La Luna de Miel Larga

Here we are, traveling again! This is the big trip we have been waiting all year to make (and that I have been wanting to make since I first started coming to South America regularly in 2005). We flew last Wednesday to Lima, where I gave a talk at the Instituto del Peru at the Universidad San Martin de Porres. This was my first big presentation of my research in Spanish, and the crowd was small (about 15 people) and friendly, and a great way to start dialoguing about some of the points I want to make. We spent the night in Lima after watching Batman Dark Knight in a MOVIE THEATRE (sorry, we don´t have theatres in Cusco) and then flew to Buenos Aires the next day. We are staying here in the apartment of our friend Sarah, who has been living here doing research for the last month. (This is the same Sarah who came with me to Peru in 2005 when we realized that we both needed to learn Spanish for our respective degrees.) She has been a great hostess and guide, and she started by taking us to the best steak restaurant in town, where we ordered 1.5 steaks, and still had leftovers two days later. Apparently, just one of these monster steaks would have been enough.

On our first full day in the city, Chris and I headed to San Telmo and La Boca, which are the older (“colonial”) parts of town (used to be wealthy areas then were immigrant areas then became touristy areas). We wandered the street markets and looked at lots of jewelry and antiques and other things for sale. We sat in Plaza Dorrego where I had my first “submarine” (hot milk with a chocolate bar to dip in it)…my first of many. That night, we went to Cafe Tortoni, one of the city´s most famous cafes, where we met Sarah and had a light dinner of cheese plates (yay!) and watched a tango show. The show was surprising in that it wasn´t just dancing but also tango music (a singer and a band, alternatively being the focus of the show as much as the dancers). We saw the dancers do about 6 numbers, each time wearing a different beautiful outfit.

On Saturday, we went to another market in Plaza Seranno, and then to the Evita and Modern Art Museums. We had dinner that night with a friend we had met in Cusco in February (who has been living in Buenos Aires for the last few months) at a great Italian restaurant. Sunday, Chris and Sarah and I took a complicated and long city bus ride to the outskirts, to the market in Mataderos. We saw horse tricks and dancing from cowboy days, ate chorizo sandwiches and tamales, and we bought a mate (tea) gourd and Chris paid about 17 dollars for the heaviest butcher knife you´ve ever seen. It felt a lot more “local” than touristy, which probably can be explained by the difficulty of navigating the bus system to get there! It was tons of fun. That night, we had dinner at a sushi restaurant, followed by gelato.

Monday (I think that was yesterday), Chris and I left Sarah to work while we spent hours exploring Recoleta Cemetery. I hadn´t realized it would be the “world´s best example of necropolitan architecture” and we had a blast taking all sorts of photos (to be posted here at a later date). We also got to see the weekend only market (apparently yesterday was a national holiday?) and see the giant flower sculpture whose petals close at sunset. Last night was parillada (bbq) night. We had ribs and tenderloin and chorizo. We are in meat heaven. Oh and I haven´t mentioned the pastries we have been eating every morning or the red wine we have been drinking every night.

Today, Chris and I took a train to Tigre, a vacation town by the coast which opens into this cool delta region of many waterways and islands. We walked around a lot (its pretty quiet during the week) and took a short boat tour along some of the waterways.

Tomorrow we leave very early for Iguazu Falls…we are flying because no one felt like taking an 18 hour bus ride. We´ll have plenty of those coming up soon, as we make our way back from Iguazu to Cusco, through Argentina and Bolivia.

PS I forgot to mention we have been on Buenos Aires time: sleeping in until 10am, eating dinner at 10pm, watching movies (Horton Hears a Who is the funniest!) until late into the night/morning. Its been incredible. Did I mention we like the food?

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