Buenos Aires - la noche está en pañales

Buenos Aires (Argentina)
26-29 of August 2012

'It's a Sunday morning and I'm standing out on the Reserva Ecológica Costenera Sur' I literally say that line in my head as I'm standing there, in fact I remember the  time when I first wrote it, where I was when I wrote it and how I was feeling at the time. The reserve is a low lying area of land on the eastern border of the city and it fronts the mighty murk of the Rio de la Plata. It's quite a large area that is criss-crossed by a myriad of nature trails more than are suitable for cycling, running or just strolling in the BA sunshine ever so casually, as is the Porteno way. It also allows a person to quite easily lose themselves from the movement,beat  and eternal hum of this city. I know this place, where I'm standing right now, I know it. In in a different guise and in a different time, but it's emblazoned in the timeline of my mind. I carry a piece of Costenera Sur with me always, I carry an event of something that happened two years earlier and one that in my mind will never 'unhappen', or so I hope. For right now however I'm going to quote my own words that are taken from the evening that I'm referring to just so that you know where it is, that on this glorious Sunday morning in Buenos Aires, with only 20 pesos in my pocket,  my mind took me, a moment of my life in two separate times. One in the present, one of the present remembered:

13 October 2010
 

'I'm standing out on the grounds of Castenera Sur, an ecological park on the eastern border of Buenos Aires which fronts the Rio de la Plata. Rage Against The Machine have for over the last hour delivered a ferocious, brutal set that has lit the fuse of testosterone amongst a predominantly male audience. The intensity of the performance, the power of the delivery and the common themes within the lyrics of their songs of raging against the establishment, fighting oppression and standing up for ones rights are not lost amongst the Argentinian faithful. The tumultuous political history of this country and some of the horrors suffered by its people fits the message that Rage delivers like a glove. As if by design the rain increases in intensity during their set, assisting in the transference of an invisible electric current through a 50,000 strong audience so that at the point where they drop the bomb of 'Killing in the name of', the charge is released, lifting the crowd off their feet in unison, bouncing bodies off one another like protons in a nuclear reaction.....

 

For this last hour I've been carried along by both a wave of emotion and the immovable force which is the vast sea of people around me. This moment and this particular time however, for me, has been more than just the music, more than the energy, even more than the sum total of the individual components of the event. Drifting in and out of my own thoughts whilst relinquishing myself to the ebb and flow off the human tide that has consumed my being has strangely enough given me the opportunity of being able to connect with myself without distraction. As strange as that may sound, the unanswered questions that have been rolling around my head for some months, those of which I really hadn't attacked, for some reason at this point in time and in this space required a little attention'

P

Puerto Madero - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Puerto Madero skyline from Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Puerto Madero tramway - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

If you feel like reading the entry from where those paragraphs are taken then it can be located here - Buenos Aires - The Quickening. I also recall that I wrote half that entry on an overnight bus ride out of Buenos Aires to Mendoza and finished it off in a small hostel in that city working on a PC that was so slow that it took me all night to upload the photos, (seriously I saw the sun come up that morning), to finish it off. To quote one Mr Oscar Wilde, 'Memory...is the diary that we all carry around with us'. As I've mentioned quite a few times in my entries over the years, I feel more than fortunate to have the memories that I've had in the places that I've had them in. I like the idea that for me there are many places around the world where I can return to, stand, drift off and remember another time in the very same space whilst simultaneously appreciating the moment that I'm currently in. Looking at the backdrop of thehigh rise buildings of Puerto Madero on this morning I recall the very same scene of that evening, I also remember the incessant rain that came down during the set, the lights of the buildings refracted and magnified through the drops of water falling from the blackness of the sky and I remember Rage Against the Machine grabbing the crowd by their collective collar, lifting them up off their feet and then triggering the reaction that released an explosion of pure energy and fury. It was a violent assault, an unforgettable moment...and so far removed in time from where I was on this Sunday morning. Still, it made me smile now, as it did then.

I didn't have the opportunity to wander through the ecological reserve on my last occasion in BA, and now, well it was about the only thing I could afford to do until my funds became available the next day, but truth be told I had set aside a day to do this in any case so it kind of worked out perfectly. Also it just so happens that on Sundays there is an outdoor street fair on the main promenade of the Castanera Sur. Apparently more 'authentic'  and more of a 'tourist free' environment than the Sunday markets in San Telmo, although in all honesty I didn't notice the difference other than one being more crowded than the other. What I did appreciate however were all the food stands, unlike the fair weathered 'fair crowd' that habitate the promenade only on Sundays these food stands are ever present and their culinary angle made it feel as though they had been built specifically to cater for my carnivorous cravings! It's meat a meat haven! Morcillas, morzipans, choripans, bondiolas, hamburguesas, vacipans - it's like Buenos Aires sourced Henry Elisher for culinary guidance then just went 'Yup, that's what we're gonna go with!'.

Did someone say meat? Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

It was only 10am when I hit the boardwalk of the Castanera Sur but the smells from the grills were so intoxicating that I commenced mentally reconstructing the manner in which I would need to divide and utilise my bountiful  sum of 28 pesos that I had for the day until I made the pick up from Western Union. Those damn choripans were looking so good and for just 8 pesos where worthwhile investment in satisfying the small screaming Argentinian 'meatavore' inside me! I loaded it with chimmichurri and then drifted of into my culinary nirvana, floating contentedly into the wilds of the reserve.



Reserva Ecologica - Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Reserva Ecologica - Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Losing yourself within the space of the reserve doesn't take a fist full of IQ points. Buenos Aires is to your back as you enter and drops so quickly from sight that you really feel as though you could anywhere else. It's quiet. It's peaceful. And under the warming high noon sun of a South American Winter the rays sing their own sweet silent lullaby, cajoling the willing participant to partition off their own piece of Rio de la Plata real estate and drift away on the currents of their  day dreams for an hour or so. The sultry seductress can be persuasive and who was I to deny an hour in bed with Buenos Aires?

Reserva Ecologica - Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Rio de la Plata - Reserva Ecologica - Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Feeling refreshed after my little tryst I spent the next 2hrs meandering on the most eastern border of the reserve, contemplating, reflecting, appreciating, throw in any other adverb and currency based activity restriction here and you've pretty much got where my head space was. I'd say it was definitely in tranquillo territory, although with that said, my internal Argentinian was starting to feeling hungry once again and was screaming out for another choripan - 'Una mas chori mi amigo, por favor...vamos muchachos!'. Mathematically I knew it could be done, I could take out another  chori and still have a whole 12 pesos for an evening take away munch from El Desvivel on Defensa. Internally I was satisfied with that result and that's the way I decided to play it out. Convinced and content once more I headed back to Defensa in San Telmo. It was Sunday after all and that meant the Sunday markets were going to be in full swing. I love the San Telmo markets, it's a stage of petty commerce, trade, sights, sounds and smells. It activates all your senses, and even though I had only a couple of dollars in my pocket it felt as though the day was turning into an unplanned win, almost as if BA was attempting to make up for what it had unintentionally put me through the day before.

Puerto Madero from the Reserva Ecologica - Castanera Sur - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Welcome to San Telmo

 

 

Samba crew - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Che Guevara mural - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Streetscape - Sant Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Old school cool - Bar El Federal - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Late in the afternoon I cruised back to the Ayres Portenos and crashed out on my bed for a while. It was during that time that I met Mike from Mendoza. Mike was an older American guy, I'd say in his late 60's, and was on his way to Colonia de Sacramento, a short ferry ride across the Rio de la Plata. He kind of had an odd presence about him but we started chatting never the less. That's the cool thing about hostels, they kind of force you to engage in conversation, a particularly great thing for me because I'm not naturally an instigator at all, I need to be pulled into a conversation. Mike explained that this was his first real stay of any length in Buenos Aires and mentioned that just in the surrounding blocks he thought that he'd been lined up for the old Bird poo on the jacket scam (look it up, it's well known). I dropped to Mike that I'd read of the scame but never encountered it and thought it to be an urban myth. I then went on to induldge Mike in my own tales of woe that originated  in Montevideo a couple of days earlier. As I reflect on the ecounter now I think there was a small part of me that was testing Mike out so as to see how nice he was, actually I was kind of banking on it. After I led Mike into the details of my misfortune the conversation continued like this:

'Well, how about I just give you 100 pesos until tomorrow' - Mike

'Oh no, thanks for the offer Mike but I'm ok' - Henry

'Are you sure now?' - Mike

'Absolutely, it's very generous of you but I'm fine' - Henry

I was slow playing Mike like a champ. Although if nothing came up it then it really wouldn't have bothered me either, I mean the offer genuinely was nice. Still, we remained quite for a few mins and then it came...

'You're going to make me do it aren't you?' - Mike

'What's that?' - Henry

'You're going to make me take you to dinner! C'mon, the place on the corner does a great steak and their Malbecs are fantastic' - Mike

'Why thank you Mike, ok, lets do that then' - Henry

So we walked the 20 paces out of the Ayres Portenos to the restaurant door, a place called Parilla del Plata. Now it was sweet Malbec and bife de chorizo time, oh yeah! Mike and I chatted for quite some time. I discovered that he had purchased himself an estancia in Mendoza when he had retired and that was now his gig. He had lived in Canada previously and was US born, from Texas, but America and American ideology, specifically that of the South, was just not his deal. His life in Argentina was just the way he wanted it. Comfortable, relaxing and entertaining. Without question Mike appeared to be interesting character and with each passing glass of wine quite the conversationalist, but each passing glass also brought out the sleaze in Mike. It wasn't something that I was expecting and certainly not something that I really wanted to hear from this silver topped old timer, but there I was, caught in my service of gratitude, indebted to Mike for shouting me dinner, and thus there I remained. I was Mikes' guest for the evening and now I had to listen to him wax lyrical about his 'love' of younger girls, particularly those from Eastern Europe - ewwww dude, I wasn't mentally prepared to hear any of that! I mean I could retell the tales but they're not anything that I really want to be reading now or any other day in my future. On the whole Mikey boy was still OK and we sat it out at the restaurant until closing, which in Buenos Aires on any day of the week is late!

Plaza de Mayo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Punta de la mujer - Puerto Madero - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Puerto Madero - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

27 August 2012

Monday morning, time to get some cash from Western Union. This time  the transaction  occurred without alarm. Two days earlier would have been nicer but OK, was the hand that I had to play with. This day was an absolute cruise with no real agenda. I strolled through Centro and took down the necessary souvenirs for family and friends and generally wandered aimlessly. Somehow I made nightfall without really knowing how time had passed me by.

In the evening I headed down to Puerto Madero and tried to locate a restaurant that I had been to two years previously. A place that has greatest meat buffet you could imagine. A smorgasbord of every meat you could possibly desire all washed down with an imperious and I must say requisite Mendozan malbec! Like c'mon people, how smokin' was my life for this evening!?


28 August 2012
 

My final day in BA took place in the barrio of Recoleta. One of the most stylish and most European of the city. I had the aim of visiting Recoleta cemetery and seeing the final resting place of Eva Peron, which I did. A totally unremarkable burial plot in convesely an absolutely remarkable cemetry. It holds pride of place in Recoleta and is probably some of the most expensive real estate in Buenos Aires. The cemetery itself is intriguing and kind of oddly beautiful in a macabre type of way. Well worth the time I dedicated that to make my way through the 'little city of the dead'.

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Walking back to Centro I headed down Avenida Sante Fe and stopped in at the most incredible bookstore that I'd ever seen anywhere in the world. This place is built on the site of an old theatre. It's three stories high, spectacular and dramatic, and quite the display for a dedication to the written word. Obviously 90% of the texts were in Spanish but that didn't bother me at all. I was more than happy to spend quite sometime walking around and mentally spending my pesos on items that I would have dearly loved to have taken back to Australia.

 

Family tomb of Durante, the burial spot of Evita Peron - Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Recoleta cemetery - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

The EPIC bookstore on Avenida Santa Fe - Recoleta - Buenos Aires - Argentina

La noche está en pañales - it's Argentinian slang for the night is still young. As I walked back down Avenida Santa Fe I convinced myself that as the saying suggests, the night was still in diapers. Like Madrid and San Sebastian, this town and I just have a magical fit. I don't quite understand how it works, I don't know how it is that there are some places in this world  where I don't have family or friends but am still able to feel right at home. Buenos Aires me is that type of town to me. Perhaps to a certain extent it's because the language is not completely foreign, I have an intermediate grasp of Spanish and it's improving all the time, but it's more than that. BA has a feel that inspires me, it's a sense of excitement, anticipation and comfort all rolled into one. I gain pleasure from her, enjoy her company and perhaps those are the more pertinent aspects of our 'relationship'.

 

Band practice! SanTelmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

 

Malbec from Mendoza, what could be better!?!? Puerto Madero - Buenos Aires - Argentina

As the evening settled in I headed back down to the restaurant that I had occupied in Puerto Madero the previous evening. The food was magnificent and the malbec was just the tonic to sooth those pangs of loss that I was already feeling for having to leave once again. In those moments it didn't take me a long time to realise that very soon I would be making plans to come back once again, creating more of those evenings in Buenos Aires that would once more be young and full of promise!

29 August 2012

I dozed prior to my flight from Ezeiza back home. One of those rare peaceful sleeps that you somehow manage to have in public places. Odd but enjoyable, althoughI think in airports it's acceptable to sprawl out whenever required and where space can be found. My time in Buenos Aires on this occasion was short, but the tme spent won't be my last. I'll be back, that you can count on!

 

Time to head for home - Ezeiza airport - Buenos Aires - Argentina



'Gracias Buenos Aires por una bien tiempo. Debo irme ahora pero voy a volver pronto.

Hasta luego hermosa!'

Aerolineas Argentina flight - Buenos Aires to Sydney

Icebergs in Antarctica! Taken from 40,000 feet!

That's just a little bit massive! Somewhere over Antarctica!

 

Buenos Aires - Ramon Falcon and the 7155

Buenos Aires (Argentina)
25 August 2012

Until this day it had never occurred to me that I'd wanted to find the location of Club Atletico Velez Sarsfield, or even that I had a yearning, so deeply suppressed that it confounded even myself when it appeared, to venture to the periphery of the Argentinian capital on transporte publico. It was there in the carbon monoxide hazed flat lands of Liniers that I would inhale kilograms of dust kicked up by the incessant traffic, and also, stare confoundingly out onto the horizon, watching the sun drop on the western barrios of Buenos Aires in what was for me an arduous and demanding day. I would also stand end up standing on a lonely, beaten avenue half wondering if a stampede of gauchos would be making their way up the dust speckled Avenida Rivadavia anytime soon and questioning why it was that Wide World of Sports was axed from their four hour Saturday afternoon slot. I know, it doesn't make sense at all, right!? And even though that may be true I don't care, I'm telling the story here and my mind will wander wherever it pleases.

 

Whilst I was in Montevideo the day before, or perhaps more specifically, whilst on the bus from Montevideo to Colonia de Sacramento, I had visions of what this day may bring and what it would feel like. Of course there had been days like this previously. What did Van Morrison say now, 'When its not always raining there'll be days like this' - Perhaps that's right, but for right now I had a feeling it was going to very much be a day, not like this, but one of the same elk as Marrakech C.S.I, La Paz - You're worth what you've got , Mexico City - The Project  and several others. They had already shaped my expectations and had given me an insight into the machinations of days gone wrong when travelling, because days not like this do happen and sometimes fighting the inevitable is a lesson in the serenity that can be achieved in managing the futility with as much reason as one can muster. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a fighter, I like making a mark in the small percentage boxes, the ones that people check for 'rarities', so I battle even when the outcome is inevitable. It can be a curse and failing. There is honour in being gracefully beaten but therein lies my problems, the very concept of being beaten.

 

I can't blame Buenos Aires for this day however, 'no,no no !'.She and I are more than 'just friends' and haven't even had so much as a tiff to with our relationship to date. Her ugly little tart of a cousin that lives just across the river from Buenos Aires, well, she has filled me with such bitterness and revulsion that upon her I seek to both meticulously plot and execute my revenge. It will take place on one fine sunny day, whilst she's basking in her pathetic glory of being a riverside town. You just stay where you are young lady, resting your head easy on the trashy side of the Rio de la Plata, I will return and when you least expect it I will pounce.

 

There's no need for me to recount the events of Montevideo  for they have already been well chronicled in a previous entry. My ticket for this day was however purchased in a transaction  across the river the day prior, and as I recall now, in the evening hours of that night the pain of what I was to experience during following day was somehow already abundantly clear and very tangible to me. This clarity  was presented in the physical manifestation of the inevitability and manner of South American logistics and bureaucracy. It was the dread and understanding that comes from knowing that you should never underestimate the capacity of this continent to fail you, even when  offered  with the real likelihood of a positive result it will snap back with outcomes so ludicrous that your own belief remains suspended in a state of surreal oblivion.

So now, to get a feel of how my morning progressed I provide to you exhibit A (see below), the City map of Buenos Aires. This was the stage on which the path of my life was going play out for the first 3-4hrs of the day, but stay with me on this, my day was only to get better and far more eventful from this point.

The 'idea' I had or rather the 'concept' of the morning was to locate a Western Union office that was open on a Saturday. I anticipated a battle just to succeed with that and therefore took my first stride upon the streets of San Telmo at the stroke of 9 as I was unsure as to how many open offices Buenos Aires would offer me on one of the days of rest.

Now the red line that you see on the city map is my starting sequence. The one where I was still very much optimistic and held high hopes for a simple transaction, one which would allow me to take an early more stroll through Centro in the anticipation of flying out to Puerto Iguazu the following morning. The red path leads from the bohemian heart of the wonderful barrio of San Telmo, up Avenida 9 de Julio to a point on calle Sarmiento where that standing ground of the largest Western Union office was. A location that I had filed in my memory bank during earlier meanderings because my past experience suggest that I have a penchant for f**king up and utilising WU services! The largest office of WU that I had memorised was also and a very much non operational office, highlighted by the familiar sign cerrado (closed).  Not unexpected for a Saturday I must say but a little disconcerting that the largest office was taking their weekend siesta quite seriously. No problemo though, time to walk up to another office that I recalled being located on Avenida Corrientes.

I located the office on Corrientes and it was opem - 'there we go, piece of cake' I thought, what in the world was I worrying about? I walked in, got down to business with a lady at the counter.Immediately I received the response;

 'No, our office is not doing these types of transactions today, there is an office open on Avenida Cordoba, go there'.

If you're following the map then this is the mid blue part of the circuit.

Arriving on Cordoba my spirits were up. I had been told by office Corrientes that there was an office open and that it could undertake my transaction, should be pretty simple from here, right!? Oddly, on entry to the Avenida Cordoba office I found that the lights were dimmed, the door stood ajar and its office space felt entirely uninviting and unappealing even though the 'Abierto' sign was hung proudly in front of its closed Venetian blinds. I walked in. Two girls gazed at me in a challenging manner, almost amazed in their expectation and knowledge that I was going to ask them to undertake a task,  actually making a request them to work that morning. I gave them my details, interacted in my best Spanish, smiled charmingly and then came their response;

'No, the amount you are requesting is too much, this office can't do anything for you'.

The girl turned and left the counter - 'Ah lady? Any advice on where I CAN get this done'.

I called her back and asked her that question. She told me that an office was definitely open on the corner of Corrientes and Florida, for the players at home that is now the mid blue line down Esmerelda and the orange line to the corner of Corrientes and Florida.

Feeling those familiar waves of frustration, anger and disappointment starting to surge with the high tide I made my way to this new 'guaranteed location'. I did pass another office on the way to my assured destination, inside a post office of all places (I say all places because it was a Saturday! Where the hell in South America are post offices open on a Saturday). Anyway, in this office I appeared to either be the bringer of mid morning entertainment, and/ or, the butt of someones joke because the guy at the counter continued to laugh whilst at the same time interacting with a woman in a manner that suggested I was the trigger for their inspired hilarity. As expected the $700 transfer value was too much for them to cope with and they suggested that I head back up Avenida Corrientes (from whence I had came)........'ahhh nuts'....still, I walked to the corner of Corrientes and Florida, and in an addition to my new list of things that will go wrong, no office was to be seen anywhere near the address I was provided. This is now the start of the Purple line. Walking back to the Cordoba office I asked the lackadaisical and disinterested vixens for additional assistance, confirming if the address that had provided me was indeed correct. They were adamant it was. In fact they called the office and confirmed it was open!

Following the green line now, trace it, if you will, down Esmerelda, taking a right (as you look at the map), onto Corrientes and to its meeting point with Florida.Of course...OF COURSE NOW...If you're amazed by my location then don't be, I arrived at exactly the same place that I had been 20 mins earlier, and guess what? There was no office to be seen! Following the green line back to Cordoba I told the girls in the office that there was in fact NO OFFICE and their customer service orientated response was to kind of shrug their shoulders and shrink away from the counter into the dark depths of the back office. Was they merely illusions?Apparitions conjured up in my mind?And if they were then why did I allow for my mind to conjure up beings that were not helpful or sympathetic to my cause? The programe in the matrix has a lot to answer for I say!
 

City Map of Buenos Aires - Now just follow the colours

 

 

Red = Start - Corner of Peru & Chile

Mid blue = my original circuit between Western Union on Avenida Corrientes and the next on Avenida Cordoba
Orange = The walk down to the corner of Corrientes and Florida

Green = my loop back from Corrientes and Florida to Cordoba

Purple =  is my loop back to Corrientes and Florida

Light Blue = my walk back to the the hostel

 

It was at this point I that I was comfortably falling into the  dejected category. Certainly not defeated but dejected never the less. Sometimes you just need to take a bit of time and think your way out of what may feel to be losing scenario. I strolled down Avenida 9 de Julio and thought that I might be able to obtain a cash advance from one of the hotels that I passed on the way whilst playing 'scenario bingo' in my mind. The staff however were not in the ball park when it came to execution of my solution. They were happy to advise me that the 'maximum' they were willing to provide for cash advances was 100 pesos ($20 AUD) and that in itself would only be allowed for hotel guests on 'special occasions' - oh yeah, is that like for birthdays, weddings and escort services? They did suggest that I contact Western Union directly as they were  also CERTAIN that there would be an office open that could provide me with the funds I required. I took their advice. I called Western Union from the hotel, typically however their computers were down when I called. They asked that I call back in two hours.

 

Following the light blue line now you can see the route that I took back to the Ayres Portenos some 3-4hrs after my morning commenced. Slow and painful, my mind was fighting the idea of giving in and remaining busy in trying to come up with ingenious solutions. To give in right at this moment would be to give away the idea of seeing Iguazu falls and as luck would have it that would make it the second time in two years that my plans have to make it to Iguazu had been foiled. 

If you've made it with me this then let me advise you, this was only to be the entree, just the first act in what would be a stellar performance chronicling the mental disintegration of one Senor Elisher on this day. Read on though, fun and games in Buenos Aires certainly still abound.

 

Back at the Ayres Portenos I told the staff 'my deal'. They advised that I contact Western Union also (I know dudes, tell them to get their system up and running hey). Anyway, after a couple of hours I was able to make the call. What then commenced was to be one of the most pointless and demented conversations that I ever had. The guy on the other end of the line just kept repeating and spellling out my name, over, and over, and over. It kind of went something like this;

Operator - 'Heeeenry'

Me - 'Yes'

Operator - 'Heeenry'

Me - 'Yes'

Operator - 'Heeenry Eeeelisher'

Me - 'YES!'

Operator - 'Heeeenry........what is your transfer reference'

Me - 'XXXX-XXX-XX-YYYY'

Operator - 'Heeeeenry.....'

Me - 'YES!!!!!!!'

Operator - 'Heeeenry...Elisher'

Me - 'YES!!!!!'

Operator - 'Heeenry....where are you now?'


This inane and idiotic question and answer fun time made me want to do damage to ducklings!! He kept repeating the facts of the scenario that led to me needing a transfer. He didn't even need to know that, I shouldn't have had to have told him a thing about me! All I really needed to find out from this guy was 

1) If a branch was open, and if there was, one that could;
2) Allow me to obtain the sum of $700AUD that was transferred to me! T

That was all! I did manage to get one of the staff of the Ayres to painfully extract that very piece of information from the guy and the response, finally was this;
1) Yes there is, and;
2) It's located in a shopping centre in the suburb of Liniers, the address being Ramon Falcon, 7155. The time now was 2:15pm.

 

OK, lets jump a train and take a ride!

 

 I love the character of these old wooden carriages, sadly they were taken off all lines this month (February 2013) - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

 The highlight of my day was travelling this line. One for the 'old school' carriages and two for the fact that on my very first stay in BA, I was located in Boedo which was a stop on this line - sweet memories.

 

 

My ride today took me to the end of the line at Plaza de los Virreyes station. From there I was advised by my helpful assistant at the hostel that it would be only be a two block walk to 7155 Ramon Falcon, he even outlined the streets on a map and showed me that it where it would reside. So I walked, thinking all the while that my little fight for the day would end up being successful and would certainly be worth the effort.

 

I walked the blocks, I made it to between the streets where this shopping centre should have been. What should have been there however was certainly not. I retraced my steps, in fact I walked all the way back to the station. I did the route again, same freakin' result! Where the HELL was this place!!? Then I noticed something, the location where I was now standing was something like 1500 Ramon Falcon, my destination was 7155 Ramon Falcon.....a-ha...locate the error in waiting! Mentally calculating the distance now, considering that each block jumps in 100 increments, I figured that I was about 60 BLOCKS from where I needed to be!! 60 BLOCKS MAN!!! Now that's not a problem if there's public transport that can be utilised withoout much though but I'm no local, don't know the bus system here, nor do I have money for a taxi because a Uruguayan ATM jacked my card from me the day before and I wouldn't be here if I had it! Only one option hombre, it was time to but my rubber soles to the pavement and move them muchos rapido.



 

60 blocks, piece of cake. I walked, then I jogged, then walked and jogged again. By this time it was close to 3:30pm and here I was cutting my way through the back blocks of BA in the middle of nowhere (for me) effectively. I had it in my mind that I wanted to make the shopping centre before sunset because as being out in 'da hood' in unfamiliar territory after dark was just not my thing and not BA streetsmart either.

 

Somewhere along my back block discovery I stopped to ask a guy as to the address of where I was heading, Donde esta Ramon Falcon numero 7155 por favor? He looked at me and  immediately pointed me back in the direction from where I had just come!!! What the hell dude, are you serious! ¿Qué hombre? This stopped me in my tracks once again. I had been moving along Ramon Falcon for about 25 mins and was in the mid 3000 vicinity, now this guy was telling me that it was actually somewhere back there!? Back there ( I actually pointed).My internal dialogue at this moment was something akin to two men with turrets screaming at each other as to who owned the best swear word!

 

My rationale to return back down Ramon Falcon was, I felt, rational but not correct. My scizophrenic mind anticipated that it leant a lot further to not being correct but more hoped that my decision to run up Ramon Falcon was an the real error. I hoped that the random street guy was giving me the right advice and more than hoped that the guy that assisted me at the hostel was right to begin with when he marked out the location on the map, I mean their advice added up. So I turned and headed back to Plaza de los Virreyes.

 

Approximately at the 2000 mark on Ramon Falcon I cut across to Avenida Rivadavia, a main thoroughfare running parallel to Ramon. There I encountered a policeman and put to him the question of the where the hell it was that I should be going. He stopped and stared at me for a moment, turned his head slowly and then pointed back up Rivadavia, the exact direction from where I had just come!

'ARRGGGGH FUCKSICLE MELON POPS TARTILICIOUS MOULDY CHEESE FUCK BALLS!!!!' ...and feel free to quote me on that response by the way.

He suggested to me that I utilise a bus to cover the distance to Liniers (which has the nice little A marker on the map below) as the distance walking, about 8kms or so, would just be plain stupid to attempt. I suggested to myself that perhaps he was correct. So I camped on Rivadavia and awaited my ride. Not knowing terminate at Liniers or pass through the suburb. Ok no problems, 'because nobody else has given me a bum steer what number to take, the policeman just advised me that 'most buses' today!'.

 

 

City Map of Buenos Aires showing my quaint journey to Liniers

 

There I waited on Rivadavia. I tried waving down one bus but the little Mestizo bastard drove right on by, then another drove by, what was this? Bend over Elisher day!? Finally I got myself onto a ride that was heading in the right direction. I asked the bus driver to kindly advise me when we had reached Liniers as that was my stop. I asked him twice in fact and he nodded in acknowledgment on both occasions.

 

Heading west into the setting sun the outskirts of BA started looking a lot different from what I'd experienced of central BA. The faces changed, the make-up of the area was significantly different and there I was, riding off into the land of Punt. As we we merrily bounced along I sighted an area that could very well have been Liniers, in fact, many of the signs said 'Liniers', but surely my bus driver knew where it was that I should be getting off the bus more than I did, right!? YEAH - WRONG!!! In fact, not so much wrong but just that the oddball had forgotten my request, even though I was standing right next to him. When he finally asked me where I was going and I responded he hit his head and kind of rolled his eyes....we were a long past the drop of and now I had to go back....to get my hat.

 

I exited the bus, miles from anywhere. Waiting on the other side of Rivadavia I jumped the next ride going from whence I had just came, familiar plot the day really. At least now I knew where Liniers was. I got off the bus in the approximate location and blindly fumbled my way through what looked to be a Bolivian enclave to the Liniers shopping centre Valhalla on Ramon Falcon, number 7155, just in case anyone had forgotten that that's where I was heading. The shopping centre is  located literally at the end of the road. Where the shopping centre resides is where Ramon Falcon terminates. At this point Ramon is no more and right now I knew that my chances for a departure the next day were vanishing like the Maldives at high did. I mean know my fate now! Even though I have the location, even though there have been confirmations as to the availability of money and the fact that Western Union office was openat this very location, I inherently know that my quest will end in one massive failure. Take a photo of me now ladies and gentleman, splash FAIL  in bold across the image and put it up on Facebook, this is my lasting tribute to the 'FAIL epoch'.

 

I entered the centre and spotted the Western Union sign two floors above me. There was a queue on arrival but that was no issue, I'd been at this for nearing 9hrs now, 5 more minutes wasn't going to hurt nearly as much as the time that had already passed. Arriving at the counter I see my fate all in an instant, it's like a double tap to the head. The lady that is about to 'assist with my query' has years of boredom, disappointment and disillusionment etched across her 'I couldn't be f**ked' face. It's as plain as day and the outcome is blatantly obvious and yet I need to play this game out to the end, I need closure. I slip her through my identification and transfer references plus anything else that was required. She shakes her head in a sadistic manner, half smiles in that way that people do when they gain internal pleasure from f**king someone over and says 'No, no we can not do this today', immediately she looks over my shoulder and asks the next person to step forward.....................OH HANG THERE!!!!! I block the path of the other person and demand that she assists me. Again she says 'No, we cannot do this today, we have no systems to complete the transaction'. No systems! But of course, without systems this world has nothing, but in much the same fashion now I have nothing. My valiant attempt was now over.

 

Moments later I was bent over the third floor balustrade looking down on the activity taking place below me. I was exhausted, mentally beaten. I just wanted to head back to the hostel and drink, although I'm not sure how much 37 pesos  was going to get me because that's all I have left on me until I could figure out a place on Monday where I could obtain my $$.

 

I'm dazed for most of the journey back but to Sant Telmo but it doesn't take nearly as long as anticipated, it just remains an uneventful passage in the way most things are when you couldn't really give a toss. Walking down calle Peru I managed to find a bottle shop that  kindly sold 8 peso bottle of red win. Why the hell not I think? It was going to be my only win for the day and realistically was the only alcohol that I could afford at this point.

 

Lying on my bed in the hostel I received a message on Facebook from Jorge, a guy that I met two years prior on my very first visit to Buenos Aires when staying in Boedo.He's a cool guy and he literally lives one minute away, on foot, from the front door of the hostel. In fact a couple of nights earlier I had jumped of the bus from Boca stadium and heard someone yel out 'Hey Henry'  as I got off the bus. I can't tell you how bizzarely awesome it is to be on the other side of the world and have someone recognised you, it's off the charts unexpected.I convinced myself to get up, get moving and walk the 100mtrs to his place. Thankfully it was the right decision. I spent the evening drinking beer and chatting in my broken Spanish with both Jorge and his sister. It was exactly the tonic that I required after the disaster of navigating the Ramon Falcon for the afternoon. Hours pass and my memories blur in those evening hours however. The beers take over and I start feeling much more at peace with my situation. Doing a quick sanity diagnoses I realise that I'm in one of my favourite cities in the world, drinking with a friend that I made on my previous stay in BA and when the sun peaked over the horizon tomorrow, well, it was going to be a brand new day. In those moments I convince myself that Puerto Iguazu could wait, I'll arrange a date with it yet. For this evening I have Quilmes, great conversation and Colombian coffee, and that ain't half bad either!

 

Colombian coffee on calle Chile - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina



Montevideo - Puta madre

Montevideo (Uruguay)
23-24 August 2012

'Don't bother with churches, government buildings or city squares, if you want to get to know a culture then spend a night in its bars'. II have a feeling that Mr Hemingway might have been clued in to a thing or two, even if his words were infused by fifteen or so daiquiri's  from his old haunt of el Floridita, you've always got to follow the advice of the man! Along this same line of thought, I also believe that if you can tap into the food that makes a country unique or somehow find your way to those national culinary representatives, then it will be in that meal where you can get a sense of what makes a place and what it's about, for example, Brasil has their fejoida (a stew of black beans and salted pork, which is hearty and utilises cheap and easy to find ingredients), Argentina has its steak and Malbec (no gueses as to what their leading exports are), and Uruguay, well it has the chivito! That almighty, all hedonistic, all carnivore inspired sandwich that is meant to break the hearts and minds of even the most ardent of 'meativores', it is the iconic serve of the Uruguayans and a fabled treasure that I had attempted to hunt down on a previous turn through this hood but didn't quite meet the mark. Now it was time to go back!

Welcome to Uruguay - Chivitos on hand!

Like all good stories my visit to Montevideo on this occasion has a precedent which is none to ospectacular, indeed, this city and I have an inglorious history and my return was either going to allow Montevideo to do a little soul searching and make it up to me, or, it was going to spell out in no uncertain terms exactly what it thought of me after my premature exit a couple of years earlier.

Travelition! Ever heard of that? No neither had I until the Sydney Morning Herald invented a word for the rituals and superstitions that travelers adhere to when they leave the shores of terra australis. I have to say that I don't fall into the overly travelitious category. I mean my only real routine or ritual is that when I fly I wear a blazer because that's just the way I roll, but that's not a superstition. I do however like to follow my intuition and learn from prior experience, for example, my last escapade here, written up in this entry Montevideo - a city on standby, highlights the abysmal way in which the town treated me/us on the eve of its Columbus day festivities. Inuitively you would think that the black mark I'd mentally assigned Montevideo would have prevented me from taking the 3hr ferry ride from Buenos Aires to the Uruguayan capital, right? But alas, I'm stubborn, my search for the infamous chivito had not been satisfied, nor had my quest to make it to the Mercado del Puerto, a place that must be the beating heart of all things meat related in the universe! A place so meat centric that Anthony Bourdain was quoted as saying that '..this place made Argentina look like they're a bunch of vegetarians!'

 Heading out of Buenos Aires, on my way to Montevideo - Uruguay

Somewhere on the Rio de la Plata - Argentina/Uruguay

What else was I meant to do? The meat, it was just....waiting for me, I had to go and see, you know!? I mean, it was going to all be ok, wasn't it? The city couldn't kick me in the teeth again now, could it?

I left Buenos Aires on a gloriously sunbathed morning, the sun rising over the docks, paving the way for a smooth, crystal clear run over the Rio de la Plata, the glass like conditions  on that morning providing the perfect foil to any misgivings or apprehensions that I harboured for rolling the dice against my intuition.

I arrived in Montevideo 3hrs later, on an uncharacteristically warm Winters day, 24 degrees or so, the sun absolutely beaming down ...'Montevideo, you were already drawing me into your evil web of lies and deceit but I didn't know it, I didn't recognise the perverse trap that you had constructed for me, you evil, evil seductress'....Still, as I swiftly bypassed customs and exited the Buquebus terminal, walking out into the rarefied air of a Montevidean day I immediately saw the object of my desire, the Mercado del Puerto. Seriously, this place is a hedonistic concentrate of all things meat and wine related. It's as if all the greatest elements of Argentina have been reduced to just the one building and a food fair had been created for just one person, me!

 Buquebus delivery in Montevideo - Uruguay

It was difficult to break the preposterous lure that this place already had on me. I'd been seduced within seconds of arrival by the overwhelming smells of charred meat, the sizzle and spit of beefy muscle as it hits the grills, the relentless seas of all things meat driven, but then, I also needed to drop the bag that I'd lugged across from Buenos Aires at my digs for the afternoon in order to save myself from the unnecessary hassle of having it tag along for what inevitably will be quite a debaucherous afternoon. So I headed up to the hostel, did the quick sign in and then split down to Ciudad Vieja, the old quarter of Montevideo, in order to take a few shots and heighten that inevitable rush that I was going to experience when I returned to the Mercado.

 Montevideo - Uruguay

 Montevideo - Uruguay

 Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

  Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

Now I can't say that Montevideo is a pretty city, and even though it fronts the Rio de la Plata (the river of silver), its foreshore can at best be said to be 'lacking a little in character', and at worst can be said to be plain ugly. In all honesty it probably hovers in between those two extremes. The old part of town itself, away from the foreshore, is gritty, has character and a bit of an edge, but also felt strangely deserted on the day that I walked through the area. There were parts that were degraded, crumbling, worn and beaten, bringing to my mind images that I'd seen of Havana and reminded me none to subtly of a place that had suddenly jumped to number 1 with a bullet on the Helisher - next in line travel destination.

  Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Rio de la Plata - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Rio de la Plata - Montevideo - Uruguay

  Rio de la Plata - Montevideo - Uruguay

  Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

My time walking around Ciudad Vieja was only the prelude or starter to what would be the main course at the mercado, and when I did make it to the Mercado del Puerto, well, it was ALL ON  kiddies!! For any person that remembers what it was like to go to the Royal Easter show as a child and be enticed by ever single show bag at ever ystall, well, this meat fest was exactly the carnivore equivalent. I was on a meat high as soon as I entered the building and that was just from the enticing smells that surrounded me,even better were the complimentary drinks being handed out by the vendors, enticing you to take up residence at their particular parilla and asado. So after having walked around for a while and acquired a nice buzz from the kindly vendors and their complimentary alcoholic beverages, I sidled up to a  nondescript stall and commenced my afternoon stroll down the yellow brick road to Oz. The best meat, wine and cocktails all within arms length, what more needs to be said other than the fact that somewhere close to 4hrs slipped on by in what felt like an instant.

 Entrance to the Mercado del Puerto - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Meat fiesta time!!! Mercado del Puerto - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Bring it!!!! Mercado del Puerto -  Montevideo - Uruguay

 A Chivito - not the meat extravaganza that I had anticipated, Mercado del Puerto -  Montevideo - Uruguay

YouTube video from the Mercado del Puerto - Montevideo - Uruguay 

Somehow I managed to make my way back to the hostel for a late afternoon siesta. At that point in time I had every intention of heading out for the evening, that was at 5:30pm. The next thing I knew it was 8:00am the next morning - Montevideo you sly fox, you had trumped me and now you were going to bend me over for your own disturbing pleasure and self satisfaction.

24 August 2012

There are days when you somehow know that your subconscious has triggered the paranoia button and no matter how you try to dismiss what will become the inevitable, you know, you can just feel that the stylings of the day will not be controlled by you and that the full price to be paid is  exactly the full value of apprehension that you're currently trying to mentally negate. This was to be this day, my second day in Montevideo! I mean the bad ass nature of the town crept up on me, without haste, inching itself forward and then with a quick crack of its whip it bit into my flesh leaving a deep and bloodied cut on my back. As I wrote in several postcards to my friends back home, 'Montevideo sucks balls, in fact, if there was a city named 'Sucks Balls' it would not suck as much as you suck, why? Because you SUCK BALLS!'.

As innocuous a sign as you could receive, the world of Montevideo spoke to me  quite clearly that morning. I was having a little dulche de leche on some bread with a few cups of coffee when I decided to strike up a conversation with a fellow traveller. The guy introduced himself as Juan, he was from Buenos Aires, and in actual fact it just some happened that he would be travelling to Australia in the next few weeks, but that's neither here nor there when it comes to the telling of this story, it was just the run in to the 'hint' of a problem that I felt intuitively. In our conversation Juan asked me if I was going to be staying that night, I replied that I wasn't, that I was booked to leave back for BA that evening. He said to me that it was a shame as THIS night in Montevideo was their biggest party night of the year, it's called Noche de la nostalgia (Night of nostalgia), and EVERYONE gets out onto the streets for one mad Uruguayan fiesta....'Bro', he said, 'You just have to check it out'!

'Puta madre!!!!!!!'

Of course this was their biggest party night, last time I was here it was the eve of Columbus Day and now, on the eve of their biggest night of the year I was splitting back to BA. Juan and I chatted for a little while longer and then I headed out into the early morning for a litte post card reconnaissance, souvenir hunting and card writing.

...And then the rain! There it was again, and now the return of that that familiar sense of foreboding, that chill and sense of the inevitable, it was in the air. I negated a few drops of rain in search of a cheap paragua, acquired the 'best looking' post cards of Montevideo that I could find (which are pretty freakin' ordinary, let me just say), committed to memory that a correo (post office) was nearby and sat across the road from the Plaza Independencia to write my cards out.

 Plaza Independencia on a dark, rainy day, thank you Montevideo, thank you for sucking balls that much!!

I'm sure that it was in that exact place, the very spot that I had chosen where all the rotten, downtrodden spirits that haunt this capital, collectively assembled and decided unanimously for this day that they would punish me so hard that I would mentally banish myself from this city forever, and to be fair, even though Montevideo had offered me a great time the day before the cards home were literally carrying the message that this place sucked balls, so perhaps I brought this strike of vengeance on myself.

'Puta madre!!!!!!!'

...And so the city attack commenced

I started with my search for a post office. The building that I had mentally committed to memory was no longer where I imagined it to be so I headed down to Ciudad Vieja to locate the other one that I remembered, of course it was closed....of course it was. At this moment both the rain and wind picked up buffeting my crappy paragua from pillar to post, I mean the only thing the umbrella was really doing was keep the rain off my hair.

So I walked, and walked, all the way up the main drag of Avenida 18 de Julio, looking for a post office. I walked and I asked people, many, many people. In the centre of this city there was noone that could accurately point me out to a post office and more oddly, seemed to be telling me that they weren't open on Fridays? Of course they weren't, this was going to be the day when everything died in Montevideo. I must have walked around for 3hrs looking for a post office, with a decrepit umbrella, my stubbornness transitioning into fury, the rain ever persistent and annoying. I finally had the bright spark that a hotel may be of assistance, and they were, 'Sorry, the post offices aren't operational on Friday!' ....'puta de madre'...they did however offer to send the post cards for me, a small win for which I thanked them.

After a brief bout of souvenir shopping I walked back down to the old town, aiming up for another afternoon at the mercado. I headed into a Santander bank and tried to get out a few pesos from their ATM's, but nothing, they weren't accepting my cards...of course not!!...I left and headed for the HSBC that I'd located the previous day but remembered after a few blocks that I'd also left my souvenirs on top of one of the ATM's back at the Santander bank. Like a lunatic I ran back to the bank and thankfully found the bag located exactly where I left it. Whilst I was there I also managed to acquire some pesos out of the only machine that was accepting my card. I took out 500 Uruguayan pesos (equivalet to $24.50 AUD) and headed off - now remember that figure in your head.

Walking the 6-7 blocks to the mercado I entered one of the shops with the intention of getting my old man a 1930 World Cup replica shirt. I took out my wallet, was just about to pay with my credit card and then I saw it, my card was no longer in my wallet!!!! My monetary lifeline to all things travel related had done a Copperfiedl! Where the f**k was it!!!??? My brain did  a quick retrace and isolated the problem, I'd left it back at the Santandar bank!!!!

'PUTA MADRE!!!!!!!"

By this time I'd ditched that good for nothing paragua and raced the several blocks back to the bank  hoping against all hope that my card would by some odd miracle still be there. Of course it wasn't, 'ahhhh fire truck!!!!', I kicked and cursed the dumb arse machine and must have looked like a raving lunatic to the two individuals that caught me mid spaz attack. I knocked on the 'closed doors' of the bank, it was Uruguayan lunch hour now (12-2) and they were closed, OF COURSE they were!!!,  I asked one of the staff if anything had been handed in! It obviously hadn't, and they advised in turn that if my card had been sticking out then 'someone', more than likely 'anyone' would have racked it for their own personal use.

Now before you say 'how dumb are you to have left your card in an ATM!!!??' let me just give you the low down. At an ATM in Oz you put your card in, carry out the necessary transaction and your card is returned BEFORE you receive your cash! In fact you don't get your cash until you've taken your card  out of the machine and a warning sound is given by the machine after a certain amount of time, NOT SO IN SOUTH AMERICA!!! In South America the process is different, and if you're the slightest bit preoccupied or absent minded then you'll get caught out. The process here goes like this, enter card -  undertake transaction - receive money  - get asked if you want to undertake another transaction of which you must answer Yes/No - then receive your card. In my head and under AUSTRALIAN rules once I had the enormous amount of 500 pesos in my hand I had subconsciously thought that my card was already in my wallet and I walked, obviously without receiving my card!!!!!

'PUTA MADRE!!!!!!!"

Now came that strangely familiar task of having to calling home, having to organise a Western Union transfer, having to cancel my cards and having to survive on my $24.50 AUD until I could receive the funds. Aside from the sinking feeling I had from the card loss there was also the realisation that as today was Friday trying to receive a Western Union transfer in a Latin American country on Saturday was going to be a near impossible task. Still, I tried to put that thought aside and believed that Buenos Aires would at least treat me with kindness, as for Montevideo, well it had struck the final blow and I was ready to split now.

I checked out of the hostel and walked up Avenida 18 de Julio, some 3-4kms, with the aim of checking out the Estadio Centenario prior to jumping a bus for Colonia de Sacramento and then catching a ferry back to BA.

 The Estadio Centenario, home of the very first World Cup in 1930 - Montevideo - Uruguay

Estadio Centenario - Montevideo - Uruguay

Estadio Centenario - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Estadio Centenario - Montevideo - Uruguay

For those of you that don't know anything about football then let me tell you that Uruguay hosted the first world cup in 1930 and the final was played in the capital at the Centenario, so for me it was kind of a pilgrimage, and in my state the only thing that could uplift my beaten spirits. It was also the scene of my ONLY WIN for the day! I managed to get into the ground for free by finding an open gate and skillfully negated the 50 peso ($2.45 AUD) entrance fee!!! YEAH, TAKE THAT MONTEVIDEO!!!

An hour or so later I made my way to tres cruces bus station, headed up to Colonia and made the ferry connection to BA. I was thankful to be back but something had changed. It was cold and it was raining in BA and the 430 Uruguayan pesos that I converted back to Argentinian pesos gave me just on 100 Argentinian pesos, which was not a lot. I also had the nasty feeling that the 100 peson would need to get me all the way to Monday, and that in turn would mean that my dream of making it to Iguazu Falls would have died a painful death somewhere on the  Rio de Plata. It would also been the second occasion that my dreams of seeing the falls would be circumvented by some mischievous operation....

.......'puta madre'

 Back in Buenos Aires, cold, raining, just over100 pesos in my pocket - Welcome back Henry!