With Tango & Delicious Steak We say Adios, Buenos Aires!

Dianne is trying to fit all of our "stuff" into three suitcases, evenly balanced below 20 kilos each so we don't get charged a tariff at the airport tomorrow as we leave Argentina for Peru. We closed out our time in this marvelous city with a Tango lesson this evening, followed by the most amazing steak dinner either one of us has ever tasted, ANYWHERE! We each had the lomo cut, which is a thick sirloin type cut: Dianne's was cooked in a red wine sauce with a chive & mushroom risotto. Steve had lomo from the grill accompanied by grilled vegetables. Both steaks could be cut with a butter knife and truly, melted in your mouth. The most tender, flavorful, delicious cuts of beef we have had in Argentina or anywhere. They were accompanied by a delicious Malbec, Terraza de los Andes Bodega, and followed by the heavenly Argentine coffee and two marvelous desserts: for Dianne a Rice Pudding which came in five small containers, each with a different garnish - strawberries, dulce de leche, chocolate shavings, raspberries & blueberries, and kiwi! Steve had a creme brulee with flambead bananas! What a truly marvelous way to close out our Argentine adventure!

In the morning, at 6:00 a.m., the Taxi driver (Sergio) will be here to pick us up and take us to Ezieza airport so we can catch our 9:15 a.m. flight to Peru. We land in Lima, have a brief layover, and by 4 p.m. will be in Cusco, high in the Andes. I have very mixed feelings about saying good-bye to Argentina. It amazes me that in 10 weeks, even with being robbed in the midst of that time, I have moved from questioning why I ever decided to come to this city and country to having fallen in love with both. I would come back, and I hope to some day. It is a wonderful city with a rich history, an exciting present, and I hope, a bountiful future. It has rich culture, delicious food, and an amazingly varied terrain. It has much to commend.

A Quiet Final Weekend in Buenos Aires

Since returning to Buenos Aires from Iguazu Falls we have been spending a very low-key weekend in our apartment in Palermo. It feels rather strange to have become homebodies while we are half a world away from home in Miami, in a fabulous city, which we may or may not every return to visit. But Dianne returned from the jungle with a developing sinus infection and I am trying to nurse her back to health in preparation for the next leg of our adventure in Peru. So, she has been taking the antibiotic her doctor sent along for such an occasion; getting plenty of rest, drinking lots of liquids, and taking it easy. We have seen a lot in Buenos Aires so this respite will not really result in her missing too much. And, we have not been totally couch potatoes, going out each evening for a delicious dinner.

On Thursday night, after returning from Iguazu Falls, we went to this little "resto-bar" in the neighborhood which has music every night, most of it Argentine Folk music. This night at La Peña del Colorado there was a very gifted singer and professor of music performing, Silvia Zabala. She had a wonderfully rich, strong voice and lots of energy. She was accompanied by two gifted guitar players and throughout the night she invited them to take the lead at times, invited a friend in the audience to share some songs (and she, too, had a marvelous voice), and invited two other musicians who play with one of the guitar players in a separate group, to do a few numbers. The bar was fairly intimate, the food was delicious. It was traditional Argentine food: Dianne had a pumpkin squash casserole, Steve had a tamal and a beef & tomato stew (which, interestingly he did not order, the waiter just brought to the table. We thought it was a gift from him, or maybe his sister who was seated at the table next to us, but then he charged us for it! Oh well, it was delicious and it worked out fine! I probably say that because the bottle of Malbec was so wonderful that I could go with the flow.) We interacted some with the waiter's father, sister and her boyfriend and we truly had an evening where we felt as though we were regular resident of the neighborhood.

The next night we went to La Nazarenas, a very classy Parrilla-Asador Restaurant downtown. The service was impeccable; the wine, another Malbec (the fourth bottle for the fourth dinner in a row, all marvelous, each one different in taste, body, aroma, etc.), was superb; the steaks, tender and juicy; the grilled vegetables, delicious; the fine crystal wine glasses, a very classy touch. It was a very special dinner. Unfortunately, we did not get to continue our evening at a Tango Milonga because Dianne was not feeling well, but dinner was a treat.

Then last night we went to a very nice restaurant in the neighborhood, Don Justo's. Again the setting was very first class. The food was excellent: Dianne enjoyed Pollo Don Justo, which was a chicken breast marinated in Portuguese sauce, covered with peppers and mozzarella; Steve had Salmon stuffed ravioli with mushroom sauce. Instead of Malbec, we enjoyed a bottle of La Rural Trumpeter Chardonnay, one of the best chardonnays we have ever tasted! We topped this dinner with a crepe filled and covered with dulce de leche and wonderful Argentine coffee. Would that American coffee was as rich, full-bodied, and smooth as Argentine coffee!!!

Yesterday the weather began shifting to the rain that had been forecast for several days and it continues today. So, we are resting and working in the apartment. I have organized all the photos from Iquazu Falls (all 700!) and have added links to the previous post about our visit to the Falls to Kodak Gallery Albums. If you have read that post previously but did not see the links to the photos, I encourage you to return to it now and enjoy the photos. You will be amazed and not be disappointed, I guarantee it! I plan to cook spaghetti for lunch (lots of restaurants are closed on Sundays until dinner time) to use up the food because we have to leave this comfortable apartment tomorrow. We will go to Caseron Porteño, the hostel where I began my stay in Buenos Aires 10 weeks ago. We will stay one night there before boarding a flight for Peru on Tuesday. We have two more nights to enjoy the delicious Argentine cooking and then we are off to a new world, a new culture, a new country.

Sensory Overload in the Jungle

It is truly amazing the power and effect of millions, probably trillions, of gallons of water rushing over a cliff! Sensory overload was the affect on Dianne and I as we toured Iguazu Falls in Misiones Province, Argentina, on the border with Brazil. (At one point we realized that much of the day we spent looking at Brazil, which was the land we viewed across the river as we walked the cliffs of the falls and the catwalks constructed on the sides of those cliffs and over the rushing water. We did not get into Brazil, but we did view the Brazilian jungle!) Iguazu Falls are truly one of the natural wonders of the world. The power of the water is phenomenal! The visual spectacle continually takes your breath away! The sound of the water rushing over the edge of the cliffs and pounding into the rocks below is deafening. It becomes your constant background noise and you do not even notice it after awhile, until you are standing directly over a rushing cataract, or at the base of a particularly grand fall, and suddenly it surrounds you physically. Or, you are walking in the jungle, several kilometers away, and it slowly creeps back into your awareness that the sound you are hearing is the falls off in the distance. There was so much to absorb that our senses just could not take it all in.

Besides the waterfalls there is so much life surrounding you: numerous birds and myriad of flowers. We heard far more birds than we saw(we even heard a "Chili" type parrot calling off in the distance), and we saw a lot! The flowers sometimes stood out and at other times blended into the landscape. At one point I was about to stop and take a photo of a small purple flower when Dianne called me over to look at some yellow iris-type flowers. When I went back to take the purple flower I saw very close to it some yellow orchids that I had not noticed the first time. As though they had instantly sprung up in that place, though I realize they had been there all along. There was just so much to absorb! We saw coaties on the path, pulling fruit off a palm tree, one even cleaning up the lunch remains someone had left on the table outside the small cafe. There were a small band of cai monkeys, lots of lizards of several variety, capybaras (a small hairy rat-like critter). Oh, and the butterflies - mariposas - were everywhere: large and small, white and black and blue and orange and scarlet, bark colored, black with red and yellow markings, too many to catalogue!

Our two days began with an afternoon trip to the Park. We first visited the information center which had a very nice interpretive display on the rain forest. After grabbing a nice lunch at the local cafe we caught the "Green Train" for the ride out to the Garganta del Diablo, "The Devil's Throat." There is a rather lengthy walk across 12 branches of the river on a metal catwalk to the edge of this huge horseshoe shaped falls. As you approach you see the mist rising above the tree line and begin to hear the roar of the falls. Once there you are standing on the edge of this cliff watching billions of gallons of water rush over the side, some of it directly beneath you. One of the guidebooks said "it must come closest to the experience that ancient sailors feared" of reaching the edge of the earth where the water rushed over into oblivion. There is so much water concentrated in one spot that there is a constant mist rising up from the base of the falls. This obscures the view of what is going on down there, but instead it presents a constant, gorgeous rainbow for viewing. Every so often the mist rises up high enough and the breeze shifted so that the viewing platform was drenched with a brief rain shower. We spent somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour just staring at the falls. Everywhere you looked there was a different aspect presented, so that you had the grand scope and then hundreds of smaller snapshots presented for your viewing pleasure.

Our second day was spent walking through the jungles, viewing the rest of the falls (of which there are many), first from the Upper Circuit which takes you on metal catwalks again over the tops of the falls and right along the edge where the water plunges over the side. After lunch we walked the Lower Circuit which descends via metal stairways and catwalks down to the river with numerous viewing platforms presenting a variety of views of the falls from a lower perspective. And every time they came into view the picture was more spectacular than the one before. (I know I am gushing and overwhelmingly using superlatives, but trust me, there is no way to do justice to the grandeur, the glory, the beauty, the awesome experience presented by Iguazu Falls.)

At the base of the lower circuit (right before the final descent to the river bank) there is a viewing platform that approaches the base of one of the medium sized cataracts (which when you see the picture will give you an idea of how immense are some of the other cataracts!) If you are brave enough, or foolish enough, to walk out on this platform, you will be soaked to the skin (Dianne and I had our rain jackets to put on), but you will also experience the immense power of the falling water. It creates a constant spray which soaks you. There is a constant breeze blowing from, I assume, the air being displaced by the force of the falling water. It feels like a pretty stiff wind blowing. The deafening sound, like a train rushing by, totally surrounds you. And there is a constant rainbow present. It is an amazingly awesome experience!

I first posted this from an Internet shop in Puerto Iguazu while we were waiting for our afternoon flight to Buenos Aires. I have added some pictures to the post and now finally have added links to Kodak Gallery albums with many more photos for you to enjoy. I shot over 700 photos at the falls and it has taken some time to organize them so I could share a portion of them!!! Don't worry, I did not upload all 700 to the albums. There are quite a few, but you won't want to miss seeing more pictures of the falls, the butterflies, the birds, the animals, the flowers. So much! I promise you will be amazed!

This link takes you to pictures of the falls themselves: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.bdtpijt2&x=0&y=-ppfui6&localeid=en_US

This link takes you to pictures of the wildlife: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.72stird2&x=0&y=-1c509w&localeid=en_US

This link takes you to pictures of the flowers: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.5gl04rye&x=0&y=4zns0m&localeid=en_US

This link takes you to pictures of the butterflies: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.ai7j9ocm&x=0&y=q1ipkx&localeid=en_US

Finally, this link takes you to pictures of the birds: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.8ppldzs6&x=0&y=kvy7da&localeid=en_US

Off to the Jungle!

Tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m. we are being picked up by our faithful taxi driver Sergio (although we have not found a bad taxi driver yet) to be driven to the "other" airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, where we will catch our Lan Argentina flight to Puerto Iguazu. It will be 3 days and two nights in the jungle on the border with Brazil and Paraguay, enjoying the incredible Iguazu Falls. We will be communing with the abundant rainforest flora and fauna, including mammoth butterflies, mischevious coatis, talkative parrots and jaguars. It will be a very interesting break from the city.

Today was a very laid back day of getting ready for this side-trip. Steve did laundry in the morning at his favorite neighborhood lavadero (laundromat). Dianne explored the local shops. They went to Steve's favorite lunch place when he was taking classes in Buenos Aires, Nuevo Martone on Avenue Corrientes, and Dianne met Marcello and the gang. They then dropped in on Senora Restelli, with whom Steve stayed when he was in school here. (She was quite impressed with the improvement in Steve's spanish and she was very sweet to Dianne.) Then they went to visit the school and Dianne met Ale, Steve's teacher and Norma, the secretary. They then walked down to Calle Florida and visited several shops, Plaza San Martin, where Dianne asked a police officer why all the officers were standing in a circle around the statue (she learned there was some sort of demonstration to take place in a little while.) After catching a taxi back to Palermo, they had a marvelous dinner at 1810 Cocina Regionale with a nice bottle of Malbec, delicious empanadas, a stew and a squash chicken pot pie, topped off by a very rich dessert with dulce de leche and merengue and two cafes. It was a very enjoyable day.

Tomorrow we are off to Iguazu as already shared, without the computer. So we will probably not post pictures or information about the Falls until Thursday evening.

A Slower-Paced Weekend

After three very full days visiting parks, taking Tango lessons, walking the central historic district, touring museums, Dianne and I realized we needed to slow down. So the past two days we have taken a more relaxed approach to the city. Each day we slept later and then spent the afternoon attending a craft fair. Saturday it was in La Boca, home of the Italian immigrants (who seem to have been replaced by Peruvians). Sunday it was San Telmo, with their Antiques Fair and street performers. In La Boca we ate a leisurely lunch at an outside table of a Resto-Bar and watched two Tango Shows being presented, one across the street and the other down the street, by performers for other restaurants. Dianne had delicious beef medallions in wine & mushroom sauce and Steve had ravioli with meat sauce, and both enjoyed a a glass of full-bodied Malbec. Then on Sunday lunch was a very tasty, and very filling (Dianne could only eat half of hers) Steak Milanese consumed in the marvelous Bar El Federal (pictured above), dripping with ambiance and old Buenos Aires atmosphere. The days were both filled with bright sunshine, the weather could not have been more perfect. We returned to our apartment tired each evening, yet not worn out. They were more like the days a resident enjoys on the weekend instead of the hectic days a tourist feels driven to cram full of every possible experience available in a city before one must leave, quite possibly never to return. Tomorrow promises to be another day similar to the last two as we will venture downtown briefly, but also spend time preparing for our trip this week to the jungle in northeast Argentina and the spectacular Iquazu Falls.

Tango Night in Buenos Aires

In the heart of one of the traditional barrios of Buenos Aires, Balvanera, old place of poets and compadritos, near the home barrio and stomping grounds of the most famous Tango singer from Buenos Aires history, Carlos Gardel, Dianne and I immersed ourselves in Tango, the dance of passion and the music of nostalgia. The evening began with a group Tango lesson at Complejo Tango. The L-shaped room was packed with about 40 people, almost all novices, taking the lesson which made for very tight confines, especially when couples started moving and practicing their dancing. But, it gave us a good taste of what a crowded "milonga," public dance hall, will be like if we venture into that environment. The teacher was very good, the class very enjoyable and helpful and we are getting better, growing more confident, in our ability to dance Tango together.

We received our certificate of completion, which meant we were allowed to stay and enjoy dinner and the show (the teacher's joke that if you did not learn well enough, you did not get your certificate, and thus could not stay!) The maitre d' escorted us to a front row table, right next to the stage on the corner, one of the best seats in the house! The dinner was delicious, with a nice bottle of house red wine (a blend of Cabernet & Malbec), very fresh greens and tomatoes in the salad, a tasty and tender steak, followed by a wonderful dessert. (Dianne had wine soaked poached pear with vanilla ice cream and Steve had a white chocolate mousse with red raspberry and currant sauce!)

During dessert the show began, with three energetic young couples dancing Tango and three smooth voiced singers crooning nostalgic songs. Dianne was sung to two or three times during the show, winked at by one at least once, and the show proceeded on the stage and all around us with action periodically taking place in the midst of the audience. Actually, the show began with the three male dancers performing some solo and group numbers, illustrating the beginnings of the dance as an all male dance performed while men waited for their turn in the local bordellos in Buenos Aires. (Tango has a very checkered past!)

The evening was wonderfully fun. The restaurant and show were set on the third floor of this building in what felt like a converted loft. It was designed with wrought iron balconies overlooking the stage. On one balcony the Tango orchestra of four musicians played the live music and on the facing balcony were more tables and chairs (which were not filled this night). It was an excellent introduction to Buenos Aires culture and history, share in more enjoyable fashion.

Today we will probably enjoy more Tango as we are headed to La Boca, one of the oldest barrios in the city, near the mouth of the Riachuelo River. La Boca was settled by Italian immigrants and is one of the barrios that claims to be the birthplace for Tango. It is also home to the famous La Boca Juniors soccer club, which made Diego Maradona famous. The "Caminito" is a kitschy-tourist oriented location, with brightly colored buildings and Tango dancers performing in the streets for the tourist. It will be a nice, relaxing day. We have been keeping a pretty busy schedule since Dianne arrived and have begun to realize the need to slow down a bit and absorb more deeply what we experience.

Dianne Made It!!!

Dianne finally arrived in Buenos Aires! After her 13 hour flight delay, after taking 40 minutes to retrieve her luggage, clear customs and immigration, we finally embraced outside the doors to international arrivals at Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday night. Our taxi ride back to Palermo took about 45 minutes and we had a very Buenos Aires style late dinner together at 11:00 p.m. It is GREAT to have her here.

The schedule I had become used to keeping though is being adjusted. Right now we are still trying to find a schedule. I have not written in my journal since she arrived. I have not posted to the blog until this morning (and only at her insistence, so you could all breathe a sigh of relief that she has arrived safely). She has been catching her own breath after her hectic travel schedule since last Friday. (She flew to New Jersey where she officiated at the wedding of a life-long friend's daughter at Bear Mountain, New York on the Hudson River. She returned to Miami Sunday evening and was supposed to fly to Buenos Aires on Monday night, but didn't leave until Tuesday morning.) We had a Tango lesson with Guadalupe (my Tango teacher) yesterday and then ate lunch at a Pizza Cafe dedicated to the memory of Carlos Gardel, the well-known Tango singer from the 30' & 40's. We then walked to Plaza Congresso an witnessed the ending of some demonstration before the Congress building, down Avenida de Mayo to Plaza de Mayo to see the Casa Rosada (the Presidential Palace) and the Metropolitan Cathedral. There were the remains of another demonstration taking place in Plaza de Mayo (the people here certainly exercise their right to free speech to express their opinions!) After all that walking (we did stop in Cafe Tortoni for a coffee and break) we caught a taxi back to Palermo, picked up some of the best gelatto this side of Italy, and retired to our apartment.

Today we are off to the Parks and Gardens and maybe the Cemetery Recoleta. It is a beautiful day with sun and almost no clouds. It is SO NICE to have the love of my life and my companion and best friend with me to share this amazing city.