I´ve been home for a couple of weeks now, trying to get it together and get back to work, while completely distracted by great memories. I am cold. And for the first week back, I kept waking up confused because I couldn't figure out where I was.
General thoughts: I had a great adventure in an amazing, beautiful place. It was the most adventurous travel I have done to date, and pushed my limits. Happily, I found that I was up to it, and enjoyed the challenges along the way. My limits can use some more pushing. I was exposed to people doing some pretty amazing things and travelling for extended periods of time, and now realise that the traditional North American 2 week holiday is pretty silly. While most of the extended travelers were young, taking gap years, or academics and the like taking a sabbatical year off, I did meet a guy like me who was pretty inspiring - a youngish mortgage broker from Quebec, who had been to Cuba 7 times last year, plus Las Vegas and home for Christmas. Self employed, able to organize his time, and able to some extent to close up a deal or two while on a beach somewhere. Definitely caught my attention, as I could do something like that if I was a little more organized.
There is great value in Argentina for the dollar, and very good tourism product. Since the currency crash 6 years ago, locals are sort of trapped here, so are travelling their own country for the first time. They had been until then accustomed to travel in Europe and the US, so are fairly demanding with high standards. Now that they are travelling in Argentina, tourism operators have responded accordingly with high quality rooms, products, and services at (by North American standards) very reasonable prices.
Food: For the most part, excellent, and inexpensive. Not much variety, though, and after awhile most of the menus look alike, subject to regional differences. Some good veggie restaurants here and there (one in Mendoza stands out), but not a lot of veggies or salads. I was a bit taken aback one night to order a ´Tomato Salad´ and get...a plate of cut up tomatoes. Accurate, yes. Imaginative, no. I was pretty focused on a great Greek salad, several big bowls of noodles and veggies, and some spicy Chinese food when I got home. (And thoroughly enjoyed our huge Chinese New Year celebration, complete with Brazilian samba dancers and First Nations dancers!)
Booze: Excellent, and inexpensive. Locals seem not to drink much, nor smoke much for that matter. Rather than a bottle of wine with dinner, they´ll have a big bottle of coke or sprite on the table.
Buses: Very very comfy, and much less expensive than air travel (about 25% of the cost). You can't opt out of the bad movies though, so earplugs can help. And take your own food if you want to eat well.
Best bus station: By far, in Iguazú. There is little of the chaos that exists in other stations, the restrooms are always clean, and it´s the only station I saw that keeps visitors and greeters out of the bus area. Only passengers with tickets get down to the buses, and everyone else is restricted to the second floor waving area.
Best value, accomodations: A tie between the Laprida Suites in Buenos Aires at under $70 and ´Hostel Sweet Hostel in Iguazú at about $30 for the night. Laprida Suites was a great surprise, in the middle of a good area, very quiet at night, easy walking distance to the sights of Ricoleta in one direction, and the subway in the other direction. It was a condo style with a hide a bed in the living room, so could easily accomodate 2 couples. (Charges I paid were per room, not per person - I like that style of pricing). Hostel Sweet Hostel was a nice, big, clean private room with private bath away from the main house...quiet, with air conditioning, easy walk with bags to and from the bus station.
Best unplanned, unexpected time: Of all things, was the extra 7 hours spent hanging out at the YPF near Salta. It was an unexpected time to relax with new travel mates, connect again with other travellers that I had met before, and just enjoy the comradeship that comes from a semi-emergency. Everyone was much better behaved, by the way, than in Vancouver during the water crisis a couple of months back, where people were getting into fights at the Costco over how many cases of water they could buy.
A close second was my last night in Buenos Aires...a very relaxed night, when I took in a great Tango show in a small theatre (not the big show that the tourists go to), followed by an incredible dinner.
Best business model: A tie between the lady running the luggage storage place in the Iguazu bus station and the guy taking tips to unload the luggage from the buses and check the tag against tour receipt. The lady, though, had a real business, and I was impressed...3 pesos to dump my stuff for about 90 minutes while I wandered off for coffee, and she probably had 30 or 40 other pieces of luggage in the room.
Most troubling (A little bit of a rant follows here): I would like to think that there shouldn´t be poverty, or at least that there should be adequate opportunities and support services for people to get out of it. Naive, I know. There will always be poor people.
In Vancouver, there are many people on the street in an environment where there is lots of work, lots of support, and enough options that I can´t help to think it is a life style choice for many. It would help to take a shower, get a hair cut, and take the numerous hoops out of the face. Whether that is true or not, I don´t know, but I´m not prepared to spend such of my day thinking about a 20 year old squeegee kid that spends his day intimidating drivers into giving him money. Or someone that holds up a sign at the 1st street exit off the highway: Broke! Hungry! Homeless!
If I need to pay more taxes to provide support (to people with a plan), please let my MP know. Otherwise, with all due respect to those really in trouble, get help, get over it, and get your ass off the ground. Nobody said it would be easy.
BUT some of what I´ve seen in Argentina is a little more troubling. What do you say when the squeegee kids are 6 or 8 years old, and have to attack the cars in swarms, because they can´t reach high enough to get the whole window? To the maybe 9 year old outside the grocery store in Iguazú, I´m sorry. I will think about you, and wonder what will become of you. But giving you a peso or two, while perhaps solving your immediate problem...you´ll have some money for breakfast...will not make any difference tomorrow. To the 20 somethings that I´ve seen, thank you for your street entertainment...juggling and clowning at intersections, etc...at least you provide something in exchange.
In short, a wonderful time, and a place I look forward to seeing again. In the meantime, I'm too damn cold, so I'm heading to Mazatlan next Saturday for a week for a little time on the beach.
Thanks all to those who followed me around. It was nice knowing you were out there, and I enjoyed your attention. See y'all next time....
