Buenos tiempos en Buenos
Well, I had no side effects. Which was great! But we had also planned some lazy days as a result. That and it being 329482309*F out, we weren't too excited to be out and about.
So, what'd we decide? A super long walk to Caminito (and outdoor museum, that's actually a neighborhood?). I’m not sure how long we walked for but we watched the streets as they turned from well kept to disarrayed and back, we watched the buildings go from well maintained to graffitied to dilapidated and back all in scorching heat and way under hydrated. At one point we thought we’d stop at the next cute (air conditioned) coffee shop and grab something cool to drink. That did not go well for us, the next coffee shop was another 25 minutes away. By the time we got there we were so beaten down by the heat we decided we’d go the rest of the way by bus.
They did not have cold coffee options other than a frappe so we ordered a chocolate and a dulce de leche. I thought it’d come in a mug, it’d probably have some whipped cream but nothing much. Nope! They arrived in huge ice cream sundae mugs with chocolate or caramel drizzled inside the glass, filled with the drink and on top it had cut up alfajores sitting on top half a cup of whipped cream with more chocolate or caramel sauce. We laughed for a few minutes at our mistake but then got started gobbling the thing down!
Image of Leeah completely exhausted from heat (this is a fake smile)
Once we were satiated and thoroughly cooled down we found a bus that would take us the rest of the way. When we arrived, we walked around and were dazzled by the colors. We took some pictures and wandered around but it had taken us about 6-7x’s longer to walk there than to enjoy the space. Oh well, we were totally shot and decided to go back to the hotel to cool off and have some food.
Guess what?! We took a nap.
Our alarm went off and it was time to get ready for our beer tour, but first we had to go back to the immunization office from yesterday to get my official yellow fever sheet. The same gentleman was working the front door and got a laugh at us being back AGAIN. Just like the day before, everything was extremely efficient and we were in and out in a matter of minutes.
Arriving at the beer tasting, we informed that we had10 beers to try over the next two hours But, holy cats, this guy spoke about each beer so lovingly and in such incredible detail I think it made each beer taste better. Most of the beers were actually great, I’m still not a stout fan and will stand on that hill until I die.
During this whole time, our tour guide just sat at the table scrolling through her phone, sipping water and eating a couple of our peanuts. Very peculiar. The other peculiar thing was that we had booked a “beer tour” and at this point it had just been one location and was much more of just a tasting. So after that incredible experience, she let us know there was one more place. She guided us through the cute area of Palermo Soho and shared all sorts of details of how messed up the Argentinian government and economy is and how their money is just an absolute disaster. I couldn’t believe when she mentioned that civilians are only allowed to exchange pesos for $200 USD a month for saving because it holds it’s value and the government has restricted that! At max, in one year, a person could only save $2400 USD!!! What! The night passed with more beer and conversation and Choripan.
Anywayyyyyyyy, of the four nights we had dinner in Buenos Aires, we had two of those dinners with new friends! How cool is that!
After our extremely long walk , we decided that we needed to break the day into smaller chunks in order to stay cool. As well as find places that have AC! So, museum day it is. We stopped at our new favorite place for shakes and headed off to the first museum of the day. As we walked in from the heat though I immediately started feeling a bit strange. I was having some vision issues and knew it was going to be the start of a migraine if I didn’t get water and food and rest immediately. That cut our first museum visit short and as we headed back to the hotel we saw a motorcyclist get hit by a car (he lived and we stayed till the police arrived) and it was just all too much. Going back to the hotel seemed like the only safe point.
Later, we tried again. There was a museum of interior decorations (?? but also !!!!) a couple blocks away and wow was it beautiful! If there was an option to walk through old, beautifully decorated mansions, I would pay for that experience.
From there we headed to what I think is maybe one of the coolest galleries I’ve ever been to – Xul Solar. If you are ever in BA, this is a must visit. We stared at each painting for so long, they were each so interesting. It was a most excellent stop!
Now began the search for dinner. Erik wanted more steak, so we would find more steak. I found a place called Don Julio and recommended it. Sounded like there was usually line, but that they served bubbles to you in line. So we thought, what the heck, let’s try it! We got there around 8 and the person taking names said it would only be 25-30 minutes. Sweet! We grabbed our bubbles and went to check out the menu.
About two hours later, we were now drunk and still waiting. We made a couple friends in line and asked about how much longer it would be. But then their name got called, and they asked if we could join them but their table was already full. So, new glass of bubbles it is! About a half hour later we heard some Americans (Jack and Zan) chatting about the wait and that their table was almost ready. So, we wanted to compare wait times with them. Turns out they had been there an hour before us and then have been doing a bar crawl through the area until just now, they got a call saying their table would be ready in 20-40 minutes (lol). We got the idea again, what if we sit at a table together, will we get sat faster. And we did!! At about 11:30pm we finally sat down. Lol. The steak was like butter and everything was just so delicious!!
Turns out it’s the 2nd highest rated restaurant in South America and 14th in the world. Lol. And we showed up with no reservations, got drunk and closed down the restaurant at 1am. Ha!
Needless to say, the next day required a lot of sleeping. We eventually made it out of bed, got our shakes and headed to Palermo to walk around. Erik had heard there were typically artist festivals there on weekends and we could walk around. But, I had too many bubbles and it turned out that meant I was even more angry about the heat. We attempted to walk around and look at the art, but I needed water and ice cream. Whew! That cooled us down just enough to also talk about a painting we saw. Once I was cooled off and refreshed we went and bought a painting! After that though I was at my limit. We saw some beautiful street art but it was clear an afternoon nap and rehydrating at the hotel was necessary.
Erik had been messaging with Mischa for a few days about meeting up in Buenos Aires, and it was seeming like tonight was the night! We met Mischa and Lisa on the trip to Antarctica! We planned to meet them around 6 at a Temple. However, there seems to be endless amounts of Temple breweries, and we went to the one we thought we were meeting at, nope they were somewhere else, so we walked to the other one around the corner and NOPE! They still weren’t at that one! Lol, they were at one 15 minutes away! So they decided to come join us at the 2nd place we were at. Haha!
We caught up with what we’ve been up to since the ride to Antarctica and talked endlessly about how different the US is from the Netherlands. We learned so much about day to day life there and all the perks of living in a much more civilized part of the world and the challenges they had as well. We had a second round of beers, and we talked more about the cruise and just some generic topics of the day. We taught them the word ‘vices’ and it seems the 20 year old's in both the US and in Netherlands are all doing drugs only on the fringes when we were their age, though its a much safer activity in the Netherlands. They test your drugs at festivals before you enter so you don't OD. Eventually, we thought we should go grab some food. We were having such a great time chatting, so why stop!
I recommended the Italian place Erik and I stopped at the day before for salads. They were up for it so off we went! On the walk we talked about what everyone likes to do for fun and actually learned a little bit about them. We managed the last table outside and we ordered salads and pastas to share. When we walked in I had seen that there was a huge wheel of cheese that they were mixing the pasta in (!!!). I didn’t care what the dish was called, I just wanted that pasta. So we got it and we were NOT disappointed.
After two bottles of wine, so many stories, laughs and bellies full of pasta we finally decided it was time to head home. It was a hour and a half later than we had wanted to be out but the night had been so much fun with them. We made loose plans to see each other in Mendoza in a few days and we went our separate ways.
Lisa and Mischa!
Cue heads hitting pillows and lights out.
