Buenos Aires

We arrived in Buenos Aires in the evening and made our way to the Hotel. When we exited the arrivals hall at the airport a guard gave us a piece of paper that warned us against taking taxi rides from un-registered drivers. We were aware of this scam and were prepared for it. They were a little sneakier here though. There were several taxi stands around the hall. I went up to one of them to ask for a taxi, and a guy who was leaning on the counter turned and asked if I needed an taxi. Since he was leaning on the counter talking to the women at the desk, he looked like an employee of the taxi company. I decided to play it safe anyway and walked around him and spoke to the lady at the desk. The guy who had first asked me was a freelance driver who probably would have charged me double the rate of the taxi company. If you travel to South America, or anywhere else really, beware of this scam. It's a good way to waste alot of money.

The hotel we stayed at was an apartment hotel in the Palermo section of the city. It was a studio aparment with a small stove and a fridge. Since we've been trying not to spend so much, we went to the local grocery store, bought some cooking supplies and ate in for a couple nights. It was kind of nice, and made us feel a little like we were back home, cooking for ourselves. The first full day we were in the city, we took a walk to look for some good shopping and see what the city looked like. There were examples of the influence the Spanish had on this part of the world everywhere.

We found that Buenos Aires is a strangely quiet city during the day. We don't know if it is because it is winter here, or if everyone just comes out at night, but over half of the stores were closed, and there were few people on the streets during the day. We had gotten used to going to bed early and so we were usually in our room by 10 pm. Until that time, it seemed that the city was sleeping.
One night we went to a steak house that the man at the front desk had recommended. We went out at about 7:30 and were surprised to find that the restaurant had not opened yet. A guy we had met on the Inca trail, Adam, said that in Buenos Aires, if you go out to eat before 10 pm you were obviously a tourist. Apparently he was right. We went in after 8 pm and were the only people there. By the time we left at around 10 pm, the place was packed.

The city seems to come alive late at night. At 10:30, we saw people walking around the streets, coming home from work, going to the gym, etc. It was strange to see people going about their daily routines so late at night. We had heard that people started partying at around midnight, and didn't come home until after the sun was up, but we never stayed up late enought to figure it out. What I want to know is when do these people sleep? Oh wait, I think we just discovered the reason for mid-day siestas....

One other night we walked around at night and found that our family apparently owns some stores in Argentina (see above). Who knew? What I want to know is when are we going to see some royalties for the use of our names! ;-)
Since we were in Argentina, we thought we couldn't leave until we had taken tango lessons. Anna and I are both decent swing dancers, so we thought that we would be able to pick tango up fairly easily. Let me tell you that tango is a completely different ballgame than swing dancing.
We first took a group lesson at a local hotel that is known to have good beginner lessons. The only problem was that the lesson was in spanish, and besides a couple of older English people, everyone else there seemed to be Argentinians and we much better tango dancers than we were. Needless to say, we both got pretty frustrated and didn't get much out of the first lesson.
We set up a private lesson for the next day. Thankfully, the woman who was teaching us spoke english, and we had a much more productive lesson. At least now, I feel like we wouldn't completely suck on a tango dance floor, but it is still much harder than it looks.
We also tried some interesting coffees and deserts in Buenos Aires. They seem to like separating their coffee into layers here. Coffee, milk, chocolate:

Anna also tried a passionfruit parfait at that steak house that was quite good, and left us wondering if there was more around.

Buenos Aires turned out to be a bit of an enigma for us. We never quite figured out its rythym. Perhaps if we go back in the summer we will be able to figure out more, but for now, we are both looking forward to Patagonia and the prospect of some serious hiking. -Scott