Tango, anyone? Anyone??

¿Cómo va? .... from the Wandering Berkmans!

We continue our jaunt through the Americas with a one month stop in Santiago, Chile!  Before we get into the interesting eating and drinking and (oh yeah) cultural stops along the way in our next blog post, here's a brief recap of our last weeks in Buenos Aires... 

Zach joined us for over a week and helped us take in a beautiful sunset sail over the Rio de la Plata and educated us on the custom of drinking yerba mate (tea leaves) from a mate (cup) in the park.  Boyfriend Tavo has made him quite the connoisseur -- so much so Zach packed his return suitcase to the gills with 6 one-kilo bags of different types of yerba for them to sample.  Passing through Customs in Mexico must have been fun!

In case we're so inclined, we Varelas checked out

 a future business venture in BA... take it to the next 70 years!

Zach may not have come to Argentina to eat vegan food (a direct quote!) but we were happy to see some great options.  We hit the restaurant Koi four times because the vegan mushroom buns and vegan Pad Thai were that good! 

Monica and Jorge, wonderful locals we met via a FB nomads group, introduced us to Women's Polo!  Argentina trounced the US in this first international women's competition.  Cate B-- they needed you! 

 

Seen at the polo match and around the city- various types of mate carrying cases.  Some opted for the open basket type (left) to hold their mate, yerba and thermos while others preferred the long and covered shoulder bag to cart around their precious supplies.  

Spotted on a bike ride around town on a quiet Sunday, this artist was putting the last touches on a truly wild design! Based on a walking tour we took, we found out it's not unusual for home owners in BA to commission an artist to paint a mural on the outside wall of their homes.  Maybe the owner is sitting there watching it all come together?  Or is he in fact the subject being painted??

Students in public schools in BA wear 

what look like lab coats or alternately 

smocks over their clothes as a type of 

uniform.  It was fun to see these mini 

doctors walking around and playing in 

the park.  Don tried to get one of them to give 

him a script for his bursitis but no luck!

And this little one was spotted out and about in the Ecological  Preserve.  She's called a mara patagonia and, you guessed it, is only found in the wilds of Argentina, as were many other animals we saw there.  Imagine the love child of a medium size dog and a deer.  Adorable

And with Montevideo, Uruguay only a short 2 hour ferry away, Zach, Don and I couldn't resist spending a couple of days there if only just to add another country to our "visited!" list.  

The Palacio Salvo, now an apartment building, formerly housed a cafe where, much to Argentina's chagrin, the most famous of tango compositions, La Cumparcita, was written.   Listen to Julio Iglesias sing it here.  Dance along--you know this piece!  

This walkway along the Rio de la Plata, la Rambla de Montevideo, is the longest continuous sidewalk in the world at 13.7 miles.  Only a 5 min walk from our apartment, this was our go-to walk every morning.  13.7 miles-- piece of cake!  No really, can we just have a piece of cake??

 

And we made a point to hit the beach every night with seemingly everyone else to share some yerba mate and watch the sun set.  We fit right in! Our other to-do: join the many groups in the parks at about 5 pm -- it seemed to be prime mate sharing time,  even more here than in Buenos Aires.  

Our impressions of Buenos Aires-- some beautiful architecture from the late 1800's, insanely affordable for US tourists who exchange money via Western Union, the people we encountered were friendly and chatty and the toilet water drained counter clockwise just like in the Northern Hemisphere (I know- we were disappointed too!).

Unfortunately, the city isn't particularly clean (dog poop on the sidewalk not uncommon and a fair amount of garbage outside the large bins on the street) and the food we tried wasn't very flavorful, even with a huge Italian influence.  (My kingdom for a sliver of garlic! )  Our impression improved towards the end when we found restaurants with different cuisines but the jury is still out as to whether we'd return.  

Montevideo thoughts-- great shoreline with la Rambla, cleaner, and while there didn't seem to be a great variety of food (again, very Italian influenced and many restaurants with the same menu items) the food at the very least had more flavor.  It's a smaller city so less to explore-- it may also be a once and done.  But it got Uruguay on our map!

This edition's Slice of Life is admittedly more for the benefit of the tourists in Buenos Aires but when you find tango in the wild, you have to share it.  Click on this link of 2 dancers we saw in the San Telmo area of the city--- enjoy!   

Next time--- Santiago, Chile!  And we'll include an admission of things that, even with only 2 suitcases each, we can't travel without.  Some things on the list might surprise you! (Page-- "matches" hahahaha)

Thanks for following along!!

Don and Monica

argentina, uruguay