When in Argentina, be an Argentinean. And that means drink mate, the classic local tea that they drink like I drink 2% milk at home. Locals carry around a thermos of hot water and re-fill their tea throughout the day. Here I am, drinking mate:
When in Argentina, be an Argentinean. And that means drink mate, the classic local tea that they drink like I drink 2% milk at home. Locals carry around a thermos of hot water and re-fill their tea throughout the day. Here I am, drinking mate:
They are one of South America’s top attractions and they sit at the border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.
It’s a 1.5 hour flight from Buenos Aires, which I made with my hosts and Steve. You can also take a 19 hour bus ride.
The water falls put Niagra to shame. They are huge in every way – the total area is wide, the water rushes fast, and the fall / drop is very deep. In some parts you can’t see the water hit the bottom due to depth and mist that ricochets up from the falls.
Due to fog and rain we were not able to take the moonlight-walk tour in the evening. The benefit of the cancelled tour was an extra-leisurely buffet dinner at the national park where we talked and laughed and met a New York film editor who was also trekking through Iguazu.
The town outside the park is small but cute. We ate at the same restaurant for three meals. The restaurant plays interesting jazz/Latin covers of 80’s and 90’s American music. I had mate for the first time – the popular Argentinean tea that you fill and re-fill with a canteen of hot water.
So far I’ve been charged 10 pesos, 4.5 pesos, and 3 pesos at various locations in Argentina for the same size and brand water bottle. Not the price swing you’d expect for a generic.
Oh, to be a (white! rich! gringo!) tourist in South America….
You can’t get a loan.
Want to buy a house in Argentina? All cash, baby. All cash. 100% equity.
Want to do a commercial real estate deal for a million pesos? Bring a briefcase full of US Dollars. That’s right. A briefcase full of cash.
No joke. This is not a movie. This is business in Buenos Aires in 2009.
It’s easy to bash the banking / financial system in the U.S., especially after the last 12 months, but a few days talking to business people in Argentina reminds me we have much to be grateful for.
some quick musings and blow-by-blow, higher level thoughts to come later:
It’s a city with a lot of hype and very high expectations. I can’t say I was disappointed, which then says a lot. It does indeed have a European feel (architecture-wise especially), it seems livable and walkable, the people are friendly, there’s a nice water element, food excellent, etc. The people are attractive but not especially attractive. (Seriously – people talk about the women like they’re goddesses– not really.)
The nightlife is perhaps BA’s most noteworthy feature. Steve and I didn’t see it all but we did go out one night and got a sense. Here’s the deal: it goes on LATE. The clubs, bars, set-up is all the same as anywhere (with a few exceptions – you pay for drinks at a cash register, get a ticket, then go to the bartender). The main difference is how late it all starts and how long it goes till. Most nights you eat dinner around 9 or 10 PM. On weekends, you then might pre-game at around midnight, and get to a club at around 1:30 AM or 2:00 AM. If you show up at a club before 1:30 AM, no cover charge. You’ll stay till about 6 or 7 AM. Insanity. (Got offered cocaine in the club. first time. they must target tall white gringos. I was deeply honored.)
I spent at least 8-9 hours just walking around the city. It lends itself well to just wandering around – there aren’t any big attractions to see, at least in my view. No must-see museum or monument or market or square. There are a bunch of mid-level attractions.
The first day Nate and I walked around, checked out a flea market, ate a traditional sausage sandwich, took a bus, saw the widest street in the world, checked out Puerto Madero and the Pink House (where the prez works – like the White House). Second day I met a book/blog reader, walked around some more, met an old friend at a coffee shop, and enjoyed terrific winter weather (which is like SF weather in the summer). Some of the hoods feel like NYC SoHo.
Third day Steve arrived, and we….did more walking. laid out in a park. Korean food for lunch, pasta for lunch (even though we thought it was going to be a steakhouse), then the club.
Next day a blog reader showed Steve and I around. Walked through famous graveyard – some unbelievably ornate tombstones and the like. Lot of laughing and good conversation. One take away: poor countries face a really difficult brain drain. Their smartest young people want to leave!
Met an American ex-pat – got good run down on what ex pat life is like, biz environment, etc. Most ex pats come for low cost of living and nightlife, it seems.
Steak for breakfast, steak for lunch, steak for dinner. It’s good. i can’t tell good steak from bad but i’m sure it’s above average.
Talk of swine flu has died down in the U.S., but in Argentina (where it's winter) it's all the rage and more. Exiting the plane in Buenos Aires we each had to wear a mask and then go through a health screening. Schools have been closed for a month. New restrictions have been enacted -- no children shopping alone in malls alone, a seat between each person at movie theaters.
To date, 50 people have died of swine flu in Argentina.
Every year, 10,000 people die of seasonal flu in the U.S.
- "Ideas" is one of the hardest words for non-native speakers to pronounce. Especially in French but in all European languages.
- "Make" as a verb is overused by non-native speakers. For example, "let's make a picture" instead of "let's take a picture." I assume it's like me using tener as a catch-all verb in Spanish.
- I like how the Brits say "indeed" as a superlative. E.g., "Thank you very much indeed for that speech."
- I remain fascinated by how non-natives have a very hard time selecting "this" or "that" - they select but it's usually not the right one. Grammatically makes no difference but how it sounds to the ear.... For example, "The boys were being very rude at the show by yelling out at the audience. I can't believe they acted like this." The last word should be "that" -- at least this sounds best to my ear.
This is my fourth time to Switzerland in four years. It remains my favorite place abroad. After San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boulder, I have spent more time in Zurich than anywhere else.
- When I stay with people one of my challenges is breakfast. I eat breakfast every day but some people do not, and if you're not a breakfast person you don't think of asking your guest about this. But my hosts in St. Gallen -- they're German - they take bfast seriously, as all Germans do. And they've been very attentive to my breakfast plans.
- The Swiss have huge amounts of pride in their country. I notice this every year.
- Swiss banking secrecy is as much an issue of Swiss identity as it is a competitive differentiator. Without the secrecy, who are the Swiss? Is life worth living?
- Easy way to make conversation with a Swiss person: Ask if they prefer Migros or Coop, the two main discount groceries. It's an epic battle.
I spent a few days by myself in Cartagena on the coast of Colombia. Beautiful place but I think my expectations were too high going into it. I had heard such great things that I was preparing for paradise. Instead I got weather way too hot and tropical for my SF-fog-drenched self. Plus I'm not too into old colonial buildings -- I've seen it a million times in Europe.
The beaches aren't bad -- better than I had been told. The people are friendly. Coastal food a bit different than in Bogota. Very walkable.
What young male wouldn't get excited at the below?
One of the most inspiring nights in Colombia was a musical presentation from a bunch of de-mobilized FARC members. They left the jungle and re-integrated into society. They sang, in Spanish, about peace and love. Below the pic see the link to a Quicktime movie (30 secs).
It's always fun to look through your passport and see the stamps from various airports. And to look at your friends' passports and see where they've been.
But there seems to be no practical value to the stamps. All airports now scan your passport and the whole system is computerized. I've never seen a border official actually look at my stamps.
I suspect it's tradition at this point.
Just as reading long letters of famous historical figures is good fun but will not be an option for future generations reading about us, I suspect stamps in passports will be a thing of the past soon enough as well....
Travel helps you understand what you don't like.
Traveling in Alaska taught me that I get sea sick easily, and don't like boats.
Traveling in India and western China taught me I do not like spicy food.
And now traveling in Cartagena, Colombia has taught me that I don't like tropical weather. I kind of got this sense when I was on the beaches in Costa Rica, but now I'm sure of it.
I'm a child of the fog.
- I am getting used to standing up when a powerful person enters a room. It is a pretty cool feeling for 20 people to be sitting around a large conference room, making small talk, and then for The Guy to enter, everyone stands at attention immediately, and he shakes each person's hand.
- The drivers we've had open the door to talk to someone on the sidewalk, not the window. They never open the window. I think the windows are like permanently locked for security reasons.
- Airport security in Colombia and most third world countries is less a security process and more a "Welcome to the gate!" process. I take nothing out of my bag, I don't remove my shoes, I walk through, they do a half second of metal-dector-to-my-body, and grab my bags and walk on.
- 1 in 5 women under 20 in Colombia have been pregnant. Many of these women want to be pregnant, according to surveys. Colombia has six times the pregnancies as Venezuela. Lack of education and Catholic church influence affects this number in a big way.
- There are 3x as many words in English than Spanish and this discrepancy is only growing. Most new tech or medical words (like "internet" or "email") are in English with no Spanish translation.
- Colombians are remarkably optimistic. They've been this way for years - even when violence was high. One person told me a low point in morale for Colombians is still higher than high points of most other countries.
- Uribe is the counterweight to Chavez in the region. Lulu (Brazil) likes to play nice to everyone, he's not standing up to Chavez.
- The weather report for Colombia has thunderstorms like every day. The same was true in Ecuador. Yet, such rain rarely materializes in either country. Bottom line: don't trust weather reports for Colombia and Ecuador, especially when they have rain for 20 days in a row.
- The Apple Store in Bogota is called an "iStore".
Always interesting to hear and analyze how non-natives speak the English language. What's difficult? What do they mess up?
One random observation: the word "clever." Most fluent English speakers I know don't use the word "clever" very often, certainly not as a catch-all compliment for intelligence or savviness. If anything, "clever" can have a slightly negative connotation -- like sneaky. Yet many folks in Latin America use "clever" very often and in broad contexts.
Second random observation: "this" and "that." Neither is technically grammatically better than the other, but you can hear it when it doesn't sound right.
On Sunday the group went horseback riding for about an hour outside Medellín. We had a fantastic time.
There were about 20 of us on horses and about 15 police officers on horses as well, acting as our guides and escorts. One of the guides' horses was the "DJ" - two stereo speakers playing traditional cowboy Spanish music draped over each side of the horse.
The countryside was beautiful -- lush green hills, lots of vegetation, trees, trails, etc.
My horse got tired as the journey went on as he became gradually less responsive to my kicks which are supposed to jumpstart him. Or maybe he just realized his "driver" was a real amateur and that he could follow his own pace!
One of the most impressive aspects of the horses were how they always picked the best path to take on difficult, rocky downhills. That is, they would instinctively bob and weave on the path to avoid the sharpest rocks or least steady ground. Also, my horse had a penchant for grass, and stopped a few times to munch on grass on the side of the trail. Just like with walking dogs, the horse will eat grass forever unless you pull him away.
All in all, a wonderfully authentic experience. Horseback riding is a traditional weekend activity in many countries in South America. I'll post pictures next week.