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Ay Argentina... How can I even begin to describe the beauty that is Argentina?
We crossed the border from Paraguay into Posadas, Argentina, on the 5th of March, exactly two weeks ago. Immediately the scenery changes- roads are properly paved, buses haven't been around since the 60's, the people suddenly seem a lot more familiar. There is an extremely European feel in Argentina, and you don't have to get all the way to Buenos Aires to notice it.
After an unsuccesful attempt at hitching a ride down south, we decided to save ourselves the hassle, and get an overnight bus to Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires, or Baires as the porteños (people from Buenos Aires) often call it, is an absolutely stunning city. It's center is infested with old colonial buildings, and it reeks of history and culture. A mixture of Barcelona, Madrid and Paris, it's got enough to keep you walking around for days. After spending a night at a hostel, we managed to get in touch with Braian on couchsurfing, and so we stayed at his house for the next 4 nights. Braian lives near the centre with his flatmate Santi. They were extremely friendly and welcoming, and Santi even gave up his room for us! In Buenos Aires, we spent most of our time walking around, simply trying to take in as much as we could. We visited the historic centre, the more rustic barrio de la Boca, the Recoleta cementery, where Evita's remains lay, had an eventful night out where we attempted to go into a kind of house party where there was a cumbia band playing, failed, and ended up talking to some young Americans on an exchange program, of which most were lovely, but of which one said "And why are poor people poor? Because they just sit on their asses smoking crack all day!" Ahhh...
We then met up with Lucia, a most lovely specimen of a person, artist, musician, political activist and for a couple of days my math student. With her, we went to La Plata, a student town, most famous for it's thriving art faculty. There, we stayed at Nico's house, were we drank wine until the early hours of the morning, and during which I tried to transmit the beauty of greek music to the argentinians. After La Plata we returned to Buenos Aires, where we spent three lovely days in Lucia's house, lazying around and making bracelets. We have big plans for our bracelets. We also visited Tigre, just to the north, where the river Rio de la Plata spills into the Atlantic ocean, creating myriads of little islands at the mouth of the river, where people live by rowing into town every day, or catching small ferries/boats.
We had planned to go into Uruguay from BA, but were convinced that we could not leave Argentina without first visiting the marvelous south. So, here we are, in Patagonia, where the temperature drops suddenly to a fresh 15 degrees, discovering another face of Argentina.
To get here we took a train, and then hitched a ride with Señor Ruben Franco, known to his friends as simply, Franco. We spent two long calm days with Franco in his truck, covering a distance of 964km, and being flooded with information about the lands through which we were passing. We passed through dinosaur land, where some of the oldest remains have been found, passed about 4 hydroelectric plants, the finger of god, 70km long lakes, but mainly, kilometre upon kilometre of patagonian step.
Argentina is mate, people who stop in their tracks to ask you if you need help when you're looking at your map, people who open up their door to you and offer you their food. Argentina is riches, culturally, historically, geographically. The most simpleton looking truck driver will astound you with his knowledge of geography, history and politics, and the artists of the country are unsatisfied youth who also study music and who are able to fill you in, in detail, on all the political happenings in the last 30 years. Argentina is it's people, it's confounding mix of Italian and Spanish culture, mixed with the indigenous people of the south, the Mapuche, and years of indipendece, yet cruel dictaroships. It is everyone always complaining about how bad the government is, and how unsafe Argentina can be, problems unseen to the eyes of the outsider, who can only see that, more than anything, Argentina is absolutely beautiful. It may lack the loud beauty of its tropical neighbours, but gains in so many other ways. By far my favourite South American country so far.
We've travelled so far to San Carlos de Bariloche, and plan on going down to el Bolsón, where we have been promised hippielandia. After, perhaps the south pole?
