The rest of the trip... Part 2

Bariloche!  Really, the pictures don't do it justice.  But I'll share them anyway...

Just outside the center of town:

El Circuito Chico:

Top of Cerro Campanario:

The rest of the trip... Part 1

Lame, I know, but at some point I forgot to write posts about my trip and just enjoyed being on vacation.  And then I ended up back at home...  And then, somehow, back at work...  Oh Argentina, I miss you.  But some people still want to see pictures, so here we go.  Sorry friends, for the sad lack of commentary in the upcoming posts.  But the pictures will be gorgeous, I promise.

Mike arrives and there is more sight-seeing in Buenos Aires...

Some statue I've forgotten the name of...

A nice concrete chair on our walk through Retiro to Recoleta.  This is one of the Avenida de 9 Julio medians. Portenos seem to really dislike this street, since its width makes it difficult to cross on foot during one light.  I grew to loathe it as well, as I seemed incapable of exiting the Subte on the correct side of it.

This is the Recoleta Cemetary, famous for being the burial ground of Evita.  It's more like a mini-city, full of well-tended or even new mausoleums, as well as those that are completely forgotten and crumbling apart.  The place is also full of feral cats.  People crowd to see Evita's burial spot, but it's just a plaque.

There was a brewery quite close to the cemetery, and it was hot, really hot, so we stopped to get a drink and soak up the air conditioning.  I got the sampler, and they weren't kidding around with the quantity of beer.

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, also in Recoleta across from a fairly large windy street with people selling all kinds of jewelry and hand-made goods.  For the first time, I had the feeling I'd been in this exact spot before.  (I had been to Buenos Aires before, but ten years ago, and for just a long weekend, and it's a long story, but my head was exploded from a bad landing on the plane and as a result I don't really remember too much).

Picture of a rainy day.  Very rainy.

The smallest house in Buenos Aires.  Once the carriage house of the place next door, a man gave it to his newly emancipated slaves to live in.

This is a pretty, but weird part of Puerto Madero.  Really nice and well-landscaped and very new.  But devoid of people, so the overall feeling was a bit creepy.  Apparently it's mostly full of ex-pats who come and go by car and live in well-guarded apartment compounds.

Mike, anxious about the long-distance bus trip to Bariloche.

But no fear, we had the fancy, fully-reclining bed seats.

Fugazzeta

This almost indescribably good Argentine take on foccacia bread...  It’s a fat piece of bread that’s somehow stuffed with cheese, sometimes with ham as well, and topped with onions that have been browned from the broiler.  It’s like pizza that’s fallen from heaven. 

El Choripán

Sounds like the name of a place, but no, a choripán is a sausage on bread (chorizo + pan = choripán).  It’s a really good  sausage on a nice roll, and with some chimichurri on top, you’re good to go.  The concept is simple, but the ingredients are solid, and for $8 ($2US), it makes for a good meal.

La Estacia El Ombú

We’re heading out for a day in the country.  A bit bourgeois, I know, but very exciting.  We wake up early and catch the 7:30 bus heading from Retiro to San Antonio de Areco, a small, dusty but pretty town with a well-landscaped plaza, a bunch of silversmith shops, and some very comfortable-looking houses.  San Antonio de Areco is known for being the home of the gauchos (aka the Argentine cowboys)—in fact, they have some kind of gaucho-fest every November.  Might be worth the visit, but I’ll be in the south.

After taking a walk through town, we hop in a remiso (a gypsy cab, more or less), and head out to the estancia.  The car has a fatally-cracked windshield, and the driver seems very committed to driving on the wrong side of the dirt road (it was a bit smoother over there, although not so safe).

And finally we arrive at the Estancia El Ombú!  The owner gives us a fast-moving but thorough tour of the place.  She inherited the estancia from her parents, who bought it from the original Italian owners.  These Italians built the place in the style of home, so the estancia is well-outfitted in marble and Italian tile, with wide verandas and a tree-lined driveway reminiscent of an antebellum plantation.

Derya and I immediately set off for a ride with our Gaucha.  I haven’t been on a horse in years and years, so needless to say the muscles I’d developed in college to keep me on board had since atrophied.  The saddles are sort of a light version of the western type with a lot of padding underneath.  My horse is a bit on the slow side, as is Derya’s, and they have to be constantly prodded to maintain a brisk walking pace.  The gaucha’s horse, on the other hand, has a lot of pep and gives her a bit of trouble.

The slow pace gives us a good chance to enjoy the scenery, and really, it's amazing pretty:

We have our welcome drink when we arrive back at the Estancia and an empanada de carne apiece (Empanada count: 7).  Then we hang out for a bit and wait for lunch. 

The lunch is a parilla, so basically, a big meat-fest with some wine and salad.  They carry each course of meat around on platters so that we can pick which piece we want.  First come the sausages, chorizo and morcilla (blood sausage).  I try the blood sausage, and while I find it was pretty tasty, it's also a little gross, so I don't quite finish it.  Now comes the rest of the meat: at least three different cuts of steak, two different cuts of rib meat, some chicken, and maybe even some pork.  Tasty.

Here’s a picture of our lunch group:

A gaucho singer accompanies our desert, a brick of ice cream and a small coffee.  His name is Oscar, and he’s quite a talented singer (he’s also remarkably patient with the obnoxious man taking his picture over the course of five minutes from a distance of about six inches).  The gaucho songs are reminiscent of the songs of American cowboys, you know, a bit melodramatic with themes of the peaceful loneliness of the lifestyle...

Following Oscar was the gaucho horsemanship show.  I think the pics might have to speak for themselves here…

And after lunch, more riding!  Derya decided to bag the second ride in favor of sitting on the veranda and finishing off our table’s bottle of wine (in her defense, she’d done a big, traumatizing ride while down in Calafate), so I set out with our other tablemates for the afternoon ride.  Our gaucho for this ride is a young guy who thought it would be a fantastic idea to have us just gallop across the pampas for a few hours.  And really, it was fantastic.  It took be a bit of time to find my seat.  And of course, my horse for the afternoon was the gaucha’s troublesome (and did I mention huge?) beast from the morning.

But we got along quite well, and it was super-fun to go so fast.  We covered a huge amount of territory and saw all kinds of stuff.

Back to the estancia, back to the bus station, back to a café in town to wait for our departure time, back to the bus station, and back to Buenos Aires.  My legs will hurt for the next three days.

Sightseeing in the Microcentro and Congreso

Not much to say here, some must-see sights from the city...


El Obelisco

Casa Rosada

Congreso

San Telmo Antiques Fair

Even though we haven’t gotten a particularly early start to our day, at 11am we’re out earlier than a lot of folks—even some of the artisan booths aren't yet set up.  Two blocks from our apartment is the Plaza Dorrego, the locus of the San Telmo Antique Fair.  The plaza is the center of the antiques trade, but the fair runs along the length of Defensa, which means it goes for quite a while.  It would probably be a twenty-five-minute walk to go the length, double with all of the people there on a Sunday.  The vendors among Defensa sell a range of items, from artisanal goods to “rasta” (which seems to mean anything colored red/green/yellow or having to do with pot) and all kinds of clothing and random touristy stuff.

Derya, just outside the plaza:

The crowded, crowded street: