After a ten hour overnight flight, I popped out of customs in Buenos Aires and found Paul waiting for me in the airport Starbucks. We cabbed it to the hotel and, after I caught up on some sleep, we met up with his two hiking buddies for a farewell dinner on the eve of their respective flights home. They had both been hiking with Paul in some of the more remote southern areas of Argentina and Chile the prior three weeks. So now, it’s just Paul and I rambling around Argentina and Chile through the month of March. I have found pre-travel research meaningless without context so when I arrive in a new country I immediately become curious and have tons of questions about the new world around me. After consulting with Google I discovered some interesting facts about South America, Argentina and Buenos Aires.
To avoid a territorial war during early colonization in the Americas, Pope Alexander the 6th divided the continent north to south allocating territories east of the line to Portugal and west of the line to Spain. As such, Argentina became a Spanish colony with early 19th Century European immigrants arriving primarily from Spain and Italy. Today, nearly 55% of this Spanish speaking population has Italian origins and almost 80% are Roman Catholic.
There are some 45M people living in Argentina; 13M residing in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. This huge spread out metropolitan area is a sight to behold from the sky. It has many different neighborhoods with early construction heavily influenced by the French architectural style perceived as superior at the time and is why Buenos Aires is often referred to as the “Paris of the South.” When you look at a map, it looks like Buenos Aires is on the coast but it is actually situated almost 180 miles inland on a large tidal estuary/river/gulf (the Rio de la Plata) which eventually flows into the Atlantic Ocean forming the border between Argentina and Uruguay.
I really enjoyed our 4 days in Buenos Aires wandering around various neighborhoods, parks and markets, viewing several interesting bookstores/cafes; one located in an old opera house and walking through the famous mausoleum based Recoleta Cemetery where many famous people, including Eva Peron, are buried. Watching the Tango dancers on the city streets was also pretty cool but Paul wasn’t up for a lesson.
Argentina is a large agricultural country with lots of wide open spaces well suited to cattle grazing and as such, is known around the world for its prime beef. Popular restaurants in Argentina are called Parilla’s (pronounced par..ish..ah’s) and serve a dish called asados; a collection of various meats including steak, ribs, chorizo, sweetbreads, chitterlings and blood sausage, all of which are slowly grilled over the low heat of hot embers on large outdoor grills. I am not a big beef eater but the chorizo sausage was delicious, especially paired with a good Argentine Malbec. We also enjoyed eating at several lovely Italian restaurants with homemade pasta second to none. Next, we are off to an area of Patagonia where a large lake district is located at the foot of the Andes Mountains.