On the road in Argentina

Finding El Dorado
See, I like seeing beautiful place that amaze you and make you stand there in awe. But part of being a nomad is making places your home and that's why I am always interested in how people's lives look like. I think renting a car in Buenos Aires, going up north and then to Uruguay was the best thing to do and so far my favorite part of the trip. Kind of unfair, because Philipp had to drive all the time, but hey, he offered! The freedom to stop when you see something that you like, change your route and observing people just living their lives, me gustaaaa. After a while we got tired of the music though and up in the north the reception for radio was baaaaad.

I heard so much about drinking mate and how everyone in Uruguay has their own cup plus thermos with them. The last time I had a proper mate is maybe seven years ago, so what we discovered in Iguazu was actually a take-away cup plus thermos, a very japanese thing to do! On our way back from Iguazu we bought one, refilled it with yerba (the leaves you put into the cup) and got fresh hot water at the gas station.

German Autobahn is nothing compared to the highway leading out of Buenos Aires. Multiple lanes and traffic that would be a crime in Germany ;)



On the road to the north... and the streets kept becoming worse. Endless streets with no one but us, truckers stopping for "Parrilla" (Barbecue) and a change in nature since we went up into rain forest area. Deep green and awesome sunsets! It is interesting to see how traffic is handled differently in every country. Instead of building four lanes, build three and let each side have two lanes to speed up for a certain time and then the other way around. There are a lot of truckers on the road and they are allowed to go 90 km/h, so some of them are nice enough to let you know by blinking when the opposite lane is free.







Yerba fields, which you can see a lot in the north
After a while, the earth became red. Everything was covered in red mud and the splatters on the car didn't go away even when we returned the car in Buenos Aires ten days later.



A normal street in one of the villages in the north





A quick stop in Posadas right on the border to Paraguay. The city was full of half finished building...






The triangle of Paraguay, Argentina and Brasil just divided by a river
Pictures mostly taken by: Philipp Pajak

Aaaaah, those Porteños!

How can I summarize this beautiful city of Buenos Aires? It's impossible...

This city was my first step into South America, so it will always have a special place in my heart. The city is huge. Take Tokyo, add more space, insanely wide roads and old japanese subway trains and there you go.


Insanely wide streets

We stayed with two guys and their cute dog Ambar. They had crazy art in their home. A deer giving birth to a fox and that kind of stuff, which apparently the one guy painted. But besides that, it was a really good place with a panaderia and fruteria just around the corner. And they always offered me coffee, which made me REALLY happy :D


A piece by BLU right around the corner where we lived. Sadly it was vandalized...

We walked a lot in Buenos Aires, but this is actually the best way to realize that the city is enormously huge. A blog in Montevideo is way smaller than a blog in Buenos Aires, so each pair of my shoes is now properly walked in. We walked through rain from museum to museum, but most of them were closed due to strike in public transportation. Apparently, it was the second time a taxi driver was shot during a short period of time, so as an act of sympathy buses did not run anymore.


Congreso National


From there the Avenida de Mayo connects the most important buildings in Buenos Aires' history. Just walking down the street, you can learn so much and realize that their easiest solution is just to kill everyone in their way.




Eva Perón facing north criticizing the rich, on the other side facing south she shows sympathy with the poor



The Pink House. It was forbidden to stay in front of the building, so the mothers of "disappeared" people just kept walking in circles to protest.

I was a bit afraid about safety and I should have been. Nothing got stolen so far, I just lost a lot of my stuff, but jumping around Tabea style in the subway at night and taking pictures is not the kind of thing you do in Buenos Aires... there are some really weird people there at night. When I was on one of the ferias by myself, one woman was actually warning me of a guy and telling me to pay more attention to my bag. We couldn't take so many pictures of the city, because in some parts and at some times of the day you just don't take out your camera. For example in La Boca, a very touristy, but colorful area! You just don't step outside these touristy streets...








Street Art is everywhere in the city. I was just a bit afraid to pull out the fancy camera, so here are just a few more impressions.






The cemetary for the richest of the rich in Recoleta is a really spooky place in the middle of the city. It got scary when thunder and rain started and it got kind of dark...




The people in Buenos Aires are called Porteños, because Buenos Aires was built around a port. That is how it became so big. And people from Uruguay actually don't like Porteños so much (it's this kind of Berlin - Hamburg rivalty). They speak a Spanish I wasn't used to: every "y" and "ll" becomes a "sh" sound, so ella becomes esha. I didn't understand a word in the beginning. It's getting better, but speaking is still a big problem. Aaaaaah, it's really frustrating. I want to hit the barrier, where it just makes click and everything becomes easier, but that is not gonna happen in six weeks.


Ads - because I like them

What is left to say? I ate a lot of delicious meat, which I never thought I would say, but wow!! Argentina can do meat! One of my favorite areas was Palermo, kind of a mix of Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg with lots of boutiques, bars and clubs. Very memorable was dinner at "Club Eros", the restaurant of a soccer club, also in Palermo. Old men hanging out playing cards and watching soccer, simple interior, simple food and cheap, cheap delicous wine for a bit more than two euro a bottle.

Picture mostly taken by: Philipp Pajak

I cannot make a big blogpost today...

... I have to make Emfaladas.

A mix of Falafel and Empanadas. The Israeli guys in our hostel were willing to pay us money to stop us. But we'll see, maybe it's gonna be awesome and then we're gonna be big in Israel.

This is the last day in Córdoba. And so far there is not one picture taken. Yeah, it's really not a beautiful city, but at night it becomes a whole different thing. It's the people that make this place something really special. Ferias with so many people, live music and such a good atmosphere. Next stop is going to be Mendoza, lots of wine ahead of us!