poetry in the streets of argentina

2009-02-14T14:41:00.006-02:00

Leather. I'd been wanting to go to the barrio of Ville Crespo for a while to check out the leather district. There is a 2 block stretch along calle Murillo in between Scalabrini Ortiz and Acevedo that is one leather store after another. We looked around and, for me, the Paseo del Cuero had the best quality and styles. A nice leather coat will run you from US$150 to $200 at pretty much any of the stores there. This isn't the only place in Buenos Aires to buy a leather jacket. There are high-end stores downtown in Recoleta or along the Florida Peatonal, but I believe that the coats there cost a bit more for the location and all. Plus, Buenos Aires has shopping districts - Once for textiles and clothing, Boedo for electronics, Chacarita for auto accesories (I haven't been looking to buy a car stereo; I only know this because afterwards we walked in the general direction we needed to go to catch the bus home while looking for a place to eat, which wasn't easy to find; everything was car and motorcycle accessories). Murillo in Ville Crespo is the place to go for leather coats, so why not. Plus, if you are staying in or go to Palermo Soho, as almost everyone visiting Buenos Aires does, Murillo is only a 10-15 minute walk away.

In the evening we got ice cream at heladeria Leoyak on the corner of Avenida Asamblea and Emilio Mitre (you can just see the lights from the ice cream shop on the left side of the above photo) and took it across the street to Parque Chacabuco. It was a beautiful evening and the park was full. We sat and watched toddlers ride around the plaza in the little motorized jeeps pictured below, which were for hire from one of the guys over there.

2009-02-13T15:59:00.007-02:00

More on Subways and Trees. A couple weeks ago I was writing about the subway train yard a few blocks down from my apartment on Emilio Mitre and Directorio. I finally saw a train yesterday being taken from the yard to the Primera Junta station on the A line. Luckily I had my camera on me. You can see the front of the train rounding the corner on Avenida Rivadavia. There's a meridian in the center of the avenue that has tracks that descend down to the underground subway station. Again, you can see how old the subway cars are on that line, and how odd it is to see a subway running the streets.

A couple weeks ago I was also writing about how there were a record number of complaints about out-of-control trees destroying sidewalks, patios and bathrooms around the city. Here are the testimonials from that newspaper article (translated by Google, so it doesn't read perfectly, but you get the idea). This is a street in Flores, a middle to working class barrio in central Buenos Aires. Look at how big the tree is (its probably 50-60 feet high, and that's not even really big compared to others I've seen) and all of the wonderful shade it provides for the house, sidewalk and street. Now look at the trunk (no, the trunk) of the same tree below.

It takes up more than half of the sidewalk and the roots are so big that they've cracked, undulated and warped the sidewalk on all sides. I didn't knock on the door of the house pictured, but for all we know the roots are coming up thru the floor and toilet there too. Supposedly the city is responsible for pruning trees and repairing sidewalks (home owners aren't allowed to do it), and it is simply overwhelmed by the number of complaints and amount of work, and has many bigger priorities. But to look at the trees and how much relief (from the heat) and life they give the streets - on this little walk to my spanish teacher's house I saw lots of people sitting on their front door stoops, lounging in front of their houses with the dog, etc ... - I like to think that people here appreciate the shade more than walkable sidewalks, so given the choice between big trees and safe sidewalks, the trees win. Plus, seniors here must have strong ankles and a great sense of balance, because they need to just to walk down to the store, which helps prevent hip fractures I suppose.

2009-02-11T15:17:00.005-02:00

Random Photos. Here are a few random photos from Buenos Aires. The files are a little bigger than they appear on this page, so if you click on them you can see them a little better.

This couple was coming out of their house just as we were crossing the street. The door opened and three miniature dogs charged out ahead of the couple. I liked this house. You can see its two levels and has a roof terrace covered by vines ... which may have been grapes. It's style is pretty typical for Buenos Aires ... the beautiful windows and ironwork. The windows are glass and wood french doors and there is a second set of steel shutters on the outside to block out the sun, noise and for security. This house only goes from the corner to the stoplight (you can see the wall/paint changes just before it). It probably has a kitchen, bathroom and two small living areas on the ground floor and two bedrooms and another small living area and perhaps another bathroom on the second floor. That's a good size house for Buenos Aires. This house was in a decent area, and I imagine it would go for between US$200, 000 to $250,000, which is expensive by local standards. To give you some perspective, US$20,000 is a good annual salary here (minimum wage is US$5,000 a year, though most of the work force is black market so that figure may not mean much). My guess is that it probably costs more than US$1,000 a month for a small family to live here, and home loans aren't common here (which has turned out to be a blessing for the country because families who have homes generally own the outright so they don't loose them when the economy turns downward), so buying a house, let alone a nice house like this, is out of reach for most unless they have help from family or save their pesos for many years. This gives you a perspective on how meaningful it is for someone to have family working in the U.S. or Europe. If they can even send a few thousand bucks a year that could double what their relatives here make, and contribute to their ability to afford a house one day. A home is the most desirable form of saving here because most people don't participate in or follow the Argentine stock market (I've never heard anyone even mention it here) and domestic banks aren't a reliable place to keep your money given the recent history of inflation, currency devaluations and restricted access to accounts. The peso was devalued by 66% in 2001 when the country defaulted on its national debt, and since most people had their bank accounts here denominated in pesos, it declined by an equal amount relative to the dollar, euro, pound. The only way to avoid it were having money denominated in dollars in US or European bank accounts (only the very rich have this). Hence, people want a home. If the economy goes to hell, at least they have a place to live that is paid for.

This is a park in the ecological reserve downtown on the other side of Puerto Madera. I was surprised at how tall this little jungle gym was (20 feet) or more, and that parents would let their kids climb all the way up there.

2009-02-06T17:02:00.009-02:00

Trains and Soccer. I found a short-cut to the bus line that takes me to Flores where I have my spanish lessons a couple times a week. It takes me across these train tracks just a couple blocks away from my apartment and past the stadium of the soccer club 'Ferrocarril' (the literal translation of the word is 'steel rails' but it means railroad or train). You can make out the stadium in the photo above, and see it more clearly in the photo below.

I like the fact that the team is just named Railroad (technically, Railroad West) and its spirit. It was founded over a hundred years ago by the railroad workers (hence the name) and was a premier league team in the 80s when it won a national championship. It has been a mediocre B league team for a while now. The interesting thing about soccer clubs in Argentina is that many of them really are 'clubs' associated with professional sports teams (Ferro also has basketball and volleyball teams). For example, the whole two blocks after the tracks (along F. Garcia Lorca) is all either owned by or associated with Ferro. There's the stadium, then a paddle tennis club across the street from it that also has a big shaded patio/restaurant where you can get grilled steak on the weekends (we ate there a couple weekends ago ... see below),

then clay tennis courts a little further down the street, and then a big old mansion-like club house that has summer camp and activities for toddlers among other things. It's like an Argentinian version of an east coast beach or golf club, except it looks as if it's slowly falling apart (see the broken shutters in the pic above?) Everyone knows each other (I think we were the only ones eating that weren't part of the club) and everyone's soccer team is Ferro. Little kids wear their miniature soccer jerseys on the street and the spirit of the whole little neighborhood exudes the team. But Ferro isn't as successful and therefore doesn't have the resources of the best premier league teams. For example, I asked around where I could find a jersey or tshirt with the team's name and logo. A security guard at the entrance to the club told me there was a store on the corner of Neuquen and Espinosa. I went there yesterday and didn't see it, so I asked at a newspaper stand on the corner and they directed me to a little shop that sells school supplies and trinkets for kids. In the back of that shop there were some coffee mugs, banners and such, but no jerseys. The woman working there told me they might have some this coming week once the new season starts.

It's entertaining just to sit at the intersection and watch the trains go by.

Through the door of a mausoleum in Cemeterio Recoleta where Eva Peron is buried.

2009-02-04T23:24:00.006-02:00

Duck season, Rabbit season, Duck season, Rabbit season, Tuna season. This is a picture of a cactus fruit or 'tuna'. I saw them last year when we were in Bolivia and in the last week or so I've started to see them in vegetable and fruit stands in Buenos Aires. I'm not sure if it's the season (we were in Bolivia in February last year) or I just hadn't noticed them before. They taste a little bit like honeydew, but have seeds, as you can see, and aren't quite as sweet. You cut the skin, open it up and the fruit in the center just sort of peels right off of the inside. 'Verdulerias' (tiny vegetable and fruit shops) are common in Argentina. There isn't a lot of produce in most of the grocery stores, and what there is is gross. Verdulerias are usually tiny holes in the wall. They put their fruits and veges out in crates and you buy by the kilo or fraction thereof. For some reason, many of them are owned and run by Bolivians, and I think they do pretty well. The parents of a schoolmate of Rosana's brother came to Argentina, managed to start a verduleria and now they have two as well as two houses. Today I went to Parque Rivadavia in the late afternoon and sat and watched the action. This guy came by selling churros (plain and stuffed with dulce de leche).

Judging from the kids and babies all over the place, there aren't many virgins in Buenos Aires, but there seems to be at least one in every subway station. This a pic of the Virgen de Lujan, the virgin saint of Buenos Aires, on the subway platform at Acoyte station on the A line. She's there to watch over us and make sure we arrive safely at our destination.

2009-02-01T22:52:00.006-02:00

Reserva Ecologica. On Sunday we went to the ecological reserve in Puerto Madero. Puerto Madero is the old port district in Buenos Aires that was redeveloped with office buildings, restaurants and luxury condominiums and hotels. If you walk along the boardwalk you'll see office buildings for Oracle, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and the like. It's on the very edge of the city, beyond downtown from me, and I've only been there a few times. Just the other side of the redeveloped part of the port (the last strip of land before you hit the river) is this boardwalk and an ecological reserve pictured to the right of it. The reserve is an open wetlands type space that has been left as is with indigenous growth, iguanas, etc ... and there is a 5 mile loop that runs around it which you can run or bike. Rosana's dad and I ran it while she hung out in the park. It was sunny and beautiful, and an iguana ran across our path. Afterwards we found her in the park. Right near where she was, the Ministry of Health had set up a tent where you could get your weight, height, blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol checked by medical students from the Facultad de Medicina.

We wandered over there. I'm here to tell you that eating beef, cheese and ice cream everyday actually lowers your cholesterol by 25 points, or so it would seem (actually, I think it has more to do with the 'how much' than the 'what' you eat). Argentines eat richer than I am accustomed to, but eat less and walk more. There's obesity here too, but by and large they are smaller and slimmer. The ironic and entertaining this about the tent is that it was set up right next to one of the grilled steak and sausage sandwich stands than line the boardwalk and park and look just like this.

They really good, especially the grilled sausages or 'choripan' with chimichurri sauce, but not as good for you as boiled beets and salad. Having run for almost an hour, Rosana's dad and I had 'bondiolas', which are steak sandwiches with grilled onions, lettuce, tomato and a fried egg on top.

2009-01-29T22:44:00.013-02:00

Evil Trees. Today the ongoing saga of the lack of coin change in the country hit a new low, or at least a new personal low. Until now I had been doing pretty well, dumping all of my spare change into an ashtry in my apartment and hoarding it for bus fare. But I ran out today and I needed to ride the bus to my spanish class in the afternoon. I knew there were a bunch of banks on Rivadavia along the several block walk to my bus stop, and took solace in the fact that I could always go to the bank as a case of last resort to exchange a 10 or 20 peso bill for change. My first stop was Bank Itau, which limited me to 2 pesos in change, just enough for the trip to and from class counting what was left in my pocket. I decided to hit a few other banks because I had a few minutes to spare. HSBC didn't have any tellers, and the lines in Banco Santander were too long, but there were only a few people waiting at Banco de la Provincia of Buenos Aires, so I got in line. After patiently waiting for several minutes I thought I overheard the teller tell a woman that he didn't have any coin change. Sure that couldn't be the case, I waited for the next person to go to the window. I thought I heard the same thing again, so when she turned to leave I asked her and she confirmed my worst case scenario ... even the banks don't have change. I'm not sure what to do. I will make a special trip to all the banks I can find in my neighborhood tomorrow morning, and failing that, I will buy lots of alfajores that cost $1.25 or $1.50 and relish my coin change. When you talk with Argentinians about this they think its ridiculous too. But their attitude seems to be that they somehow find away to get just enough change to get thru the day and to and from where they need to be, and sure it's an inconvenience and yet more evidence of how the government can be inept, but there are bigger things to worry and to complain about so why get heated-up about change. This is a photo of Parque Rivadavia near my bus stop. It rained today for the first time since I've been back from Salta (there's a bad drought here), so there weren't a lot of people in the park this evening. The trees in Buenos Aires can be beautiful. There are jacarandas with bright violet flowers and this tree with yellow flowers. But the best trees are the old, tall ones that line many of the neighborhood streets. In some places they are 6, 7 or 8 stories tall and the branches reach over the street from either side to create a giant green shady canopy along the whole block. The best I've seen is along Pedro Goyena near Emilio Mitre.

Apparently they are also evil and, according to an article in today's newspaper, in 2008 there were a record number of complaints against them for roots that crack sidewalks (that part is true, the sidewalks here are a disaster), branches that break electric poles or stoplights and ... my personal favorite ... 'invading houses'. According to the article, a 67 year old retiree has complained that a tree keeps rupturing the sidewalk outside his house and (it's roots) entering the toilet in his bathroom as well as breaking the floor in his front hall. His 78 year old psychologist neighbor confirmed his story, saying that she has lived in the neighborhood for almost 50 years, that the tree has been there at least that long, and that 4 years ago the roots got into her plumbing and broke her patio.

This is a photo of the rotonda of the Palais de Glace, a small museum in Recoleta

2009-01-28T21:59:00.009-02:00

Perros and Kioscos. Argentinos love their dogs and cats and birds. They are all over the place, in the street with their owners, in the street without their owners, in windows of shops and cafes, sleeping in the doorway of shops and cafes. And they have a lot of personality, as you can see from this photo. This guy was perched in a hole on the second floor terrace of this house just watching people and cars and dogs go by in the street.

This is a photo of a 'Kiosco' in the barrio of Flores near where I have my Spanish lessons. Here, you've got, going from big to small, chain 'supermercados' (supermarkets), neighborhood 'supermercados' (sometimes called 'chinos' because many of them are owned and run by chinese or korean families), 'almacenes', which are corner mini-markets that sell a little bit of everything and 'kioscos' which are tiny shops that typically sell candy, cookies, soda and cigarettes. There are also 'diarios', the equivalent of news and magazine stands. In the very center of the city along the Florida Peatonal and surrounding streets, you can walk right into a kiosco like you would any store. However, outside of the commercial center of the city many of the kioscos have metal bars over the doors and windows, like this one, for security. You have to buy and pay thru a small opening in the bars. This is common in nice barrios as well as not so nice ones. It just depends on the street, the comfort level of the shop owner and the hours he or she keeps. Many kioscos, like this one, are run out of the front room of someone's home. If you show up during ciesta hours the owner might not be at the window, but if you clap your hands a few times (the equivalent of 'hello is anyone there?'), he or she might show up ... depending. This is the only kiosco I've seen that had a small step ladder for little kids to climb up to the window and place their order.

2009-01-26T21:59:00.010-02:00

Parque Centenario. On Sunday morning we walked from my apartment in Caballito to Parque Centenario, which is about a mile away. The Centro Cultural de Recoleta, which is next to the Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is entombed, publishes a little newspaper listing all of the cultural stuff happening in the city every week during the summer. Most of which are free, as the city sponsors them. On saturday evening we hung out with Rosana's cousin in Palermo and then walked to Palermo Park to watch a outdoor drive-in movie. Well, it was half drive-in and half walk-in and sit on the lawn. I'd read about it in the paper. The movie was crappy, but it was fun. The same publication also has a list of all of the street fairs in the city, and we decided to walk over to Parque Centenario because it's close. The fair wasn't nearly as good as the weekend fairs in Plaza Serrano in Palermo Viejo, Plaza Francia in Recoleta or Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo. But the park itself and the scene of families and people passing a sunday afternoon was great. And the walk to the park along shaded cobblestone streets and over train tracks and by beautiful old houses with bouganvilla taking over the walks was even better. The more time I spend in the porteno neighborhoods like Caballito, Flores, Parque Chacabuco or Villa Crespo outside of the tourist draws of Recoleta, San Telmo and Palermo the more I like Buenos Aires and the more sad I am that the slice of the city that tourists see when they come here is so limited and not representative of the city or its life. I understand it ... most tourists who come here have only a few days to a week because they are also going to Patagonia or Iguazu or other neighboring countries. But still, its a shame. It's like going to SF and only seeing Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf and the GG Bridge... and not seeing the Mission, the parks, Berkeley or Mount Tam. You can go to a park here and literally be entertained for hours just watching families having picnics, kids running around feeding pigeons or ducks, eating candy-coated peanuts and popcorn, couples drinking mate or making out, old folks sitting around in beach chairs talking, kids playing soccer or volleyball. I run in Parque Chacabuco, and its packed in the early evening (partly because it's summer and kids are out of school). It's fun just to run in circles and watch everything that's going on.

This is a picture of some young girls that Rosana was talking with. They were trying to feed bread to a Karp fish in the pond, but the duck kept on getting to the bread first. This led to the Karp swimming directly underneath the duck in order to catch the crumbs that the duck missed. Every now and then you'd see the Karp pop up and then disappear again under the duck. The girls were getting frustrated with the duck, and the duck was getting fat. This is a bronze sculpture also in Parque Centenario that I liked.

2009-01-21T21:16:00.007-02:00

More Caballito. This is a photo of the subway train yard I was talking about in my post below. The gates were open yesterday so I had a good view in. I pass it whenever I walk down Emilio Mitre from my apartment to Parque Chacabuco. Subway line A, which runs thru my neighborhood along Avenida Rivadavia to downtown has the coolest subway cars. They must be over 50 years old and the interior is constructed of polished wood ... doors, walls, benches and all.

You can see the benches move side to side and hear the wood creak as the train ambles along the tracks. It feels like it's being held together with a bunch of screws and glue. The doors slide open to both sides, but unlike BART, you have to push the handle to manually open and close them. People can be cavalier about closing them. The other day when we were coming back from Once half of the doors on the car we were in were wide open and you could watch (or fall) right out. The car was mostly empty so there was little danger of that happening, but it struck me as odd that the city would run a subway with doors that are left wide open. I think the negligence laws here are probably a little more lax. This kid saw me taking a foto of the train and wanted me to take his picture.

2009-01-19T21:46:00.006-02:00

Ice cream. This is a picture of a quarter kilo of dulce de leche, dark chocolate and walnut cream ice cream that we recently demolished. The ice cream here is very, very good. There's no Ben & Jerry's or Hagen Daz. Sure, you can buy it in supermarkets, but no one does. Instead, there are 'heladerias' or ice cream shops on every other block, and the good ones make their own ice cream. 'Persico' and 'Volta' are the best in my opinion. The name Volta doesn't make you want to eat there, but it's good. Trust me. This one was from a place called Leoyak on Asamblea at Emilio Mitre in Parque Chacabuco, and it was really good. Here is what you do when you go to get ice cream: first pay for the size you want ... anything from a 'cucurucho' (cone) for a few pesos to a kilo (2.2 pounds) which will run you from 25 to 40 pesos. You are then given a receipt which you walk over to the ice cream counter and hand to the guys when your turn comes (there are no numbers, so if it is crowded you have to sort of fight your way to the counter and guesstimate who was there before you and who came after). The size of your order determines the number of flavors you can choose from. For example, a quarter kilo always comes with the option of up to 3 flavors. There can be as many as 50-60 flavors and I have yet to walk into a place and been able to decipher all of the flavors ... dulce de leche granizado (flakes of chocolate), crema americano, chocolate suica, chocolate con ron y pasas (rum and raisins), dulce de leche con nueces (walnuts), chocolate with almendras (almonds), chocolate granizado (chocolate chip), marscapone, sambayon (a little bit of alcohol, but good), crema del bosque (more or less raspberry cream), mantecol (i'm not sure, nutty), crema rusa (good!), crema de nueces (walnut cream), pineapple, banana, peach, lemon and every fruit flavor you can think of, wine, cactus (that was in Cafayate where there are lots of cactus), and I can't remember everything else. Rosana and I put away one of these about every other day and it hasn't stopped us from gaining weight. Today we went to Once, an old neighborhood in the center of the city which is the place to go for textiles and cheap clothes. We took the subway to the plaza outside the Once train terminal. On the way back I wanted to cross the plaza to see the memorial to the kids who died in the Cromanon nightclub fire, which occurred near there 15 years ago and is permanently eched into the national psyche here. I passed it almost everyday when I road the bus from Rosana's house into the center of town, but hadn't gotten off the bus to see it. Yes, I realize this last bit doesn't really belong in a post about ice cream, but it's what we did today and I'm trying to stay current.

2009-01-18T16:01:00.014-02:00

Caballito. This is a picture of some of the nice houses along Emilio Mitre in my neighborhood of Caballito. If you look closely (click on the foto), you can see its a self-portrait. It also has train tracks running down the center of the street, because subway line A is a few blocks away on Rivadavia and they bring subway trains along the street to a huge warehouse a few blocks in the other direction to put them to bed or to work on them. I've seen them bringing them out a couple times, and its an odd scene to see a subway train on the street. My neighborhood has a little bit of everything ... butchers, vegetable and fruit shops, bakeries, heladerias (ice cream shops), hardware stores, pizzerias and cafes. The best place I've discovered is the Mercado del Progreso on the corner of Centenera and Rosario.

It has a long history (which you can read about on the link above) and is the equivalent of a farmer's market with butchers, cheese, produce, bakeries and other odds and ends. Upstairs there is a cultural center where there are tango lessons every Thursday and Saturday. We went there last night. Along Emilio Mitre just a little further down from the houses above is this kindergarden,

complete with a small tortoise that lives in the front garden.

I've seen him a couple times. How would you like to send your kids to school here?

2009-01-16T21:15:00.013-02:00

Cartoneros. I've rented an apartment in Buenos Aires. It's a one bedroom flat in the barrio of Caballito, which is a nice neighborhood located south and a little more central from downtown. Downtown Buenos Aires is the easternmost part of the city near the River Plate which leads to the Atlantic Ocean. It's sunny and quiet and I have a terrace with a decent view. It has air conditioning, which is key because it has been about 90F with humidity. It also has an old fashioned elevator in which you have to manually close two gates (one for the elevator and one outside the elevator) in order to operate it and a big garden out back with two canaries, one white and one orange, both named pipi. I'm about 10 minutes walking from Parque Chacabuco, where I can run, and another 10 minutes to Rosana's house on the other side of the park. This is a picture of a 'Cartonero' (a 'Carton' is a cardboard box) that I took on Avenida Cobo in Parque Chacabuco. Buenos Aires has no real recycling to speak of. People dump their bottles, plastic, paper and compostables in the trash, and, instead of trash cans, they have metal trash baskets on top of a 3-4 foot pole or perch on the sidewalk outside their homes (presumably so the dogs can't get into it). The city trash guys come everyday - I think. Businesses and residents that don't have trash baskets walk their trash bags to the nearest corner at the end of the day and leave them there. Every evening these Cartoneros descend on neighborhoods with horse drawn-carts, like this guy, or hand-drawn carts, some of which are as small as canvas hotel/gym laundry baskets and others of which are big as a pick up truck. They pick thru trash bags and take anything and everything of recyclable value ... cardboard, cans, plastic, pringles containers .... load them up on their carts and take them away to sell them to whoever is buying. I'm not sure whether there are recycling centers where they can sell their stuff or whether there is some sort of private market. But the city doesn't pay them so they are selling it somewhere to someone. The Cartoneros are men, women and children. I've seen whole families picking thru trash on a corner, tiny kids and all. They are controversial because it confronts people with the extreme poverty that exists in their country, because of the child labor and health risks and because it's unregulated. On the other hand, it's a source of income and labor for people who have none and provides the city, which obviously hasn't invested in recycling or recycling education, with a valuable service. The Cartoneros live in poor neighborhoods an hour or more outside of central Buenos Aires. There used to be a train (El Tren Blanco) that they road with their carts into the city every day. But last I heard the city stopped the train from running (presumably to prevent or discourage the Cartoneros from coming). So now they supposedly come and go in the containers of big trucks which they hire. Here's a short preview of a documentary about them. And while we are on the topic of alternative employment, I've seen vendors here that I never imagined existed. For example, on a cold evening in Salta I saw a guy slowly riding a bicycle by me with something that looked like a doll-house or big koo-koo clock perched on the handle bars. Except he had a coal fire glowing inside of it and little locomotive engine whistle. He was selling fresh roasted nuts, that he roasts right there on his bike. You know he's coming by when you hear his whistle. Yesterday, I saw an man who must have been in his 60s or 70s bicycle by me with something that looked like a big fly-wheel mounted on his handlebars. He was also blowing a whistle, but his was a mouth whistle. Rosana told me that he was a roving knife-sharpener. You hear his whistle and go outside with your knives and he sharpens them right there.

2009-01-14T21:15:00.009-02:00

Salta. Rosana and I came back to Buenos Aires yesterday after 3 weeks up in Salta over Xmas and New Years. We spent most of the time hanging out with her family, and her extended family and her extended extended family. There's a lot of family there, and they all live pretty close to one another. It has taken me two summers now to figure out who is who, and remember most everyones' names - of the people of met. The kids ... her cousins, nieces and nephews ... are the hardest because there are so many of them. Salta is a small city of several hundred thousand people in Northern Argentina. It sits in a large valley surrounded by mountains, which are bright green in summer during the rainy season. Despite the fact that it can rain for a couple hours or sometimes all day during the summer, Salta feels arid ... more like Arizona than California. In fact, if you took Santa Barbara and moved it to Arizona, it looks something like that. It's a old, spanish colonial city. It was where people brought horses, cattle and donkeys for sale in the old days, because it's situated on the old route during the 1600s and 1700s from Potosi, where silver was mined, to Buenos Aires, where the silver was shipped off to Spain. In fact, many of the cities in Northern Argentina that are tiny and you may not even have heard of are older than Buenos Aires and were larger, richer and more important back in the day. Now the industry up here is tourism, wine, tobacco, agriculture and petrol. People from Buenos Aires come here in droves during vacation because it is warm, cheap and looks and feels very different from Buenos Aires. Its slower, safer, people take ciesta and it has plazas, buildings, cathedrals, tamales, folkloric music, gauchos (Argentine cowboys) and colorful mountains and deserts. That's why people come. Many of the portenos who come are young and more or less back-pack and stay in hostels. Unfortunately many come across as somewhat obnoxious and disrespectful, and the locals tolerate them but don't really like them - not altogether that different than our perception of some New Yorkers. And, like New York and the rest of the United States, there is a similar tension here between Buenos Aires and the rest of the country. The center of town is relatively small, and I'd say most people live in the barrios and some small towns surrounding it, which range from very wealthy (people have second homes here ... Robert Duvall and Richard Gere among others) to middle class to working class to slums, depending. Our days went something like this: 10am - get out of bed and have a breakfast of tea, bread, cheese and yogurt and sit around talking; 11:30am - go visit her sister and brother in law who run a bakery from their house (I helped out baking or selling); 3pm - eat a big lunch and sit around and talk; 4pm - take a nap; 6pm - go into town or go visit family; 10pm - tea again, maybe with ham and cheese sandwiches, sit around and talk and go to sleep at 1am. We went south to Cafayate for a long weekend and north, with Rosana's family, up to the Quebrada de Humauaca for a couple days when we got back. This is a pic of a sculpture in the center of the main plaza in Salta, and if you look closely you can see that each of the women have something in common. The other pick is from Cafayate, or actually an hour south of Cafayate in Tucuman at the ruins of Quilmes, which was an Indian tribe with a well fortefied mountain village that held out for a long time against the Spanish until they were finally defeated and sent on a forced march south close to Buenos Aires, which is where Quilmes barrio is today and Quilmes beer is manufactured.

2008-12-21T23:52:00.009-02:00

Cows and more cows

A couple weeks ago we went to the school commencement ceremony for Rosana's little brother. It wasn't a graduation so much as a end of year show for the parents, in which the kids from each grade level put on a dance or skit. The school, which is public, is essentially a big, sky lit atrium with a half dozen or so small classrooms along each of the walls. There are about 200 students in the entire school, but because it isn't big enough to hold all of them at the same time, half attend classes in the morning and the other half attend classes in the afternoon. All of the kids are from the neighborhood, and a parent or relative walks them to and from school each day. At the end of the morning or afternoon you will see groups of 10 - 20 women mostly congregated outside a school waiting for it to let out. The doors are closed and locked during school hours, so the parents have to wait outside for the kids to be dismissed. The students all wear white lab-type coats and the teachers all wear frilly aprons that look like something that would have come with a Betty Crocker baking set for adults. All in all the schools seem to be well-cared for. The teachers seem to be very committed to the students and to know all of their parents, and the parents in turn seem know the school and teachers, because they are there everyday to meet the kids (and almost all of them are on foot - relative to the U.S. very few people drive in Buenos Aires, eventhough there are a ton of buses, taxis and cars on the roads). They also chip in to support the school financially with money for things it doesn't get from the government. This is a pic from the first or second grade skit, which was about a cow, and is an homage to everything that comes from cows ... there was yogurt, milk, cheese and the cow. I didn't see a side of beef. Cows are central to the Argentine diet and culture, and people eat immense amounts of beef and milk products. They are cheap, a good source of protein and fill you up. I'm not quite sure how it is that they don't all end up weighing 250 pounds. There is obesity here too, but far less than in the U.S. if you go by people you see on the street. I don't think they eat 'as much' as we do at home. For example, in Rosana's house we have only one big meal a day with meat, veggies or salad and potatoes or pasta. That's in the afternoon. In the mornings we just have tea with milk, bread, cheese and yogurt, and in the evenings the same or ham and cheese grilled sandwiches or pizza. Also, the cheese we eat is called 'queso cremoso' and its soft and flavorful but isn't is fatty or greasy as cheddar or mozzarella or the cheeses I'm used to. It melts, but doesn't exude a lot of grease or fat. I'm not sure what they do to it. But my pants still fit. The other pic I've posted to the right is the park in Parque Chacabuco, with a view of condos along Avenida Asamblea, one of the main streets in the neighborhood, and representative of many of the avenues in many of the neighborhoods of the city. Here you find people jogging the block around the park, toddlers with parents - there are babies everywhere here - and people just hanging out and strolling in the early evenings or on the weekends. This afternoon we leave for Salta by bus and will arrive sometime tomorrow.

2008-12-20T17:06:00.015-02:00

Futbol

There are 20 clubs in the 'A' professional soccer league in Argentina. Unlike professional sports in the U.S., where major cities have one or at most two teams, half or more of the top soccer clubs here are based in or near Buenos Aires and represent 'barrios' or neighborhoods. For example, Boca Juniors, the most well known, is from the southern neighborhood of La Boca, River Plate, the next most popular, is based on the north side of the city in Nunez, and San Lorenzo, is from Parque Chacabuco, where I am. Each club has its own stadium which can hold 20,000 to 30,000 persons. And they aren't always that far away from each other. For example, the next neighborhood over from Parque Chacabuco (literally less than a mile) is Parque Patricios/Pompeye which is the home of the club Huracan (Hurricane), who have the coolest art deco stadium and symbol (a giant weather balloon), then only two neighborhoods and less than two miles over from that is La Boca. Some of the clubs are 100 years old and to say the people who live there are passionate about their teams is an understatement. People grow up worshipping their club and go to or watch ever game religiously. And though I've seen lots of people wearing their neighborhood or club's jerseys downtown (which is neutral territory), you won't see many River Plate jerseys in Boca Junior's barrio and vice verse. It's not such a smart thing to do. Soccer games are controlled chaos. There are a ton police and they don't let the fans of the two teams mix. The visiting team fans enter the stadium separately and leave 30 minutes before the home team's fans get to leave. Literally, you have to hang out 30 minutes after the game is over and all of the visiting team fans are out of the neighborhood. This, to prevent fights. There are 4 sections of the stadium. One for 'normal' home team fans (meaning they are not drunk, shirtless and burning anything that's not concrete), one for the home team 'fanaticos' (who are drunk, shirtless and burning things), one for normal visiting team fans and one for the visiting team fanaticos. This is sunday afternoon futbol in Argentina. Today is a big day because there is a 3-way playoff going on between Boca Juniors, San Lorenzo and Tigre, who all won last weekend leaving a 3-way first place tie at the end of the season. On Wednesday, San Lorenzo beat Tigre 2-1, so if they win today they are the champions, and if not Boca Juniors will play Tigre. Rosana and I were in La Boca last weekend because my spanish teacher from San Francisco was here with a group touring and he managed to buy second hand tickets to the last game of the season and took some people from his group. Rosana and I weren't so brave - and they were expensive on top of that. But we hung out at a park for a while. Here is a pic of some kids who were playing soccer in the park. They were funny ... first they were playing soccer, then some other kids game along with small fireworks and they all shot of the fireworks, while yours truly was waiting for someone to loose a finger, then the fireworks were over and they started playing soccer again. I got the feeling that they hung out there all afternoon and early evening and weren't about to leave until their moms called them in for dinner.

2008-12-17T23:36:00.005-02:00

San Martin de Los Andes

San Martin de Los Andes is 2 to 3 hours north of Bariloche by bus. It's a small town that sits on the edge of a lake, and as with Bariloche, there are mountains and lakes around it where you can trek, go out on boats, kayak, ride horses, etc. It's small, cleaner and quieter than Bariloche, but still tourism is pretty much the economy. Most of the town is made of wood and there are rose bushes all over. When we arrived by bus, we walked a few blocks from the bus terminal to a b&b that the owners of the cabin we rented in Bariloche told us about. It was about twice as much as we paid in Bariloche, which didn't make sense to me and at any rate was more than we wanted to spend, so we rented a place right across the street instead. We ate lunch and then looked for what to do. We ended up hiking a trail that runs from the lake a mile or so up a hill to a look-out point at the top. There is a small village at the top, and we were told that they are part of the Mapuche indian tribe. I wasn't clear weather the land belongs to the tribe or the pueblo just happens to be there. The view from the top was great. In one direction is a panorama of town and in the other direction is the length of another large lake with mountains in the distance. We hiked down the back-side of the hill to a tea house run by the tribe. When you arrive, you ring the bell out front and no body answers. Then you walk around back to the house behind the tea house and clap your hands a few times and say "senora" and a woman comes out to unlock the tea house. It was the one cold day we had in the mountains, and the tea was hot and they had home made bread. We hiked back up, and down, to the town, showered and went in search of patagonia lamb and trout for dinner. This is a picture of the grill the cook the lamb on. It's a mechanized rack that turns in a circle around a pile of hot coals or wood. Those are whole lambs split in two, and they were good.

2008-12-15T00:17:00.003-02:00

More About Bariloche

Here's another picture of Lago Nahuel Huapi on the shores of Bariloche. We made it to El Bolson, a pueblo 70 miles south of Bariloche, on Tuesday. It's a small town located in a valley between two mountains, but there's no skiing so it has a completely different feel from Bariloche. I don't think I saw a building bigger than two stories. You've got locals, and a bunch of artisans who come to spend their summers there and sell their work to tourists. Tuesdays are street fair days, and folks sell their wares in stalls around the central plaza ... everything from leather belts to bone-handled knives to jewelry to waffles with fresh berries and cream to home made beer. Despite the fact that they are there because of tourists, many of the tourists are local Argentines who are spending part of their summer holidays in the mountains or have second homes there. El Bolson has a pretty authentic, sleepy, artsy, hippy-ish feel to it, not unlike Fairfax in Marin. We ate pretty much everything in sight ... Armenian empanadas (they were like spiced beef homentashin - check my spelling), to spinach, corn and cheese tarts to waffles with fresh raspberries, strawberries and cream. Rosana had never seen a waffle before. And you might ask what a waffle is doing in the middle of Patagonia. Again, the non-latin European part of Argentina. It's really a melting pot of people and cultures, though spanish and italian are by far the dominant two. We drove another ten miles to Lago Puelo, where we ate lunch by the lake and took a boat ride out on it for a better view of the mountains. There really wasn't much to Lago Puelo, so we headed back to our cabin in Bariloche and made plans to take a bus 3 hours north to San Martin de Los Andes on Wednesday. We hadn't planned to go there intially, but we had pretty much seen everything wanted to see near Bariloche and weren't ready to go back to Buenos Aires just yet. Unless you are going to spend a lot of time trekking trails in the mountains or camping - neither of which we were set up to do; I had a swiss army knife but that was about the extent of it and they heaviest action it saw was cutting smoked cheese, you can see most of the sights within driving distance of Bariloche in a few days. It turned out to be a good thing that we went to San Martin, because we had a good time and both ended up liking it better than Bariloche. The couple who rented us the cabin in Bariloche had lived for 5 years beforehand in San Martin and the way they described it, Bariloche is were Argentines go to ski (and non-Argentines go because they've heard about it), and San Martin is where Argentines go to get away to a tranquil mountain town (and few non-Argentines go). It's much smaller than Bariloche and situated on the shores of smaller lake. More about it tomorrow. Boca, Tigre and San Lorenzo all won today, so there's going to be a big 3 way play off next week for the championship.

2008-12-08T18:54:00.007-02:00

Bariloche. On Friday afternoon, we took the bus to Bariloche. The trip is a little more than 20 hours by bus, but it somehow ends up being less painful than an airline flight half as long. Long-distance bus rides in Argentina are comfortable. There are 3 and sometimes 4 different classes of buses available, and you can take a 'semi cama' (half-bed) or 'cama' (bed - which is a misnomer because the seats don't recline all the way; there is a 'super cama' where they do), its like being in business or first class on an airline (minus the china and silverware). The seats are big and comfortable, there's air conditioning, food, drinks and movies ... August Rush and Pride and Prejudice in spanish and I can´t remember what else. The ride to Bariloche cost about $70. Distance wise, its probably the equivalent of going to Denver from San Francisco. Bariloche is beautiful, a bit like Tahoe ... beautiful snow capped mountains, blue lakes, pine trees and hiking trails. The city itself is kind of a tourist trap. There are chocolate shops, restaurants, hotels and lots of stores that sell tshirts that say ¨mis papas fueron a Bariloche y no me trajeron mas que esta remera¨ (which means my parents when to Bariloche and all they brought me was this tshirt). There are great berries, chocolate, micro brew beer and smoked meats here. Odd combination, but there were a number of Germans and Swiss who came here. We are staying in a b&b type cabin that is made entirely of wood. When you walk on the slats or up the stairs, the whole house creaks. It´s beatiful ... two levels, two bedrooms, stocked kitchen, nice open living area. All that for less than the price of a motel 8. 'Bunglow of the Forest of the Elves' if you come. I recommend it. They seem to be fascinated with Elves and Dwarfs in this part of the country. They sell them in town (the tshirt and chocolate shops), and today we hiked to ´the waterfall of the dwarfs´. Last night Rosana had nightmares about evil dwarfs, and I heard her talking, though I didn´t know they were drawfs at the time. We rented a car and have been cruising around the area, hiking and eating. There´s not that much to do in Bariloche itself. It´s the surrounding mountains and lakes that are the draw. Fortunately we came a couple weeks before high season. There aren´t that many people here yet, so it was easy to find a place and the trails and such aren´t that crowded. Tomorrow we are going an hour or two south to a town called El Bolson, which is supposed to be nice. We may spend the night there, depending on how much there is to do, and then come back to Bariloche on Wednesday, and probably head back to Buenos Aires on Thursday or Friday in time for the weekend. There is a big soccer game this weekend. Boca Juniors (Diego Maradona´s old club) was in first place, but tied or lost the last two games, and Tigre and San Lorenzo both won their last 2, so there is a 3 way tie for first. Since we live in the neighborhood of San Lorenzo, it should be a fun weekend. That´s all for now. If I don´t post pics before the end of the week I will this weekend.

2008-12-03T22:55:00.011-02:00

A Union For All Reasons I spent the last few days meeting a few local attorneys and others here in Buenos Aires who I'd been introduced to through mutual friends. When I wasn't doing that, I walked around Boedo, Caballito and Almagro, which are typical 'porteno' neighborhoods centrally located in the city that are relatively short bus or subway rides to downtown. I'm looking to rent a place for a couple months in one of those neighborhoods. They are close to Rosana's parents' neighborhood and have a very different feeling from the parts of the city that are more popular with tourists - Palermo (the Soho of the city), Recoleta (which has nice hotels, shopping and the cemetery) and San Telmo (the historic Tango district). I have nothing against those barrios. They are the place you want to be if you've never been here before, and where I lived and spent my time last year when I first came. But they are to Buenos Aires a little like the Marina, Union Square or Fisherman's wharf are to San Francisco - beautiful, interesting and distinctive but not places where you'll get a sense of how middle or working class portenos work and live. Well, you can, but there are just that many more tourists, yuppies and the businesses that cater to them. Most people who can afford to live in the 'North' part of the city (Recoleta, Palermo, Belgrano), if they live in the city at all. Many live in Olivos or semi-suburban neighborhoods further to the north. The problem I'm discovering is that there isn't much for rent to tourists in these neighborhoods where I'm interested in renting. Basically, I've discovered that there are two rental markets. Those for residents and those for tourists. If you live here, there's tons for rent all over the city. Seriously, there's at least one real estate broker on every block and plenty for rent as well as for sale (listings are posted in the window, just like at home). The price for a decent one or two bedroom place is about US$400 to 600 per month. But you need to be a resident to rent them and the minimum period is usually 2 years. If you are a tourist, you are more or less confined to using one of many web-based agents who rent out apartments (owned by locals) by the day, week or month or craigslist (which really hasn't caught on here for anything - but there is some there). The problem is that 90% of the places are in the neighborhoods most tourists want to be in (surprise) and I don't, and that 100% of them charge double the local rate. So, a nice one bedroom place runs about $900-$1000 a month (still very cheap compared to staying at a hotel). In summary, agents/owners gouge tourists who rent, everyone knows it and still does it, its still a bargain so everyone's happy. Welcome to Argentina (to be fair, I can't think of anything else off hand where foreigners are treated differently or have to pay a different rate ... so if that's all there is that's pretty good). My biggest complaint though is the dearth of nice, temporary places for rent in the neighborhoods I'd like to be. Fortunately I can take my time looking. This is a photo of the office of the labor union for artisanal carwashers (not to be confused with the other carwashers' unions). I stumbled across it toda while I was walking around. There's a union for everything here, but according to the papers here 50% to 80% of the working population works in the black market, so they are outside of the system and the unions. Welcome to Argentina. I'm not sure if all the unions here have collective bargaining agreements with their employers and the like, or serve some shorter purposes. I'd like to sit in on the meeting where the artisanal carwash workers hammer out a contract with carwash owners. How do you round up everyone? And, by the way, where are all the carwashes? I haven't seen one yet.

2008-11-29T12:50:00.012-02:00

Bloqueos

On Thursday students and professors from a post-secondary art school staged a street show in Avenida de Mayo, one of the main avenues in downtown Buenos Aires. The show was a form of protest against the planned closure of the school and similar post-secondary schools where students go to study art in order to become art teachers. The schools are publicly-funded and students only pay a small, token amount in order to attend them. The municipality (or state, I'm not sure which it is) has said it wants to close or consolidate the schools, presumably in order to reduce the number of teachers, students and, corresponding the cost. Many students wouldn't be able to afford to go to a private art school, and, of course, the teachers don't want to loose their positions, hence, the Bloqueo (literally, "Blockade" but it can be any protest or picket where a street is partially or totally blocked). In this case it was well organized and looked like they got permission ahead of time. The photos above are of the same street. You can see that half of it had traffic flowing and the other half was full of placards with their schoolwork. That's the Casa Rosada in the background, where the President's offices are. There were probably a couple hundred students with a thousand pieces of work taped on these placards or set on the street or fixed to the walls of the buildings along this part of the street. It was peaceful and everyone was simply hanging out, with volunteers asking passers by to sign a petition against the closure. There was a print that I very much liked. The student who'd prepared it had already left, but her classmates were looking after her stuff and gave me her cell number. I called her to tell her that I like the print and to ask her whether she has to turn it in at the end of the semester or whether she would entertain selling it to me. She called me back a couple hours later and told me that her professor told her she could sell it if she wants. Unfortunately for me, she also consulted him on price and she wanted market price for a Gallery in posh Recoleta rather than a sidewalk on the Avenue. Oh well, next time don't speak spanish with an American accent. I suppose the bloqueos aren't all that different from protests and pickets in the States - they're for the most part peaceful, authorized, etc... But, they seem to be a more ubiquitous and accepted form of complaining here and occur in ways that range from the very organized and problematic to the impromptu and odd. For example, in April and May the government attempted to increase the export duty (or tax) on the powerful beef, soy and wheat industry (agriculture is the biggest industry here). Farmers or their supporters responded by blocking the highways leading into Buenos Aires with their trucks and such for a period. There was a period of days to a week or two where you couldn't find meat, milk, eggs and other staples in the market because of shortages. The government's position was that the farmers were making record profits from high worldwide commodity prices so that they should be sharing some of that with the rest of the country (just like the debate over record oil company profits at home). However, in addition to duking it out in the media and congress, the farmers blocked the roads in order to make their point in a way people, and hence the government, will feel more acutely. The police are reluctant to intervene and forceably remove protesters because they don't want to escalate things. They'd rather talk, negotiate, make half-promises and let the situation diffuse on its own. In this case, the farmers gave in and let traffic roll again. The export duty increase bill lost by a single vote in congress in July. That episode may have been the biggest news all year here, because of the food shortages and because the deciding vote against it was cast by the Vice President (imagine a Bush bill in the senate being defeated by a single vote cast by Cheney, then you have the picture).

At the other end of the spectrum are protests that seem odd. For example, there was a heat wave this week that caused power outages and, according to the papers, some of the people in the affected neighborhoods protested in the street for a while. Hardly seems worth the effort in 100 degree heat with 99% humidity.

2008-11-26T20:18:00.007-02:00

Houses

One of the things I like best about Buenos Aires is how some of the older houses are designed. If you are in the heart of nicer parts of the center of town, in Recoleta or Palermo, most of the dwellings are very nice high rise apartment houses 10-15 stories high. However, in the neighborhoods just a little ways out of downtown, the apartment buildings give way to more single or two story homes. Some have beautiful stone and iron work, comparable to brownstones in New York or the woodwork on victorians in San Francisco. But others reveal nothing more than a concrete wall along a sidewalk with a single panel metal door. There's no front yard. To look at them from the street, you wouldn't even know that anyone lived there. Inside, the center of the home is an open air patio and the rooms and kitchen have doors or windows which open up to the patio. The patio serves a number of purposes. It provides daylight without the need for external windows. It circulates fresh air and provides ventilation. It provides an outdoor space (I've never seen a backyard in Buenos Aires). And you get to listen to the rain fall on the patio tile at night while you sleep. This is a picture of the patio at Rosana's house. What I like about this concept is that it's almost the opposite of what WE do. With houses being so expensive back home, and their price being measured in living space per square foot, the concept of having 'unused' space in the very center of a home is quirky or illogical because it takes away from the number and size of rooms and, hence, the resale value. But it seems to me that this is the way we should live. Is it the size of the room that's more important or the quality of light, air and flow? Which brings me to a related observation, which is that most things are noticeably smaller here ... houses, rooms, shops, streets ... the very space you have to move around in wherever you happen to be (though the widest boulevards I've ever seen are also here; you almost can't get across them in a single green light). People appear as though they are used to, and perhaps even prefer, close proximity and a lot of togetherness. As if, if they had the space and solitude that we enjoy, it might somehow feel wrong, like clothes a few sizes too big or lonely. It's not uncommon for a family of 5 or 6 people to live in a tiny two bedroom, one bathroom home. The second picture above is a little window that looks out from the shower. There are birds in the trees right outside, which sing most of the morning and afternoon. This morning while I was showering I saw two of them doing something that wasn't intended for me to see, not more than several feet away from the window. He was pretty quick about it.

2008-11-25T01:02:00.010-02:00

When is a peso worth more than 1 peso? About halfway through last summer, in Salta, suddenly no one had change (coin money) or wanted to part with it. So, when you went to the bakery, to corner stores or to other mom and pop shops, they'd almost always ask you for correct change. I remember this one time (... when Rosana and I were in band camp), a store in the center of town refused to sell Rosana approximately 20 pesos ($6) worth of school supplies because she didn't have exact change. I was wondering how much money they'd lost over the course of the day in order to save 25 cents here and there. I'm not exactly sure what the problem is, and why the treasury doesn't just print more coins. But it ends up having a big impact on your daily life in unexpected ways. Case in point - there is a pretty good subway system in Buenos Aires, but it doesn't cover all the city. Most people take 'colectivos' (the local term for buses) everywhere. The good news is that there are something like 200 different bus lines covering the entire city of about 15 million people, it only costs 1 peso (30 cents) to ride them to the end of the line and you rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes unless it's really late in the evening. A taxi, by comparison, can run 20 or 30 pesos ($6 - 9) even for relatively short rides within the center of the city, so they are out of reach of most people for everyday use. The bad news with the buses is that those 200 bus lines are operated by about 200 different companies, they don't sell bus cards, they don't give change, there are no transfers and there's no 1 peso note (the paper notes start at 2 pesos). So, you have to constantly hoard your change. If you've got a buck in change coming to you, never ever give the vendor another 1 peso coin so that he can give you a 2 peso note back. That's a rookie manuever. He will always ask you politely if you happen to have 1 peso, and you have to always politely respond in turn that, oopps, sorry, no you don't. Or else you may find yourself a peso coin short of a bus trip home. I actually get excited when someone gives me a small handfull of change. There's a rumor that some bus companies have started a side business selling change - since they have it all - for a 2% or 3% comission. Which makes me wonder whether the government wouldn't do better nationalizing the buses instead of the airlines (the government nationalized Aerolineas Argentina recently). At least then it would make a little profit. The fun may not last much longer though. Supposedly, some bus lines have begun to sell bus cards.