Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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.

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