Last weekend, I had planned on bussing it down to El Bolsón, a small little mountain town south of Bariloche, one of the ski resorts in Patagonia. I tried to get a bus ticket the day before I wanted to leave, which is usually more that enough time, with all of the different bus companies all making the same runs all the time, but all of them were completely sold out. Down here, Easter is a major vacation holiday, as it turns out, and the whole semana santa is a crazy week to travel. While I was at the bus station, I made the last minute decision to go to Buenos Aires instead, with the intention of spending most of my time in Tigre, the community in the outskirts of Buenos Aires that has formed around the delta of the Río Paraná, where it flows into the Río de la Plata. So, the next day , Stephanie and I went to the bus station, caught our (late) bus to Buenos Aires, arrived in the city four hours later. As we were turning the corner into the central bus station, traffic came to a complete and total stop. There was a back up of all of the busses that were trying to get into the terminal in BA, and the line wasn’t moving. There must have been at least a hundred busses trying to load and unload passengers, and they had all descended on Buenos Aires at 11 o’clock at night! It took about an hour to get from the back of the line to the dock at the terminal, including switching to a bus that was closer to the front of the line. So, we took a city bus to our hostel, the trusty Art Factory, and a really nice guy on the bus told us which stop to get off at. When its dark, its really hard to see the really small street signs when moving at high speeds, so his help was greatly appreciated. He also gave me his copy of the “guia-T”, which is the public transportation map for the greater BA area. Its really more of a book, and it’s a bit to complicated for me to use and feel like I know where I’m going without doubt (there are a couple hundred different bus lines in Buenos Aires), but it was a nice gesture anyways.
We stayed the night in BA, and in the morning, I started calling around to different hostels in Tigre, but they were all full, so we decided to just go for the day. It was really beautiful, albeit crowded, again, semana santa, and everyone from the greater Buenos Aires area seemed to be enjoying the holiday weekend there, but it was fun anyways. The town of Tigre isn’t really anything special, aside from it being the jumping off point for the rest of the islands, but there are some restaurants, and a theme park, and the main canal, where all of the boats leave for the islands. Stephanie and I decided to take on of the commuter launches out to the Tres Bocas (3 mouths) neighborhood, which is three separate islands connected by bridges. We walked around for a while, and then we hung out in a café where we had a 6-peso coupon, and we enjoyed some ice cream and played gin rummy.
The ice cream in Argentina has captured my fancy for some time now, so I think I’ll say a word or two about it… Its REALLY good, and I kind of went crazy for a while. I’m happy to say that I’ve become somewhat of a expert, but I had to cool it for a while, I’m really feeling sick of it right now. Which is sad, but what can you do?
So, we spent the day in Tigre, and then headed back to Buenos Aires. We had an interesting time getting too and from the delta, sampling most of what the city has to offer in terms of public transportation. To get from the city center out to the delta, we took the subway to the train station, where we took a train to Mitre Station, where we changed to the electric “Tren de la Costa,” which we took into Tigre, where we got on a boat to go out to the islands. Then on the way back, we did the same thing all over again in reverse.
The rest of the weekend was spent wandering around Buenos Aires. On Friday, we went to Recoleta to admire the enormous Ómbu trees and peruse the extensive artisans market. On the way there, we walked passed Plaza San Martin, where the UN “Buddy Bear” project, which is a fundraiser for UNICEF as well as a campaign for peaceful cities. Almost every country in the UN commissioned an artist to paint a bear that was representative of their country, and all of the bears were displayed in a circle around the plaza. The only country that didn’t have a bear was Canada, for whatever reason. We also tried to visit a Holocaust Museum that had just opened at the beginning of march, but it was closed (for Passover, we decided). Saturday, we spent the morning down at the Costanera, a park that runs along the wetlands that border the Río del la Plata. We walked down there, passing through the Plaza de Mayo and Puerto Madero, and spent several hours there, enjoying the shade and cool breezes, and playing more gin rummy. We played a lot of cards on this trip… In the afternoon, we went to Palermo in search of a multi-level bookstore located in an older theater on Avenida Santa Fe. We found the place after walking for about 45 minutes (I didn’t remember the cross streets), but then we spent about an hour and a half there. I love bookstores, and I felt like I had stumbled upon the Powells of Argentina. I found a copy of Zorro by Isabelle Allende, in spanish, for when I finish Harry Potter, and then we headed back to San Telmo to hang out at the hostel for the night. We ended up playing several rousing rounds of “Shit- head”, the newest addition to my very small arsenal of card games, with a bunch of the other people staying in the hostel. I learned it the last time I was in Buenos Aires, and everyone from Europe seems to know it, but everyone has different rules, so it gets interesting. Anyways, that was what we did on Saturday, and then on Sunday we had to return to Rosario, but we wandered through the San Telmo Art and Antiques fair before leaving.
This coming weekend, I have an excursion to Buenos Aires again, this time with all of the other students in the AHA program. We will be visiting La Boca, MALBA (Museum of Latin American Art, Buenos Aires), Plaza de Mayo, Puerto Madero, all of the classics and cultural sites that BA has to offer. We will also be returing to “Siga la Vaca,” the parrilla that I ate lunch at with the American family, where they zip-tie your bags to the chairs. It’s going to be a quick trip, leaving Saturday in the morning, and returning Sunday night, but it should be fun.
Tonight, the whole group has a tango lesson, and then the first weekend in May, we are all going to a futbol match, Rosario Central vs. River Plate from BA. It should be really exciting. Also, next weekend, the seminar class on sustainable development is going to the Gaia Permaculture farm/Ecovillage outside of Buenos Aires, and I’m going to go with them. The farm is completely self-supported, utilizing solar and wind power to meet all of the energy needs, and growing all of their own food for their vegetarian kitchen. All visitors get to eat and sleep on the farm in exchange for a little bit of volunteer labor. I’m really excited to get to go and see this particular farm; its on of the only ones in Argentina, and it’s a really good example of what sustainable agriculture can look like. It should be a really interesting and enlightening weekend!
The other big thing on my agenda is my trip to go see Perrito Moreno Glacier in the middle of May. I just bought my ticket down, and I’ll have a weekend to go see one of the last advancing glaciers left in the world. Should be amazing! Well, I think that’s all for now, Can’t wait to see everyone in June!
Love,
Sarah
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