Yikes. It’s been more than a month since we returned and I’ve been a master of procrastination. I need to finish off B.A. and get to other things. As I type this, I’m in the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero in San Francisco, eating way too much free food. But, I’m ahead of myself.
I left off with me flopped on the B&B patio yesterday afternoon waiting for dinner. I got refreshed, but there was still plenty of time to kill before venturing out at the “proper” dinner hour. Your erstwhile scrivener, of course, applied himself to the Blog. What lies to tell this time?
At nine o’clock we figured we wouldn’t get too many stares if we entered a restaurant, so we set off. I had my heart set on trying the famed Argentine grass-fed beef, since steaks are a sort of national religion here. Kevin told us about a favorite spot of his, saying it was “four blocks up and two blocks over.” Okie-dokie. We set off, faithfully counting the blocks. Hmm. Did the rest of our block count as the first, or was that not included? We turned left after four blocks and walked two blocks into a rather sketchy area. Kevin had said the place had a big neon sign that we couldn’t miss. Well . . . We spotted no sign, gave it an extra block, then started going up one more, then back two more, then circling again. You get the picture. Fruitless. We didn’t see anything else that looked attractive either. It was pretty dark, and no streetlights, so dodging the, um, doggie gifts was getting hazardous. Back to Avenue Rivadera, where it was at least lit. We decided to head back to the place near us where we had had pasta. Although they seemed to specialize in seafood, I knew they had steaks on the menu, as does virtually every place here. After all our walking, we were at least fashionably timely in our entrance, so no raised eyebrows at 9:40 pm. A bottle of decent wine soothed the soul, and we settled in, pantomimed our orders, and relaxed our last night in South America.
Now, that steak looks nicely charred, and it was. But it was a great disappointment when I cut into it. Pretty much overdone through and through. I’m pretty sure I got the local term for medium-rare into the order, but who knows? Anyway, we didn’t want to wait any later for a re-do, so I soldiered on. It had some decent flavors, but it certainly was not juicy. Too bad. We killed the bottle to dull the pain. The great Argentine beef will have to remain a tantalizing myth.
Wednesday morning dawned sunny, with no chance of rain, so another good walking day. We didn’t have to leave for the airport until late afternoon, as our flight home was at 9:30 p.m. Kevin set up another great breakfast and we lingered and enjoyed it. Since he didn’t have anyone coming in today, he generously allowed us to keep the room until we had to leave, so we could shower and pack after we got done walking about. Very nice.
Since we wanted to keep ourselves relatively fresh for the long flight home, we decided to try our hands at the Subte, B.A.’s subway system. It isn’t as extensive as the Metro in Paris, or even the N.Y.C. subway, but it does cover a lot of ground. There was a stop just a block away on our street, on the line that runs straight to the central part of old downtown, ending at the Rose Palace. It was quite simple to buy our tickets, as there are human vendors at every station, and all you have to do is say how many you want. Even I can count to 2 in Spanish. The subway cars look reasonably modern from the outside, but once you get inside, at least on this line, it’s a time warp to the past. Wooden cars!
Yup, those are regular sash windows, and, yes, they do leave many of them down as you are hurtling through the tunnels. It gets a bit breezy, to say the least, and the sounds the train makes as it screams through the turns bring only one thing to mind: derailment. But, it’s a kick! We made it safely downtown to Plaza Mayo, which was the end of the line for this route.
Our destination today was to explore the redeveloped area along the harbor, where they have rehabbed old warehouses into tony apartments and shops on one side of the canal, and erected highrises for the swells. Located on the “good” side of the tracks, it is called
The red buildings in the foreground are the back sides of some of the remodeled warehouses, and a few highrises peek above them. The view from the other side is decidedly nicer. That’s the Puente de la Mujer in the foreground, a 335 foot suspension bridge (you can faintly make out the slanted cables) built in Spain and transported in sections to be erected here in 2001. It was designed by Santiago Calatrava, who is said to have requested examples of Argentina's typical music upon receiving this commission. As a result, the bridge is abstractly meant to illustrate a couple dancing Tango, the man towering over the woman who is leaning back horizontally. Okayyy. Anyway, it has three sections, and the center one supposedly swivels to allow boats to pass. We didn’t see that happen, but you can see the cracks marking the sections at the right just before the pillar, and the same on the other side.
The only thing we saw moving on the canal was this lonely guy in a single scull. The water here is generally brown, due to the great volume of silt that comes down the river.
I wanted to see the Presidente Sarmiento, Argentina’s historic military frigate. Built as a training ship in the 1890’s, it made six circumnavigations and several decades of training cruises until being retired from sailing status in 1938. It served as a stationary training site until 1961, and has been a museum since.
We explored the upper deck, manned the helm, and made sure the guns were properly pointed at the elite housing.
Below decks, we noted the significant difference between the officers’ quarters and the space allotted to the enlisted crew. Get that commission, boys! The forward space featured a gravity torpedo launcher. The torpedo was loaded through the opening (which, since, has been made smaller) in front of it, onto a trough that slanted down, forward, and out the bow. The torpedo fell into the water and hopefully motored away from the ship towards its target.
No tour of the Sarmiento is complete, of course, without paying homage to the ship’s dog. Sure, Susy, don’t you worry. He’s just taking a nap.
Finished with the Sarmiento, we walked over the bridge,
and up the canal, taking in the posh housing and nautical playtoys of B.A.’s elite, and the corporate office towers looming beyond. This really is a nice area, very quiet, and seems worlds apart from the earthier surroundings. We saw no dog poop in Puerto Madero.
Done strolling, we grabbed a bite at a sandwich shop, and reboarded the Subte for the trip back to our Rivadera stop.
We got ourselves packed, cleaned up, and said our thank-you’s and good-byes to Kevin. He called us a cab, ‘cause hailing one on the street is an iffy proposition cost-wise. The gypsies can be bandits. Our driver was a pleasant guy who spoke no English, but Kevin came down curbside and told him where we were going. The international airport is way out of town, sort of like Dulles is to Washington, D.C., and it took a good 30-40 minutes to get there. Once there, neither he nor we had a clue as to which of the various terminals we should go to. A couple of stops, a cell phone call, and asking a cop finally got us to the – surprise! – international terminal. We tipped senor clueless generously (what am I going to do with Argentine pesos?), and went in for the first of several long lines and lots of waiting.
The return flight was a repeat of the inbound one, probably on the same crummy plane, enlivened by our missing our connecting flight in Atlanta due to 90 minutes not being long enough to transit customs, immigration, TSA, baggage claim and recheck, and literally running our asses to the (very) distant gate. It was gone five minutes by the time we got there. I fault Delta for booking us on this connection, as it is patently undoable. The gate person was a champ, and he admitted this was a known problem while rebooking us on a flight an hour later. He said they’d been trying to get TSA/immigration to have a special line for short connectors, but they wouldn’t do it. SO WHY DOES DELTA CONTINUE TO BOOK THIS CONNECTION? Anyway, the next flight was just fine, and our bags actually had arrived on the flight we missed. Miraculously, Delta held them for us instead of letting the carrousel bandits have at them. Another end-of-the-line shuttle van ride home, and our journey was over. I have to say, other than the flights, we can wholeheartedly recommend the cruise. It was a lot of fun. If I were planning it over, I would add on a trip to Iguazu Falls, on the Argentine/Brazil border. Lots of other folks on the cruise did this, and I wish we had as well, as we most likely won’t get down that way again.
Next up: the bad scoot breaks (?) Loni’s hand? I, of course, am innocent.
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