Two original posts for you

On Hooniverse, I wrote about the buses and vans I rode on my 12,000 mile road trip.

On Crasstalk, I wrote about my trip to the Darien Gap.

Enjoy.

South: Santiago

La Moneda, the Presidential Palace

Day 23:

Christmas Eve.  Tomorrow, we fly home.

The morning news is not happy.  Striking rail workers started a riot in Buenos Aires.  A letter bomb blew up in the Chilean embassy in Italy.

We started off the day by visiting the markets.  Central Market is ringed by little mom and pop eateries.  The eateries in the center of the market are a bit more upscale and tourist friendly.  The whole place smelled like fish.

We then walked across the street, and over the river, and went to La Vega market.  The economic disparity between the two markets was palpable.  La Vega is grittier and rougher around the edges.  But it was more crowded and lively.

Here is Bourdain at an annex of La Vega.  He captures the food perfectly, but not the working class conditions.  Go to 5:29:

We move next to La Moneda, a highlight for me.  On September 11, 1973, a coup toppled Salvador Allende's government.  I wanted to see where it all went down.

The square facing La Moneda has four statues, one on each side.  Allende stands in front of the Ministry of Justice.  I think they could have picked a better looking statue.  It looks like a huge bed sheet got blown onto Allende.

The other statues are of Frei, Allesandri, and a dude from the 1860s.

We had lunch at a sushi joint called Kintaro.  With fresh avocados and seafood in abundance, the meal was extraordinary.

After a power nap, we sat at a park, eating ice cream, and watched people walk and play with their dogs.

It's nearly 4 p.m. on December 24 and we haven't done any Christmas shopping.  So we went to ONA, an artisan craft store, and loaded up on alpaca fleece garments to distribute.

Dinnertime.  Everything was closing and people were rushing home.  We tried to go back to Bar Nacional.  About a block from the restaurant, we see our waiter from yesterday.  He recognized us, smiled, and told us they're closed.  We ended up eating at an empty Chinese restaurant, served by a kind Brazilian immigrant who spoke no Chinese, English, or Spanish, over the din of the Chinese owner yelling at somebody over the phone about something.

The End

South: BA to Santiago

Day 22:

As we left for Santiago from Buenos Aires, I told Marge: You'll see how efficient the Chileans are.  After being in Argentina, you'll feel like you're in Switzerland.

Her introduction to Chile was less than ideal.  Once we landed, our plane (which was Argentinean) was stuck on the tarmac for ages.  We then transferred to a bus that would take us to our gate, but the driver (who I will assume is Chilean) got lost!  Once we got in the terminal, we waited in a long line for immigration.  That's fine.

What wasn't fine was when we got to the front of the line, we were told to go to another part of the airport to pay a reciprocity fee.  That's $140 USD, per person.  I have a problem with that, especially since we're only going to be in the country for a day and a half.  I had avoided paying the fee earlier because I entered via land crossings.  I can only assume this fee was imposed when the United States, after 9/11, started charging such fees on foreign visitors.  Totally bogus, dude.

Now, that sign I saw earlier makes more sense.  But what a random collection of countries (that's the Albanian flag on the left):

The adventure does not end.  The airline (again Argentinean) lost our baggage.  Our clean laundry and toiletries are in the lost bag.  If we don't get it back within a day and a half (and it's December 23, by the way), then we fly back home to the States without it.  We might as well say good-bye to it forever.

The airline tells us that either the bag is still in Buenos Aires, or a passenger that flew with us picked it up by accident.  We went back to the airline counter to ask a follow-up question.  The counter, the entire counter, disappeared.

The next hassle was my mistake.  I never made a hotel reservation.  I thought I could just waltz into a hotel and get a room.  Not so.  After many calls, the taxi counter at the airport got us an iffy hotel in a central location.  They told us it's a 3-star hotel.  I'm not holding my breath.  They deliver us to the hotel in a nice black Hyundai Sonata.

The hotel was okay.  We said screw it, let's enjoy the rest of the day.  We walk to Bar Nacional, a Santiago institution.  I have the fried conger eel with French fries and rice.  I accompany the meal with some top shelf Pisco sour.  Everything, including the service, was excellent.

We go back to the hotel and someone has delivered the lost luggage.  I run out to the lobby, ecstatic.  The guy wants a tip.  Fair enough.  Do you have change for a 5,000 peso note?  Of course not.  Fine (grumble).  Feliz navidad.

South: Buenos Aires-- Bad day

Day 21:

Tomorrow, we fly to Santiago.  We'll spend a day and a half there and then fly home.  Marge is taking a cooking class today.  I will take it easy and visit the planetarium.  So how bad of a day was it for me?

• LAN Argentina, the national airline, just went on strike.
• All long distance bus drivers also went on strike.
• The heat wave is still going strong.
• I found a hair in my lunch.
• Because of the heat, I took a cab to the planetarium.  It cost much more than I anticipated due to a traffic jam.
• Upon arrival, I learn that the planetarium is closed for remodeling.
• Because of the expensive cab ride, I don't have enough cash to take a cab back to the hotel.
• As I walk back, my ten year old hiking boot (left) disintegrates from the hot pavement.

There were two small highlights.  On my trek back to the hotel, I visited an Alfa Romeo dealership and picked up a brochure for my dream car, a red 159.  I don't think the rico suave salesman was impressed with my sweatiness or my hobo shoe.  He was drinking an espresso and chatting with the leggy receptionist when I shuffled in.

After I got back to the hotel, I saw a great indie flick called Take Out.  It's about a day in the life of a New York Chinese restaurant delivery man.

South: Buenos Aires-- Dakar shopping and weapons museum

Day 20:

It's hot.  I am homesick.  I just lost my fantasy football playoff game.

We take the subway to the center of the city.  The ride costs about a quarter per person.  The subway car is packed solid and there is no air conditioning.  Enterprising (and loud) young men sell their wares on the train.  One is selling MP3s (I think you choose the songs listed on a piece of paper and you get a password you can use when you go online at home).  Another sells calendars.  Yet another sells bamboo beach mats.

We walk up onto the street surface.  I am not expecting to see the Obelisk right across the street.  It appears shorter than the Washington Monument and the street is not nearly as wide as I had imagined.  It's weird how you grow up with certain misconceptions, based only on pictures you see in books.

We're looking for tango lessons.  We find the venue in a grand old, but dilapidated, building.  Despite all the marble inside, it's still hot.  I was a baby about it and put the kibosh on the dancing idea.  I'm a grinch.

We continue up Florida and go to a fancy mall.  Marge searched high and low for a new leather purse, which she found.  I found a Dakar concession stand.

I bought a t-shirt with a Dakar logo.  I wanted one with a picture of a Kamaz truck, but they only had shirts with cars and motorcycles.  There was also a KTM motorbike on display.  The 250 SX was driven in 2009's Dakar rally in Argentina and Chile by Lucas Daniel Emilio Pombo.  Since I only follow the truck and car categories, I don't know if he or the bike is significant.

What I am really excited about is the glossy book I bought.

The mall is busy with shoppers.  Christmas is just four days away.  It's hard to comprehend as the heat wave is in full effect.

We capped off the day with a visit to the Museo de Armas.  It contains thousands and thousands of small arms.  But what really piqued my interest was this gas mask for horses.

South: Buenos Aires-- cars, Chinatown, cemetery, 2 theaters

Day 19:

Our stay in Buenos Aires began with a walk to the upscale Palermo District for some window shopping.  While one of us shopped, the other one took pictures of cars.  Can you guess who did what?

I had no idea what this was.

Apparently, it's a Chevy.  And it's right hand drive(!).

This old Honda Accord hatchback was in tip-top shape.

I saw this poor thing outside a couple of classic car repair shops that were next door to each other.

These two were in the two shops getting restored.

For lunch, we went to Chinatown.  It's not huge, but there appeared to be at least a few authentic restaurants.  We dined at Ciudad Exquisita, which may not have been the most authentic, but was definitely popular.

The first thing you notice is that every table has ordered a large fried rice and packaged bread sticks.  We ordered some boiled dumplings (same as potstickers, except they're not fried).  They were a bit too damp but still tasted very good.  I got a pork chop rice, a popular Taiwanese-style lunch dish.  There wasn't much meat but the steamed rice and tea egg that came with it were very tasty.  We also ordered an eggplant dish.  The eggplant tasted very meaty and we suspected that we liked it too much because it had MSG in it.  All in all, it was a great meal.  It's definitely better than the Chinese food I had in Chile and Peru.

Next stop was the cemetery.  Rows and rows of crypts made the place look like a small city.  It was very touristy and everyone had to take a picture of Eva Peron's resting site.

After the macabre tourist trap, we moved on to El Ateneo.  It used to be a grand theater and it has been converted into a book store.  The stage is a cafe and customers use the balconies to read the inventory.  It's a fantastic idea.

I'll take this opportunity to say that Latin Americans need to take a course from us North Americans on how to operate a retail store.  The book store was easily many times bigger than a Borders or Barnes & Noble, yet it only had two cash registers.  Each line of customers must have been 40 deep.  We were going to buy five books but gave up because of the lines.  How the heck do they expect to make a profit with these business practices?!

One last comment.  I went to a number of book stores and it seems like a large proportion of the inventory was devoted to intellectual or leftist topics-- the kind of books that were popular in Berkeley or Cambridge in the 60s and 70s.

We ended the day at a movie theater.  It was hot all day and we were looking forward to the air conditioning.  In fact, a lady came up to us in the lobby and asked us if we were in the theater because we were hot.  We replied yes.  She then asked if she could ask us more questions.  That's when I saw her microphone and her friend, the TV news cameraman.  We suddenly became embarrassed with our Spanish and declined.  That was funny.

The movie was an HD rebroadcast of a London ballet production.  Apparently, one of the dancers was Argentine.  The program is akin to the The Met's Live in HD series in the States.  It is my habit at these shows to sleep through 1 1/2 acts.  For this ballet, I slept through 1 1/2 acts.  I don't think I missed much because when I woke up, they were still dancing.

South: El Calafate to Buenos Aires

Day 18:

The plan had been to spend the day horseback riding at an estancia (ranch) near El Calafate, but I'm just too exhausted to do anything.  Our flight out to BA is at 8 p.m. but we headed out to the airport in the morning, hoping we'd be able to catch an earlier flight.  We had no luck and ended up spending the entire day at the airport cafeteria.

Here are my observations during my long airport stay:

• I am sick of empanadas, ham and cheese sandwiches, and milanesas (breaded meat filets).
• Argentinean men do not lack confidence.  If an attractive woman sits nearby, they will literally move their chairs to get a better view of her, and proceed to ogle her-- until she finishes her meal and leaves.
• A group of guys had been riding their BMW bikes in Patagonia.  They loaded up their bikes onto a truck out in the parking lot and they are all heading back to BA.

There's our plane.  We will land in BA at around midnight, after dropping off and picking up some people in Trelew, a Welsh settlement.

We arrive in Argentina's capital at 2 a.m.  We are exhausted and the queue for the cabs is comparable to a Soviet-era bread line.  Everyone is smoking, even the cab drivers.  It's hot.  It's fantastic.  It's like Paris, but newer and with wider streets.

We buzz through the city to our hotel.  There are pedestrians still out and about.  We pass by an Alfa dealership.  There is prosperity.  There is order.  It's hard to imagine that a couple from rural Santa Cruz province in Patagonia ended up being presidents in this cosmopolitan city.

The cab drivers are aggressive but courteous.  Before the light turns green, they're already gone.  

At a red light, two guys in four cylinder hatches rev their engines, in anticipation of a race.  Our cab driver takes off seconds before the other two, even though our light is still red.  

I think I'm going to like this city.

South: Perito Moreno glacier

Day 17:

Today, we walk on a glacier.  Perito Moreno glacier is 19 miles long and is the only glacier in South America that is not shrinking.  Scientists can't explain why.

Here is our approach, first by bus:

Then by boat:

The blue parts (from light refraction) look unreal:

The landing:

Parts of the glacier calved, or fell off the main body, while we were there.  You first hear something akin to metal buckling/thunder, then two trucks colliding, and finally a tumbling down like a skyscraper being dynamited.  Minutes after the ice falls into the water, a huge wave would lap onto our shore.  The face you see there is about ten stories high.

We put on some really beat up crampons and start walking on the glacier:

The mini trek (that's what the tour operator calls the walk on the glacier) ends with a glass of Famous Grouse whisky served with glacier ice.

After the trek, we sit down for a picnic lunch and I notice the rock below me.  I assume that's caused by moving ice:

In the afternoon, we take the boat to the tourist center, where there is a better view of the glacier.