Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

As wonderful as Buenos Aires is, at some point you will want to escape for a few hours, if only for a change of scenery. Thankfully getting away from it is not difficult (or expensive) and there are some lovely spots worth a visit within in easy reach.

1. Tigre

Probably the most popular Porteño daytrip of all, Tigre is a must-see, even if you’re just in Buenos Aires for a few days. Situated on the delta of the river Paraná, the town is a gateway to hundreds of kilometres of navigable river, complete with restaurants, hotel, holiday complexes and entire neighbourhoods.

Numerous boats leave the Estacion Fluvial for a guided tour up the river, pointing out the main points of interest (including the house of former President Sarmiento, faithfully preserved in a huge glass box) along the way. The town is also host to an amusement park (Parque de la Costa) and an enormous, flashy casino if you like your pleasures a little more risky.

An easy hour-long train-ride from Buenos Aires (leaving from Retiro, but if you’re in Palermo get a taxi to the Lisandro del Torre station), a day in Tigre is a wonderful way to escape the heat of a Porteño summer.

2. La Plata

In 1880, when the decision was finally made to make Buenos Aires the capital of Argentina, a new site for the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires had to be found. It was decided to build a new city from scratch about 50km from the new national capital.

The result, La Plata, is known as La Cuidad del Diagonal (the Diagonal City), due to the large tree-lined avenues that criss-cross the usual square block layout. La Plata is a pleasant place just to wander, with shops to rival Palermo’s finest and a beautiful central square, home to the striking Cathedral.

At the other end of the central thoroughfare are the Bosques de la Plata, a large and leafy park, complete with boating lake, Observatory and numerous museums.

It takes about 90 minutes to reach La Plata by train, leaving from Constitucion station.

3. Luján

Hop on the number 57 from Plaza Italia and in just over an hour you’ll find yourself in Luján, the religious heart of Argentina. Home to a large neo-gothic Basilica (not unsimilar in design to the cathedral in La Plata), built to honour La Virgen de Luján, the Patron Saint of Argentina.

Known as the nation’s Capital of Faith, Luján attracts some 6 million pilgrims a year, many of them walking the 68 kilometres from Buenos Aires. Whilst the town itself is pleasant place to visit, and the Basilica is definitely worth a visit, a short taxi ride is recommended to nearby village Carlos Keen.

Once home to an important railway hub, the trains stopped a long time ago and made room for restaurants. Lots of them. Set round a large central green, people now flock here on Sunday for a generous portions of homemade food (asado being very popular of course) in a peaceful and rustic setting.

Luján is also home to a large and well-advertised zoo (about 10 minutes out of town). A trip here is not recommended for animal lovers, the enclosures are small and barren with more emphasis on entertainment at the creature’s expense than conservation. To be avoided.

4. Colonia

Colonia is a popular daytrip for many reasons, not least for expats who need to renew their 3-month tourist visa. A 3-hour ferry ride (Buquebus run several a day from their Retiro terminal, including a fast boat which does the trip in an hour) across the mighty River Plate, the Uruguayan town of Colonia del Sacramento is a well preserved Portuguese stronghold originally founded in 1680, with many of the original buildings still standing.

A tranquil place in the week, the picturesque and compact historic centre is overrun with daytripping Porteños on the weekends, it’s well worth the trip if you have a day spare. You could even venture to one of the estancias that surround the town for a traditional asado and cabalgata (horse ride).

I’m not going to beat around the bush, and I’ve said it before but Argentinian TV is pretty much universally awful. I was in a supermarket the other day and the TV in the corner was tuned to an entertainment show which consisted of 2 young trendy dudes talking to (“Do you have a boyfriend?”) and physically assessing 5 scantily clad female dancers (give us a twirl close-ups on the boobs and arse type of thing). Then a man dressed up as a monkey came on and they asked the girls which one of them was single. The lucky girl stepped forward and gave the monkey a kiss on his monkey cheek whereby he collapsed in mock-ecstasy twitching on the floor.

I am however proud to reveal that there is one light in the darkness that is Argentinian TV and that is Diana Arroz. A play on the Spanish word for rice, this advert (for rice, obviously) made me laugh out loud the first few times I saw it, and I still haven’t got bored of it. The song (which can be heard being sung and hummed all over Buenos Aires) goes “Hoy hice arroz. Lo hice para vos. Yo soy Diana Arroz.” (Today I made rice. I made it for you. I am Diana Arroz.)

I recently posted a status update to Facebook informing the world that I had discovered my local supermarket here in Buenos Aires stocks 17 types of tinned corn, which I found to be a little excessive. A couple of my friends commented that I should buy each one and review it.

Which is exactly what I am going to do. And what’s more I will document it all at CornWars!

This was the local bar in Paraguay, where I was staying with a Peace Corps Volunteer and his family. It was different in two ways. Firstly it was basically somebody’s house, the waitresses were the daughters of the family (both wore Man United tops) and the beer was kept in the fridge in the kitchen. Secondly, you can see the guy on the left being passed a glass. In fact it was the only glass. Everybody bought a bottle of beer and when you got the glass, you filled it up from your bottle, drank all or some of it and passed it on. I liked it.

Today I am proud to present the greatest photo I never took.

Whilst in Alaska last year, I stayed for a week in Craig where my cousin’s husband was working. It’s a 2 hour ferry and hour’s drive from Ketchikan (itself only accessible by ferry or plane) so it’s kind of remote. To make the most of the beautiful, still weather they were enjoying (made more eerie by the haze from huge forest fires across the border in British Columbia), after work, Michael took us all out in a skiff for a spot of fishing.

The water was glassy, with not a breath of wind and we shot out into the bay for about 30 minutes heading for an area where the seabed rose up to within 15 feet of the surface, a good fishing spot I was reliably informed. And, it proved to be, Michael reeling in a tasty dinner every 5 minutes or so. Even I managed to snag a couple of rockfish, which I was all excited about, but one disdainful look from Valerie told me all I needed to know, and we threw it back.

It floated slowly away from the boat, and we got on with catching some more serious fish. At this point we were around half a mile away from the shore, with nothing else around and surrounded by total silence (the occasional noise of a whale exhaling could be heard).

A couple of minutes after the fish had gone back in the water, Valerie spotted a black shape in the distance flying towards us. “An eagle” she said, “It’s seen the rockfish.” And sure enough, having seen the fish in the water from half a mile away, a bald eagle was flying towards us, looking for dinner. It flew past us once to check out what was floating in the water, looped round and in one fluid movement, scooped my luckless fishy friend from the water, 15 feet away from the boat.

I had brought my camera along, and Valerie was holding it when the eagle swooped, and she managed to get a shot of it’s tailfeathers as it flew off. Her son Simon however, managed to get the perfect shot, so I will always have a reminder of what has to be the most incredible thing I have ever been lucky enough to have witnessed.

I went for lunch with a friend a couple of days ago, we had a sandwich each, a drink and a coffee. The bill came to 128 pesos. That may not mean anything to you but had we not finished our delicious lunch, we may well have choked on it.

Everybody that has spent any length of time in Buenos Aires has stories about how expensive it has become. I first came here nearly 3 years ago when 6 of us ate (in a good but basic cafe) a main meal and dessert and had change from 100 pesos. The first thing you’re going to do is look up how much 100 pesos is. I’ll save you the bother, as of today 100 pesos is  £17.54 ($25.50 or €21.25). That makes our lunch clock in at £22.45, London prices indeed.

To put this into some sort of comparison, I went for a job interview the other day. It’s a customer-facing role for a professional company, requiring language skills and technology experience. Take home pay is 3,000 pesos a month (£526.33). If you’re sharing a decent flat and lucky enough to pay Argentinian rates (as opposed to tourist short-term rates) your rent & services will come to around half of that. This leaves you with £263 a month, that’s 10 lunches for 2. And I am, of course, one of the lucky few.

Whatever great economic progress the government is trumping, the fact remains that living here remains a struggle for the vast majority of the population (working full-time in a coffee shop pays about 1,200 pesos a month).

To illustrate this, there is a nice parallel to the Big Mac Index, the Ugi’s Pizza index, which tracks the cost of a plain Muzzerela pizza at resolutely working-class pizza chain, Ugi’s Pizza. In the last 10 years, it’s gone from 2 pesos to 16 (64% in real terms). If that’s just too depressing to contemplate, here are some great shots of people who just won’t be put off by a 16 peso pizza.

Bife de Lomo, La Brigada, Buenos Aires, 26th June 2009. Bon Apetit as they don’t say here!

What’s This?

Lunch in Colombia. That’s fried egg, rice, beans, avocado, fried mature plantain, sausage, ground beef, chicken and deep-fried pork rind. What you want me to say – it’s wonderful.

One of the joys of travelling in a country where they don’t speak your language is that occasionally you’ll come across a name that has one meaning for the locals and another entirely for you. And you can take a picture and giggle at the crazy foreign names.

Spotted this one in Salta, Moron Firekillers (fire extinguishers). Quite a common one this, it’s also a town in Buenos Aires province.

A chain of chemists in Brasil. Saw this in the bus station in Sao Paulo which is not normally the sort of place I would recommend walking round with your camera, but I had to make an exception for Farto. Had already spotted it a couple of times, but had been unable to get a picture, so was very happy to catch this example. Kind of like trainspotting – patience and a little bit of luck. You even get a bonus shot of Laura with her backpack.

I purchased these fine burgers from my local supermarket here in Buenos Aires, based solely on the name, a mistake I will not be committing twice. Rarely have I come across a product that so ably Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. God, they were awful.

I was kind of at a loss with this one. Spotted on a tour of bodegas in Mendoza last year. Not my first Wanka spot – there was a poster in the street advertising a Peruvian music concert which featured this word heavily. Was unsure if it’s the music or the group. But again, Google comes to the rescue.

Like the BarfyBurger, I bought this one simply for the name – it’s tinned tuna, it’s called Fanny. This is going to be funnier if you’re English more than if you’re American…

So, we’ve made it back to Colombia – in fact we’ve been back here for over a fortnight. It all started with a mammoth bus day from Otavalo in Ecuador, up to Ipiales where we crossed the border, followed by the worst bus journey so far, up to Popayan. It’s hard to concentrate on the beautiful scenery when the bus is haring down the bendy road, just inches from the edge of the road and the 400m precipice to the river below. We didn’t get to Popayan until 11 at night, went straight to a hostel, and in the morning jumped on a bus to Cali.

Laura is from Cali, and as we’ve been together over a year now, I’d heard a lot about the place, not all of it positive. Along with Medellin, Cali is infamous as being home to a very powerful and violent drug cartel. As the power of Medellin and Pablo waned, Cali and the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers took up the slack. While generally keeping a lower profile than their adversaries in Medellin (no front pages of Time or Newsweek for these boys) they did a pretty comprehensive job of making Cali an unpleasant and dangerous place to live for many years.

But, like Medellin, Cali has shown itself to be very resilient and again, I was pleasantly surprised. The centre is not unattractive (it’s not beautiful, but hey!), the rio Cali runs through the middle of town, surrounded all the way by trees and bushes (which make it harder to see the people washing themselves and clothes in it) and the San Antonio old town certainly gives La Candelaria in Bogota a run for its money. It has one of the best zoos in South America, concentrating mainly on wildlife native to the continent, and run very much along more Western lines than most South American zoos, the animals look well looked after and well housed. I do of course have photos of all this, but am yet to get to a computer, so you’ll just have to wait.

We spent a nice 10 days in Cali (I even risked public ridicule and did my Salsa thing – nobody laughed too loudly and I escaped with my drunken pride virtually intact) and nearly considered staying there for a few months, but came to our senses and headed off again. We’re currently in Bucaramanga, which apart from being the only town I can think of to sound like a Bond villain is famous for its unique and unusual snack, la hormiga culona, which roughly translated means Big-Ass Ant. I’ve bought a packet which I’m working my way through, they’re actually pretty tasty.

We’ll wait until Monday when bus prices halve, due to the end of Semana Santa (Holy Week, nothing to do with Mr Claus), and then we’re off to the beach. The Caribbean to be more precise, which I am looking forward to enormously.