The distance from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia is just over 3000 Km, or roughly 2000 miles for those of you who don´t do the whole metric thing. of those 3000 km, approximately 2900 of those resemble the plains of Nevada. There is NOTHING to see. I never thought I´d say this, but the drive to Kansas is more interesting. At least then my dearest Mother would exclaim "COWS!!!" every so often to break up the monotony. Even Mom would be bored on this drive.
While there was no need for scenic descriptions of the Atlantic coast of Patagonia, there are several aspects of Argentina that demand attention. For starters: I am in culinary heaven. The diet here consists of meat (asado style), bread, and wine. I was expecting food to be cheap down here, but the only cheap items at the supermercado are those aformentioned. A good cut of meat (i.e. tenderloin) works itelf out to 3-4 dollars a pound, and ground meat (carne picada) is actually cheaper than dried beans. Bread is sold by the sackful and usually runs about $0.80 a pound. This diet is definitely to my likings.
The Argentines do have one pequilarity that I was not expecting... they LOVE sweets. Everything down here is sweet. I had coffee this morning for the first time since I´ve been down here that was just black coffee, not the $2.00 US teaspoon of coffee flavored sugar syrup that everybody down here seems to drink. There are pastry shops on every steet that sell an item that has wormed its way into my heart. I don´t know the name, but I call it a godsend. Picture, if you will, one of those packaged icecream drumsticks you buy at 7-11. Now instead of an icecream cone, or the ever popular wafflecone, the outside is made of puff pastry with a sugar glaze, the filling is not factory made icecream but rather that necter of the gods called dulce do leche, and the top is still covered with chocolate and nut bits. As these treats are quite large, the dulce de leche filling probably amounts to a quarter cup or so. Cost = $0.75 US.
Between the sweets and the abundance of meat (I forgot to mention that even small convenience stores all have a meat section) David (the dark one) would quickly gain about 300 lbs, bringing him upto a staggering 320 lbs.
Another thing that has caught my attention is Argentine spanish. It is not spanish. It´s spelled like spanish, it even kinda sounds like spanish, but it most certainly is not. For starters the "elle" letter (double l for those f you not familiar with the language) is not pronounced in the traditional "ya" sound but rather in a "sha" sound. the word for "you" typically "tu" is "vos" and instead of "español" they say "spanish" castellano (remember that the ll is pronounced sha down here). Compounded with the fact that they slur and mumble giving the overall impresssion of speaking with a mouth full of seltzer water, and a vocabulary that mostly consists of slang makes it impossible for me to understand anything that is spoken to me.
For example: the common word for "to catch" as in "to catch the bus" is cojar, but if were to say "cojè el omnibus: I caught the bus" in Argentina you would be saying "I fucked the bus". Not exactly your standard translation.
Almost in Ushuaia...
Hopefully pictures will be up soon...
