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Eaman’s birthday was in September, and this year, he celebrated solo — albeit with tons of new backpacker friends — in Italy. Since we had just one day together in the States once he got back, I knew my gift would have to be on the road. Good thing, because, to be honest, I didn’t even know what to get him. (I’m big on “experience” gifts, so a material gift wouldn’t work for me.)
I figured Buenos Aires, where we would be living in one place for one month, would give me the time to do some research — and work with the language barrier. First thought: Treat him to a steak and wine dinner. OK, but we have a steak dinner almost every other night here. No, it needed to be more unique…
Second thought: horses. Eaman loves riding, and unlike me, is very good at it. (He grew up in Oklahoma, so duh!) So what better place to ride than in Argentina, which has a big gaucho (cowboy) culture.
My research led me to Estancia Los Dos Hermanos, a farm 90 km outside of the city, where we could indulge in food, horseback riding and beautiful ranch life for a full day. (Other estancias seemed either too pricey, too ritzy or too touristy. Los Dos Hermanos was incredibly well-priced for what you get. If you’re interested in prices, shoot me an email.)
As always, I’m a little behind with the Photo of the Week section. But here is an amazing sunset in Arequipa, Peru on our last night before we left for Buenos Aires. Pollution may have had a helping hand in the creation of the beautiful colors, nevertheless, it was spectacular.
Before we decided to travel to multiple countries in this year, Eaman and I had first planned to leave New York to spend a year in just Buenos Aires. It sounded dreamy, but we actually didn’t know much about the city except that it’s big on steak and red wine and that it’s known as the Paris of South America. Now that we’ve been here for almost two weeks, we can confirm both those things. But we also learned some new things about life here.
I think the best way to describe BA to my American or American-loving friends is that it’s the best combination of New York City and Los Angeles. (The romance and architecture gets it the nod to Paris.) It has the buzz of a city that never sleeps but manages to stay laid-back and relatively quiet (except on the major avenues). There are rows and rows of cafes straight out of the East Village, Nolita or the Lower East Side, but to balance it out, there’s greenery and wildflowers to have you thinking you’re walking down Melrose. And much like both cities, there are certainly those places to see and be seen, but if you wander slightly off the beaten track, you’ll find underground spots.
In general, we love it and our ‘hood seems to be a perfect fit for us. Of course, there’s plenty more to discover, but here are some interesting aspects of culture that we’ve stumbled upon here:
Argentine Spanish is nuts. It’s like a different language. ‘Yo’ becomes ‘sho,’ ‘tu’ becomes ‘bos’ and all sorts of other crazy word switches applicable only to BA. But the bigger issue is the accent and similarity to Italian–with the fervor and hand gestures to match. (Many Italians immigrated to BA long ago, and most locals, known as portenos, are equal parts Spanish and Italian.) They pride themselves on their dialect, and yes, it’s beautiful, but please slow down. I have no idea what you’re saying!
Girly cafes. This mainly applies to our neighborhood of Palermo, but there is certainly no shortage of cutesy, uber feminine tea parlors and panaderias here–outnumbered only by clothing stores for trust fund babies. It’s seriously outrageous just how many there are. Now, I live for dainty macaroons and Rachel Ashwell shabby chic interior design, so this is my personal heaven. Eaman, on the other hand, is forced to sip coffee from this mug in a cafe that plays Madonna’s greatest hits:
We had read and soon figured out for ourselves that South America is not the kind of place where you book things in advance. It just doesn’t work that way. So when the task of finding an apartment in Buenos Aires came up, we knew that hunting in person was the only way to go.
We lined up dozens up apartments that fit our criteria: bigger than about 320 sq ft, with full (or close to full) kitchen and WiFi, located in the desirable neighborhoods of Palermo (any of its many subdivisions) or Recoleta, and under $900/month. But working with various agencies to find that dream apartment wasn’t easy.
We’d send our picks — all of which got a second over by Eaman’s friend who lives here — to the agents who’d take what seemed like ages to respond only to tell us that, sorry, those places were occupied and the site just wasn’t updated to reflect that. Oh, and some agents said we could have the place but wouldn’t be allowed to see it first unless we rented for more than three months.
On day three of the hunt we still hasn’t seen a single apartment, so we increased our max monthly limit and finally had a decision between a few places. We narrowed it down to two similarly priced spots:
Apartment 1: spacious one bedroom, charming, full kitchen, nice owner, sooner move-in date and a location that locals raved about (Palermo Soho) Apartment 2: tiny studio, modern but a tad sterile, kitchenette, pool on the roof, later move-in date, direct access to the bakery of my dreams below the building and a location that we raved about (Palermo Hollywood)…but we weren’t allowed to see it (we figured out which building it was thanks to pictures of the lobby and convinced the doorman to show us everything but the apartment itself)
(For those who are wondering, the daily rate of renting an apartment is about the same as that of a getting a room at a hostel. That’s why apartment rentals has become such a booming business here.)
In the end, we went with #1. Though my heart broke a little to not get a pool and that bakery, we knew the bigger space and nice owner were more important. Plus, the locals told us this area was much better and who knows how much we’d even go to the pool. And I will walk to that bakery dangnabbit.
The apartment is located in Palermo Soho, which just so happens to feel a lot like the quieter areas of Soho in New York as well as our old hood of Nolita. Think cafes and restaurants that are sceney, but a scene I sort of want to be a part of. Not gonna lie. (We always used to joke that Europeans would move to Nolita because it was so Euro and here we are moving into the Nolita ‘hood of BsAs.)
Now we’re settled in and man, it feels good to temporarily unpack and take a shower without flip flops. Here, a little tour of our humble abode:
We’re now in Buenos Aires, enjoying the comforts of a big, cosmopolitan city and our very own apartment (details on that in the next post). But we would be remiss to move on from Peru without a little reflection.
I think Peru will always hold a special place in our wanderlust hearts because it was the first stop on this big, crazy adventure. We didn’t know much about the country beyond Machu Picchu, but we’ve learned so much.
The people are some of the warmest, most generous you’ll find. And the country itself is huge and varied with so much to do–whether it’s hitting the beach, going for a hike, soaking in hot springs, trekking through the jungle or tasting food in the rising gastronomic capital of Lima. (We sadly missed a major food festial by one week!!)
A friend in Buenos Aires told us that we did good by starting in
Peru because you expect and almost crave a big culture shock at the beginning of this kind of trip. Starting in Buenos Aires would’ve felt like going from one New York to the next. Peru was indeed a culture shock, but in the best way possible. No skyscrapers, no herds of people in a rush, no taking things for granted.
Peru was a quick lesson in appreciating the small things in life (i.e. hot water, electricity and something to eat after a long day hiking), not to mention natural beauty at its finest.
We didn’t get to share all the pictures we would’ve liked to with each post, so here, the stuff you didn’t see:
We spent our last week in Peru hanging out in Arequipa, the second largest city, and as we found out, the perfect place to get a lovely mix of sightseeing, eating, partying and hiking.
The city’s most talked about sight is the Santa Catalina monastery, which covers more than 20,000 square meters and was built in 1580. It used to house hundreds of nuns but now only 30 live in the complex. Luckily for us, the remaining area is open to the public. It’s a wild combination of colors, history and intense silence.
Blogging has been a great way to keep track of all our stories, but for day to day notes and contact info, I’ve been toting around Graphic Image’s World Travel Journal, which the company so generously gifted to me before our trip.
I even brought it along to Machu Picchu last week!
And now, we’re working with the company to give one away to a fellow wanderlust-er! Click ahead for more details.
There have been many great photo opportunities in Peru. From the cute babies, to the vibrant textiles to the beautiful nature that seems to be everywhere you open your eyes to the wise-looking abuelas(os) as pictured above. There has only been one catch – sometimes you gotta pay up for a nice picture opportunity. When trying to take the above pic, the abuela told me I have to pay up 1 sol (about $0.40) in order to take her shot. So I paid up thinking I can take as many photos as my heart desired. But not so fast. One sole apparently only buys you three pics. So in this shot, you can see the abuela yelling at me for taking a fourth pic (hence her raising four fingers). Lesson learned: I have since limited my shots per sol to three and understood that even a warm, fuzzy cardigan-wearing abuela can drive a hard bargain.
