Buenos Aires

Rather than get up excruciatingly early for a flight from São Paulo to Buenos Aires in order to catch the connecting flight to Bariloche, we took the flight to Buenos Aires the evening before. That way we didn´t have to get up early or worry about the layover being too short or too long.

So that gave us an evening in Buenos Aires. Upon arrival we went to a random hotel picked from a list of downtown hotels. It turned out that it was a one star hotel located in a dark back alley. The quality of a one star hotel can be summed up by the observation that there is no such thing as a no star hotel. By the bus driver´s recommendation we hurried over to a much better hotel, where we got a vertical room.

Our friends Mario and Marie from the Cusco mountain bike tour live in Buenos Aires and had invited us to get together. They gave us a short (it was already quite late) tour of the city, culminating in a visit to the Plaza de Mayo, the absolute centre of BA. It is the location of the Casa Rosada, the Pink House of the federal government, and is the focal point of demonstrations and protests. It was there that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo marched around the obelisk in an appeal against the forced disappearances during the military dictatorship. They congregated around the obelisk but because the police kept telling them to move along they ended up marching endlessly around the monument. Today there still is a permanent demonstration going on to raise awareness for the veterans of the Falklands/Malvinas war of 1982.

During all of this I was of course wearing my Rio de Janeiro T-shirt that Carlos had given me on the condition that I wear it in Argentina.

Look, Carlos!

Next, it was time for part 2 of the important match Brazil vs. Argentina steak houses. We sampled a variety of cuts of meat as well as sausage and sweetbread (the thymus gland, which is zwezerik in ´t Nederlands, pap). Upon my unbiased shoulders now falls the monumental task of deciding the outcome of this match, even though locals of both places assured me afterwards that that was not the best place after all.

I´m going to have to have a deeeep think about that one. If anyone from Brazil or Argentina thinks they´re going to sway my opinion with bribes, they are totally right.