My memories of the last 3 days of our vacation are definitely losing detail, but a few things really stand out.
Montevideo, Uruguay – a nice city, similar but smaller than Buenos Aires, and desperately in need of an influx of money. Streets and buildings are rather run down, abandoned, trash about. But there’s a nice feel to the place all the same. The buildings would be so charming if kept up, many have lovely ironwork balconies and doorways. Along the Rio de la Plata there is a very pleasant beach and walkway, and on the other side of a main street just off that beach is a run of buildings that reminded me of Miami Beach. I’m sure the apartments have a great view.
The tour we set up with Celebrity worked out well. The driver was pleasant, and the tour guide was knowledgeable and interesting. Like in Puerto Madryn, the agency that set up these tours for us used English teachers as guides during summer tourist season. The guides both liked the extra money and the lighter schedule in summer. And both spoke better English than I had expected. At this point, I would give Celebrity Cruises higher points for service to people with disabilities than I would give Holland America. This perhaps merits its own blog entry, but Celebrity was more accommodating, easier to reach, and willing to find solutions. The tours they set up were perfect – enough that I might consider a private tour again even if bus tours ARE available. The tour guides take you where you want, talk about what interests you and you see more. We stopped at one lookout where a Celebrity bus tour was stopped – and half the people on the bus were looking at the scenery and monuments, half were examining the souvenirs made in China that vendors were hawking. We were in and out in 15 minutes, and I’m sure they were there twice as long. Holland America had this insane procedure where you need to fill out forms, wait a month for feedback about accessible excursions (or more) until you began to feel like you had missed your chance to sign up, only to be told there wasn’t anything to sign up for.
There’s not much that sticks out in my head about Montevideo except the river, and the plants. There are a lot of gardens and outdoor sculpture. At the end of the tour, we stopped to see their cathedral and then walked around the Old City. I bought a hat that was locally made (my typical orangey rust colors, and it will go perfectly with a scarf my friend Steph recently knitted for me) and we walked over to a market for lunch.
That lunch and all the meals we had in Buenos Aires over the next 2 days are what I remember most clearly about those days! 3 lunches and 1 dinner, all fabulous.
The Montevideo lunch was huge – we could have ordered only 1 meal and it would have been enough, who knew? The prices aren’t a good indication of portion size, you get your money’s worth in South America. We started with a melted provolone cheese appetizer that I am going to try to make myself, along with a typical Uruguayan drink called media y media (half and half), which is a mixture of white wine and sparkling wine. Jim got steak, and I had a fish dish of some fish I’d never heard of before – both excellent.
Sunday’s lunch was cooked by Martin’s wife, Kene, and was delicious – first onion soup, then salad with avocado and blue cheese (not just the standard Argentine lettuce and tomatoes), and a roast with potatoes, rice (a tribute to her Philippine upbringing) and roasted red peppers. Dessert was an amazing flan. I felt like I had the good beef Argentina is known for finally.
Sunday dinner was at a hangout that tourists would never find, in their theater district. It was about 10 PM or later when we got there, and just beginning to fill up. Eventually there were 2 large tables with theater personnel from 2 different plays. So, Martin was trying to figure out who was the star, did he see him or her in such-and-such, who was the dame at the table, who did light crew…. It was a sort of South American version of Times Square I suppose, but just a typical Buenos Aires parilla (bbq) with the usual asado (cut of beef), pastas, and Spanish dishes. We had that melted cheese dish again, empanadas, and then opted for pasta.
The next day, lunch on Monday before we flew home that evening, was the best of all. Usually before flying I like to eat light. Bathrooms on the plane are not accessible to me, so I don’t want to risk needing to have a bowel movement. So, it was painful to me not to be able to just stuff myself! The food was that good. In the end I did over eat, but made sure I didn’t have any of my worst trigger foods, and I took a medication that helps ward off irritable bowel trouble.
Martin had taken us to a really small Italian neighborhood bar in Palermo, Guido’s Bar. It had maybe 6 tables inside, and 4 outside, though I think it might have had a room out of sight too. We sat at an indoor table by an open window, and it was a gorgeous day. There are no menus, and no one speaks English there. If we had stumbled upon this place on our own, it would have been rather confusing. You don’t really order, you just take what the chef or owner or waiter wants to bring you, and you pay whatever they say is the total price. The same food to 2 different tables could be different prices depending on their whim. If you forget your wallet, they’ll let you come back the next day to pay, cash only of course. You can make some preferences as you go along, and it does is shift what they choose to bring out. I was watching other tables – one had mainly pizza, another didn’t share dishes like we did.
To start we had 5 small dishes of appetizers brought all out at the same time, family style - a sweet squash, a couscous dish, an eggplant dish, one with mozzarella, ham, zucchini and pepper bits and something else I’ve forgotten. Next course was some small pieces of pizza, like a pizza margherita – very small, about 4 or 5 inches long, 3 inches wide at the crust, but oh so good – like in Italy. Then 3 plates of pastas – all homemade of course. One was a small hat shaped pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce. About now I’m ready to quit eating, feeling very full, already taken my medication to calm my digestion down because I could see it wasn’t going to be a light meal after all. There’s a long time between courses at this place – you have to not only suspend your idea of what you will eat, but also a requirement about how fast you will get service – it comes when it comes. On one hand that sounds like a good thing, not rushing to eat too fast, but actually it gives your stomach time to register how full it is, so that at some point you don’t want any more, but food keeps coming anyway.
Then came the stuffed ravioli. Oh my God, I’ve never had such good pasta. All of these were fresh pasta, of course. 2 types of stuffing. One was a butternut squash, the other a spinach and cheese mixture. The squash ones were simply divine, soft and gooey. Last came a desert plate – 2 ice creams, a small cheesecake, tira misu, and a poached pear. Often after the pasta there is a meat dish, but we begged off. It was the absolute best food I’ve had in ages, and was a nice last meal for our vacation.
Overall I would say the food in Buenos Aires is excellent, like Italy and France, it is hard to have a bad meal there. I admit that I would steer away from those Argentine “fastfood” places serving the national standard of beef, salad and potatoes – but I’m not sure they are bad, just not food I care for. Kene says the fattiness is related to the cut of beef, but I don’t know enough Spanish words for these cuts to be able to sort a menu out.
Curiously enough, Martin told us about an American style steak house, named Kansas, that is extremely successful there. It apparently has quick efficient service, a mostly American menu, made with Argentine ingredients and with an eye to an Argentine audience. It’s a high end restaurant that takes no reservations and always has a 45 minute wait for a table. Sort of made me feel proud.
I have a few other thoughts other than food though.
After this huge lunch on Monday, we took a long walk around a park between the bar and Martin’s home. It was a beautiful day for a walk, sunny, not too hot. At one point we took a pedestrian bridge over a very busy intersection. Down below, bopping in and about the traffic, sort of like the men who hang out begging at our busy intersections, was a man in a wheelchair. That’s his corner, but he doesn’t beg. Some people give him money, for sure. But mostly he’s there as a friend to bicyclists, and in his own fashion he directs traffic (there is a street light), or at least gives the cyclists advice on roads to take and other news. He socializes with drivers, makes friends. Martin had met him while on his bike one time. Apparently when the pedestrian bridge was first built, they made it impossible for bikes to use. This wheelchair user pushed for the bridge to be open to bikes, and to wheelchair users too. It was a huge crazy busy intersection, and one day he’s going to be hit by a car – especially given the way Argentines drive! Except that it seems like everyone knows about him, expects and looks for him to be there, and I suspect if he weren’t there for a week, people would worry.
Martin lives in Palermo. They own a house in a suburb, but 3 of their 4 kids are grown, so they don’t need as much space now. So they are leasing their house, and have rented an apartment in town. It’s in a good location, closer to city action. And it’s a sweet cozy apartment on the 8th floor. We had lunch there on Sunday, and I have to talk about the process of getting into the apartment. The building has 2 elevators, the primary one being very, very small, so I never saw it. I took the service elevator, and barely could get in that. We had to take the foot pedals off my chair to get the door closed. The toughest part though was making the turn from the back entrance to their apartment (where you have to enter into the laundry room when you use that elevator) into their kitchen. We tried taking off the foot pedals, but still I couldn’t turn enough to get the wheels to go through perpendicularly. My chair would fit if I could go in straight, but at an angle it behaves like a wider chair. I had been there 2 years ago and got in, but they had recently gotten a new washing machine, which sat behind the opened door, so the door didn’t open as wide now. In the end we took one wheel off my chair, and Martin held up the back right corner of the chair and wheeled me through on 3 wheels. It worked because my Quickie chair has easy on and off wheels, otherwise I think Jim and Martin would have had to carry me to a stuffed chair, and then brought the wheelchair in afterwards. The things you do when you really want to get somewhere. It was worth it, their place is lovely, and we had a long leisurely delicious lunch with 2 bottles of wine.
Martin is one of my oldest and dearest friends, when we met he was still 17, and I had just turned 18. We took a philosophy class together during freshman year at MIT, and I remember staying up late writing papers together for the class. Jim was in that class too, but I didn’t meet him for at least another year. Jim remembers me from those days, he offered to hold a door for me once and I bit his head off with some retort about being able to handle it myself, at least that’s what he remembers. I’d never refuse an offer of a held door now, but in those days it’s entirely possible I snapped at him. The 3 of us all look back at the philosophy class differently, and I find that amusing. Martin has fond memories, and thought it was a good class. Jim thought it was rather superficial and poorly taught. Me? I was just in over my head, there was so much reading that I couldn’t follow, and the grade was based on 3 essays and class participation. I was always too lost to participate much, and the essays could be turned in whenever we felt like. I barely made it through, and was glad it was Pass – Fail!
So, for me, anytime I see Martin is a good time, and my feeling about Buenos Aires may be more positive that it otherwise might have been as a result. Still, overall, I like the places in South America I’ve been to. They aren’t the easiest to see with a wheelchair, but not impossible either, and worth the trouble.
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