A coin, a coin, my kingdom for a coin

As travelers, we were reliant on ATMs for currency, and the ATMs gave us big ol' bills. It was a constant struggle to break these bills and keep enough small stuff for day-to-day purchases. This was an artifact of the fact that we "importing" all of our cash, so never had any local currency flowing into our wallets.

Argentina had a strange mutation of this theme. It was not a big deal to break the equivalent of a $20 on a couple dollar purchase, but as soon as you need a coin to make change, it was a disaster. Argentina had bills as small as AR$2 pesos (about 50 cents), as well as AR$5 bills. So the real game stopper was trying to make either one peso or three pesos of change, since every other value is can be made from combination of AR$2 or AR$5 bills.

Every cashier in Argentina is well aware of this fact, even if they might not be able to state it this precisely. Resultantly, until we figured out the allowable change values, we often had cashiers politely ask to see our bills, and count out an additional AR$5 or AR$2 in order to avoid changing us AR$3 or AR$1. And if you want to feel some genuine love, give a cashier a coin to make exact change. They will smile warmly and tell you, "Perfecto!"

Contrast the Argentine daily struggle for coins to Chile. Its integral currency (pesos with no centimos), and the size of its bills (CL$1000 is the smallest bill) insure than you always have a heavy pocket full of coins. In even the smallest market, the cashier has no problem breaking a large bill and giving you as many CL$100 coins as you could ever want.

So the question is: "Why can't the central bank of Argentina print some more coins."
The New Yorker has its theories involving hording. I'm not so sure. I never had any indication of anyone hording coins. It seemed like no one had any.

The article does discuss one phenomena that I always imagined must take place. The buses, which only take coins in Buenos Aires, are a huge sink for metal money. The bus companies than turn around and sell their coins at a mark-up to businesses that need coins to make change. Ingenious and evil.

Carefour: center of the Universe

Throughout all of our travels in Southern Argentina and Chile, no matter where we wanted to go in Patagonia, the road always led back to a nondescript, flat, dusty, crossroad town - Rio Gallegos. The pattern goes a little something like this: Buenos Aires to Rio Gallegos to Torres del Paine to Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia to Rio Gallegos to El Chalten to Rio Gallegos to El Bolson.

As we are moving up North, there will be no reason to pass more wasted time in Rio Gallegos. Not that this makes me extremely sad, because there is no reason to spend time in Rio Gallegos...period. All that said and known, Rio Gallegos has consumed over two of our travel days. We have had hours to wander the streets in search of engaging ways to spend our time. Every time we have come up short, and ended up at the Carefour.

The Carefour is like an French Walmart in Argentina. It has the six obligatory sections: food, clothing, personal hygiene, household, automotive, electronics. Hours have been wasted wandering the mazes of stalls (too many types of cheese to choose from!), and we have probably seen half of the city´s population buying corn (yeah, I don´t know why corn either, but aisles and aisles of corn go missing daily) there at some point. Contemplating things I have learned on this trip, there are two lists: "Things I learned backpacking in Patagonia", and "Things I learned at the Rio Gallegos Carefour".

Things I learned at the Rio Gallegos Carefour:
1.) Do not assume a fancy exterior implies a decent bathroom. Carry toilet paper with you at ALL times.
2.) Sometimes you think you are understanding a conversation in a different language, but you you really aren´t. (Ex: A discussion with a friendly Argentine in the canned produce aisle (buying corn). I found out at the end of a long lecture (during which I was nodding along with every sentence), that I was agreeing with an antisemitic tirade and I had no idea.)
3.) Hold on to your moneda, they are precious. People will try to talk you out of them, and it will only go to allowing the same child to ride the automatic batman car eight times in a row and ¨NaNaNaNa-NaNaNaNa, BATMAN!¨will haunt your dreams.
4.) Security tags are underused in the US. Or, stealing single pairs of cheap white underwear is the latest Argentine rage.
5.) Milenesa is different from Vienesa. However, the are both types of meat...or resemblances of meat.
6.) AC/DC is played everywhere. "I´M ON A...."

I´m still working on composing my list of things learned in the Patagonian outback...more on that later. But for now, I hope you have the lyrics of ¨Highway to Hell¨ stuck in your head for days.

El Bolson

We spent the last two and a half days hanging out in El Bolson, a small hippy town surrounded by fertile valley (good for organic farming) in the Argentine lake district. We camped, did some day hikes, ate alot of berries along the trail, checked out some water holes for swimming, tried as many flavors of helado and locally brewed beer as we could stand, and shopped at the district feria artesanal. El Bolson is a city of buena onda, good vibes (except the robbery of the beloveed whisperlite). Today we are headed out to cross the border back into Chile following a path that the locals recommend which involves ferries and trails past the frontera...we´ll let you know how it went in a few days:) Peace, love, and sweet dreams in the meantime.


Day hike to cabeza del indio, a wind-n-erosion shaped rock in the shape of a head

From Bariloche, Puerto Varas

Picking blackberries along the trails with stained fingers

From Bariloche, Puerto Varas

Just because I like taking pictures of fires...

From Bariloche, Puerto Varas

Sampling El Bolson brewery´s creations. The most amazing, girly fruit beers ever! The cherry and raspberry were my favorites.

From Bariloche, Puerto Varas

The faces of Fitz Roy

Cerro Fitz Roy is the highest mountain in southern patagonia. We camped next to it for a couple nights in Parque Nacional De Los Glaciares and got a spell of good weather.

Fitz Roy is closest to the Argentine town of El Chalten. El Chalten supposedly means "the mountain that smokes" to the Tehuelche indians, who lived in the area pre-colombus. This is because there almost always seems to be a cloud hanging around it. Moisture from the Hielo Sur condenses and gets blown east by the incessant westerly winds. In the lee formed by Fitz Roy's east face it remains.

From Parque Nacional Los Glaciares

In the clouds.

From Parque Nacional Los Glaciares

Fitz Roy is a highly sought-after summit for mountaineers. We met a team of French climbers who intended to climb it. If they summited before the 10th (today), they might have succeeded, because the peak was utterly clear on the 9th. Today, it rained sideways.

At dawn

From PN Los Glacieres

From PN Los Glacieres

At night. How'd we do that??

From PN Los Glacieres

With a mountain goat.

From PN Los Glacieres

Terminus

We spent 13 hours on a bus to Ushuaia, Argentina. We ferried across the straight of Magallan. We squeezed onto a zodiac and crossed the Beagle Channel. We climbed into the interior of Isla Navarino and looked out towards the Southern Sea. There was no one. We counted ourselves lucky to have gaunaco trails beating through the calafate brush and deadfall sticks from the beavers to guy out the tent.

We waited days for a boat back across the channel. We finally departed late in the day. The sun had set. Dusk had arrived and from the looks of it, night was waiting impatiently. Motoring across the channel, I looked west at the final glimmer of light. Glaciated mountains on Isla Hoste beckoned. Miles of primitive coast on the Isla Grande extended westwards, sentinel to no one but a dark Beagle Channel.

I turned north towards the lights of Ushuaia. There were cars on route 3 heading towards Rio Gallegos and eventually Buenos Aires, illuminated cell phone transmission towers decorating the hillside, all the infernal creations of Mankind.

Then we hit a swell and the wind picked up. I didn't look back west.

Buenos Aires, part dos

I started this post in Buenos Aires, but I´m a bit behind on posting it (by about a week). I´ve got to learn to keep up with this blog stuff...Anyways, sorry Mom...and anyone else that has been awaiting new posts.

One of the last few days in BA we got to go to a free concert near the Ecological park and hear some Argentinian music (Julian Roos). It was a good time. Although we didn´t know any of the lyrics weren´t able to sing along with any of the songs, we could take in some good music and enjoy being some of the only extranjeros around.

On Sunday we rambled over to San Telmo for the huge street vendor/antique fair that takes place every week. We again scored some good music to listen to from a street band in San Telmo and got to see some free Tango dances in the street. San Telmo is the center of Tango culture in Buenos Aires. It is also an older part of town with alot of cobble stoned streets, old mansions, botiques, and antique stores. We then walked down to La Boca to check out El Caminito, a street with brightly colored tin facades. La Boca is also home of one of the areas most popular soccer teams in an area where soccer reigns supreme. The caminito was overwhelmingly touristy, and not as interesting as other areas that we had been. We grabbed a beer from a cafe across from the area, and watched as the streets went from hopping with hundreds of tourists to being completely empty within the course of an hour. We had read (in guide books), and heard that La Boca was a rough area at night, but it was only about 530, and it was amazing to see a place clean out so fast. As we were paying our bill, the waitor let us know that everything closes down at 6 PM, as this is the time that security leaves the area. Business owners and others in the area rush to try to get everyone out of the area, as tourists are a large target for crime. We payed our bill and caught a bus back to our hostel. We also had the most amazing ginger ice cream I´ve ever had (in my entire life....it was that good) at an organic vegetarian restaurant in Palermo that night.


Street band at San Telmo. Las hormigas negras.

From Buenos Aires

Some interesting graffiti on the streets of San Telmo...the only church that illuminates is the one that burns

From Buenos Aires

We spent the next day at MALBA wondering at the depths of contemporary art in Palermo. We caught a plane out to Rio Gallegos later that night where we would be off to Patagonia for some trekking.


A city park in Palermo Area.

From Buenos Aires

A few failed attempts at me being creative with my picture taking while we waited on the rain to stop at MALBA.

From Buenos Aires

From Buenos Aires

You hear about how Buenos Aires is the ¨Paris of South America¨, and there was a definite similarity in the sidewalk cafe culture of the city. It also reminded me a lot of other Spanish cities with the laid-back-close-around-lunch-take-your-time kind of atmosphere. I felt there were also some tropical undertones...in climate, dress. I enjoyed getting to know the streets of Buenos Aires. However, it is a huge city, and we found ourselves seeking out the green spots - parks - in the city. I am ready for some real green...headed to Patagonia!

Transporte a lo porteño

We have been walking lots the last few days and so have had ample time to observe and participate in bus-car-pedestrian-bike (yikes) scene in Buenos Aires. A few observations:

• The most prominant threat is feeling like you are going to be hooked by right-turning cars when crossing with the light. Consequently, I feel like I got to bring my A-game even if I am in a crosswalk with a green light.
• Ironically, turning right on red here is no different than cavalierly running straight through a red light, so it doesn´t seem to be done. Hence it is often less cruxy to cross against the light, when I know my enemy. Sure, cross traffic will murder me if it can, but I can see that coming.
• The bicyclists that attempt to exist on the roads frighten me to death. I constantly think I´m about to witness a tragedy. They ride (probably out of necessity) on the busiest avenues. Think Aurora, but with 12 lanes rather than 6. They ride on the left and traffic closes on them 30 to 40 mph faster than they are riding. On the smaller streets, some have no compuction against squeezing within inches of cars that are temporarily stopped, only to have the line of vehicles start again and pass them all the faster and closer out of spite.
  
• The above observations are probably due to different cultural expectations of personal space. Even when walking on the street, it´s common for people to pass each other at a distance that would perceived as threatening in the US. So if your personal bubble isn´t so big, it´s not so threatening make yourself intimate with speeding traffic constantly. This only holds if you proceed with the currently effective, but hardly tested assumption that drivers actually would prefer not to murder anyone, so proximity doesn´t immediately indicate threat.
  

Buenos Aires, part I

We arrived after an uneventful, but exhausting flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires. Instantly assuming cheap-bastard mode, we noted that a shuttle bus to the centro would set us back US$15 per person, whereas an adventure by municipal bus would cost us only 60 cents. After a nearly two-hour tour of the outskirts of Buenos Aires, we finally arrived at the hostel, pleased with our ingenuity and thrift, and nearly hallucinating due to jetlag and sleep deprivation. Fortunately, the hostel came with beds for sleeping, which we did.

Later that day, we ventured out for a walk. We passed by the Plaza San Martin.


Many Argentine flags, taken from the plaza de mayo. This plaza was made famous by the mothers of the desaparecidos who continue to march with photos of their lost sons, daughters and husbands. There was also a small demonstration about the Falkland Islands, which a vocal subset of Argentinians still see as part of their homeland.


We visited the cemetary in Recoleta. There´s no more room there now, but for many years members of high society were enterred there. It´s like a miniture city, with wider avenues in places as well as smaller "side streets." A small contigency of cats keep company with the dead.






Later that day we visited Palermo, which has a botanical garden (also replete with cats!) It was a very pleasant place to lounge. I had asked Erin if she thought that anyone ever brought food for the cats, since we had seen people feeding the hordes of diseased pidgeons in the plazas and it seemed unfair that the healthy-looking cats should go without. No sooner had the words escaped when I saw a couple of women with bags of cat food and a cloud of cats. They turned out to be ex-pat Americans living in Buenos Aires.
Later that night we made a grave error. As most know, Argentina is famous for its beef. You can visit a parrilla and eat a dangerous amount of beef for US$7-8. We knew that we had to visit one eventually if we were to have said to have been to Argentina. We went out at a appropriately slovenly hour with no specific plans to subject ourselves to beef poisoning that night. However, we settled on a restaurant with a very reasonable parrillada and next thing we knew, this pile of flesh was before us. Don't get me wrong; it was delicious. It sat, however like so many kilos of delicious, grilled lead in the stomach for 12-18 hours afterwards. And we didn't even come close to finishing the whole mountain.