We have linked to a few web sites (below) in English which talk about the tango experience in Buenos Aires, but we've really only seen Tango in a few places. Cafe Tortoni (where they put on a show for tourists), the San Telmo market and street fair (where they dance in the square with the purpose of getting you to come and do tango with them at a club/ballroom), and Confiteria Ideal.

Our favorite place was, by far, Confiteria Ideal. People actually go there to learn, meet new partners, make new friends, and generally have a good time.

We're sure there are other places to tango dance in Buenos Aires. In fact, there are probably hundreds of other places to dance tango, and learn tango, in the city - we just didn't visit those places.

Continue reading "Tango In Buenos Aires: What About The Tango" »

Meat Eaters' Paradise

Now I'm not 100% vegetarian. I still eat meat, just very occasionally. I do eat cheese and eggs on a regular basis though. Because I don't consider myself super strict when it comes to meat consumption, I can generally find a few vegetarian options (3 or more) on every menu, at least in the United States.

Here in Argentina, it's a different story. About 90% of the restaurants here do have an option for vegetarians. The challenge lies in that there is only ONE choice. (Even a majority of the salads here contain some form of meat.) So, if you're not feeling like spaghetti for the 3rd night in a row, then you're out of luck. For example, three of the last four restaurants we ate in offered only one vegetarian option. All of them were a variant of pasta. (Pumpkin ravioli is the most popular option.) I'm not a huge pasta eater. I like it occasionally, and usually for lunch. However, down here, I have eaten more pasta than probably anything else.

Continue reading "Vegetarian vexed while visiting Argentina" »

Okay, so it's not quite as dramatic as the subject line would suggest. But it is VERY smoky in Buenos Aires today. Seems that hundreds of thousands of acres of land are being cleared to the West and North of here (primarily along Route 9 (the route we took to Cordoba) from what we can understand with our limited Spanish) to make room for grazing cattle.

The land that was once used for cattle to graze is apparently now being used for Soybean production, so they need to have more land available for use.

Not really sure how all that works, or who controls what happens in the provinces outside of Buenos Aires. There is a 400 year old history of the provinces not really getting along with the city/province of Buenos Aires, so the provinces may not care that much if their smoke is engulfing Buenos Aires. Difficult to say really.

One thing is for sure. Carrie and I don't smoke, but our apartment smells like someone smokes, and the visibility here is pretty poor at the moment. The smoke got REALLY thick last night, and has done some clearing today, and hopefully the fires will die down so that we can be without smoke once again.

(More interesting news is coming soon from the variety of things we've been doing over the past few days, but just thought we'd update you on the latest in Buenos Aires.)

Continue reading "Buenos Aires Is Burning: Smoke Is Everywhere" »

The magnificence of nature is so easy to see when you look for it. However, at Iguazu Park and Iguazu Falls in Argentina, it's impossible to miss.

Puerto Iguazu, the town closest to the falls, is the kind of place Carrie and I could live for a while. While a bit touristy, kind of like Estes Park in Colorado, it has a small-town feel and a welcoming atmosphere.

One thing we were surprised about is that Puerto Iguazu doesn't seem to have much fresh produce, which we thought it would, since it's in the middle of the jungle where lots of natural produce should grow easily.

When we got to our hotel, Hotel Esturion, we thought that it was going to be about $60/night cheaper than what they had listed online. We had thought, based on what we saw online, that we were going to have to spend $130/night. After requesting reservations online, we arrived at Hotel Esturion to discover that they did not have our reservation. But at check-in, they wrote down on a sticky that we would be paying $200 (pesos) per night. That equates to about $65/night for a room that sleeps three, and a pretty good breakfast (by Argentinian standards). Hotel Esturion is a nice place for sure.

We had a three person room, because we were traveling with Carrie's sister, Michelle, who came to Argentina for a week to stay with us and see what Argentina was like. We really enjoyed the time we got to spend with her!

Continue reading "Iguazu Falls, Hotel Esturion, and Puerto Iguazu, Argentina" »

We had a cockroach in our apartment. It was big. Not huge, but big.

I suppose this comes with living in a big city.

But it was actually rather comical. I was sitting at the table in the main room, and Carrie was in the bedroom with the twin beds.

Suddenly I hear this "Whoa! Whoa! Yuck!"

Followed by a couple of swats with what sounded like a flip flop.

Jonathan: "You okay?"

Carrie: "Yep. Cockroach."

Jonathan: "Yuck. Big one?"

Carrie: "Uh-huh."

So I get up and go into the room where there is a cockroach which has clearly been smacked because it's sort of oozing. (Sorry to be gross.)

Carrie: "I'm just surprised how fast it moved!"

Jonathan: "You're sure it's dead?"

Carrie: "Yep. I heard it pop."

Jonathan: "Want me to throw it away?"

Carrie: "Yes, please."

Jonathan: "Sure it's dead?"

Carrie: "Yep."

So I moved a suitcase to get closer to pick it up. Despite the oozing nature of it, the thing took off and freaked both of us out.

So I asked Carrie for a bigger shoe.

Carrie: "But I heard it pop."

Jonathan: "I know. I saw it oozing."

A few solid heel swats later with a dress shoe, and the cockroach was definitely dead.

Mostly, he just freaked us out with his erratic moving. We didn't know just how crazily or fast a big cockroach moved.

I wrote a poem/limerick (below) in response to this incident.

Continue reading "Crazy Crunched Cockroach Continues to Crawl in Buenos Aires: Plus A Weekend In Cordoba" »