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Today is Viernes Santo, or Good Friday, which is a holiday here in Argentina. Chris and I, being the nonreligious folk we are, were walking around the empty streets wondering, where is everyone? until we figured it out. Argentina is a primarily Catholic country, although the country also has the largest Jewish population in Latin America.

Many places were closed today, although we did find lots of people over at our nearby park. Among the places that were closed was the money-exchange cueva where we get a better exchange rate than the official rate. Bakeries, thank goodness, were still open.

Last night we took a trip back to the puerta cerrada NOLA for their weekly beer night. She makes fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits and blueberry pie, and her boyfriend and his brother serve their home-brewed beer.

We each got to drink the golden, IPA and porter. We also got to check out where they brew the beer on the roof, which looked a lot like when Chris and I made beer in our house. The difference? They get to sell theirs! (And it tasted better than ours.) There’s a lot less regulation here, so the barrier to entry is a lot lower. We also met a fun couple from Philly who told us about their polo-playing adventures just outside Buenos Aires.

The late night last night — coupled with some late-night barfing from Holly; she must have eaten something — left us pretty drained, so we just went for a nice long walk through our neighborhood today.

This is a photo of a tile — one of many throughout the city to remember people who disappeared during the Guerra Sucia or Dirty War. This tile is about half a block from our apartment. We saw another one during our walking tour outside of a building where people were tortured within the city.

 

 

Here are some other shots so you can get a sense of the neighborhood. These are all in Palermo. There’s an interesting mix of old and new.

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we have to make sure to go to the grocery store because we’re pretty confident everything will be closed on Easter. Then, Spanish classes start bright and early on Monday…

Chris’s mom is back in Santa Barbara, so it’s back to just me, Chris and Holly again since yesterday. So yesterday was a tough day for us, filled with some homesickness.

But I feel like homesick is the wrong term, because it’s not our actual home or even San Francisco that we miss — it’s that we’re so far away from family and friends. It’s like what our fellow traveler Alexey told us: everything would be perfect if he just had his friends with him. It’s one of the tough trade-offs you make when traveling full time.

We’re scheduled to be here in Buenos Aires — Palermo, to be exact, pictured above — until the 26th, but we’ve decided to extend our stay until early May. Chris and I are both going to take some Spanish conversation classes to continue improving our Spanish but also mostly for the social aspect. I’m also eager to go to this English/Spanish language exchange on Saturday, called Spanglish. We also still have things on our BA to-visit list, including checking out more street art and live music.

We’re also trying to decide where we should go next! As scary as it is to admit, we don’t have many months left. In September, we’ll be hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail with my dad and then scooting over to New York for a friend’s wedding, so we only have 4.5 months left. We will probably visit two more countries, and Chris really wants to go somewhere a little more tropical. I’d like that too. So it’s time to start moving north. What do you think — where should we go next? 

 

 

On the other side of that water is Uruguay. You’re looking at El Río de la Plata, one of the widest rivers in the world. It forms a border between Argentina and Uruguay.

We tried to cross it today to visit the town of Colonia del Sacramento, but to no avail. Many of the less expensive fares on the ferry sell out in advance — especially for the rapid service which only takes an hour. We couldn’t find same-day tickets for our desired times and price, so we abandoned the idea. Bummer. We had our passports and everything!

The good news is that 10 minutes from the ferry terminal is the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, a big park that’s a nice refuge from Buenos Aires’ busy streets. It’s filled with wide paths for pedestrians and cyclists, and there are plenty of stands just outside the park entrance if you want to grab a choripan.

The photo at the top of this post was taken from within the reserve, and there are lots of picnic tables, trees and marshes to enjoy.

 

 

But be careful and respect this warning!

 

 

We didn’t see any animals except birds and really big mosquitoes. But apparently there’s other stuff out there… 🙂

 

OK, so today we did two of our favorite things. First, we started the day with a walking tour with Cultour — a walking tour group with a heavy emphasis on history and culture. Very highly recommended.

One of our stops was the CGT building, where Chris and I posed at the front of the auditorium where union leaders (as well as Eva Perón, back in her day) still address groups of workers. We met a guy from Costa Rica who told us of his adventures partying with UCSB kids in Santa Barbara, as well as other great travelers.

We finished off the day at a puerta cerrada, or closed-door restaurant. Puertas cerradas are essentially supper clubs by reservation only held in people’s homes. Thanks to a great recommendation we received from my friend Ami, the three of us went to NOLA Buenos Aires for some delicious New Orleans cuisine with a Mexican twist.

Everything was absolutely delicious: salmon ceviche, gumbo, pork with grits, and pecan pie all paired with wines. We met other travelers and students, who all seemed to be from California and New York/New Jersey. A very memorable experience, and also very highly recommended.

And now, I have to go to sleep. Because I’m very, very full.

 

Today, all of Argentina went on el paro: strike.

We saw some signs on the train yesterday, but we didn’t fully grasp the scale of what would be happening today. Across the entire country for 24 hours, ports, trains, buses, airplanes and other modes of transportation stopped. Businesses and schools were closed, non-emergency health services shut down, and garbage sat out on the street uncollected.

Based on what we’ve read, the strike is to protest the economy under President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government — specifically, rising inflation that’s reaching 30 percent.

While we both have an understanding of economics, we are definitely not economists. Here are articles that have helped us try to understand today’s strike and Argentina’s economy, from its history to its black market for dollars and euros.

• Argentina Hit By Nationwide Strike Over Inflation (NPR/Associated Press)
• Argentina: el paro que retó al gobierno de Cristina Fernández (BBC Mundo)
• Argentina’s economy: Creeping toward normality (The Economist)
• History of Argentina: ‘La crisis’ (Lonely Planet)
• The Cash Hustlers of Buenos Aires (Slate)

Tigre is a town north of Buenos Aires and a popular porteño getaway. It was recommended to Chris’s mom by two separate people, so we decided to make the trek.

From Retiro station downtown, the suburban metro train will get you there for US$0.75 round-trip, per person. The trip is an hour, but honestly could be halved if the train went more than 30km per hour. So. Slow. There’s a more touristic train that goes even longer, but an hour train ride is long enough for us.

Our guidebooks had little information about what to do in Tigre, so we just had to wing it. There’s a popular amusement park, but it was closed for the season. It’s located on a river delta, with lots of rivers and streams creating small islands. One of those islands is called Tres Bocas, and there’s a path that goes all the way around. We took the Interisleña commuter boats — old polished, wooden boats that hold about 100 people — and the trip was about 30 minutes from the estacion fluvial.

 

 

The boats pull up to the docks and one of the workers holds your hand to help you leap onto the stairs. Chris’s mom was surprised by the elderly folks who climbed on and off with ease, while I was surprised the captain never prematurely took off because he barely waited to see whether everyone was safely aboard or not.

 

 

Approximately half the path around the island is paved or has a wooden boardwalk, while the other half is just grass and dirt.

 

 

Walking along the path, there are lots of quiet little houses to our left and small, private docks along the (nearly dry) river to our right. A lot of the houses had names on them instead of addresses, kind of like boats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite things were the many handmade signs for a rowing school with canoe and kayak rentals.

 

 

 

But eventually the paved path ended and we ended up in really thick mud, courtesy of the thunderstorms over the past several days.

 

 

We bumped into a couple folks from France who were also looking skeptically at the sludge and we all decided to turn back. I think if we’d made it all the way around the island, it would have been a leisurely 1-2 hours.

We had to wait nearly an hour for the return boat back to Tigre, which was only annoying because there was a restaurant and if we’d known we were going to wait that long, we would have gotten some coffee…or wine. But we did get to meet this little fellow sleeping on the dock and get in some good people-watching on the ride back.

 

 

 

All in all, an interesting day. We felt more like we were on the set of True Detective, out near the bayou, than just outside Buenos Aires.

 

Still behind on blogging. Today’s #TravelTipTuesday is what my wise friend, Justin Adams, once told me: when you’re traveling, you just go with the flow and be flexible. So we’re actually quite zen about not blogging, because we’ve been busy with other things.

We’ve been hitting up all the must-sees with Chris’s mom. The highlights?

1. Antiques in San Telmo

On Sundays around Plaza Dorrego, there’s an all-day fair with streets shut down and thousands of people milling around to see old knick knacks (and sometimes old tango dancers). It was a great way to burn some calories and mingle with locals and tourists from all over. Just hop in a cab to the corner of Defensa and San Juan.

 

 

 

 

2. Choripan in San Telmo

After hours of walking around, we found a nameless stall outside the central market with delicious choripan, or sausage and bread. We grabbed a seat at the counter and an older man dressed in nice slacks and a button-down shirt was working the grill. For US$1.60 each, we got a lot of food and tasty salsas. Other customers ordered cuts of steak and wine. The owner was pleased to hear that his homemade sausages were our first in Buenos Aires. I should have taken a photo, but we were all too focused on eating to think of it.

3. Walking tour of Recoleta Cemetery

It’s not cheap to have a family tomb built in the famous Recoleta Cemetery, with tombs holding an average of 35 coffins. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, there are free tours in English at 11am (tipping is encouraged, but optional) that take you to a few select sites. You also learn some of the local stories, like the coffin found ajar with scratch marks inside or the statue of a woman and her dog where it’s considered good luck to pat the dog’s nose (pictured at the top of the post).

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a reason this place is a must-see — it’s really beautiful, and is also Eva Perón’s final resting place in the Duarte family tomb.

 

 

And, of course, there were cats. Someone feeds them every day.

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, I think this is the longest we’ve gone without updating the blog. Nothing’s wrong — just needed an internet break, I suppose. And we’ve been exploring Buenos Aires.

We’re staying in the Palermo neighborhood, which is like a city in and of itself, and spent several days just wandering around. Chris has been ramping up his new job and I spent a lot of time reading.

The best thing? We have our first visitor! Chris’s mom is spending 10 days with us. We’ve really missed our family and friends, so we’re so happy to have her here. Holly is also happy, since she brought her some new bones!

 

 

We’ve been learning a lot about Argentinian culture and history, as well as playing lots of card games. So to catch you up on the past several days, here are some select photos:

 

Street art in Palermo Viejo

 

A dog walker in Palermo Viejo

 

Sculpture in the Carlos Thays Botanical Garden

 

Church in Palermo

 

Supreme Court of Argentina

 

Inside Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón

 

Avenida de Mayo

 

Chris and his mom inside Casa Rosada, also pictured at the top of the post, where the president’s offices are

 

A salon in Casa Rosada