Buenos Aires

I had almost lost all hope that I would be going to Buenos Aires because it was too expensive until Julie convinced me to go with her and Thibault. The only problem was that they wanted to go by bus. As I wrote, after the 24-hour bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama, I had sworn on my life never to do something similar again. Well… Julie can be a very convincing person, so I ended up going.

The bus ride was “only” 20 hours long, we had bought the luxury seats and the ride was through the Andes Mountains so it was less torture than the first time. 

View on the bus ride

But I still prefer flying!

Even though Chile and Argentina might seem similar to some people, you quickly notice the difference. They have slow service in Chile, but it’s nothing compared to the Argentine one. We discovered that at the Chilean/Argentine border where we waited a VERY good while. It’s not only slower, but also more inefficient than the Chilean service. We were told to fill out a Baggage Claim which was of “the utmost importance”. Well apparently not, because the Argentine officials never asked to see it and furthermore they did a very superficial checking of our luggage. On the Chilean side of the border we all had to stand in a line, every bag was scanned and the Baggage Claim had to be filled out correctly or else you got called over. 

Another thing is the Argentine political reality which couldn’t be more different from the Chilean one. The Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is corrupt and her party, the Justicialist Party, is the only real political party at the moment. The opposition parties are small and have a difficult time getting through to voters. I took a photo of a wall graffiti that I think expresses this pretty well. 

“Cristina o nothing” – as an Argentine voter you don’t have a good choice between politicians. You vote for Cristina or vote blank; voting for the opposition is almost like voting blank, since it somewhat pointless.  

On top of that, Buenos Aires is filled with political propaganda from Cristina, her late husband/ex-president Nestor Kirchner, Perón and Evita Perón. “Be strong, Cristina” one said with a picture of her hugging her late husband. 

 

 

Or this one which roughly translated says: “Each one should produce at least what they consume.” Peronism is still alive and breathing like the Madonna depicting of Evita – there’s a 20 meter tall picture on a building showing her kissing baby. For me it was so interesting to see (since I study Latin American society, politics and history) so I kept talking about it and showing it to Julie and Thibault, but their reaction was just: “Ah, okay…” I missed my study-group from CBS (Maja, Laura and Sofia) to nerd out about this.

Another thing you don’t see in Chile is obvious black market trade of money on the street. Fred brought us to the street Florida to change Chilean pesos to Argentine ones – they are really hungry for dollars and you can actually earn a good deal of money. I had imagined a dodgy street, but it is the main shopping street in Buenos Aires. The place we exchanged was a newspaper stand. Three people were in line before us, but not holding any newspaper or magazine in hand. It was SO obvious that they were only there to exchange money. The funniest thing, though, was that a police car with two officers was right around the corner and they did nothing. They were most likely there because the man had bribed them to protect his business. For 10 Chilean pesos we got 1 Argentine peso whereas the official rate was 10 Chilean pesos for 0.85 Argentine pesos. So that was a great deal! But I would never have done it if I hadn’t been with Fred who knew where to go. Some dealers bring you to their apartment and even some rob you afterwards. 

Fred lives in very nice house with three other exchange students in the neighborhood Villa Crespo. That neighborhood was relatively safe compared to others. We had been warned about Buenos Aires. Nothing dangerous happened to us, but three times a group tried to steal from us on the metro. The metro is Buenos Aires is 10 times worse than the one in Santiago. It’s hot and it’s packed all day long. So it’s easy for thieves to steal from you without you noticing it. Two times they tried to steal from Fred and one time from me. The first time three people had closed in Fred in a half circle. They were pretending not to know each other, but every time Fred tried to get passed them, they closed the gap. Then he felt a hand in his pocket, but he quickly discovered it and pushed his way through the circle. On the next stop they all three got off. The second time we had already noticed the group. I had seen them talking together on the metro stop and then later standing apart acting like strangers. In the metro the woman of the group had a long scarf that hid her hand.  She was standing right next to Fred when I saw her hand moving under the scarf. Fred already seen it and had both of his hands in his pocket, holding on to his belongings. At the next stop they got off. The third time a guy put some water on me while a “friendly stranger” aka his friend offered me a tissue to wipe it off. But I had read about this in my guide book, so my reaction was just to back away from them, hold on to my bag and yell to Julie: “They are trying to f…. rob me!”.

Fred was the perfect guide. He showed us all the must-see places and we still had time to go out two nights. 

We saw: 

The presidential palace

Puerto Madero

Avenida 25 de Mayo

Bosque de Palermo with a lot of roller skaters and joggers.

 The Sunday flee market in San Telmo with tango dancers in the street

We went to a milonga (a tango bar), but a local one because Fred’s roomie is tango enthusiast and showed us where to go. After watching people dancing tango, I missed going to dance class so much, and I might start up salsa again when I return.

 La Boca. It’s a colorful neighborhood, but a very dangerous one as well. 

There are only three streets you can walk on that as a tourist. Every year some tourist goes outside these streets and get robbed, mugged and sometimes killed. For me, this made La Boca kind of artificial. I was only safe because there were four police officers at every street corner. It was apparent that no one lived on these three streets; it was all for the tourists. It had a kind of Tivoli/theme park feel to it – like these figures you could see everywhere.

Gastronomically speaking Buenos Aires wasn’t big deal for me since I’m a vegetarian. One night we went to a restaurant called “Las Cabras” which is famous for their steaks. It’s so popular that we had to wait 2.5 hours to get a table. While the others were eating, I sat at the end of the table feeling very entertained just by watching people try to finish their plate. 

Thibault getting ready to eat.

  

Besides the 500 gram steak there was also rice, French fries, a fried egg and cheese and mashed carrots. Impossible for a human being to eat it all, but of course that’s excluding the eating machine Thibault who finished his plate as the only one. 








Fernando desperately wanted to finish his steak which he did it after pushing himself. 

The poor guy is clearly suffering

What I’m going to end the blog with is our afternoon at the wine tasting that turned into a good drunken night. Our wine guide was a guy at our age. Normally the guide doesn’t drink along with the guests, but we kind of clicked with him I think, because at the end of the tasting he was tipsy as well. 

  


Officially we tried four wines, but the guide kept bringing more in, so we ended up trying six or seven. He explained very well how to distinguish and taste the wines, but at the end of the tasting we were so tipsy that all of that was forgotten haha.

All in all I really liked Buenos Aires, despite it being 30 degrees and humid as hell every day. You clearly notice the European influence, not only in the architecture, but also feeling of the streets; there are for example a lot more street cafés and outdoor serving than in Santiago. I could have ended up doing my exchange in Buenos Aires, which would have been nice, but I’m still happy that I chose Viña del Mar.

XX

Mette

San Pedro de Atacama and Bolivia - VERY delayed post :)

Hi everyone :)
This will be the first of many travel editions of my blog. This one has been 1,5 month delayed.. sorry, I'll try to keep up :)

Clara, Jennifer, Paula and Julie at down town San Pedro

So, the first big travel I did was in September to San Pedro de Atacama which is a city in the north of Chile and then later to Bolivia. I traveled for 10 days with 5 other girls from my university: Julie and Jennifer (roomies), Paula, Juliette and Clara. Being the “poor” students, we had decided to save money and take the bus to San Pedro. It took more 25 hours one way! Even though you can lean back your seat, you can watch movies and they bring you blankets, pillows and snacks it is still an exhausting trip – well at least for me. I didn’t really sleep during the bus ride, but Julie slept like a baby the whole night through.

 Our first day we saw the city of San Pedro. That was done in about 1 hour – the city is basically constructed for tourism which also means higher prices for everything. Later day we went on our first tour: Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte (= the Moon valley and the Death Valley). It is an amazing desert landscape.

Valle de la Luna

The tour ended with pisco sour and a sunset over Valle de la Muerte. 

Julie's photo of the group lost in the desert - the guy in green kept spirits high

But THEN…. A dramatic turn of events! After the sun had set, the guide told us to go for a walk WITHOUT him in the desert for stargazing. Somewhat apprehensive our group of 12 people started walking into the dark. The guide had told that the road was easy to follow and that it would take about one hour. After about 45 minutes we started releasing that we were lost; in the desert, completely dark (only amazing stars and Milky Way) and no cell phone signal. On top of that, it wasn’t very reassuring being lost at “The Death Valley”. At one point I thought we would have to spend the night in the sand dunes, but then someone got a weak signal and we were able to call the agency. They told us to go back the same way we came and they would pick us up. The only problem was that we didn’t have a clue of which way we had come from. Fortunately a guy in the group took leadership and found the way back. He kept spirits high which was helpful in a stressful situation like this one. Back at the agency we complained until they gave us the tour for free – sweet! 

The next day we went to Laguna Cejar where among other things you bathe in the lake with the highest salt concentration in the world – higher than the Death Sea. It was fun to float without having to do anything really.

The third day we took what was my favorite tour. It was to Lagunas Altiplanicas, which is landscape with lakes and mountains

Lagunas Altiplanicas

It located about 4,000 meters above sea level which you can feel! Your breathing and your legs feel heavier. The city of San Pedro is about 2,400 meters which I felt the first days, but then you get used to it. It common for tourists to get altitude sickness there, but in our group nobody had any serious problems. In general we just felt tired, had dry nostrils, light dizziness, slightly reduced appetite and headaches. But we were told those are all common – even fainting is considered common. The only dangerous symptom is vomiting. You get so many advice on how to reduce the effects of high altitude (you can’t really not avoid it completely). Among the many advices were: don’t drink alcohol (which personally meant 10 days soberness – in fact heavily needed at that point after nightlife in Chile), no red meat (no problem for me), eating coca or coca products (bought some very nice bonbons with coca and toffee) and eating small meals. But it depends on the individual person and doesn’t really have anything to do directly with one’s physical health, some people are just unlucky. Our guide told us that in his experience the most important thing was not to think about the altitude and freak yourself out. 

Geiser del Tatio

On our last day in San Pedro we went to the Geiser del Tatio. We left at 4 am and arrived at about 8 am at the geysers. But it was soooo f…. cold, that I almost couldn’t enjoy it. There were hot springs where you could bathe in 80° C water, but NO WAY was I taking my clothes off! So I just stayed on dry land trying to enjoy the landscape. 

Crossing the Bolivian border

The next day we started our 4 day trip around Bolivia. Summing up it is the most beautiful nature and landscape I have ever seen in my life. About 2 hours from San Pedro we crossed over the Bolivian border and switched to a jeep with our luggage on the roof. Our guide/driver was Javier who had kind of a dry sense of humor – similar to the Danish one so Julie and I liked him, but I think he sometimes was misunderstood by the other girls. During the 4 days we stayed at a different hostel every night. There were basic, the food was bland and the nights freezing cold, but all that didn’t matter a thing because the places we saw were amazing.





Different lagoons –some with flamencos and lamas

 

The train rail between Bolivia and Chile. It was a “gift” from Chile to Bolivia because Bolivia lost their entire coastline after the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). The Bolivians still have hard feelings about this – our guide, Javier, joked when I asked about this and said: “Chile has the coastline – for now” 

The highlight of the trip was the last day when we visited Salar de Uyuni – the great salt flake lake where we took the “mandatory” tourist photos.

 

The last thing we visited was the train cemetery that has been turned into a playground/art gallery. Between all the different kinds of tags and graffiti I found a graffiti that said “Grandma” in Danish. As a nice end to a long, exhausting, but amazing trip I got a photo of the “Grandma” tag and send it to my 95-year old grandma in Denmark.

Two weeks ago Julie, Thibault and I had a somewhat spontaneous trip to Buenos Aires. Even though I had (almost) sworn on my life never to take a 20 hour bus ride again, we ended up taking the bus to Buenos Aires – about 23 hours, but through beautiful mountain scenery. I will return (hopefully) soon with a post about our great trip to BA!

If you want to see more photos check out the album on Facebook called "San Pedro de Atacama y Bolivia <3"

Until then,

Besos Mette.