Big City Nights

Vacation Rewind Part 2 of 6

Buenos Aires was interesting. While some can be swept up in the bright lights, tall buildings and loud noises of big cities, I can never seem to find myself very excited about them. The pattern held true during our stay in one of the largest cities in the world. I wasn't overly excited about the prospect of spending a large chunk of time there but I knew I needed to give it a shot. I was excited about the famous parilladas and the chance to see a couple of my fellow volunteers that I hadn't seen since Santiago.

Don't get me wrong. Big cities are wonderful places where you can find anything you'll ever want or need. They are usually packed with all different kinds of people and you can usually find something somewhat exciting happening at any given moment. All that sounds great on the surface but I rarely seem to find much contentment when I find myself in those kinds of places. I suppose I can sum it up by saying I always end up feeling overstimulated and completely worn out. I consider myself to be an extremely observant person. I like to look around, listen and feel what's around me. I like to understand how I fit in with the surroundings before making them my own. I find it impossible to find any sort of balance in big cities. There's always something flashing by, someone talking loudly, someone giving you a weird look (obviously, this is amplified when you're traveling). As a result, I can never be comfortable and never fully enjoy myself in such places. I wish I'd more properly figured this out before my stay in Buenos Aires because it surely would have helped me try to fend some of it off... well, maybe.

At any rate, I did manage to enjoy myself at times and got to do and see a couple things I never thought possible. As soon as we arrived, we ran into our old friend Jeff in the hostel lobby. In typical Jeff style, he was already refreshing his thirst with a liter of the beer. This small facet of his personality I have come to love and hate... only because of the pain and suffering it inevitably brings the next day.

The nightlife did catch us a little of balance since there's not a whole lot in the way of clubs (for adults, anyway) down south in Punta Arenas. One of my clearest memories of said nightlife came at the end of the first night when Jeff and I stumbled into a closet-small shop that we'd found by asking the guy working at the hostel where we could find something to eat. The place was made of cinder blocks, had a grill that needed a bath and a couple Argentine gentlemen doing nothing but drinking beer, one of whom I found myself talking with about the Chilean and US national soccer teams. At the end of the experience, we ended up back at the hostel with a bag full of choripanes, which are just chorizo sandwiches, and another bag full of beer. Being that it was about 4 or 5 am, there's no way we were going to be able to finish the 10-12 choripanes and 5-6 liters of beer we brought back. I tend to suspect that we showed the man with the dirty grill how much money we had and asked him to give us all we could carry. I ate 3 and drank 1 and immediately fell asleep. The next morning hurt quite a bit. I'm still not sure whether the overall crappiness I felt was due to the beer and couple rounds of ''surprise'' tequila shots from Jeff or the choripanes.

The only souvenir I have from Buenos Aires is also the result of Jeff and I acting like jackasses. For reasons known only to 9 year old boys and myself at the time, I decided it was a good idea to jump on Jeff's back while we were walking down the street looking for a restaurant. He continued the sequence of bad decisions by attempting to run with me attached to his back. We made it about 20-25 feet before falling... kinda hard. Jeff broke his camera and I did quite a number on my hip bone. I now have a scar to remember it forever.



Honestly, the details of our 5 days are hazy because of the mental funk discussed above...and the booze. I remember there was lots of wine, beer and meat. There were a few plazas, some parks, big buildings and lots of graffiti, most of which had something to do with Diego Maradona since the World Cup had recently concluded. We did get to visit La Bombonera, where Boca Jrs (arguably, the most famous team in South America), plays it's games. I'd like to send a special thank you to Marie for allowing us to tour the stadium. I don't think she'd ever really thought much about soccer until this trip and she's done a great job pretending to be interested.





The Pink House at night was pretty remarkable and therefore one of my favorite places. We got to see lots tango shows throughout the city but there was a very colorful neighborhood called La Boca (it's not a coincidence that the team is called Boca Jrs) where there are tango cafes with dancers, singers and musicians. There was also other kinds of food which, at times, was what got Marie and I most excited which proves that we are indeed getting old. We made a couple particularly delicious stops at a an italian and indian restaurant. The indian restaurant was particularly exciting because of the spicy food available. Although it wasn't quite the mexican spices I've come to love so dear, it was close enough to satisfy the craving for heat.





As our time in Buenos Aires grew thin, I started to get very excited about our next destination in Mendoza, Argentina. I didn't know much about it but I knew there was wine, the Andes and clean air. Before we were able to get there we had to manage to find our way to the Buenos Aires bus station for an overnight bus which meant we needed to ride the subway system during rush hour with our backpacks and all our stuff. As if we didn't look like targets for pick-pockets before right? Unfortunately, we did have an "experience" with a thuggish porteña that had some happy hands. As we were getting on to one of the trains, I felt a hand hovering around my front pocket where my wallet was. Coincidentally, my hand was coming down right on top of it so it seemed to be just an accident to me at the time. However, as I turned to see where Marie was I saw the girl reaching for the zipper on Marie's purse. Now I knew there was no coincidence so I quickly smacked her hand away. She responded by pushing my arm and giving me a menacing look, which was easy to do because she wasn't the prettiest girl I'd seen lately and she had the sides of her head shaved. She knew she'd been caught so she didn't say anything else and got off at the very next station. I wish I could say that was the last bad experience I had but a kid came up to me at the bus station as we were about to get on our bus asking for money. I told him I didn't have any cash but he wouldn't leave me alone. I'm 95% percent certain he tried to threaten me with something sharp that he was holding in his sweatshirt sleeve but I just kept telling him I didn't have anything. Eventually, he left me alone and we finally got out of Buenos Aires.

All in all, I'm glad I went but I'm not sure it'll be on my list of places I need to visit again. If you enjoy big cities and the excitement it brings, Buenos Aires is right up there with LA and NY. If you don't, don't go.