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So I have a theory. Chile is a pretty cool country. It has a variety of climates, nice people, good outdoors (Torres del Paine) and it´s doing well economically. Everything is great--except for Santiago. I have a special place in my heart for Santiago, but it´s not what one might call a crown jewel of the country. I was talking to a Chilean in Puerto Natales, and he said that down south, Chileans call it Asciago--A play on the phrase "Que asco" which means "how gross."
That´s where Buenos Aires comes in.
From what I´ve seen (this is very biased and probably untrue), the rest of Argentina kind of sucks. Pampas (grasslands) and ugly little concrete towns as far as the eye can see. But then I got here.
Buenos Aires is a real city. A city with culture, class, art, and cool stuff to do. Just walking around here for three days for at least ten hours a day was just scratching the surface of what I think it is. The people are great, the food is awesome (and pretty cheap), and it is just so cultured. Some highlights:
--Cafe Tortoni, the oldest cafe in BA, is 150 years old and still awesome. I want a T-shirt.
--Florida, the main pedestrian street, is packed with the most awesome shops anywhere. It actually made me want to go shopping.
--They have book stores here. BOOK STORES!
--Tango. I went to this really cheap, really intimate, really good show at Cafe Tortoni a couple of nights back. Awesome. Awesome music.
--Recoleta cemetary, where many famous Argentines are entombed in crazy sepulchres, made me wonder at the strange things people spend money on
--La Boca, a colorful lower-class neighborhood, had a lot of good art and charm
A note on the last thing--I walked to La Boca, which I guess not a lot of people do. I think it´s worth mentioning the other side of the barrio that I saw--the one with people in slums living under a highway overpass, scrounging in the trash for things to eat. It was a good reminder that I´m still in a city, and still in Latin America, and things aren´t better for people at that level of society than they are in Santiago.
Anyway...plan today is to get on a boat over to Uruguay. I´m going to leave pretty soon to pick up my passport from the Paraguayan embassy (hopefully with a visa) and maybe do some last minute shopping in Florida before I head out. I´m in the market for a leather jacket...
Love,
Matt
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