Sunday, March 19, 2006

February 24, 2006 Patagonia Trip--Day 1

Feb. 24, 2006 From Rainy Seattle to...... RAINY Buenos AiresIn case you're wondering--Door to door, Seattle to Buenos Aires--20 hours. Other than the "disastrous" malfunctioning coffee pot in First Class, all went well on the plane. I met Terri in the terminal in B.A., as she cashed in United miles and I, a voucher on American.Upon first impression, Buenos Aires is similar to many other cities. It's European in architecture, but for some reason it reminds me of San Juan, Puerto Rico. For starters, it's HUGE. 13 million people. I had no idea. Per the books I've read, it also seems quite beaten down. It appears that B.A. is one of the few cities in the world that had First World status, lost it, and in many parts, remains Third World. About 5 years ago, the country went through economic crisis due to defaulting on many loans. As a result, their peso remains severely damaged, and our US$ will buy 3 pesos each. There are absolutely nice looking people and sights. But the buildings themselves, roads, and infrastructure apparently has not had financial resources for awhile. Getting a cab was quite the experience. It took 20 minutes with our "director," as we were now the angry foreigners with only a touch of Spanish on our tongues. We watched local after local hop into cabs in front of us, which after 19 hours of travelling, can feel a bit unsettling. Unable to speak the language, the threat of finding our own cab was finally enough pull to get us on our way. Our hotel (hostel) is actually built out of an old mansion. It's very old, cool, and quite nice for $20 a night. Not to mention the cable TV perched high up on the wall (15 foot ceilings). Upon just flipping a few channels, I settled comfortably on ¨The Dukes of Hazard,¨ an old-time favorite. It was dubbed into Spanish, and let me tell ya--The Dukes rock in any language.Immediately after checking in, Ines, a business contact of my Dad's, picked us up. The initial plan was to go to a resort area (Tigres) on the river delta, but the weather is actually quite bad. It's fairly cold, windy, and rainy. Not altogether different from a Seattle winter day, and it is supposedly very cold for summer here. I hope this changes, and quickly. So Ines then went to Plan B, "shopping or museums?" After reading about all the interesting shopping and local markets available in the city, we decided to check out the local goods. Ines was really great and interesting to talk to. It was about an hour and a half drive through the busy city, but much to our suprise, we ended up at the equivalent of a US shopping mall. My first thought was, "Uh oh..." but it ended up OK. By this point we were starving, so we ended up at a Steakhouse in the mall. The food was excellent. And yes--a 20 ounce tender piece of prime Argentine beef will run you $7 US. Unreal. The beef here comes from the Pampas region of Argentina, which is their grassy plains and quite similar to our midwest. The beef is supposedly world-class due to being so lean, and I can't at this point argue against that. Outstanding.Ines was great enough to have her secretary make reservations for a tango show tonight and a flamenco show tomorrow. We finally got back to the room in time for a ¨short¨ nap before dinner. Four hours later, I hopped out of bed and we had promptly mised our 9:30 reservation. Great! We recollected and ended up at an AMAZING steakhouse just a few blocks away. I have a favorite place in Seattle (El Gaucho), which will cost you an arm and a leg and actually is REALLY good. This place will give it a run for top spot on my list. Dinner consisted of 4 appetizers (grilled provolone cheese, chorizo sausage, and 2 beef empanadas), several glasses of wine, a 12 ounce filet mignon, potatoes, bread, and a gigantic piece of chocolate mousse cake----$25. Total. That's right. 25 bucks. Ridic. The other cool thing about dining in Argentina is the timing of it all. No one goes out till 9PM. We got to dinner around 10, and left the still full restaurant at 1AM. And people were still quite active. Apparently the clubs don't even get busy till 2 or 3, but we'll leave that for another night. Gotta hit the sack, as Ines has been cool enough to offer us another trip to Tigres tomorrow. Hasta manana!

No comments: