Snowploughing for fun and glory
On Saturday, September 22, Jim and I finally left the comforts of Buenos Aires for a week on the snowy slopes of Cerro Catedral, Bariloche. We each paid US$1000 for the week through a Buenos Aires travel agent, and were very pleased with our package which included ski passes, return air tickets from Buenos Aires, and accommodation at Village Catedral, which I found to be the perfect ski resort at the very base of the mountain.
I was immensely impressed with our room at Village, which featured a wall-to-wall window overlooking the snowy mountains; warm, wood-panelled furniture; and a good, hot shower. Free access to the resort spa, room service and wi-fi were much appreciated too.
My first ever week of skiing was a challenge that I think was much alleviated by Jim's very patient coaching. Over the course of the week, I must have only really fallen over four times, although Jim did have to catch me a couple of times as I snowploughed right into him and breakneck walking speeds, yelling madly for help as I approached. Our yell-and-catch arrangement only failed once, when I freaked out on a green run and snowploughed right into an unsuspecting Jim, even though I was mostly still in control. The impact took us both out in very slow motion, resulting in a pile of giggles and some amusement-tinged concern from passers-by.
It was a nerve-wracking seven days, but by the end of it all, I had conquered the bunny slopes, the greens, and a blue training slope. Under the insistence of my rather sadistic instructor, I took on a short but rather steep blue slope on our final day in the snow, which resulted in what must have been an hour of swearing, sulking and almost-crying as I feared my way down the slope.
All the while, hypothermia was never too far off.
The porteno life
With an excellent exchange rate and a smogasbord of places able and willing to accept foreign spending, our days in Buenos Aires were spent living in excess. Numerous trips were made out to the Casino Flotante at Puerto Maderno. More numerous yet were visits to our local mall, Abasto, which housed shops, a Hoyts cinema, and an indoor theme park named Neverland.
A few days were spent wandering the delightfully shiny Buenos Aires locale. Avenida Santa Fe provided a particularly good spread of shops and people to consider. The suburb of Recoleta made for decent cemetery tourism, as well as hosting laid back crafts fairs on the weekends. Other nights (and post-casino early mornings) were spent at Puerto Maderno, whose ritzy restaurants, well-lit sidewalks, and water views reminded me much of Sydney Harbour and home.
Despite my aspirations of writing, finding freelance work, and mastering the Spanish language, day after day was spent on general lazy pleasures: sleeping in, lounging around, dining well. Even our few trips out to nightclubs stank of lethargy, as we would stumble home way too long before sunrise, and tipsy on cocktails far stronger than those at home.
Dinners were perhaps my favourite Buenos Aires activity. Favourites include: La Cabrera for excellent pepper steak; Parrilla de Abasto for an all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet; Tandoor for much-missed Indian cuisine; Gibraltar for Thai green chicken curry; DF for Mexican food (especially prawn fajitas!); a restaurant above the Bahrain nightclub for very good steak and grilled fish; and Marini for what might well have been the best buffet I've witnessed in my entire life.
Another noteworthy experience was a dinner and tango show at the Tango Rojo. At US$150 per head, this was easily the priciest meal we've had in South America, but to me, the experience was well worth the cost. I finally had my first and only taste of
creviche, which is raw fish marinated in (and said to be cooked by) lemon juice. While this was found to be much easier to swallow than sashimi, it is probably not a dish I would opt for again. A very well prepared duck was my main course, which was then followed by a dessert platter of chocolate and caramel.
The intimate, red-lit dining room was a perfect setting for the Tango show that followed. There were no more than fifteen tables, with two to four people seated at each. To the back of the room was a stage on which a pianist, two accordionists, a bassist and a violinist played. Another platform to the front of the room staged the tango show rife with singing and dancing and romance. I was surprised to find the show able to finally fulfil my Hollywood-inspired dreams of the Moulin Rouge, especially since the real deal had been unable to do so during my trip to Paris a few years back. To top things off, Tango Rojo even featured the movie version of "El Tango de Roxanne". Perfect!
At the recommendation of our Spanish language instructor, Vera, we took a day trip out to Tigre at the end of our third week in Buenos Aires. Set on the Paraná Delta, Tigre is said to be a popular porteño weekend destination, reached by an hour-long journey on the train. From the train station at Tigre, it took us another 40 minutes on a rather foul-smelling boat ride before reaching a waterfront parrilla for lunch. We had intended to return to central Tigre soon after lunch to explore a theme park near the train station, but travelling down a stinking river after lunch on a very warm day did not bode well for my stomach. So we settled instead on an hour in the air-conditioned casino before heading back to Buenos Aires with what must have been all of the city's inhabitants on the train.
During our final weekend in Buenos Aires, we took a day trip to the beautiful Uruguayan city of Colonia. While my initial reasons for the trip were purely to do with the amusement of my brothers, the trip did me a surprising amount of good. A UNESCO-listed heritage area, the city had an old, small-town feel to it. I felt much reinvigorated from the new atmosphere, and very much excited to get back on the move and out of the familiarity of Buenos Aires.
All joy aside, much of my month in the city of Buenos Aires was spent in a tussle with the postal service between Correo Argentina and Australia Post. One unregistered package from my parents containing contact lenses and mobile phones went missing upon leaving my dad's hands in Bondi. A second package (registered this time) encountered addressing issues - which were, admittedly, largely my fault - and ended up being held by the Argentinean customs office for two weeks.
One final diary note: friends may find this hard to believe, but Jim and I lasted an amazing two weeks before our apartment degenerated into an inhabitable mess. The cleaning lady's non-appearance on the second week may have had much to do with our eventual failure, but in all, I am proud of our housekeeping efforts!
What it feels like for a girl
Not long after we had settled into our Buenos Aires apartment (read - I had my belongings suitably strewn everywhere), I found paradise: Abasto. My little pocket of capitalist glory amidst the third world, in the form of a five-storey, air-conditioned shopping mall.
Then again, it's not like the rest of the city even appears to be a part of the third world in any way, shape, or form. The city is serviced by a decent bus and subway system, as well as a regulated taxi service. Brand-name boutiques line the busy Avenida Santa Fe, where strolling
porteños (Buenos Aires locals) are dressed to the tee. Besides the fact that everything costs about one third of what it would in Australia, Buenos Aires could - on the surface - pass off as a city not too far from home.
I had heard and read only good things about Buenos Aires prior to my arrival, most of which is undeniable. The city is indeed a glittering diamond in the South American rough - but the jewel does also have its share of less attractive faces.
Porteños love the night. Dinner begins at 10.30pm, and no respectable party takes place any earlier than two in the morning. The schedule worked out all too well for Jim and I during our first week or so in the city, until we cycled through a variety of sleep patterns to finally become fully nocturnal.
Not a week had passed before I found that porteño time had left me feeling a certain emptiness about each day. I awoke to traffic noises in a grey, sunless city, with nowhere to go and little to do until nightfall. It was a lonely few days until I finally found solace in a few excellent bookstores - especially
El Ateneo on Avenida Santa Fe, which is located in what used to be a theatre, and is now easily the grandest, most beautiful bookstore I have ever seen.
If there is one thing I adore about porteño culture, it is their bookstores. The selection of books is wide and much more appealing - in my opinion - than the typical romance-thriller junk that seems to plague many Australian stores. As an added bonus, it seems to be common practice for literary dilettantes to spend all afternoon reading at in-house cafes without actually buying any books. This, of course, drastically broadened my reading list to include Che Guevara's diaries from the Congolese war, a very interesting book by U.S. investigative journalist Alexander Stille about former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and a photo-biography of Evita Peron.
The latter was a raving account of the life of an Argentinean icon, painting Eva Peron as a revolutionary and selfless leader of the people, for the people. A far cry, certainly, from the power-hungry "whore" depicted by Madonna in the movie-musical, "Evita". (Yes, we have purchased the DVD for a quick, easy, and probably highly inaccurate infusion of Argentinean history and culture.)
Colour me biased, but the movie seems to have rather unfortunately reinforced many a negativity I ascribe to Buenos Aires: pretentiousness, vanity, materialism, and undeserved arrogance. One example is how our landlady reacted to hearing of our previous travels in Bolivia, which was immediately denounced as a destination she strongly disliked. When questioned, she readily admitted to never having visited the country per se, but "it's poor", she said. I have nothing against nationalistic pride, but close-minded arrogance is another thing altogether.
Another grievance between myself and the city is with what some might label "machismo". For me, this translates into plain old chauvinism; and this in a country that has once elected a female president! I find myself constantly ignored by waitstaff, salespeople and the like, in favour of Jim - who is expected to do all the little things like order for us both, and handle the bill. I am told by our Spanish teacher, Vera, that a married woman in Argentina is commonly referred to in terms of her relationship with her husband. For example: "
Mujer de Jose", which translates literally to "woman of Jose".
On the positive side of machismo, porteño men are rather forward, and excessively free with their compliments. There's nothing like the constant assurance of "
bonita" and "
linda" to boost a girl's ego! Also, I am told the official retirement age for Argentinean women is 55, which is five years younger than their male counterparts. Perhaps this isn't so bad a city to live in after all...
