jontyjago’s blog

Argentina is proud of its European heritage - it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they, on the whole, consider themselves more European than anywhere else in South America, and to be fair they probably are. Except in the North there is very little indigeneous population, and looking at the faces on the streets and avenidas of Buenos Aires you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Milan or Barcelona.

This results in two things - one is a reputation in the rest of South America of a certain arrogance, that the Argentines (due to the Italian and Spanish bloodlines) consider themselves better than the rest of the "conquered" continent (leading to the joke about how does an Argentine commit suicide - he jumps off his ego) and the second result is the milanesa.

Sandwich Milanesa

Well, I've done a year - 364 days and 23 hours ago a big Iberia plane landed from Madrid at Ezieza Airport containing a slightly shellshocked & drunk me. I often end up drunk on long distance flights. It helps to pass the time, and its very social. On the flight out here I was squished between 2 impossibly posh English boys who were coming to Argentina to hone their polo skills and a Spanish guy coming to work in their embassy for two years. The Spanish guy was very skilled at getting bottles of wine from the normally miserable as sin Iberia stewardesses, which he merrily shared with us. I lost count at about 7. I least I slept after that. I did the same thing coming from back from the States, and ended up having a very amusing good-natured argument about US Healthcare with some guy who claimed to a Libertarian, who was ridiculously easy to out-argue. I remember shouting at one point, "and yes, I do want to kill your Grandmother!". Made sense at the time. Again, I lost count after about 7 bottles of wine, and did finally get some sleep.

Anyway, a year ago I spent the night in a hotel that I cannot for the life of me remember the name. It was near the Obelisco, but that's it. I wandered a bit a little stunned by it all, trying to take it all in. Had a couple of empanadas and some Quilmes to get me in the mood, and that was that - I was here.

I could go into a long "have I changed' thing here. The short answer is yes. Absolutely. But it's impossible to write down how and why. Just like the kids at the Club who, when asked 'Porque?", reply "Porque si", I just have. Take my word for it.

But one little snippet of imformation I've wanted to share with you, and now seems as good a time as any, is how much travelling I've done. I'm a numbers nerd, and not ashamed of it. One of the first things I started jotting down was the journeys I've taken (mostly on buses) and the rough distance with the idea of one day adding them all up. And that day has arrived, the results are in:

South American Overland: 31200km
USA Overland: 9700km
Overland total: 40900km

Flying total (not counting Europe to here): 27900km

Grand total: 689000km / 43050 miles

The earth's circumference is 40075km. Do with this information as you will!

Now, I like me a bit of food, and do seem to eat rather a lot and rather well here in Buenos Aires so I've decided to document some of the food that is considered typical here. In order to do this I will have to go out and buy the food, remember to take a picture of it, and eat the food. It's a dirty job, but for you, O Faithful Reader, I am prepared to make the sacrifice.

So, today I will start with what could be considered as the bedrock of Argentinian fast food:

Choripan

Meet the Choripan. So called from the name of the sausage (Chorizo) and the fact it's served in bread (pan). A slight digression here on the word Chorizo. In Spain, it refers to a thinly sliced, spicy cured sausage. Here it refers to the pork sausage you see above, unless you're talking about a Bife de Chorizo which is a sirloin steak.

So anyway, the choripan is the Argentine version of the burger, or the kebab. the national portable meat served in bread snack. In true Argentinian fashion, it is not messed with in any way when it arrives on your plate. Enter into any  Parrilla (a restaurant containing a huge charcoal grill, which serves bascially meat and little else and pronounced, here at least, paree-sha) and above the grill will be a stack of already cooked Chorizos. When a Choripan is ordered, the sausage is taken from the top rack, sliced in half, butterfly style, and placed innard-down on the grill. Once nicely browned, it's removed and put in between 2 bits of bread. No gherkins, no ketchup, no lettuce, no tomato. That's it.

However, you are of course free to add your own condiments, most usually this will be a liberal dollop of the wonderfully named chimichurri, a mix of oil, vinegar, garlic and chili. Occasionally there will be a little bowl of chopped onion and tomato salsa, which goes nicely with the bread, but it's the chimichurri that really does the business.

So, there you have it - the perfect lunchtime snack, pre-drinking preparation or post-bar munchies. It really does do it all, why do you need anything else? And as a bonus, my local Parrilla is all decked out in traditional gaucho style, which makes me think of English Narrowboat decorations. Here are two of the tables:

Parilla Tables

One of the joys of travelling in a country where they don't speak your language is that occasionally you'll come across a name that has one meaning for the locals and another entirely for you. And you can take a picture and giggle at the crazy foreigners and their crazy names.

Moron

Spotted this one in Salta, Moron Firekillers (fire extinguishers). Quite a common one this, it's also a town in Buenos Aires province.

Farto

A chain of chemists in Sao Paolo, Brasil. Had spotted it a couple of times, but had been unable to get a picture, so was very happy to catch this example in the bus station as we were leaving SP. Kind like trainspotting - patience and a little bit of luck. You even get a bonus shot of Laura with her backpack.

Wanka

I'm kind of at a loss with this one. Spotted on a tour of bodegas in Mendoza last week. Not my first Wanka spot - there was a poster in the street advertising a Peruvian music concert which featured this word heavily. Was unsure if it's the music or the group. But again, Google comes to the rescue.

Barfy

I purchased these fine burgers from my local supermarket here in Buenos Aires, based solely on the name, a mistake I will not be committing twice. Rarely have I come across a product that so ably Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. God, they were awful.

The Guardian has published its Readers Travel Awards 2009 - of the 5 winners in the Best Overseas Travel Destination:

1. Iguazu Falls
2. Macchu Pichu
3. Ankgor Temples
4. Grand Canyon
5. Great Barrier Reef

I've been to 3 of 'em in the last year.

My Top 5 is, in approximate order:

1. Macchu Picchu, Peru

All of it, Machu Picchu

Lots of blue, lots of white

Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno

Monument Valley

A beach, Ilha Grande

I'm a penguin from Patagonia

Penguin

Was in a bookshop today and saw one of those 1000 X to Y Before You Die books. You know the ones, Places to See, Wines to Drink, Products to Boycott, Hotels to Feel Smug In, that sort of thing.

So seeing as I've done some pretty cool things in the past few months, and in my life, even if I say so myself here is my Top 10 Things I Have Done (So Far) Before I'm Dead:

10.  Had dinner and been to the house of an astronaut (twice). OK, so it's the same guy, Jeff Hoffman, but I've been to his house in Houston and Paris and been out to dinner with him both times. He's been up 5 times, including going up with his space spanners to fix the Hubble Telescope back in 1993. Basically, my mum went to school with his wife, that's how we know him. It's a very cool thing to tell people, but I kinda wish it had involved more of actually being in space myself rather than talking to somebody who's done it, if you know what I mean.

9. Seen both sunset and sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Yup, the big one. The BBC got into the Before You Die thing and The Grand Canyon was the Number One place to see. Well, I don't wish to sound ungrateful but I wasn't overly impressed. Well, OK, I was. You are, after all, stood on the edge of a 10 mile wide, 1 mile deep, 250 mile long hole. But then that's all you do. You stand there. Admittedly I could have stayed a little longer and hiked down it, although that would of course entailed hiking back up it which is not so much fun. But I didn't, I stood there and stared. For well over an hour I promise. Both in the evening to watch the sun go down and again at 515 in the morning to watch it come back up again (I didn't sleep very well in my tent).

8. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower so drunk I couldn't remember having done it in the morning. True story. Don't judge me.

7. Seen the Milky Way. Stars, lots of stars, like a cloud of stars. Seen it twice, both times freezing my bits off, unable to sleep. First time at -20c at 4300m in Bolivia, second time -3c at 2500m in Yellowstone Park. Suitably extreme I feel.

6. When we did the Machu Picchu 4 day "hike", day 1 was cycling down a mountain. There were 9 of us, 3 Canadians and 6 people in my group. The Canadians seemed OK, all big and outdoorsy, but nice enough. That was until we got onto the bikes and one of them shot off and got all showy, doing little kicks to get rocks out of the way and that sort of showy-off stuff we Brits frown on. Got talking to one of his friends later and turns out he's the Downhill Freestyle Mountain Bike World Champion. Seriously, he does this, and was a thoroughly nice chap! And I went cycling with him!

5. Seen a 2-metre-long whale's penis. Well, what do  you want? Pictures?

4. Hitchhiked in the back of a pickup truck. There's more info and a picture of this in my Tierra del Fuego post, but it was one of the highlights of my trip so far. Nothing beats the feeling of a climbing into bed, dusty and cold after a day trucking across the southernmost landmass in the world. Was fantastic.

3. Stroked a tiger. It was Grrrrrrreat! Sorry.

2. Been fishing for salmon in Alaska. Again, lots more salmon-related stuff in earlier posts, but being out there in a 14ft skiff with newly-found family-members, in Alaska, with a fishing rod and beer in my hand, was  great moment. Made all the greater by the eagle. In fact the eagle is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

1. But it doesn't beat...

..What you think I'm going to be able to pick one event from all the fantastic things I've seen and done just to bundle it up into a neat Number One in a list? Ain't gonna happen. 10 months, 20,000 miles, 8 countries, that's your number One right there ;o)

Peace Out

I've already written about the fun and games that trying to figure out the cross-country bus system can entail. Now back in Buenos Aires I realise that this is nothing compared to the shenanigans you have to go through to work out the city bus system. Inasmuch as it is a system, which I am seriously not sure about.

Yesterday I started voluntary work helping out at an after-hours school club for kids in the Barracas barrio in the southern part of Buenos Aires, more of which later. However, before I could start I obviously needed to get there. I had an address, I know where I live so that's the A and B sorted, how hard could figuring out the middle bit be?

I know where to start, I needed the trusty Guia "T", the Buenos Aires version of the A to Z which also contains bus information, so I toddled down to the nearest Kiosco and scored myself one. Here it is:

Guia "T"

Open it up and it has a nice plan of the city:

Map Page

This is where it starts getting interesting. So, you've found where you live, Point A and you can find where you need to go, Point B. How to get there. The left hand page gives you the bus lines that pass through the corresponding square on the right hand page. In my case I have buses 12, 29, 39, 68, 92, 111, 128, 152, 188 & 194 going through the square that I live in. Somewhere in that square, containing 10 or so 100 metre square blocks. Those lines stop somewhere in there. not much help, but a start. So then you look at the square you want to go to, for where I need to be we have 10, 12, 17, 22, 24, 39, 46, 51, 60, 70, 74, 93, 98, 102, 129 & 168. So with a bit of cross-referencing I now know that lines 12 and 39 go from where I am to where I want to be. Easy.

But each square on the map is roughly 1 square kilometre. So where does the bus go from? To figure that out more investigation is needed.

Bus Pages

Each bus line has an entry in the back which lists the streets it goes down on both the out and return legs. Out and return from where? That's a good question one which I haven't really figured out yet, particularly as the start and finish points are usually areas I have never heard of. So you have to scan the roads looking for one you recognise. Which can take a while, and I've  lived here 4 months, God knows what you would do if you were new to the place. So you have to check that the line goes down the right roads, otherwise you may end up having a 10 minute walk either side of the journey. And you'd better hope that the line you need doesn't have different routes. The page on the left in the  picture above is for one bus line, the 60 which has something like 15 different routes, luckily I don't have to catch that one as I do not have the degree in astrophysics and geometry that I would need to work that one out.

So, in the end I figured out that I could walk to Avenida Santa Fe and take the 12 there, but not back as it takes a different route, but the 102 would drop me outside my house (but doesn't take me there). A worthwhile half hour spent.
However, that's not all of course. Next you have to figure out exactly where the stop on Santa Fe is, and that's simply a question of walking down the street till you see the  miniscule P12 sign hidden in a tree. And once you've done that, how much the trip will cost you is a different issue altogether. Not to mention actually having the right change (only coins accepted) to pay for it, which is harder than it sounds as shops jealously guard their stocks of coins and will avoid giving you them in your change at all costs.

And then of course, there's the small matter of actually surviving the bus ride (to this day I have not worked out how one minute you're 5 lanes from the pavement in solid traffic and 20 seconds later the bus stops at the pavement to let people off without seeming to change lanes) and figuring out exactly where you need to get off once you get there..

Slightly off-topic from my normal stuff but easy to forget what that day felt like.