Buenos Aires: the subte.

When I first arrived in the city, our apartment in Palermo was about a seven minute walk from a subway stop. The subway here is nowhere near as extensive as the subway in New York. It also only operates till 10pm (which will make the fact that NYC's is available 24 hours seem refreshingly liberating). The subway was my primary mode of transportation, followed by city busses, but the subway system was very clear and easy to use.

One thing I found to be interesting about subway culture here is the way in which people try to make money on board. On New York City subways, people sing, they breakdance, they do backflips inside moving cars, they play guitar, they stand up and tell you that they have no job and a pregnant wife...all kinds of things. But in NY, they DO NOT do what they do here in BA.

People buy things in bulk -- like packages of travel tissues, socks, candy bars -- or illegally reproduce movies, CDs, etc. They carry the items onto the train, and walk around setting one pair of socks on everyone's lap. They cover the entire car, wait for a moment, and then go back to where they started from and either pick up the socks or the money if you want to keep them. Here, if you are planning to get off the train while you still have a pair of socks on your lap, you just leave them on the seat when you get off. I have a feeling if someone walked around and put socks on New Yorkers' laps, they'd just keep them when they jumped off the subway. It has been funny to see the small differences here...

And then the strike began. Yesterday was the first day the subte reopened after a 10-day strike. Subway workers striked for a pay raise to match the 28% inflation rate. The cost to riders nearly doubled shortly before I arrived in Argentina, but apparently none of this increase in price for riders was transferred to workers to increase their salary.

When the strike began, I could immediately see it everywhere in the city. Everyone who normally took the subway was now above ground -- standing in lines a block long waiting for city busses; crammed into busses like I've never even seen people crammed into NYC subway cars at rush hour; bringing cars into the city and increasing the traffic volume; and cabs became impossible to catch (because everyone else wanted one), and once you finally hailed an empty cab, you could probably walk faster than the driver could creep through the outrageous traffic. I'm certain the cab drivers loved this.

The strike lasted so long because of a political power struggle between the local and national government. The city of Buenos Aires is an autonomous city, similar to how DC isn't actually a state, so it's confusing as to who has the responsibility to regulate what within the city. To make this more complicated, the local government is very conservative, while the national government is 180-degrees in the other direction. This made resolving the strike a messy situation.

Thankfully, the subway reopened yesterday. I still haven't heard about how exactly it was resolved, so I will have to add more on that later. I was glad that I would at least be able to use some of my 6 remaining subte tickets that I had already purchased...

More details on the drama here.

Buenos Aires: Memory

Get ready for the biggest understatement of the century: 
Argentina has a crazy, confusing, complicated, messy political history. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Argentine government kidnapped, disappeared, tortured, and killed some 30,000 people. Mostly between the ages of 18 and 35, the victims of State terror were  disappeared off of the streets or taken from their homes. The government took those believed to be associated with activist groups, including trade-union members, students and professors, those who had uncovered evidence of or outwardly discussed government corruption, and those with leftist political views. Many were never heard from again, the remains of many have been uncovered in mass graves or in the nearby ocean, some were released, and many children who were born to pregnant disappeared women were adopted by military personnel to grow up with false identities. 

While there are certainly two sides to the story, it is still an intense history to fully understand. It is difficult to imagine how real and how recent this is for so much of the population here -- I'm sure I walk by, sit on a bus next to, or ask directions from someone who they themselves or their mother/brother/son/daughter/neighbor/friend/cousin were threatened, taken, tortured, or in some other way deeply affected by the "Dirty War" every day. 

Even since I've been in Buenos Aires, new findings are still coming out. About six weeks ago, the Argentine president during the time of the disappearances was finally convicted for leading these practices, and earlier this week a grown man was reunited with his biological family. 

Last weekend, I visited both the Parque de la Memoria to see the names of those who were disappeared during this period, and ESMA, an old military school used as a undercover torture center for the victims (similar to a concentration camp tour). There was a man participating in the tour of ESMA who had been a survivor. 

It must have been unbelievably painful to return 30-some years after he was picked up, blindfolded, and taken off to spend the night in the torture center...At the same time, his commentary made the situation feel so much more real than reading that ESMA was the country's single largest detention center where over 5000 individuals were taken. Statistics are shocking but individual stories give me goosebumps.

It is difficult to understand how truly recent this was; that bodies are still being recovered and real people in their 30s are being told they've grown up with a false identity; how civil society organizations have formed around this in collective memory, like the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo who to this day march around the main plaza of Buenos Aires in solidarity and protest, many of these women now in their 80s and 90s; that genocide still exists elsewhere in the world; that the ESMA building was reclaimed as a place of memory less than 10 years ago, and the ways in which Argentina remembers are still being formed. 

Buenos Aires: Cooperatives

It's been really nice to get back to a city where I feel that I'm fully communicating with people and I know my way around. This time around, I'm staying in a temporary apartment in a different neighborhood, Recoleta, which feels far less residential than my old Palermo Hollywood. NYU does have a site in Buenos Aires that is within walking distance from our apartment where we have been holding most of our class meetings.

One of our site visits this week was to a recovered factory called IMPA. Worker-recovered factories have a pretty wild history in Buenos Aires. The country had very few workers' rights laws until very recently, meaning that in times of crisis, a factory owner could stop paying workers when he knew he was no longer making money from the business and basically shutdown a plant overnight, leaving workers jobless. 

In several cases, the workers would join together to form a cooperative and reopen the factory. The State would send officers to remove the workers from the factories, but the workers continued to fight for the right to work to make a living. While many of the cooperatives were taken down by the State and police forces, others have survived. The successful worker-run factories, however, still fight for State recognition, and many are in a vulnerable position in which the factory could still be shut down at any minute.

IMPA was particularly interesting to see for two reasons --

1. The factory is in the process of opening a cultural center/museum to share its history with the local community and general public. The building and the fact that there were only 4 or 5 workers in the entire plant made the cooperative feel that it could be choked off at any minute. Nearly 10 years ago, the State cut the building off from receiving electricity, but the factory has since been running on private generators. It's hard to imagine such a lack of rights and protection for businesses. Part of the reason for starting the cultural center is to create awareness, and -- theoretically -- to help revive interest and integrate into the local community.

2. Another way in which the factory is active in the local community is by running a bachi popular inside, essentially an alternative high school for kids who had dropped out of traditional school and adults who never had the opportunity to complete high school. The school is free to attend, and I was surprised by how much power and voice students have. Students take ownership in taking care of the space (i.e. painting the rooms, collecting random bits of furniture to use for a student lounge etc.), create rules in collaboration with teachers (apparently everyone was onboard with smoking in the classroom...), and some of the students told us that they hold each other accountable for their actions when they misbehave in class. The students also helped the school's teachers to gain State recognition, accreditation, and State-funded salaries for the teachers. The school provided a "second chance" for many students who were unable to integrate into the traditional system, so the students all seemed to really value the fact that they could be there and making progress toward a high school diploma.

We also visited several elementary schools in small groups. I went to a school called Mundo Nuevo, another cooperative school that was founded 40 years ago when a teacher at a nearby school was fired rather than granted maternity leave. Teachers and parents decided they wanted to build a different kind of school in the community and founded Mundo Nuevo as a workers cooperative. ]

Mundo Nuevo was quite different from IMPA, first of all, in that it charges tuition of 1500 pesos per month (somewhere around $350). The building itself was nice, well maintained, and it didn't have nearly the same "hanging on by a thread" feel that IMPA did. The school had been requesting State funding, but turned down an offer for State salaries, worried that this would cause too much stratification within the organization and would cause them to lose sight of the things that made the business a cooperative. Rather, they are still pushing for State funding in terms of a block grant from which all teachers can be continued to be paid under the same pay scheme and not be forced to default to the salary differentials as defined by the State.

More on other highlights of the trip soon---

FLORIANOPOLIS, BRASIL

The Coveted Acia: Frozen, Blended
Acia Concentrate with Banana
Slices and Sprinkled with Granola. 

I booked my flight to Florianopolis right away when I realized that it would not only be a great place to relax and enjoy all kinds of outdoor activities, but that it would also be only about $100 more to fly to Brazil, pay for a week at a hostel, and buy groceries than it would be to spend the week in Buenos Aires. Cost of living is relatively high in Buenos Aires, so I figured I might as well put my Brazilian visa to work. 

Floripa is a beautiful, hilly island off the Brazilian coast, and it is well known for its beaches, surfing, trekking, and other outdoor activities. Unfortunately, it rained much of the time I was there, but I was still able to spend a few days biking, kayaking, sandboarding, and hiking through the hills. I took it as a personal challenge to have my favorite tigela de acia ("acia in a bowl") every day. 

It was nice to practice my Portuguese :) I definitely understand it better than I can speak it, but I had pretty minimal communication troubles. My fallback, which works the majority of the time, is to use a Spanish word and say it with a Portuguese accent. Most words between the two languages are very similar and many Brazilians understand Spanish or use some degree of Portunol (think Spanglish but with Portuguese/Espanol).

One of my funnier language interactions was tagging along for some shoe shopping. I met a Canadian who spoke French and limited English, so he asked me to go along to buy a pair of shoes one day. It ended up that he was talking to me in a mix of French and English and I was passing his message on in a mix of Portuguese and Spanish to the very patient Brazilian man helping us. 

A View from a Morning Hike

My lovely Home for the Week

The hostel was most definitely THE very best hostel I've ever seen. The house itself was very nice, well maintained, and the staff was constantly cleaning -- something that doesn't often happen in many hostels. The beds were extremely comfortable, didn't move/creek/groan when the person in the top bunk climbed up or rolled over during the night, and so many little details made the stay much more enjoyable -- like personal lights and hooks by each bed, soap and clean/dry towels by the sinks, tupperware available to store leftover food, etc. It very much felt like staying at a friend's house rather than renting a cheap bed at a hostel. A+ in my book for Submarino Hostel!

This was also my first experience traveling alone, and I was a little nervous about it, but almost everyone who passed through the hostel during my time there was also flying solo, so it was nice to have people to go exploring with during the day and to watch movies with on cold, rainy nights. I really can't say enough good things about the hostel.

The View from just Outside the Hostel

I also did a lot of Graffiti-Hunting in Floripa

When it came time to leave, I decided I had enough time to take the cheap route: the local busses. There was no direct bus to the airport from my neighborhood, so it took nearly two hours to get from my hostel to the airport, which would have otherwise been about a 40-minute cab ride. My journey to the airport entailed a 20-minute hike up a very steep hill (Colorado training) to the Lagoa bus terminal. From there, I had to catch a bus (company name: Transol) to the main bus terminal in the city center, about a 35 minute ride away. At the main bus terminal, I had to change from terminal A to terminal B to catch a bus run by a different company (Insular) to the airport, which was another 30-minute ride. Each bus ride was R$ 2.85, so it was less than $3.00 to get to the airport as opposed to the estimated $25 for a cab. The whole thing was pretty easy, I just kept asking and reconfirming with people, and everyone was quite helpful. 

Mais Arte

I had a near disaster when I got off the bus at the airport. During the bus ride, my wallet had fallen out of my pocket and was laying on the seat next to me. As I was getting off the bus, the fare collector (When you get on a bus in Florianopolis, you pass the bus driver and walk about three seats back to the fare collector who sits on an elevated seat collecting bus fares and letting passengers through the turnstile. You don't necessarily have to pay immediately when you enter the bus, but because you have to exit through the back doors behind the turnstile, you do have to pay before you can get off) called out "beautiful" to me. I realize that saying "hermosa" to someone in Brazil is about the equivalent of someone calling you "hun" in the Southern US, but I still don't like it. Anyway, he called out to me again, so I turned around, and he pointed to my wallet that I had dropped. Thank you, fare collector. Eek!

It was a long day of flying to get back to Buenos Aires with connections from Floripa to Porto Alegre to Sao Paulo and finally back to BA! But it was still better than taking an 18-hour bus ride, so I'll take it. The day actually went pretty fast, because my first flight got delayed almost an hour, which meant I had to run straight onto my second flight where we were stuck on the runway for 45 minutes before it was our turn to takeoff, which meant I had to run straight onto my third flight. I got onto my final flight at last call, but once I got on, a little boy in the row behind me got sick, so we had to open the doors back up and wait for nearly an hour for a cleaning crew to come clean the mess, replace the seat cover, and spray the entire plane with disinfectant. Anyway, I made it back to the city, hopped a city bus (once again, taking the $0.30 route as opposed to the $8.00 route) and got dropped off one block from my hostel, which thankfully still had a bed open for me at midnight :)

Spanish now seems like cake after a week of Portuguese! After two nights in a hostel, I will check into a hotel/temporary apartment on Saturday with the rest of the group from NYU coming down for the two-week course. 

View from Floripa's "Mirante" - a lookout point over the lagoon that I stumbled into while wandering the city!

From Puerto Iguazu through Buenos Aires to Montevideo through Sao Paulo to Florianopolis in a day*

Our flight out of Puerto Iguazu was delayed nearly 4 1/2 hours due to fog. Thankfully, we had booked the first flight out of town that morning, and I had a six hour layover scheduled in Buenos Aires. My layover ended up being about an hour, and I flew from Buenos Aires to Montevideo solo. Mandie left the Jorge Newberry Airport in Buenos Aires (as planned) to pick up her suitcase and head to Ezeiza for her overnight flight back to the US. We both cut it much closer than we were anticipating, but we both made it to where we were trying to go. 

I'm very thankful that we had spent a few days in Montevideo before I landed there again, this time alone...it made my life about a million times easier than it otherwise would have been. I landed in Montevideo expecting to take the same charter bus back to Tres Cruces, the main bus terminal) that I had taken to get to the airport on the way to Puerto Iguazu. When I went to go buy a ticket, the woman working told me I'd be better off waiting for a city bus and that it would only cost me 33 pesos ($1.50) instead of $120 ($6). I thought she was kidding, and I'm still not sure why she told me about this option when I was standing there trying to pay her, but whatever. The city bus WAS actually only 33 pesos and took only about 10 minutes longer than the charter bus had. Once I got back to the bus terminal, I made my way to the same hostel we had stayed at before. If only the rest of my solo journey goes this smoothly :D

Both times I took a city bus in Montevideo, I got on and told the bus driver where I was going (I'm really not sure how busses work in the US, but in this part of the world, they tend to charge you based on where you're going), and both drivers called out to tell me when we were at the stop I had requested. I probably could have figured it out on my own in both cases, but it was VERY much appreciated! If nothing else, it's nice to have a little confirmation that I actually am where I think I am. This goes on the list of things I love about Uruguay! Even though the trip from the airport back to the hostel had gone very smoothly, I decided to book myself a charter bus back to the airport for the morning so I could be sure to have a seat and so that I wouldn't have to stand on a street corner wondering when the next city bus would pass. Turns out it was a good decision to buy my ticket ahead of time -- the first time we took this bus to the Montevideo airport, Mandie and I were literally the only ones on the bus for much of the trip. This time, the bus was nearly full. I'm pretty confident I still could have gotten a seat had I waited till morning to purchase my ticket, but why stress?

This time around, I was lucky enough to get a 4-bed room at the hostel ALL TO MYSELF! This was the first time I slept in a room by myself for SIX WEEKS, and it was AMAZING. After several days of flights filled with screaming children, hostel-mates snoring or coming home at 4 in the morning, and spending two days in national parks that were as packed as Disney World, I very much appreciated a quiet, relaxing night all by myself. Just to clarify, I *am* super bummed that Mandie had to leave so soon, and my comments are not in regards to her :)

When I got back to the airport, the agent told me that "it" (I'm still not sure whether she was referring to the company that was supposed to operate the original flight or if she was talking about the actual flight. super confused...) was closed and the current flight was full. I was originally supposed to fly out at 11:15 but got pushed to a different flight at 1:15, which I was definitely okay with, because I got to go for a run this morning and get ready at a semi-relaxed pace. I think the whole change of flight schedule thing threw them off, but I *did* get on the plane I was expecting to. Confusing. I had to check my backpack (at no fee, as this is an international flight) because it was over the 5kg carry-on limit. Last summer, I went on trips of 2 to 5 weeks using a 65-liter bag. This time around, I'm in the midst of 19 days living out of a 35-liter bag, and this time I've added my computer to my luggage load. I attribute this to two main things: 1) REI's compression sacks -- I have all of my clothes stuffed into one compression sack -- I just cinch the straps down and my entire wardrobe is about the size of the soccer ball, and 2) It's cold here -- When it's cold, I can wear multiple layers and need fewer items of clothing since I can layer different pieces in different ways. Also, I realize this sounds gross, but when it's cooler, I sweat less than when I'm in humid Nicaragua in May or sizzling hot Italy in July, so I can get away with wearing things more than once, whereas that did NOT fly in hot, humid conditions. Either way, it makes traveling substantially easier, and I really don't feel that I'm lacking anything! I have everything I need with me: clothes (including 3 pairs of long pants, a fleece, two sweaters, and a rain jacket), 4 pairs of shoes, an umbrella, a towel, my computer, my kindle, my camera, all of my electronic cords/chargers, a jumprope and some exercise bands, my journal, makeup, shower supplies, vitamins, first aid supplies, my souvenirs that I've picked up along the way, and I'm sure quite a few other things that I've forgotten about at the moment. I wouldn't have thought I'd be traveling so comfortably with such a small pack. Lesson learned: less is more.

Anyway, I got to from Montevideo to Sao Paulo with no problem. This time, I'm *officially* in the country (I didn't get my passport/visa checked/stamped when I did my day trip to Foz do Iguacu to see the Brazilian park). I went straight to the same wing where I flew out of last August when I flew from Sao Paulo to Salvador, only this time en route to Florianopolis. I emailed my hostel last weekend to see if they could tell me which local bus would be the best to take. I had tried searching online and found that the local bus option would cost about 3 reals as opposed to 45-50 for a taxi, but  I wasn't finding solid information about WHICH bus would get me where I needed to be. The excellent news: the hostel replied saying that since I had booked six nights there, they would throw in a free airport pickup service for me!! Never in my life have I had a driver standing at the arrivals area holding a sign with my name, and I've been on a my fair share of planes.

Submarino Hostel is located right on the big lagoon here, and there are kayaks sitting outside calling my name! There are several other solo travelers staying here, and there are only five rooms in the hostel, so everyone here acts as a big family. When I first arrived, there were a few people cooking dinner and making their own caipirinhas, so I joined right in. The hostel is run by a family, and the son also DJs. He invited us all to the bar up the street where he was playing, so I got to practice lots of Portuguese! :D 

Regarding nightlife in Brazil -- When you enter a bar, they check your ID and give you a drink card. When you order throughout the night, they mark what you order on your card, and then you submit your card at the end of the night to pay off your tab. Here's the kicker -- if you lose your card, you get charged the equivalent of about $150 US. I didn't have an ID on me when I got there (didn't want to carry a purse), so I got a big fat "SEM CONSUMO" written across my ticket.

My plan for the rest of the week is to run, kayak, practice my Portuguese, and get most of my reading done for my class that starts next weekend in Buenos Aires. 

PUERTO IGUAZU, ARGENTINA (and a side-trip to Foz do Iguacu, Brasil)

View from Iguazu park's Lower Circuit

Another Lower Circuit shot

Both our flights from Montevideo to Buenos Aires and our flight from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu were literally in the air at the scheduled flight time. Note: Do not get to the airport late! When we landed, we took a "bus a la ciudad/hotel" shuttle for 35 pesos that dropped us off directly at our hostel (yes, back to Argentine pesos...while I'm writing this, I'm sitting in the Jorge Newberry airport in Buenos Aires with four different currencies in my wallet. I have to make sure I really think about what the price of something is in absolute terms, since I'm looking at a conversion of *very* roughly 1USD = 2BRL = 4.5ARS = 20UYU). Iguazu has no city busses, so our alternative was splitting an estimated 120 pesos for a cab. 

The northern part of the country brought a nice change of temperature. Having spent the last 5+ weeks in mostly 40-50 degree weather in Buenos Aires and throughout Uruguay, mid-70s felt incredible. Our first full day in Iguazu, we headed to the national park on the Argentine side. Our hostel was about three blocks from the bus terminal where we picked up a 50-peso ($12) round-trip bus ticket to the park entrance. Busses were running about every 15 minutes, so we didn't have to wait long. It took about a half hour to get to the park where we paid another $130 pesos for the entrance fee (the fee for Argentines is substantially lower) and spent the next 8 hours lost in wonderland. We had beautiful weather, so it shouldn't be surprising that the park was literally as full as Disney World. 

As our big splurge for the day, we purchased tickets for a boat ride (adventura nautica) at the bus station before leaving Puerto Iguazu. There is only one company that runs the trip, but the benefit of purchasing ahead of time is not having to stand in line at the park or risk them having sold out for the day. When we got to the park, we headed straight for the lower circuit, which steps down into the river valley with views of the waterfalls. At the bottom of the valley, we got in line for our boat ride that literally went into the waterfalls. The boat ride transformed the experience from seeing to doing and was definitely the highlight of Iguazu. The award for best pre-trip purchase goes to Mandie for bringing a waterproof camera bag along and taking video of our boat ride: click and watch us get totally soaked.

La Garganta del Diablo

Did I mention that we were completely completely soaked?? (I would recommend doing this early in the day so you have time to dry out in the sun) We sat on a bench near some waterfalls to eat the lunch we had packed. Next we hopped on the train that runs through the park to go to "La Garganta del Diablo," the waterfall of all waterfalls. At this part of the park, they let you walk out on a bridge across the nice, calm waters to the middle of the river where you're standing on the edge of the biggest catarata. From this point, you can see a little brazilian flag from across the river (which, I found out the next day is actually the top of the panoramic elevator lookout point...more on that in a minute). We finished off the day by taking the upper circuit to see the falls from up above. No words or pictures can do it justice.

The falls are located on the border between Brazil and Argentina, so Brazil has a national park from which the falls are visible too. Just to clear this up, Puerto Iguazu is the town on the Argentine side of the border where Foz do Iguacu is the town on the Brazilian side of the border. Most of the reviews are pretty accurate in that there is more to do/see on the Argentine side, but the Brazilian side offers a better panoramic view. I figured that as long as I was RIGHT THERE, I might as well put my Brazilian visa to work. I had a tough time finding information about how to do this online, only that some people had been fined for their passports not having been stamped on the way in, but once I got to the Puerto Iguazu bus terminal, it was quite easy and well worth the half-day trip. Unfortunately, Mandie doesn't have a Brazilian visa, so I had to trek this one solo. The bus company Crucero del Norte offers a round-trip service directly to the Brazilian falls (as opposed to going into the city of Foz do Iguacu and then taking a city bus to the Brazilian national park), which sounded like it would make my life a lot simpler, and at another $12 for a round-trip ticket, I couldn't say no!

From the Brazilian Side

The bus ride from Puerto Iguazu to the park entrance on the Brazilian side took about an hour, including going through customs on the Argentine side. Our bus did not have to stop for a passport check on the Brazilian side (I'm not sure if this is just some weird coincidence or if this particular company has some deal with the Brazilian government or what...I think that to cross the border normally, even to go directly to/from the falls, US citizens have to have a Brazilian visa and be stamped in AND out of Brazil). It was pretty overcast and drizzly that day, and the Brazilian park has far fewer views of the waterfalls. It does have some awesome panoramic shots though, where you can see hundreds of waterfalls at once. The highlights on the Brazilian side were a long bridge that takes you out to where you're standing in the middle of all of the falls. From the base of this lookout bridge, you ride up the (free) glass elevator to see the panoramic view from above the falls. 

Long story short, it's no better or worse, it's just a different experience. I was very glad I went, but it was really only worth a half-day, where the Argentine side DOES warrant a full day.

MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY

Getting from Punta del Este back to Montevideo was another 2 - 2 1/2 hour bus ride. While Uruguay has a population of less than 1.5 million, more than 40 percent of the country's inhabitants live in the city, but it still has a sort of big small-town feel. Our hostel was a less than 10-minute walk from the bus station. We had reserved beds in a 4-room dorm, but when we got there we were told that the room we had originally reserved had been fumigated that morning after a bed-bug incident....soooo they moved us to a 9-bed dorm instead. The good news: we arrived *after* they realized there was a bed bug problem and *didn't* sleep in bug-infested beds. That's a win in my book.

Our first stop was the Mercado del Puerto en Ciudad Vieja. The old building was originally constructed to be a train station but was converted to what is now THE place for visitors to go in Montevideo to eat fresh off the parilla (grill). The market is filled with various parilla "restaurants," -- some with tables but most with just bar stools wrapped around the monstrous grill in the middle. When you spot an open seat, you run to claim it before someone else does, belly up to the grill, and order your choice of grilled meat and vegetables. I do admit that I was REALLY hungry when we got there, but it was REALLY REALLY good. In case I haven't mentioned, back home, I could usually care less about meat, but here it is about a million times better at about a millionth of the price. 

Other highlights of Montevideo included strolling through a couple of weekend markets, seeing all the city monuments, and renting a peddle boat at a small lake in the middle of a park -- yesssir, best dollar ever spent!

On Monday morning, we woke up early to catch a bus to the airport (about 45 minutes away). It was a long day of travel to get to Iguazu, but for about the same price, flying from Montevideo - Buenos Aires - Iguazu with a long layover between flights sounded significantly more appealing than an 18-hour bus ride. Big waterfalls to come!

PUNTA DEL ESTE, URUGUAY

Punta del Este was about a 5 hour trip from Colonia. There is no direct route from Colonia, so we took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride from Colonia to Montevideo where we got a second bus from Montevideo to Punta. It comes complete with a gorgeous lighthouse, a good-sized artisan fair, a wooden pedestrian bridge overlooking western beaches (great for sunset!!), and beautiful beaches all around.

Punta is a resort town where the wealthy Argentine population retreats to fancy beach houses. The population of the city is only slightly over 7000, but there are over 150,000 tourists here per year.

It's pretty obvious to see that we're here during the off season, which is kind of nice -- makes it pretty relaxing, and we don't have to stress about reserving busses and hostels far in advance. There are still plenty of fun little shops open and, of course, la mano en la playa at Brava Beach is always here to see. Monumento al Ahogado (monument to the drowned), constucted in 1982, is a sculpture of five fingers partially submerged in sand. It is supposed to represent a hand “drowning” as a warning to swimmers, as the waters further north had rougher waves which were better for surfing, while the other way, waters were more suited for swimming.

COLONIA, URUGUAY

Today we left Buenos Aires for some traveling around the region -- first up, Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay. We purchased ferry tickets online ahead of time, which turned out to be a really great choice. We booked through a company called SeaCat, which, oddly enough is run by a larger company called Buquebus. Even though this is not indicated anywhere on the SeaCat tickets, and there are no signs at the Buquebus terminal indicating any relation to SeaCat, they *ARE* the same thing. 

We bought our tickets through SeaCat for the fast (1-hour) ferry for about 35 USD each. Purchasing the same ticket directly through Buquebus is in the $70 price range, and opting for the slow (3-hour) ferry is still $50+, so we were pretty excited about the tickets we found.

Being the low-budget grad students we are, we hopped a city train to the Retiro station for 80 peso cents, and walked a few blocks toward the river until we saw the Buquebus terminal...easy enough!

We flew through check-in, then went through customs where we received stamps for a "salida" from Argentina and an "entrada" into Uruguay. Then we got onto a HUGE ferry - the lower level was for cars; the main level had seats for 800+, a cafeteria, and duty-free shopping; and the upper level was a fancy-pants "first class" seating area. 

When we arrived, we stopped by the hostel to drop off our bags and headed out to explore the city. Colonia doesn't have a TON to see/do, but the city is on UNESCO's  list of world heritage sites, and it made for a nice change of pace. We meandered around the downtown area all afternoon, had fish and pumpkin puree at El Drugstore for lunch, climbed the 118 steps to the top of the faro (light house) to look out over the city and the coastline, and peeked into a handful museums and markets/gift shops around town.  

More pics as soon as I dig out my camera cord...for now, the one picture I took from my iPod will have to do -- tomorrow will be the bus trek to Punta del Este!

Watching the sunset from the playa urbana de rowing.

The Best Restaurants of Palermo

We have a small kitchen in our apartment, so I've cooked most of my own meals this last month. But we've made a few splurges to explore some local restaurants. Okay, splurge is the word you use when you go to a halfway decent restaurant in New York. These are well thought out trips that involve incredible food at a very reasonable price.

Bife de Chorizo at Club Eros

1) Club Eros. This restaurant is simple and quick. Here, you can order a plate-sized steak (a "bife de chorizo" is your standard steak in this city - and no, it has nothing to do with chorizo) for about $6.00. This does not include any sides, just a big slab of meat, but what more do you want for 6 bucks?

2) La Cabrera - A very nice sit-down parilla. The portions are huge and everything has a fantastic flavor. Being the smart, budget-conscious grad students we are, we found that they offer a "happy hour" special where all food is half price from 7:00 - 8:30pm -- Argentines eat a rather late dinner, most places don't open before 9, and if you arrive somewhere before 9:30, you will probably have your choice of seating.

Grilled gigantic piece of chicken stuffed with
ham and cheese at La Cabrera

Anyway, the happy hour special was perfect for us, since we are used to eating dinner at closer to 7:00 than 9:00, so we were happy to join the line forming outside the door at about 10 minutes till. I ordered a dish of perfectly-grilled chicken stuffed with ham and cheese. There is a required table setting fee of 15 pesos, which includes all bread, water, 8-10 little sides of green beans, quinoa, mozzarella sticks, applesauce, etc. My half-priced meal, the table setting fee, a bottle of wine split between three, and a few pesos for a tip brought my total to about $18. Which would have been on the high side, except for the fact that they boxed up at least half of my meal, meaning awesome leftovers the next night...score.

Our entire spread of food at La Cabrera's
Half-Price Happy Hour

Another nice thing about the happy hour is that the wait staff will bring you your bill at about 8:10-8:15, so you can pay and be out the door by 8:30. Most places, whether it's a coffee shop, a casual restaurant, or a fancy steak house, see it as rude to bring you the bill without you asking for it. They don't want to give the impression that they are rushing you out. Which is fine if you're having a nice conversation with a long lost friend over coffee, but most of the time an hour to an hour and a half is plenty long enough to sit around the dinner table. Getting your bill generally requires flagging down your server, which is not always an easy task.

Dos tacos with about 10 pounds of meat on top. Yum.

3) La Fabrica del Taco - An Argentine twist on Mexican food. Think about how amazing tacos are. Now think about how amazing Argentine beef is. This is the best of both worlds. Prices range from 11-22 pesos per taco. I ordered two tacos for under $7, and was very content. I could have eaten more, and wanted to, but I would have regretted it in the end. The restaurant itself was cute too, complete with wall-to-wall murals, mexican streamers, and a wall full of lucha libre masks. Worth waiting till 9pm for this kind of dinner.

Argentine Essentials --

Argentine cuisine highlights beef, wine, and mate.

The beef here is incredible. When I'm at home, I'll eat a steak once, maybe twice a year, and beyond that my diet pretty much consists of chicken and salmon. Here, the beef is too good, and too cheap to turn down. (More on that in my next post on restaurants!)

Argentina is the world's firth largest wine producer, and it's good. Even $2 wine is good. Which is worth considering when you are charged $4 for water at a restaurant...

Mate. It's everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. The drink is made from steeping yerba mate leaves in hot water. Mate is made in and consumed out of a hollowed-out gourd, accompanied by a metal bombilla (straw). It is a very social drink -- when visiting someone's home or office, they'll likely bring in mate and to share. On several occasions, I've gone in to meet someone for the first time, they pull out the hot water, and we pass the gourd back and forth, sipping the slightly bitter drink as we visit. I drink a lot of tea, so I've enjoyed it. Apparently the rest of the Argentine population does too. 

Mate gourds and bombillas at the San Telmo market

While it is a seemingly unportable beverage, I've learned not to underestimate these mate-drinkers. It is rather common to see Argentines walking down the street with a gourd in hand and a giant thermos of hot water under their arm. There is no lid on the gourd, the bombilla is less than secure inside the gourd, and who wants to carry around a thermos of hot water all day? The hard-core Argentines, of course! 

Taking some time to enjoy the city --

El Caminito in La Boca

Research has been going very well, but I also wanted to make sure to see the sites of the city and enjoy the culture. Because I had such a direct line to interviewing the people I wanted to interview while here, I feel like I've had good balance between work and play. While the cost of living in this city is quite high, there are still a lot of fun, free things to do and see here.

We spent an afternoon at La Boca, a neighborhood across town, mostly known for its brightly-painted buildings and its pickpockets. We've been lucky enough not to run into any sort of trouble, which may have something to do with a combination of 1) my willingness and ability to speak Spanish, 2) the fact that it is low season for tourism, and 3) my being a student and not looking like I have any money to begin with. Either way, I'd like to keep this streak going - knock on wood.

At the Casa Rosada

On weekends, the Casa Rosada is open for free tours. Our guide spoke a wild mix of English-Spanish-Portuguese, which was quite entertaining for those of us who understand at least a little of all of these languages. I think he was also just making up words.



During the tour, we got to go inside the President's office. Yes, the place where she sits at her big, beautiful, wood desk every day. I'm certain that this kind of tour in DC would not result in me standing in front of Obama's desk!

Epic cartwheel, right? :/

If nothing else, I've gotten this checked off my bucket list:

Do a cartwheel across the world's widest avenue.

Yes, I got some funny looks (and honks, and yells, and laughs...) for doing this, but at 140 meters wide, 9 de Julio is the widest avenue in the world.

Totally worth it.

I hope this bit didn't blow my credibility as an academic here.

Important things happen here...
just behind me.

Another freebee -
Touring the Congreso building. While a lot of this information isn't posted anywhere online or in guidebooks, we've been able to stumble into a lot of fun things like this by walking past a big building like the Congreso and saying, hmm, I think they do tours here, why don't we ask, and then the gurad says, yes, the tour starts in an hour, but it's only in Spanish, do you understand? Nooo problemo.

The things I've gotten used to --

DISCLAIMER - the photo uploader has been acting up the last week or so, so there are limited pictures here and in my last few posts. Here's hoping Blogger will fix this bug soon? :(

The first time I traveled abroad, these things blew my mind. Now, they have become standard to my life outside the US, but it is still interesting to see how each of these things plays out a little differently in different parts of the world.

Argentine Peso Bills

• Change is hard to come by. It's not weird if you buy something (at a store, a market, whatever), and the grocery store clerk asks you 3 or 4 times if you're SURE you don't have anything smaller than the equivalent of a $5.00 bill because she can't make change. It's also not weird if someone at a market takes your 100 and disappears for 5-10 minutes before coming back with your change. They'll come back, they just have to go find someone at another stall that can make them change so that they can make you change. This is particularly annoying since ATM machines only give out large bills. Tip: Take out an awkward amount, like 740 pesos, from an ATM...the 700 will be in 100s, but the 40s will come out as two 20s, which you can use if someone refuses to break the 100 pesos (which is really only equivalent to a $20 bill). In Argentina, in particular, there was a run on coins in 2008, so they're easier to come by now, but people can still be stingy with them. I hate change 99% of the time, but when local busses and \ the laundry machine in our apartment building only take coins, that sometimes makes things challenging. Sometimes all you can do is go buy an 8-peso candy bar to get change...these things happen!

• Skim milk, peanut butter, popcorn, and pretzels are a luxury. Chances are, you won't find these things. If you do, 1) you're probably in a very touristy area, 2) you'll pay an outrageous amount for these things, and 3) you'll probably be left feeling disappointed because the taste isn't quite the same. I'm still not completely over the fact that other countries don't refrigerate milk, and I refuse to leave home  without at least one jar of PB packed in my suitcase. But this makes for a great excuse to try new foods.

• When I'm outside the US, I will, without fail, be the only girl wearing shorts in the gym. I don't see why I'm the weird one in this situation. I'm also weird for being the girl who lifts weights. And for being the girl who sets the treadmill above 5 kph. I'm also the awkward girl who has to calculate kilometers to miles and kilograms to pounds.

A flag at the weekly Plaza de Mayo march

There is also a group of mothers who participates in the weekly plaza marches. 

• There will be protests/strikes that get in the way of your plans. The first time I encountered this was in Chile, where the students had taken over the University and were not letting any non-students on school grounds. They were protesting increases in university tuition, and I was shocked that students took action. Everyone complained about college tuition in Iowa (little did I know, that was a great bargain and that tuition in New York would be a whole new battle..), but students weren't going to stack chairs around the entire perimeter of the campus and have students on guard at the entrance 24 hours a day. Since then, transportation protests have foiled travel plans a few time, but I've seen some kind of protest almost everywhere I've gone. The big one here is the truckers union fighting the fact that inflation and income taxes are devaluing their earnings to the point where their income is no longer "a living" for the workers and their families. Here, I also went to see the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo do their weekly march around the plaza outside the Casa Rosada. They have been marching EVERY Thursday for 35 YEARS, asking the administration for answers as to what the government did with their children. This dates back to the dirty war when over 30,000 Argentines were "disappeared," taken from the streets or their homes, placed in torture centers, killed, bodies dropped into the river, and children were adopted by government families, never made aware of their true identity. The grandmothers have worked to find the truth, to identify some of the lost grandchildren, and continue to ask the government why their children were taken. The government has  really not adequately acknowledged any of this, though a former dictator was sentenced within the last week for being involved in the kidnapping/disappearances. It was moving to see the old women get assisted out of a big white van and gather in the plaza in the midst of hoards of people chanting their song with them, their work has also been a huge step for women in this country, allowing them to form groups within civil society and work toward goals, protest, and make change. Watching the women was heartbreaking in two ways; first, they have dedicated nearly their entire lives to this cause, and while some have found their children or grandchildren, many many others have not. Their questions have not been answered, and they will probably never hear the truth about their family members from the government. There are a lot of really amazing books out there about their story, I just finished Searching for Life: the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina. Highly recommended. Second, the grandmothers are in their 35 year of motion, and, remember, they were grandmothers before all of this started. They're getting old, their movement faces a challenge as the original women will no longer be able to march within the next few years. Who will carry this movement into the future?

• Banks will have Disney World-like lines. Banks are a difficult thing. Generally, banks are only open a few hours a day, maybe 9-12 or maybe 9-11 and 1-3. Either way, limited banking hours results in lines and lines of people waiting outside banks. While people have credit/debit cards here, they're not very widely used. Cash is about a thousand times more common/more accepted. In certain cities, ahem, Buenos Aires (though this may just be my area of town), it is also really difficult to find an ATM, too. So when you do come across an ATM, you'd better take money out, even though you may have to stand in line for 45 minutes to wait your turn, because you may not find another ATM ever again. Also, there is a standard 18-peso fee any time you take money out of any company's ATM, and this is on top of any ATM fees or bank fees or international with drawl fees. Taking out money can be expensive, yo.

• Store hours are negotiable, and even if the door is locked, they'll probably come in if you knock. While the sign on the shop in Italy stating "I open sometime" can't be beat, it's worth being aware of the fact that store hours are loose. In Buenos Aires, it's also quite common for a store to be open but the door to be locked. They generally have a sign on the door that says something like, "we're open, just knock and wait!" I'm not sure whether this has more to do with security or laziness, but it makes me think very seriously about whether I actually want to go into a store.

On wild goose hunts--

The last two Wednesdays, I've gone to this meeting of 35 organizations at the Buenos Aires Legislature building trying to hunt down this woman who is the director of an organization whose publications really inspired the angle I am taking on my research. I learned about this weekly meeting from the woman who has been my number one contact here, who also hasn't been able to reach the organization on my behalf, apparently they're busy? I haven't been able to get a response by email from anyone there, so I decided I was going to have to get a little more aggressive to get to the bottom of this.

The first week, the Legislature meeting was cancelled at the last minute because of the big truckers union strike, so she obviously didn't come.

The second week, I arrived at 10:45 for a meeting that was scheduled for 11:00 but didn't start till 11:30 and then lasted for two hours. I stayed for the whole thing, hoping this impossible-to-track-down woman might show up...she didn't even come in late. Sigh.

Today, I ventured across town to find the organization's office. I had found the street address online, so when I finally found the number posted on the side of a tiny, unmarked wooden door on a busy street filled with shops, cafes, and approximately a billion Argentines hustling in either direction, I wasn't sure what to think. I rang the bell, I knocked, I tried shaking the door to see if it would open. I looked into the stores on either side of the door, looking for some obvious sign with flashing lights, then finally the man at the newspaper stand right out front, who I'm sure was amused by the scene I was making trying to get into this door that I'm sure goes unnoticed more often than not, came over and told me they usually don't come till about 3pm each day. This at least explained why they hadn't answered calls in the morning and early afternoon hours!

He pointed me away from the overpriced cafes on the main street and suggested a cafe that wouldn't be overpriced about a block and a half down a side-street. So I sat and sipped a cafe con leche trying to kill some time. I walked back up to the main road right at 3:00, and the newspaper stand was GONE -- thank you mystery man, I would have given up AND paid too much for a cup of coffee if it weren't for you!!

When I rang the doorbell this time, the woman I'd been trying to hunt down for 2 1/2 weeks opened the door and didn't even let me introduce myself or explain what I was doing before she started leading me up the stairs to the makeshift office and rattling off the answers to all the questions I had ever wanted to ask her! She was incredibly nice and helpful, and after our 45 minute chat, she kept thanking me for being interested in their work and wanted me to know that she'd be happy to help out with anything I needed for the rest of my project....sooo strange how things like this keep happening, but I'm getting so so much helpful information, that I really can't complain. Apparently persistence pays off!

On getting around --

Spending the last year in New York, I quickly got comfortable with the subway system. I'm still scared to death of busses. Stops are unpredictable, you might stop at an unofficial stop or you could easily blow by what is supposed to be an official stop; you don't fly through a tunnel and then pop out into a clearly identified, named station; if you're not familiar with the area already, it can be confusing and intimidating. Same goes here.

The subte lines in Buenos Aires are ungodly easy to understand. The only trouble is that a city map will orient the river as "north" and true north then becomes south-east on a given city map. Google Maps and Subte Maps (subway, tube, metro, circular, whatever you call it wherever you're from) show the system using true north. Confused yet? It's really all pretty easy, just don't think about which way is north.

I took a train for the first time this week. It is 80 peso cents (which is less than $0.20) compared to 2.50 pesos for the subte. It's a pretty good option, but it's more confusing than the subte (lines are harder to identify unless you're starting from the end of the line station from where everything branches out) and stops are not labeled - from what I've seen anyway. Also, trains only indicate the route that they are on at the very first car (not on the sides), so this creates confusion as people waiting for trains pop their heads in and out of the cars asking passengers already in the train which line it is on. We are lucky enough that the subway stop near our apartment, Ministro Carranza, doubles as a train stop, so nice and close. We are also only two stops in from the end of the line, which makes it easy to take two stops in to the main station and then switch to the line we're really looking for. One strange thing about the train is that in the 6 or 7 times I rode it this week, I never had to show my ticket anywhere. The turnstiles don't lock or require you to scan your ticket, and theoretically you can be charged a 10 peso fine ($2-something) if authorities come on the bus and find that you don't have a ticket. But nobody has come on the train asking yet.....hmmmm.

I'm coming to realize that transportation information is difficult to come by online. I can find most of what I need for Buenos Aires online, but I'm now working on travel plans, and it's difficult to find any solid information on using public transportation to get from the Argentine side to the Brazilian Side of Iguazu falls, for example, or on what exactly, "take three bus transfers" means in terms of getting from the Florianopolis airport to the southern beach 5-7 stops in from Lagoa da Conceicao. It would be plenty easy to take a taxi for all of these things, but public transportation here is so cheep that it would be silly not to try (seeing as how I'm on a grad school budget). Soooooo, I hope my Portuguese holds up!

Today we visited to Tigre, a big river delta area about an hour outside the city. Almost everyone who I've talked to here has recommended visiting before I leave. It ended up being quite easy to get there and back, though it took several steps--

1) We took the train from the nearby Carranza stop to the Bartolome Mitre stop the end of the Mitre line. 80 peso cents.
2) At the entry way of the Mitre station, there are sliding glass doors to the right. Through the doors, up the escalator, through the antique market, there is the Tren de la Costa boleteria where you can buy either one way (16 pesos) or roundtrip (32 pesos) tickets to Tigre. The train is a hop on/hop off style journey, and Delta is the 10th stop from the start. The mid-way stop with the most touristy options is San Isidro (a big cathedral, lots of restaurants/coffee shops, etc.)
3) At the Delta stop, there is a amusement park, a casino, and the puerto de frutos market. Closer to the river there are several touristy shops, companies that offer little boat tours around the river delta area, and a local TBA train station. We took the less-secnic (off the coastline) TBA route back into the city. It was 1.35 pesos to take the train all the way back into the main Retiro station.
4) From Retiro, we had to catch a different line and ride two stops out to Carranza to get back home. This was another 80 peso cents. Because we had already seen the best that the nearby towns had to offer with the hop on/off train on the way out, we decided that a 2 peso return was a better option than the 17 peso return. Either way, very cheap, very easy. Tigre was a quick and easy escape from the city, things were much greener, more relaxed, and it was nice to go sit up on the docks next to the water. If it had been warmer than high 40s today, more things probably would have been open, but we pretty much had San Isidrio and the delta area at Tigre all to ourselves!