During our side trip to Uruguay, fire was on my mind. You could smell it everywhere, which, for me at least, was a comforting scent, wood and embers and smoke brings up pleasant memories: campfires, fireplaces, barbecues, candles. Now, obviously fire doesn’t always have such nice connotations, and I do realize that in this case, the fires were usually started by people huddling around trash cans. Nevertheless, the idea of flames was somehow comforting during what was a truly whirlwind trip.

Of course, I am getting ahead of myself, as we spent our first day in Tigre, a hour by train away from Buenos Aires (the ticket was less than a peso!) Tigre is probably way more fun in the summer, as you can kayak out into the Delta and see islands and wildlife and all that. Yet even with freezing temperatures at night, we still saw people out on the river, members of the various rowing clubs in the town.

And while they braved the cold, we walked around in a storm, becoming hilariously wet. Cars splashing water off the roads flooded from the Rio de la Plata all over us was really funny somehow, as well as the fact that all of the locals appeared to be in Tigre’s central landmark (McDonald’s) or the TRILLENIUM CASINO. And so we were pirates of the Sudestada, the southeastern wind from Patagonia, here to seek our fortune!

Unfortunately, after three floors of slot machines and 10 pesos in change, we admitted defeat, truly overwhelmed by the blinking, flashing, ringing, smoking, grumbling insanity of it all. It was flashier than I could ever describe, having never been in a real casino before, so I will let the photo speak for me.

I had also never been in a hostel before. Posadas de 1860 was truly the nicest one of our trip. It had just opened in March, was completely devoid of other guests, but everyone that worked there was really attentive and sweet. It was $12 for the night, and sadly cold, like everywhere else, but that may have been because of the lovely balcony in the room. I grabbed blankets from the other beds, and dreamt of the fireplace, always in the other room.

P.S. Since my blogroll is still having a nervous breakdown, and I can’t figure out how to get the pretty flickr link on the side, here is my flickr page, which has pictures from all over, not just Argentina. Have fun!

seems like it should be more exhausting than it is often portrayed.  After all, I always find traveling really tiring, and yet using your brain should be easy?  At any rate, I am totally grooving on taxis here.  Usually, cabs make me incredibly nauseous, no matter how far I might be traveling or what time of day it is.  But for some reason, each taxi here is smooth sailing.  And the cars  have manual transmissions.  With wine in my stomach on the widest avenue in the world, I should be sick, sick, sick.  Maybe it’s the way that traffic flows, or the conversations with the cab drivers, or the low, low prices (we haven’t spent more than 15 pesos on a ride, $5, huzzah!), but I feel very healthy in the cabs of Buenos Aires.

Oh, and one conversation was about corrupt politicians that led into the need of accepting our old buddy Christ as one’s savior or somesuch.  Since the driver was old, speaking a language that I have not entirely mastered, and you know, capable of crashing the car, I decided not to push the religious buttons for once.

The subway is pretty great thus far.  It isn’t open past 11 at night, and there are only five lines, but we haven’t had any major troubles.  70 centavos a ride is excellent.  Of course, the first time I went into a station, it was rush hour.  And rush doesn’t really describe it when there are so many people on a platform that to rush forward too quickly would shove someone onto the tracks, domino-style.  I am barely exaggerating.  People just kept coming down, and Max and I got onto the third train came.  People pushed themselves out of the train and into the fray.  Max squeezed in, but I couldn’t get through, being small and all.  I shouted that I needed to stay with my boyfriend, but no one listened.  Thankfully, Max was able to yank me through.  It hasn’t been nearly so crowded since, so I suppose the lesson is every man for himself, in any country.

The bus system is crazy complicated.  Or I haven’t bothered to look at the maps really closely.  Decide for yourself.

Oh, and I want to save my bike judgements until we try another company that has bright orange bikes and baskets!  And 5 pesos an hour!  Love!

And walking makes me ever so happy, even while stopping every few steps for another picture (Check Max’s page for photos  until I can upload some).  Seriously, I think I would prefer the feeling of sore calves to a sore brain.  You know, if um, your brain hurts after teleporting.  In, you know, the world where people can teleport.  Right?

would have been nice. I am not sure why I always manage to overpack my bags, but I already have plans in motion for smuggling extra pounds of Argentine glory with a mule. Details to follow. So I barely managed to lug my bags through the airport to the bank, which apparently has better exchange rates that the currency exchange kiosks throughout the airport.

Quiosco. My name would be Quira under that translation.

I exchanged money. They wanted to see my passport to do so, and if it hadn’t been 6 am, I would have asked why. Actually, this whole post will end up being pretty useless for future travelers, as I didn’t explore the airport at all. It seemed perfectly clean and there were flat-screen monitors challenging the customs line to create anagrams. tablet=battle.

Oh! Here is some advice. When waiting for customs, a three-note chime would ring when the next person could go up to the booth. Max, the music major, tells me that it was a triad. If the line is long and you haven’t slept, this sound will bore into your very soul. So, um, wear headphones. A number will display showing the next booth available anyway.

The bags were heavy (have you heard?), so when a man asked if I needed a taxi, I said yes. Mind you, this was approximately 3 seconds after a security guard had handed me a flier, in spanish and english, instructing me to not accept verbal offers for transportation, and to walk up to the large booth in the center of the airport. You can’t miss it. I didn’t really miss it, so much as want to hand my person off to anyone that would take me to the nearest flat surface to collapse. So the fact that I ended up paying $15 USD and 250 pesos for the ride into the city was entirely my fault, as the airport was really trying to protect idiot tourists from the world. Oh, and the $15 was because the 100 peso bill was ripped, and so he said he couldn’t deposit it in the bank. This had to have been bullshit, but again, tired.

That reminds me…the name of this blog was determined at 2 am the day before my flight. doyouhavetheargentime.com, myfunnyargentime.com, superfunargentime.com, and various other miserable puns were on the table. So comment away, but have some mercy. This blog will not be clever. It may be helpful to travelers. We’ll see.