it marks the first time that trusty guide book (the perhaps too-aptly titled "rough guide to buenos aires") let us down.
allow me to back up.
on the evening of day 2, z and i weathered a rainstorm with a quiet dinner at the pizza joint down the street. back at the apt, we consulted "tgb" to decide which neighborhood to attack next. we didn't want to shop. we wanted to see.
hey--how about san nicholas. there's an obelisk.
an obelisk?!
awesome...
that's basically how it went. could we get more touristy than that?
***
i think i got things off on the wrong foot the next day by ordering yogurt with cereal for breakfast instead of tostadas and dulce de leche. it was good, but...i can eat yogurt all the time at home. and i don't.
then, z had to double back to the apt for something. i waited on the corner and took this photo, which i like a lot. in a remarkable way it reflects how the day would unfold.
***
to my eyes (and i think z would agree) every neighborhood in buenos aires shares qualities with another city in the world. palermo soho: venice, california...recoleta: paris, new york, madrid, barcelona, depending on where you are in the city. puerto madero would come to remind us of miami, and even battery park city.
san nicholas reminded us of times square (only about 8 blocks longer).
imagine cramped, not so clean, sidewalks, a flurry of activity around theatres and big candy shops, lots of bright lights and noise. air quality--the worst in town. z asked me if they used diesel down there and i have no idea about such things, but if diesel is the stuff that leaves a trail of charcoal smoke? then that's what they use.
we eventually found the obelisk, and it was underwhelming. a fella that we met later, federico, would describe it as the argentinian george washington monument, only smaller. it was an interesting scene, with protests and police in riot gear. but we didn't linger.
** things got truly frustrating when we tried to figure out the lunch situation.
tgb offered the promise of great food and value at typical parilla that seemed to be in the vicinity. but what looked nearby on the map, felt like forever away...when we finally arrived where we thought we should be, we discovered that parilla pena is not at rodriguez pena 682. in fact, rodriguez pena 682 does not exist.
by this point we were tired, sweaty, and hungry--2 cranky, cranky girls. if one of us had the energy to cry or scream we might have.
but instead, a final effort. i approached a nice-looking fella who was standing around having a ciggie.
diego.
DIEGO!
diego to the rescue: first, he told us that the restaurant we wanted was on a different street, blocks away. he couldn't offer a recommendation nearby (it's a business district) but suggested we take a short cab ride to puerto madero, his favorite place in BA...
puerto madero was practically an alternate universe to san telmo: long views of sea and sky, new shiny buildings, and wide, lightly trafficked streets. artsy and rich--sort of SOBE. not my regular scene for sure, but a good way to round out the day.
***
we had one other hitch in puerto madero though, courtesy of tgb. the cafe we picked for lunch was one of the prettiest places we saw. i took maaaany pictures. but i hesitate to post them here as it might seem an endorsement of a place that seemed to willfully, unabashedly ignore all of its patrons...i can't recall seeing or experiencing anything like it.
"i" fresh market: don't go. and if you find yourself there out of desperation, buy from the market. don't sit at a table.
***
the upside of "i" fresh market: while we waited for any sort of attention from our server, we chatted it up with the wonderfully friendly young couple seated across from us. we covered a lot of ground: photography, their recent visit to new york (they've seen more broadway shows than me), living and working in argentina, travel elsewhere in the country, and importantly: where to go in puerto madero for coffee (the faena hotel). they were a true pleasure. melanie didn't want to be photographed, but federico was all about it:
thank you, amigos...
all photos © anita aguilar
