¡El Tómate Loco!

¡El Tómate Loco!


Blog 1: Buenos Aires, Argentina

"They're not going anywhere, they're escaping. And I don't think they know what it is they want to escape. They don't look at one another. They smile too much, but it's an ugly kind of smiling: it's not joy, it's pleading."

Ayn Rand

     It was not the thirty hour journey from Bristol to Buenos Aires that affected my spirits, but the last stretch on the number eight bus from the Airport to our hostel that seemed in itself an everlasting metaphor for life's journey. Before embarking upon the eternal bus - we thought we had left our pesos at home and struggled to withdraw money. The bus driver indicated that he can only accept coins, but my search for coins soon revealed a national coin shortage. Finally, it transpired that you actually need a bus pass, not cash, and a kind man offered without hesitation to pay using his own bus pass, the first of many acts of kindness we would accept from our fellow South American's. The bus driver drove like a madman racing for a solid spot in history, but this is generally the style here. He cut briskly past other cars and buses, swerved dramatically around corners, beeped his arrival to clear the roads and drove off as people were still jumping on an off at various doors. Eventually the drivers own confidence convinces to accept the madness. 
The heat. 
     The longer the bus ride continued, the afternoon sun swelled and the city around us intensified, I began to imagine or question if perhaps this was actually a limitless journey into the earth's core abyss. 
     Travelling on the bus with us was a young gypsy - looking family. The child of about eighteen months, cute and smiley though she was, was covered in old dirt and had a mean and at home looking cyst or infection of some kind  on her little thigh. The father played bad music out of a crusty old phone and clutched a half drunk bottle of warm and stale looking beer under his arm. The mother was a small woman with a somber expression, she seemed uncomfortably conscious of her social status. Underneath her dirty white teeshirt she wore a black laced frilly bra that had never been for her. The straps were wide, frilly and extravagant, covering most of her tiny shoulder, and she had twisted and pinched the cups together for a better fit, and attached it to the front of her shirt with a safety pin. Everyone stared in judgment as they stepped down from the still moving bus. 
     The general structure of the cities is in a grid format, which bodes well for my (much needed) navigation and map reading development, and allowed for a quick feeling of salvation and indescribable relief as we swiftly found the hostel. We stayed in San Telmo, a nice enough area in the happening part of the city, where we later learnt of the unfortunate happening of our Norwegian traveller friends being held at gun point at two pm in return for their wallets and phones. 
     Our first friend however was a young New Yorker called David, who works at the hostel. He was working there 'illegally', if there is such a thing here, in order to fund his travels through South America. We mostly talked about our travels and a common interest in literature. 
     Other than the friendly staff, the overwhelming aspect of the hostel was the smell of bleach. They cleaned the whole place with buckets of the stuff twice a day. It was fairly clean, but I imagine they were unaware of the negative aspects of twenty four hour bleach fumes. 
     The breakfast was our introduction into the weird aspects of the culture's cuisine. For a week we ate sugar cake, stale mini rolls with butter and (possibly) jam for breakfast. But of course the coffee continuously exceeds standards at home. Other things on offer were breakfast jelly or a classic creme-brûlée type dish. 
     The craziest meal in Buenos Aires was at a place I had been wanting to go to the whole time we were there, and it is also recommended in our Lonely Planet travel guide. 'Cedros' is hard to describe. Everything seems slightly odd. But the best way to describe it is of course through the food. We ordered two hamburger and chips meals. (If there is a *parilla, never order something that's not from the parilla.) So as it happened on this night out in Buenos Aires I ate two face-size patties of hamburger meat and a mountain of chips. We quickly ran out of condiments and my large acid wine left me in a state of drunken amazement and confusion. The weirdest thing was that no one else thought that anything was weird. It felt like a weird drug trip, enhanced by the at the time unbeknown to us fact that South America generally eat dinner later and the few people that were in the restaurant must have thought it weird for us to be eating dinner and getting drunk at seven o'clock. 
     All meals in Buenos Aires were weird. We also went for pizza. We were ordering one each, when the waitress laughed at our ignorance and said we must just have one. The pizza was more of a pizza sandwich, with cheese, ham and onion in the middle as well as the top, but no tomato sauce. We had a slice each and were full up for about twenty four hours. 
     Please do not misunderstand me, they also have nice food in the city, but as new travellers we just did not know where to look yet. Phil had his first lomo, the first one of a long saga of lomos. If you don't know what that is, it is a giant roll (about the size of two burgers), with steak, ham, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and of course a friend egg, usually served with chips as well. And secondly if you didn't know what a lomo is then go get one. I had a large (always large) portion of salmon tortellini on a cream and lemon sauce, the perfect first meal of the trip.
     Now that we've got the important stuff out of the way (food of course), we can get into all of the touristy things.
Fist of all we went to Plaza de Mayo where we sat around on the grass, a perfect spot for people watching and lying around in the sun. We sat right in front of Casa Rosada, a baby pink neoclassical mansion, where President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner holds her office. It is also from here that Líder Espiritual de la Nación Eva Duarte de Perón, gave her influential speeches to the nation. 

     After imagining the life and impact of Evita at Casa Rosada, we also took a trip to Cementerio de la Recoleta to visit her grave. The cemetery was an unusual experience. I have visited many cemeteries, and standing in the middle of a field of the past, amongst the deaths of people who have experienced life in complete difference to myself, or drawn the same conclusions or faced the same or harsher fears, feels humbling. I like that you can visit these dead people, even if it is just as a name, a date or a eulogy.            What few words have people chosen to define themselves or their loved ones against eternity? 
     The graves at this cemetery of heroes, politicians, and the rich and famous however, did not lie in a field beneath the ground. The bodies of the deceased are kept in coffins inside their own private little church-like houses. It is a city of rows and blocks of houses for the dead. 
Evita's grave holds the most flowers, feathers, and even letters, and is surrounded by an air of melancholy and respect. 

     The labyrinth of graves is situated in the affluent part of town called Recoleta. It was a long sweaty walk from San Telmo to Recoleta, but most of our time in the city was spent this way. 
The noticeable aspect when walking through Recoleta is its stark contrast to the rest of the city. The pavements are not broken, they are not covered in holes, urine, dirt and rubbish. There are extravagant hotels, beautifully constructed and kept flats and houses, expensive shops and schools. Grand greenery in front of every house and large and wide pavements, streets and buildings with pedestrians dressed in white and beige fine clothing; and everything seems gilded. It only works to emphasise the poverty lining the rest of the city. I did not notice the state of the city until walking through its counterpart. The poverty is always in the air but Recoleta pin pointed it for me. You wonder how people can live here and drive around in their fancy cars and ignore the rest of the city and its people.

     On one of our pilgrimage-like walks through the city we spotted the Washington monument and the Palacio de Congresso – Argentina´s very own duplicate of the Capitol Building in Washington DC. It feels quite strange looking at a symbol of the USA inside South America´s iconic city; but it would have felt an awful lot weirder if I had known beforehand what the Washington monument and house of congress actually looked like. Apparently postmodernity has parted like the red sea for me.

     The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (fine art museum) displayed both Argentina´s history through its own national art, as well as many works by worldwide artists such as Renoir, Monet and Cézanne. The painting that struck me the most, or that I enjoyed the most was that of an old man sat behind a desk eating, with a book propped up to the side in front of him and his glasses strewn across the table. So, if you happen to know who this painting is by, please do let me know.

     The single most enjoyable experience in Buenos Aires was visiting the Reseva Ecologica Costanera Sur. A few minutes into the walk through the nature reserve we spotted an extremely large lizard, moving swiftly between the bushes, which instantly got me excited. We spent the hot day bird-watching, sitting in front of the *Rio de la Plata and walking through the greenery. It was the perfect start to the trip, and a little hint in itself of the glories that nature had yet to bestow upon us!

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* The Río de la Plata is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River of the border between Argentina and Uruguay. 

* A parilla is a term used for a type of barbecue in Argentina. it consists of beef and various other meats being cooked slowly upon a metal grill elevated above embers, and is considered a national dish.