenos Aires seems to succeed as well as any in creating a tourist corridor that creates a feeling of safety, while at the same time allowing the visitor to feel as if they are receiving a completely authentic experience. For six days Beth and I caroused around Buenos Aires with an aire of relative relaxation and comfort, never reminded of our initial drive from the airport with views of what may or may not be the real Buenos Aires, but surely was not our Buenos Aires. Dilipated apartment buildings, a general run-down feeling and a stench of gasoline permeated our initial experience. Then we made it downtown, or to el capital, where we were inundated with a tourist experience. There is a saying about Argentinians, in particular people from Buenos Aires whom they call Portenos, that goes something like this: Portenos are South Americans who speak Spanish, act like they are English and think they live in France. This is what it feels like. It's incredibly European, down to the manpris, the croissant breakfast, the chain smokers and the cafe con leches.

And this is what we saw the entire time, until we took the bus out. We were warned about this particular area. Told it was a bad vichey (As we understand it, the Argentine vicheys are somewhat akin, though according to our source much less dangerous than their more famous Brazilian counterpart, favelas) and that we could leave there penniless and clothesless, we decided to steer clear of this area. Though we did hear of a tour which tourist could take through the vichey in some sort of bullet proof (not true) air conditioned (true) vehicle, which I initially cringed at, then did a double take, and began justifying why it would be OK to basically exploit the already exploited, for "experience" sake, then looked over at Beth who knew exactly what I was thiking and basically said absolutely not, you're an asshole for even considering it, at which point the vichey was shut out of my mind. Until we left the city, and for the briefest moment we skirted the edges of the vichey. Dogs roamed in packs, men leaned shirtless from glassless windows with cervezas grandes, dirt roads with bicycles, motos and some of the most hoopty hoopties I've ever seen spewed dust into the air, and there were about 3 kids per square foot, basically it was a scene straight out of City of God, sans the drugs, guns and all of our possessions. Then it was gone, enough time to think about getting out a camera and documenting a part of Buenos Aires hidden to us tourist, but not enough time to snap the photo. Next thing we knew we were staring at a perfect view of the Buenos Aires skyline, leaving us with one last picture perfect memory.

I have to note here that, besides that one little area, the bus system, so far, has been absolutely amazing. We had a semi-cama bus, in which the seats are basically non-swiveling lazy boys, the air condition actually works (which is more than we can say for a six days at Bait Hostel) and we got to watch Pirates of the Carribean 500 in Spanish and my favorite early-90's-ish-b-movie-starring-John-Leguizamo, Spawn, which to my pleasant surprise was in English. As Beth would say, a little treat.

Things are going excellent and we are on the bus on our way to Iguazu to stay with Beth's family (note: we are now there, but we have lagged a bit lately with the posting. Up next: Beth's Argentinian family, brilliant Argentine Inventions and Passilla y Asado.)

Sweat Meter: The air conditioning on the buses being what they are, I didn't even need my wicking shir collection: 25%, due to residual sweat from the mile long hike and accompanying subway ride we took to get to the bus depot because Beth is worried about pesos and convinced we needed to walk to save the 35 pesos, or approximately $5 US, each. By the time we got on the "subte," I was at the eruption point and might possibly have been projectile sweating onto the euro-americans, which caused everyone to stare and move away from me. I hate humidity.

There´s Only Room for One Vegetarian in this Hostel

With great effort and protein-less zeal, Bait Hostel resident Beth Sadler (for the time being) has been crowned "Vegetarian of Room Cero." It was a battle for the ages. 3 oranges, 2 zucchini, and a giant cebolla all sacrificed their lives to crown their leader. Beth won, while others across the planos of Argentina wilted in fear. In BA, only one vegetarian prevails, and that is not me.

Outside of deciding who would and would not eat meat, we decided that in the tradition of South America and Catholicism, Tuesday would be our day of rest. We did a bit of shopping, my absolute favorite thing to do. I got some much needed shower sandals (Much to my chagrin, Beth´s shoe size does not match her head size, leaving me heel deep in shower water) and an even more useful churipan--basicaly a homemade sausage on bread, which is then slathered with chimichuri and another sauce of unknown contents that taste like vinegar, onion and a lot of herbs (please note that in Argentina sauces such as mayonaise, parmesan cheese, in liquid form, mustasa and ketchup are served in exactly the same containers and are left out to bake in the sun, presumably to give them more flavor, confuse people and/or to poison the tourist. My stomach is strong like bull though, so i have yet to experience the latter pitfall, I did dump mayonessa on my sausage though). Amazingly enough these phenomenal treats cost only 6 pesos, cheaper then a jumbo jack with cheese.

Our real hope was to catch a folk show at La Peña del Colorado. Apparently there is a small folk scene in BA. Unfortunately, (desafortunamente, in español) this book was printed in 2008 and before La Penña was in the guidebooks, so not only was this no longer a bargain, but the music was more Michael Bolton (perhaps he is just catching on here) than Two Gallants, or that guy Bob Dylan, if you prefer (and Beth does).

This ended up being perfect because we hobbled across to Lo Do Bebe parilla, compete with ensalada completa (15 pesos) and bife de costilla (also 15 pesos and thrice as large) and a waiter who remained friendly despite our trouble communicating. Tasty!

The face of happiness (and a good sport).

We`ve just laid down after our 2nd day in Buenos Aires. Saying its *?!@!*!! hot is an understatement. Jason`s plain black tee now has a series of cute little designs all over it, compliments of dried salt from all the sweat we`ve been pouring out. (We are playing an ongoing game of the Rorschach inkblot test with it.) And despite the quart of condensed soy sauce that was poured over my (vegetarian) polenta lasgana and veggies last night, we couldn´t be having a better time!

We`ve already met travellers and local (porteños)alike who have been so kind in helping us along the way. We coupled up with some Solvenian toursist at the airport to split the cost of a taxi into the city and were welcomed with cold water, directions, and a city run-down by three very sweet locals, who invited us into their air-conditioned office-away-from home business/cafe when our cab dropped us off on the wrong block.

Today we explored San Telmo (the bohemian neighborhood) and perused around their delightful Sunday craft and antique fair. With far over 15 miles of walking under our belts the last few days and a couple $3.40 pesos 1.5 Liter beers, we are skipping the infamous BA nightlife for the night and retiring to bed. We miss you guys already and think/talk about you often.

¡Buenos noches mis amigos!

Fotos

Presidente´s Oficina -- Rumored to have been painted with bovine blood in the 1800´s -- apparently a common practice -- hence the 80´s gay chic look. Who knew bovine´s were so fashionable.

Jason, Beth, Inebeck y Quilmes -- rumored to have been in raging pillow fight last night, in their underwear. Beth survived, no bovine blood found at the scene.

Beth and her new friend -- rumored to be the cause of the aforementioned pillow fight.

Shit Can(ned)

Welcome to South America, where bidet is spelled r-u-b-b-e-r-m-a-i-d.

Yes, we´ve landed. We are alive and so far I´ve only had to use this once, whcihmeans that Pizzaro´s Revenge (Because clearly the conquistador has reason for revenge--really it´s because I´m not smart enough to reference a well recognized Incan/Amazonian leader) has yet to strike. praise be to allah.

Our first day was met with an unexpected reciprocity fee at teh airport-which Beth wanted to be the picture for this entry, seeing as I tought we should turn around and head back to America if they didn´t want to let us in for free and since the fee basically cuts our trip in half. Needless to say, we did not ask to go back to estados unidos. I sucked it up and we decided to go against the wishes of the information woman and take teh $2 peso numero ocho (8) bus instead of a pricey taxi/shuttle. Conveniently/fatefully/Our-first-experience-with-jingoism-ly (Yes, I´ve always wanted to be jingoed), the numero ocho picked up a few locals and left us and a couple of Slovenians by the wayside (no, they were not from Koper and do not know any Bibles). A taxi cab then preyed upon us, by agreeing to our price (yeah we lowballed the taxi guy from BA who smokes Marlboros and had the dirtier fingenails than cuba gooding jr.--give us a break, we´ve got to stretch a peso out these days, unless you all want us back on your couches/spare beds) at the airport, while later reneging on our sweet deal.

The trip took almost two hours with him asking for directions from stangers twice and grabbing my map to figure out which street to turn on. It was fun though, we got along great, I speak no Spanish, he spoke no Englishand yet we managed to talk the entire time, the apex of which was me asking for ¨comida bueno,¨him replying with ¨carnitas,¨ and me verifying what that meant by oinking and repeating si over and over until he responded. That´s how you communicate ladies and gentlemen.

BEth, to her incredible nature, has been a delight. It´s hot, there are no veggies anywhere, so far not one bean and cheese burrito (outside this one at LAX) and she´s been forced to pee on a plane now twice, plus she´s spending 24-7 with yours truly, yet she still has time to inspire teh most excited for this trip so far, lunch. Cheese, crackers, seemingly homemade salami (for me, she yet to jump through that hoop--that´s for tomorrow) and the kicker, two giant beers. They have this deal here called the 6X4 where you buy 6 beers beers of 1.5 liters each--think 40´s-- but only get charged for 4 of them. I´m convinced that this is the greatest deal in the world, even better than the $5 footlong deal. Absolutely amazing. Needless to say, after more than 20 hours of travel and 2 hours in these sweat boxes they call taxis, one beer later and I´m drunk.

Alright, I´m bored writing this, which means that you, reader who made it this far, because you don´t have a job, don´t have anything better to do, or are wasting tax payers dollars, are probably bored too. Either way, buenos dias and I want you to know this, apparently it is ok to drink the water in Buenos Aires.

Sweat Meter: Beth dropped a trickle of sweat for god´s sake. 100% and rising.

Beth Replaced, I'm Off to Argentina

Just Joking. She's Watching.

Both of us are anxiously excited. Our backs are packed, iTouches loaded and Beth has convinced herself that it is OK to pee in an airplane bathroom; basically all the essentials are taken care of.

At this point it is T-minus 4 hours, barring any unforeseen hurricane grade winds and rains which have been deluging (word of the week for SoCal news stations) LA and the I.E. for the last few days, before we head to Dallas Fort Worth and then on to Buenos Aires. Our flight leaves at 1:50pm and lands on the morning of the 23rd. This time tomorrow we should be changing our dollars for pesos.

Once we get there, we've got our first couple of days in Buenos Aires booked, and as long as we don't get mugged, kidnapped or lose all our money in an alleyway craps game, we should be in Buenos Aires for the first week or so. Then we'll be heading off to Puerto Iguazo, where Beth's aunt lives, to visit her, learn Spanish (in three weeks) and essentially acclimate to life in South America.

As to this blog and communicating with all of you, we are hoping to keep this updated fairly regularly, but that is contingent upon Internet access. Feel free to email us and if you have Skype, my login name is Jason_Vic1 and I think Beth is planning on signing up soon, or maybe she already has. We'd like to keep in touch as much as possible and we'll do what we can, when we can.

Lastly, we'd just like to thank everyone for all their help, support, purchases of beer for us poor travelers and just generally being around for our last few months. Thank you. Hopefully we'll see some of you in South America, but if not, we'll see you when we get back.

And I'd like to give a shout out to: my favorite toy poodles, chili and gizmo (honorary mention to Roy), Wicking t-shirts and Aguirre, the wrath of god. Without you, I don't think I'd be ready for this trip.

Sweat Meter: a surprising 0. It's cold and rainy in So Cal and despite the 100% humidity I'm as dry as Cloris Leachmen (http://www.cloris.com/).

J