New Years Eve, Buenos Aires

Today we had the pleasure of meeting our friends Will and Claudia Pizzolato for lunch at Siga La Vaca, or “follow the cow,” an all-you-can-eat steak house. We spent the next 4 or 5 hours eating steak, drinking wine and enjoying good conversation. Will left with us on October 1st from our house in San Jose, California, but turned back the same day at Big Sur. We’ve been riding south ever since—3 months to be exact. I marvel at how on a trip like this 3 months can seem so long, so much can be experienced and learned. Contrasting that with 3 months at home in a routine and it is hard to believe it’s the same life.

After lunch we said goodbye to our friends and headed back to the hotel to get ready for our nights festivities. Amie has been really excited about the dinner and tango show we booked online for new years eve. I was looking forward to it as well. We were warned that after 10pm taxis quit working to be home with there families (strange to think a big city like BA would not offer public trans after 10pm on new years eve!?) so we had our hotel call “Michelangelo Tango” to find out for us if we could arrange transportation back afterwards. They could. Great. However the price for the show tonight was not the $100 that we expected, was advertised on line, and we reserved for, it was now $220 per person. !?!??! How could this be? We had a reservation? The website says $100. Sorry, its $220, take it or leave it. For me $100 a head was a splurge. $220 each is insanity. Amie was disappointed but in complete agreement. We looked at each other for the next few moments wondering if either had a plan B.

A word on Argentina and holidays. From what we have seen, they are very different. At home, everything is closed, sure, but not like here. EVERYTHING is closed here. The street midday here looks like Sunday night at 4am at home. Take NYE for example. We expected a wild street scene, something akin to Time Square in New York, but what we got was a deserted city like you’d seen in a zombie movie (before all the zombies attack). We were even more amazed to learn that everything would open up, restaurants, bars, cafes etc, at 2am. ??? So what does that leave us?

We got online to let our fingers do the walking. Turns out some fancy restaurants are open serving fixed price menus, but they are usually astronomical. We put on our best duds and went out in the quiet streets in search of somewhere to celebrate. Luckily, one of the restaurants we ate at earlier in the week near our hotel was open and was filling up. Everyone was dressed in their best, well most. There was a lot of prom-type dresses, and guys in all white. Amie looked great, but I didn’t think they’d let me in with flip-flops and jeans. They didn’t mind, but the price tag was $100/each dinner and show. I cringed, basically because we had the best steak this place serves a few days ago and it cost us $6, but oh well, its new years eve.

Once we were seated we noticed rather phallic balloons everywhere and wondered what type of show we were in for. It turned out to be a fun night. The food was good, the wine was all you can drink, and our fellow revelers were having a great time. We kept wondering when the show would start, but there never was one… unless you count the MC who was rocking the mic with some classics like Gloria, Super Freak, and others. At midnight Amie and raised our glasses, reviewed the highlights and our accomplishments, and toasted the end of a great year.

All you can eat meat

Enjoying lunch with friends the Pizzolatos

Puerto Madero

We clean up nice

What exactly is the "show"?

Amie at about 10:30pm

All you can drink = crazy party

Happy New Year!!

Buenos Aires, Day 4

For some reason, all of the McDonald signs we’ve spotted on our walks through Buenos Aires the last couple of days had us craving a breakfast sandwich. We woke up at our usual late time, as we never can seem to wrap up dinner before 11pm around here, and headed to McDonalds. It’s amazing how McDonalds is represented in other countries besides the US, let’s just say it’s a bit more classy…same stuff, different marketing angle. Well, they didn’t have breakfast sandwiches, they had their usual Argentinean croissant and coffee. The only thing close to a breakfast sandwich was a roll/sourdough bun with egg and cheese. Not so good, I can easily say that’ll be my last McDonalds in quite some time as we are now in the land of great food.

Our next stop was a little coffee shop as we had slept through our breakfast hour at the hotel. A late morning led us out into the streets on a search for ski gloves (yes, we desperately need them when it rains and cold outside!), a pair of shoes for Mike and a festive Argentinian necklace. On a side note, the woman here love their big and chunky necklaces, you rarely see a woman walking down the street without a giant and bold accessory hanging from her neck. So while in BA, I figured I’d be BA and buy myself one for our New Year outing.

It is Saturday, so we didn’t anticipate having any troubles with the stores, but to our surprise, most of everything was shut down! It didn’t make sense to us. Only a few cafes or restaurants were open amongst the several shops with closed doors. After inquiring we learned that most stores are not open on Saturday, and if so, usually only half day. I guess everyone does there shopping around here on weekdays! Thus, we had no success with gloves or shoes for Mike. I guess he’ll be trying to get away with flip flops at tomorrow nights show! As far as my quest, success, I got a great green long necklace with giant puffy green balls on it; perfect for the occasion! To spice myself up a bit more I bought a lipstick. That is my best attempt at making myself look as much feminine as possible, something I think I crave a bit after dressing up in a gigantic masculine moto outfit on an almost daily basis. I sure miss looking feminine!

I also would like to mention some more fashion trends of BA and Argentina in general that I’ve noticed and are quite amazing to me. Duck Tails. Need I say more? Well, more like a mullet/duck tail/Mohawk. Yes, most young men are sporting a combination of that around these parts. I think it’s the latest Soccer look possibly? I’ve been meaning to capture some photos, hopefully I can get a few for our readers! Mike’s new haircut sure makes him look like a tourist in these parts! I love it…

Mike and I are expecting quite a festivity for New Years as I believe they have already started the celebrations as we’ve seen a ton of paper pieces laid about the streets and flying through the air. I believe it is the Argentineans old work calendars, being ripped and tossed from the window in a ritual which let’s them let go of last year before entering the New Year. This is only my guess…but it’s quite a site. I just feel sorry for the street cleaners!

We wandered and walked all over the city again today. Bought a couple books, ate some more steak and enjoyed having yet another day for rest, relaxation and taking in this lovely city. We’re enjoying our time in BA!

Buenos Aires

We started our day at Café Tortoni, one of the famous cafés in town. I thought the place was closed as the doors were shut tight, but we soon found out that was just part of the mystique. You see, there is a door man who only lets in a certain number of people at a time, like a bouncer at a night club… only I don’t think you have to have the “look” to get in, just patience. It wasn’t long before we were seated and enjoyed espresso and scones.

Next it was down to the San Telmo neighborhood which is famous for antiques, art and tango, but must also be the gay neighborhood as there were more guys holding hands than I’ve seen in SF in a while. We tried to keep in the shade as it was HOT, stopping for ice cream and to look at antique chandeliers.

Next we caught a taxi over to La Boca neighborhood and El Caminito. La Boca is the blue-collar little Italy waterfront area. El Caminito is the famous street which probably used to be really cool, but now is full of hawkers, beggars, and vendors aggressively looking to get tourists in there restaurants. They were successful and we stopped for a beer. There was a guy singing his heart out while two people danced the tango in the street. It was all for the tourists of course, and they passed the hat afterwards, but it was still a lot of fun.

No pizza today, Amie just couldn’t do it again. We settled for salad and beef empenadas, a good compromise. They were delicious. The food is my favorite part of this town. We returned back to the AC and spent some time researching aspects of future parts of the trip.

No crystals here!

Members only

Found a good pair...too bad we didn't have the money!

Nice hot day in BA

Exploring the south end of the city

Here Gina, is this what you're looking for???

San Telmo

Enjoying the show

Street show

This guy loved singing his heart out

El Caminito

Some Boca art

Hi Moms!

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 0 miles

Buenos Aires is big, 13 million people big if you count the suburbs. The buildings are beautiful and European. The food is the best on the trip. We are eating better than we do at home for a fraction of the cost. The people are friendly, the weather is nice, the tango-culture is interesting, and the nightlife (so we hear) is insane. We are encouraged to have a nap after dinner, then hit the bars around 2am. We are yet to pull that one off.

On the agenda today was to find outfits for New Years Eve and to do the tourist thing at the northern neighborhood of Recoleta. Against my will, I got my haircut at a barbershop near our hotel--so much for growing my hair out ($3). We stopped at the same pizzeria as yesterday, which was packed again, so I could get my pizza/empanada fix. Argentina runs on pizza, pasta, empenadas, and steak. Literally, those are the staples. From there we walked until we were tired, then jumped on the subway for a few stops to take a break.

Recoleta is the ritzy neighborhood and you can tell right away. Everyone looks flash, the ice cream parlors look like modern art galleries, and the price tags are significantly higher. We found our way to the famous cemetery, one of the major tourist attractions in BA. It’s like a city for the dead with miniature mausoleum-buildings on both sides of tiny streets in a grid pattern. This is where the rich and influential families of BA are buried. The headstones are incredible; giant marble tombs, many with hand carved statues of angels or other figures. We stopped at Evita Peron’s grave, the only one we recognized.

Aside from eating more (lots more) and having another delicious steak, there wasn’t much more to the day.

Mike's favorite little pizza joint

Subway couldn't be more crowded!

Gelato! Yes! It is the best in South America...

Cerveza break

The entrace to the cemetary (new hair cut)

All lined up

Mike was being attacked by mosquitos (thus the look)

The Peron tomb

Beautiful statues

El Gato del Muerto

Rosario to Buenos Aires, 170 miles

It was another easy drive in Argentina today, but nothing too scenic. The speed limit is posted by lane, fast lane is 130km (about 80mph), slow lane is 80km (about 45mph) and there are lots of lanes in between, just like home. As we approached BA, it was 5 lanes wide. We haven’t been on a road like that since we left southern California.

There is a giant thoroughfare that runs right through the center of BA, this made it easy to navigate on the fly as we slowly worked our way through traffic. There is also no shortage of hotels. We quickly went through the 3 we highlighted from the good book: the first was asking 3x what the book listed it as 2 years ago, not a good sign. The next two were full—another bad sign. We did the hotel shuffle for about 2 hours before getting recommended hotel A&B by a police officer. It was a bit more than we wanted to spend but very clean, central, with a newer AC unit (a must with the heat and mosquitoes) and on site bike parking.

Late afternoon and we were off to check things out. We ducked into a working class pizza joint selling by the slice with standing room only. A slice of cheese was 0.50 and delicious. You can also get empendas in multiple flavors, also 0.50. I was in heaven. We stayed pretty close to our neighborhood in the “microcenter” or down town, hitting Lavalle and Florida pedestrian shopping streets. Amie enjoyed (mostly) window shopping, but did find a few items she didn’t want to do without.

We had bife de chorizo (no not sausage but a THICK sirloin steak) at another working class type place that was again packed with families at 10:30pm. The steaks were great, and cheap. This place is really starting to grow on me… or is it me that is growing?

All packed up and ready for the next destination

Rosario

Fruit?

A good look

Even though we are surrounded by new cars...the horse and buggy are still prevalent

Sweet ride

Welcome to Buenos Aires!

Cordoba to Rosario, 280 miles

It was hard to leave our really comfy hotel room in Cordoba. The A/C kept us at a really nice temperature and also kept the mosquitoes away. The sheets were, for the first time in a while, real thick cotton. I woke up in the morning not even knowing if I was at home or still on the trip…it gave us some much needed rest and relaxation.

As soon as we pulled out of the hotel, we could finally see what Cordoba is like on a normal day, people everywhere filling the streets. It is a really nice city.

The road from Cordoba to Rosario was pretty much big freeways, nothing too interesting to look at other than the often spotted tractor or suave men on a tiny scooters. I started to take pictures of the people on the little scoters as it is quite a site from home. Miles and miles of fields, farms and farming equipment. For the first time that I can remember, Mike actually started to feel like he was going to fall asleep…I blame it on the straight and uninteresting roads as well as the giant lunch we got to enjoy. Yes, we finally stopped and had a real lunch at lunchtime. Another thank you to Argentina for providing an abundance of good restaurants. We stopped and enjoyed some Milanese de Beef. Beef, of course, what else in Argentina!

The miles went by fast as the roads are straight and well paved. Before we knew it, we entered Rosario. A big city, which always makes for finding a decent place to stay and park the bike difficult. After continuing to look in Cordoba until we found a good place, it encouraged us to keep looking beyond the first hotel that would allow the bike. Our perseverance paid off, we found a decent place for less than $30 (yeah, hotels are more expensive than we expected in Argentina). Clean and with A/C which became much appreciated later in the night when we realized we were being swarmed with mosquitoes! Yes, literally swarmed to a point when they are bouncing off our bodies. Either that is Rosario for you, or in particular our hotel. The tent came in handy!

It was still early in the afternoon so we set out to see the town! We walked around the blocks with all the shops. They were full of the after Christmas shoppers, tons of people and a lot of fun. I found a little shirt, but in general the styles here aren’t really my type or I don’t think would fly at home as well…but window shopping was fun. Indoor and outdoor stores for blocks and blocks, all interlaced with bars, sidewalk cafes and heladeria (ice cream stores) all surrounded by beautiful old buildings. Argentina supposedly has the best ice cream in South America, and I look forward to finding out myself. We had a great time being tourists around town and people watching. For all our single friends out there, take a trip to Rosario as there are a lot of great looking men and woman there!

Our evening ended in a steak house, late for us, early for the Argentineans. We were the first people there at 8:30. Great steak as usual, but the massive amount of mosquitoes got us eating and out of there before long. No matter how hard you try to go to bed at a decent hour in Argentina, you can never seem to do so before 11pm.

Packin' up

Sweet ride

I especially like this one because of the basket (which matches nicely with the rims)

I need to get one of these to take my girlfriends out for a ride when I get home!

This dog couldn't get enough attention

Shopping maddness!

Enjoying being tourists over a cold cerveza

Amie at her finest (ice cream and shopping)

This restaurant is not for vegetarians!

Cordoba, 0 miles

Merry Christmas! We are spending Christmas day in Cordoba. At least we have each other, but we miss our family, friends and Candy terribly. Christmas is never quite right when we are away from home, but we are making the best of it. Tonight we will enjoy a great Argentinean steak dinner and share a bottle of good wine.

We can only be anxious to make up for this years holiday next year with everyone at home. We miss you all and hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas!

Thinking of you Candy!!!

Frias to Cordoba, 220 miles

We got a late start today because we didn’t realize we crossed a time zone when we crossed into Argentina. Oh well. We got a few mesquito bites in the night, but we are finally done with Malaria territory, so we weren’t that concerned. We expected it to be scorching hot again, but as we pulled out of the hotel and went from 0-80mph in like 5 seconds we realized that it wasn’t so warm. In fact, it started raining and hailing and we scrambled to make ourselves waterproof on the side of the road. The wind picked up and we were flung all over the place for the next few hours.

More bolts that I neglected to tighten have been coming off and we had to periodically stop to see “what that noise” was. Don’t worry moms, I tightened the brakes, wheels, handlebars, etc--all the important stuff.

As we were checking our map of Cordoba for potential hotels from the cities edge, an elderly man with one normal leg, and another miniature leg about half the size as the normal one dangling from a scooter stopped to ask about our trip. He was impressed and mentioned he is a bit of a moto-adventurer as well. He asked if we had any stickers we could give him. I was confused, but he was just happy to have met us. He offered to lead us into Cordoba to wherever we wanted to go, so we followed him to the city center. From there, we spent the next few hours going from Hotel to hotel checking out rooms and haggling over prices.

One was too musky, others too expensive. One was nice, but smelled like dead people. The most interesting one had the receptionist tell us we could check in, but we couldn’t be in the hotel from 10pm to 2pm on Christmas eve/Christmas day because “In argentina we celebrate Christmas, and the hotel is closed.” Hmmm? Why would I pay to stay in the hotel then?

Finally, just before we were about to settle for the musky one, we found a lovely 3-star for $32 which is nice, smells good, and is, as Amie says, tastefully decorated. We checked in, enjoyed the amenities (including internet) and went out for lunch at a recommendation from the hotel. I had empenadas, a t-bone and mashed potatoes. Amie had ravioli. The food was fantastic and cost us less than $10.

Through a window we could see in the kitchen where the chefs were putting together some amazing looking party platters. Amie and I wished we could crash a holiday party by figuring out the address those platters were destined for. No such luck.

The city is sparsely decorated but bustling in the early afternoon. By early evening it was dead. Everyone was where they intended to be, except us. We were left in an empty city feeling melancholy. Boy its hard not being with family this time of year!

We took another recommendation for dinner at the nicest restaurant in town. There were no cabs so we had a long walk, about 20 blocks, ahead of us. From the looks of the place, I didn’t think they would let us in with jeans and flipflops, but we were welcomed in very graciously, but then quickly turned away as we didn’t have a reservation. DOH! Amie was pretty upset, as was I, because it was about 9:30pm and the place didn’t look that busy. Come to find out, people don’t start showing up until about 11pm. !!!

Luckily we found a second choice not far away at all that would seat us and had a nice special menu for the occasion: $25 a head got us appetizer, main, dessert, wine, champagne, etc. It ended up being very nice. We left at 12:30am, and it was just getting busy. We’ll make a reservation for the other place tomorrow night.

On the long walk back the streets were dead--except for so many families setting off fireworks you would think it was 4th of July. It sounded like a war zone, or a Bolivian mine! Explosions were everywhere. Kids were running around blowing stuff up right in front of our hotel at 1am. Amie and I laughed as we contrasted the Christmas culture between the US and Argentina.

The usual morning packup...all smiles after that comfy night

Miles and miles of straight

The plaza in daylight

Mike couldn't be happier...steak and mashed potatos!

We caught that guy sneaking some turkey!

Plaza at night