meat!

When one goes to Argentina, one expects to eat meat.  Beef, to be sure (though I had lamb more than once in the country - and hey, why didn't I seem to see much pork on offer?).  And so it was that Conrad (look at that grin on him!)

and I had a meaty dinner.

It was our first and only dinner of the trip by ourselves, and we found ourselves bumping up against many restaurants not being open for dinner on Sundays.  We might have opted for something fancier had we known we could use credit cards without being dinged at the bad exchange rate.  Ah well.  Instead, we located a nearby place that specialized in meat, made a reservation, and found ourselves in an almost empty place come (for us) dinner time.

More people did come to dine there, and well they should.  We thought it was a nice enough place - on a corner, providing us with street views from the window at our table.  The waiter, a young man who spoke terrific English (and thank goodness because my Spanish remains woefully non-existent), guided us to the ribs, and when we asked for a salad starter and the grilled vegetables side, he dissuaded us from the former because it would be too much food. 

He was right.  We had so much leftover food (but none of the nice Malbec we ordered),

and I was happy when he told us that they give the leftovers to the homeless.

Meat.  I wish we had managed to get Jenny from our group to this place or another so she could enjoy some beef.  I surely did.  I don't eat beef often, which meant that this was a nice treat indeed.

tango in the night

You know those cultural dinner shows that you can attend in various places?  I think Conrad and I last went to one in New Zealand some 16 years ago.  No, actually, I lie:  we did a fado dinner show in Lisbon a handful of years ago.  My point is, we seldom go.

But in Buenos Aires, we went.

I'm not a fan, generally.  The food is seldom all that great (it was ok if not especially warm).  The spectacle is usually pretty kitschy.  It's not my thing.  Nor is it Natasha's, but she had it included in the tour.  And I think she was right to do so.

Look, I am NOT an expert on Argentina.  For all I know, there are many parts of the country where tango is enjoyed by everyday people dancing at parties, in bars, in the streets.  I just don't think that's really the case, though.  Instead, I can't help but feel it's an art form that is appreciated widely at festivals and in staged performances but not one that many people actually practice.  Its music may remain popular, its influence on other dance and artistic forms is secure, but no, I don't think I'll see it done just casually.

That said, it's clearly a beautiful part of the cultural heritage of the area, and as such, it warrants preservation and celebration.  And if a route to that is by staging shows in dinner theaters, then so be it.  So let me sit, eat, sip, and enjoy the show.

After a half hour of dancers coming on and off stage and two singers, I had had rather enough tango.  Sorry.  Another hour to go.  But then the curtains came across the stage, and footage of Eva Peron was projected on them.  The woman who was singing came out and did a Spanish language performance of Don't Cry for Me, Argentina. 

Our tour guide would have been revolted.  Me, I quietly messaged Conrad and another person in our group that it would have been awesome if it had been a drag queen doing this part.

She finished, the curtains opened, and three musicians, styled in an Andean manner, came out to play.  I have no photos of them, or the guy who joined them and swirled weighted balls on ropes.  The musicians were fine, opening with El Condor Pasa before seguing into... The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  I was laughing a bunch, and at that point I surrendered to the evening and just let it be whatever cheese it was.

Truthfully, it was one of the accordionists who was the star of the show.  And of the six dancers, I thought two of the pairs seemed technically excellent but not particularly well-matched.  One pair, however, seemed to dance with each other, leaning in close.  They were my favourites.

We got back to the hotel close to midnight.  No one had enjoyed the food much, but the show was well-received.  Good!  For all that I thought it was ridiculous in its way, I appreciated the work that the performers put into it and thank them for providing entertainment on the last night that the group of eight of us had together on the trip.

Buenos Aires tour

Unlike our visit to Santiago, our time in Buenos Aires did not entail us leaving the city to see other places.  As with our visit to Santiago, we did have the benefit of a city tour.  A good tour, though perhaps there was a little much political commentary included.  Our fault (well, not mine!) for asking, I guess.  And hey, it kept us grounded in an actual local perspective rather than just on a level of what tourists might enjoy.

The first stop on the tour was in the nearby Recoleta neighbourhood.  En route there, we passed a park where, at a little after 9 in the morning, stalls were being set up for a market.  Artisans and craftspeople, local goods and wares.  I had to chuckle when the guide, Romina, told us that if we show up early for the market, there will be nothing there save for vendors asking us to pitch in to set up.  Buenos Aires, she said, is not an early morning city.  Nor was Santiago, we noticed, judging by what time Starbucks opened.  We drove past and parked near the Recoleta Cemetery.

I'm not a cemetery person.  Yes, they can be peaceful and lovely, and there is a lot of history contained within them, but I don't find them especially interesting.  No, I'm not creeped out, I just don't find them exciting to visit.  So I was a little skeptical of visiting the cemetery, especially since the focal point for many is the tomb in which Eva Peron is interred. 

And sure enough, there were plenty of tourists around it.

That said, looking at the tombs from the perspective of art and architecture, through the lens of the histories of local communities (we noticed a lot of Armenian names, for example), even as insight into real estate was all quite interesting.  Romina did an excellent job of fielding questions, and I came away from that visit happy enough to know a little more of Buenos Aires.

Next up, a quick stop at the opera house.  We had driven past, and Natasha - an opera fan - wanted to see it close up.  So we did!  What was cool was the corridor that had once been the passageway through which carriages passed as they dropped off opera attendees. 

We paused for a moment in the cool interior and relished that break from the summer heat.

Onward!  The Plaza de Mayo was where we then went to. 

Romina pointed out the Casa Rosada to us

(think of the Don't Cry for Me, Argentina balcony - that's the building) and the diapers painted on the plaza tile. 

It's here that the Mothers of the Disappeared staged their protests, growing and splintering and never yet forgotten.  A dark part of the country's more recent history.

An arguably brighter spot was across the street.  The Metropolitan Cathedral was home to the current Pope, Francis.  The building doesn't dominate the plaza - from up close, it's not entirely easy to guess that it's a house of worship at all - but inside it's grand and fine. 

We caught the changing of the guard at the Mausoleum of General San Martin,

which had a stream of people flowing past the tomb, but some of the smaller pieces in the building also caught my eye. 

Of note (and I took no photo) was the space devoted to memorializing Jews lost to the Holocaust.

Next up:  a short stop in San Telmo, the oldest neighbourhood of the city, and one with grand old homes that were carved up into tenements and now house apartments, shops, and other businesses. 

We poked in a store or two before heading to La Boca.  Once in that neighbourhood, we paused for a light bite and some shopping (well, the others shopped), and then wandered along the Caminito. 

Natasha commented to me that the colourful street (the buildings were historically painted with a mishmash of leftover ship paints) was the most Latin American we had seen, which struck me as an odd comment.  I mean, everything that we saw in South American was essentially Latin American.  The Caminito is, frankly, a tourist site.  Yes, there are people who live there, but the businesses were all geared toward tourist dollars, and I felt it was authentic to Latin America as Bourbon Street is to New Orleans - offering one perspective but only one and not an every day one.  I didn't mind leaving that part of the city behind.

We drove past some fine buildings and sights on our way back to Palermo, and I was sorry we didn't see some more.  I was sorrier that the weather was so warm - in milder weather I would have wanted to get on the subway and go to other parts of the city.  Just the same, though, we did get to see at least some different neighbourhoods and get out on foot a few times.  I wish I had had a similar experience in Santiago.

a glacier!

The point of going to El Calafate is to see glaciers.  Don't get me wrong - the town is one that has many tourist facilities:  restaurants, shops, and more.  Without the glaciers in the nearby national park, though, the town would be a modest outpost for ranchers, perhaps.

But ah, the park.  Los Glaciares National Park is larger than just the Perito Moreno Glacier that is most accessible, but it is that glacier, flowing into the largest lake in Argentina, that is the star of the show for so many.

We had a guide and shuttle

to take us out to the park.  Not too far out of the city, it was a fine, scenic drive.  I need to see if I can find the video of all the rheas running along the open landscape.  That was a delightful scene.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is readily viewable from across a narrow channel of the lake.  There is an extensive network of boardwalks that we tramped along happily,

taking photos wherever we could. 

What a glorious time of it.  Decent weather - mildly cool, not too sunny.  It was a good couple of hours of listening to our guide and taking more photos.

And then we went out on a boat for an hour.  Many of us on it, getting as close as a quarter of a mile from the glacier face.  The glacier was calving icebergs even as we watched it, creating such noise, realizing deep blue chunks of ice in the lake.  It was quite a sight, and we were glad of it.

If I need to compare, the scenery we saw in Chilean Patagonian was more stunning.  Still, the glacier was incredible.  Oh, I've seen glaciers before in BC and Alberta - they aren't new to me.  But this was a good, close view of one that is - hooray! - not retreating, not yet.  How terrific to get to see it.