Food and Grocery Shopping in Buenos Aires

As mentioned in earlier posts this is a HUGE city. Its like living in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, and other big cities on planet Earth. There are 12 million people in greater Buenos Aires. The place I just moved from, southern California has 20 million people, but its spread out and lots of people live in houses with yards etc. In the Capital Federal section of Buenos Aires its mainly high rises and densely packed humans.

One of the big advantages to this is you DEFINITELY do not need a car. In fact, you don´t want to have a car. I am assuming, that the people that own cars in BA are people clearly with means, but there are a lot of cars here, actually there are cars every where unfortunately. Imagine a world with no cars. There were no cars in Isinlivi, see my earlier post from Ecuador. That was way out in the rural Andes of Ecuador and if you saw a car once a day it was a big deal. But any way, back here to Argentina.

The food is really nice. I am enjoying picking up a bit of fresh produce each day after work on my walk home. And not just fresh produce, but also fresh meat and chicken, fresh bread, fresh chocolates, fresh cheese, etc... This is a cooker´s paradise, and I have been cooking up a storm, no pun intended for those who know me as Storm.

One of the main items I have been cooking is the produce stores actually cut up the vegetables for you and put them in a package. So, they all sort of cut up vegetables in all sorts of different varieties so by the time I get home I just throw it into a stir fry and I am up and running. No need to cut all of the vegetables when I get home and put the waste in the compost. Yeh right, no compost in the big city, but out in Placitas we have a nice compost pile and we also have a nice compost pile in Silver City. In Silver City I throw out the compost every day and then at night the deer come and eat up all of the compost. I know that because in the morning there is usually fresh deer droppings. Enough about the droppings and on to what is hard to find here in BA.

First of all there is certain stuff I have just not seen. In fact the guide books mention this as well, and it appears to be true. This was not the case in Ecuador, I am obviously talking about peanut butter. I have not seen it any where, if someone reads my blog and knows about a place in Buenos Aires to buy peanut butter please let me know by posting a comment.

Also, mayonnaise is really expensive and probably not that good. It comes in a teeny weeny plastic bottle, probably enough for a couple of sandwiches and it costs, get this, about FOUR dollars. Also, it appears that potato chips are very pricey as well. A huge bag of chips at Trader Joe´s is like three bucks, here a tiny bag of chips is over four dollars. So those are just some of the items I have noticed so far in my short almost two week stay in Argentina.

Today, after a two week search I found a really good source for hot cereal, especially instant oat meal. You know in the states you can find Quaker Oats in both the traditional and instant variety, well here I found a small shop at 1928 Vidal in Belgrano that sells a nice mix of hot cereals for a very reasonable price. So, I plunked down 10 pesos and got me a really big bag of instant oat meal, and I will be all smiles for many, many mornings just before spring hits here south of the equator.

On a side note, since I am in the big city, I haven´t seen the southern cross yet, one of these days or nights I will emerge from the big buildings and head out into the country and hopefully see the southern cross. More later on food stuff, but for now that was a good start about food.

Exactly one week in Buenos Aires to the hour

I arrived here exactly one week ago at about this time, around 9:40PM. Here we are one week later and I am still in a complete dream. I am still not sure I am here, in fact my dreams at night have been so vivid and bizarre that I wonder if it is a function of the fact that I am dreaming twenty four by seven. I discussed this with someone down here and they said enjoy it because soon you will be back to your own life. A friend of mine is now in Death Valley and it seems she is experiencing the same thing, only her world is at one hundred and thirty degrees each day.

The people here have been very friendly and my Spanish has gone up one notch out of probably at least one thousand notches. I am now able to write a bit easier, and not so scared to do it. Luckily, during the day I interact with people who are all speaking Spanish to one another and although for the most part I have no idea what they are saying, at least I catch a word or two in each sentence and if I am real lucky can have a sense of the conversation. In the stores, people blab away at me on various and sundry topics and I really have no idea what they are saying but I nod politely like I do. Every once in a while I get up the nerve to say,

Estoy lento, por favor hablas muy despacio.

They look at me like I am loco, and continue on speaking really fast. Welcome to the Spanish world. Later on in another post I will start to discuss in depth the similarities and differences between Ecuador and Argentina but suffice it to say there are some very big differences.

For me, one of the gigantic differences is that you can drink the tap water in BA, and possibly in other parts of Argentina as well. Although I haven´t been to other parts of Argentina so I don´t know that for sure. I have been drinking the water now for five days and I feel pretty good. In fact, the water may even be better here than at home because they may put less stuff in the water, who knows. A friend of mine back home in New Mexico would pull out her pH paper and let me know where it falls on the scale. She has the ability to make acidic or basic water now by way of a cool new ionizing water machine.

Any way, because the water is potable out of the tap, it makes for a lot safer eating conditions as you cruise around and eat at the local restaurants. When we were in Ecuador it was always a big gamble every time you went out to eat because you never knew whether or not you were going to make it an hour or two after leaving the restaurant. But here, because water is so mission critical to all cooking, you are in much better luck eating out.

In fact, I have been buying a really nice package of shredded vegetables each day and bringing them home and having them for dinner. There is at least one fresh vegetable stand or kiosk on almost every corner in Buenos Aires. And they all pretty much sell the same thing, and for me this is truly fantastic. Also, on almost every block is a store that sells bread and good cookies. Compared to Ecuador the cookies here are AMAZING, and I know good cookies. In Ecuador the cookies were EXACTLY the same in every Panderia, where as here, the variety of cookies and cakes is beautiful. Its more like Paris then Cuenca.

The people all have a look that I can appreciate, and basically I have been here one week and I have not seen one FAT person, seriously no one. Its amazing how healthy looking the people are here at least from a weight perspective. Its refreshing to see that people care about their health and how they move around on the planet. Without getting into political or social commentary, the obesity is not healthy, and its very expensive as well. So, this is a very positive aspect of Argentina and more specifically Buenos Aires.

This is a very big city, and when I say big I mean very dense, dense, dense. Its like New York City, in fact its like Manhatten. People every where, cars every where, not a place you can turn with some peace and quiet. Big buildings every where, there isn´t a spot in this town where you can go and not see a big building.

Perspective is so interesting in life, and Al Einstein got the relativity theory really correct. When I moved to Pasadena from Placitas, New Mexico I was in shock. After living at the end of a dirt road off the grid with our own well, when I arrived in southern California I couldn´t believe the density, and for almost two years I was usually just shaking my head. Well Buenos Aires makes Pasadena look like Placitas. So there you have it, its all relative.

Not real sure what winter weather is like here, but I hope the past couple of days are more of a sign of what its like than the first couple of days I was here. I am now walking around in a short sleeve shirt during the day, and a light jacket at night. No more hat, gloves, and neck warmer like last week. But I assume it will get cold again and I will be back into that routine at least for about another month or so.

Again, this is a big city, and the density is really thick with cars and people. Surprisingly it doesn´t bother me too much in the short term, but for the longer term I am not a Manhatten type of a person. Also, in South America a friend of mine said they don´t really have heat, and he is correct. They have these small space heaters in a big room that sort of heat up a space kind of sort of, but not really. When we were up in the mountains in Ecuador at eleven thousand feet in the Andes, they actually had wood heat in a small fire place that did work, but that was a rare case of heat, and clearly that heat took a lot of work.

There are many signs that you are in the Latin world down here, but I won´t go into all of them right now. But my eye is better tuned having lived three months in Ecuador. I think the transition from Ecuador to Argentina is a good one, as you are less surprised by what you find and you aren´t surprised by what you do find.

Happy Sunny Day in Buenos Aires

So, its still not been a week since I have been here, its only been about four days and already I am starting to get into the groove a bit. Today was the first full sunny day since I arrived. After all its been a cold winter here, and to have a day like today in BA was really good news for me.

Unfortunately, I arrived here with ZERO warm clothes, not too sharp on my part, I think I already mentioned arriving into Santa Fe in early November back in 1985 with only shorts cause I thought I was going to the desert and it snowed on us. Well I feel the same way now, even though some of my friends told me to take warm clothes, sweating back in NM in 90 degree weather didn´t put me in the right frame of mind to pack my winter clothes for South America, and so I didn´t and I have been cold for the past four days.

I was not sure where to find warm clothes, I clearly wasn´t going to buy them in a store, that would be too much. So I flailed around a bit for the past couple of days walking the streets thinking about what to do. Today was the day where it all came into place. Early in the morning for the first time I found a bank that would accept my ATM card so I was able to get some cash and then I went on a big shopping spree for some warm clothes.

I walked the town of BA in search of the stuff I needed. Besides picking up two really nice Spanish novels at a used book store, I also figured out the key as to where to buy stuff. As I walked the city of BA I started to discover that the big parks, and there are lots of parks in BA have some really cool flea markets and vendors selling all sorts of stuff from clothes, to shoes, to food etc. This was my big bonanza. I had found my warm clothes and now I was happy.

Another interesting note about Buenos Aires, is I thought there were parts of the city where there might not be BIG buildings. But I walked for many hours today and every where I went there were big buildings, EVERY WHERE. Not sure when this city was built up, but I assume it was prior to 2001. So, just like New York City, there are big buildings everywhere I went. But it was a sunny day and I was happy.

Chapter Two Has Begun in Buenos Aires

So, here we are part two. I decided to take a detour and spend time living in Pasadena, California. I was in Pasadena from October 28, 2008 until June 30, 2010. It was exactly 20 months, and I had a great time living in southern California. The highlight of my time in Pasadena were all of my friends that I made via poetry and haiku. It was a wonderful experience.

After six glorious weeks back home in New Mexico, I am now living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have just arrived and I will be chronicalling my first days and impressions here.

After having been away from Latin America for over two years, getting back here is incredibly exciting and incredibly scary as well. Its a lot of emotions all mixed in one. The major difference is on this journey I am by myself and on my last journey I was with my best friend who decided to stay home this time and follow my adventure remotely. I don´t blame her, living in Latin America is not for the faint of heart, and you have to really WANT to live here to be here.

So, here I am back in a place where I don´t speak the language, and struggling to understand the basic things that people are saying to me as I buy a bottle of water at the grocery store, or I try to exchange money at the bank.

The first day has been a whirl wind of emotions, all of the old stuff comes back and all of the new stuff awaits me with open arms. Nothing like diving in head first.

Its cold here, not real cold, but way colder than Pasadena, and I have not been in any type of winter for years, as I even skipped my winter before Pasadena living in Ecuador. Luckily, I am half way through winter, and this is NOT a real winter, but cold enough to say wow, it is cold out and the heat is on in my place of residence.

In November 1985 I arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico with short and T shirts, thinking I was going to New Mexico where its always warm. I arrived in Buenos Aires with no hat or gloves or long underwear, not even a sweater. It was so hot in New Mexico and I was in the mind set of shorts and maybe a T shirt, maybe not, that the concept of packing a hat and gloves never crossed my mind, well maybe it did, but I didn´t put two and two together.

I walked all over Ecuador with a hat and gloves and never used them because we were on the Equator, and so here I thought I didn´t need it either. But as we flew over Bolivia and I looked down at the gorgeous Andes and the towns of Sucre and Cochabamba I realized we are way south and not in North America, but in South America the further south you fly the colder it gets.

Buenos Aires is nine hours south of Miami. Its about 4500 miles or 7000 kilometers south of Miami. The first island you fly over is Cuba and then Kingston, Jamaica, and then on into the western part of Venezuela and then over Colombia, the Amazon basin in Brazil, and then the Andes of Bolivia and on in to Argentina. The most amazing part of the flight is seeing Bolivia and the Andes. Simply breath taking and gorgeous. Especially the huge river valleys that flow out of the mountains and down into the valley of Bolivia.

Aerolineas Argentinas is an excellent airline, my flight was not very full and I got to have an extra seat to myself. I believe it was close to the longest flight I have ever taken in my life. Its about 12 hours from Buenos Aires to Sydney Austrailia and about the same distance to Madrid, Spain. So, it was fun flying the whole time south, south, south. We only flew one time zone east, so all most all of the flying is south. Its another three hours to the the southern tip of South America approximately. So, basically, Antarctica is probably a few more hours from there, but some one can correct me if I am wrong. Its cool to basically just fly south, with no east west component to speak of. Its the first time I had ever flown that far in a north south direction and only moved one time zone.

The planet is a fascinating place, and flying around is a luxury, I appreciate this trip very much, and will continue to remember how lucky we are to have the things we do.

More about Buenos Aires as I learn my way around the city.

Stay tuned for the next adventure.

Final Summary from our First Trip to Ecuador

Here is my generic blog with less personal comments...

http://yecuador.blogspot.com/

After working for over two years here in Albuquerque at a really nice small software company with some really cool people, Michele and I decided to take three months off and go down to South America.

It was my first time down to South America, and Michele's second trip down there. She had gone to Peru in the past to visit Machu Pichu and the Cusco area.

The only place in Latin America I had been before was Mexico and going to South America was much more intense and third world like...

Originally, we were going to go to Ecuador and Chile, but after being in Ecuador for about one month, we decided there was just too much to see in this beautiful small country. Ecuador is about the size of Nevada, whereas Peru is much bigger. So we made the big decision to stay in Ecuador the whole time, for about 3 months...

What a lovely difficult journey. I tell people that it was the most incredible journey of my lifetime and at the same time the most difficult journey of my lifetime. In life, usually this is the case... Being on the edge one usually feels all the joy and sorrow of life in different breaths.

The people of Ecuador are lovely and very heartfelt. Every where we went people went out of their way to be friendly and helpful any way they could be.

We didn't know this before we left, but Ecuador is mainly a rain forest -- the whole country for the most part... Here in Albuquerque we get 10 inches of rain annually, whereas Ecuador gets around 100 inches of rain a year.. Quite a big difference, and certainly made the trip kind of wet... In fact, it rained almost every single day we were there... A sunny, clear, blue sky New Mexico day in Ecuador never happened once. So we missed the weather we were used to...

We loved speaking Spanish the whole time, and needless to say our Spanish is much improved. We were able to get along just fine, especially if we knew the context of the conversation. A lot of times, people would just start talking to us out of the blue and at that time we were usually pretty confused, especially when going for long hikes in the mountains with some native Quecha people. We met some lovely native South Americans who guided us around some really big steep mountains.

All in all, the food wasn't that great. They have fantastic fruits and vegetables in the markets, but in the restaurants where we were eating they basically served rice and beans and some type of meat or chicken. You just couldn't get a really big salad or a plate of vegetables for a meal, it didn't exist anywhere except in the really fancy restaurants. If in the future we moved there to live, having our own kitchen for cooking would be great for cooking the foods we love... They are there, we just didn't have easy access to a kitchen to cook our own food.

The prices were great, everything was really cheap. Ecuador is on the US dollar, so there was never any money exchange. We just showed up in Ecuador and started spending our money, pretty wild and crazy.

Accommodations, food, transportation were all very reasonable. Average lunch prices were about $1.50 per person. Our rooms for two people were around $20 a night. A ten hour bus ride was ten dollars.

If we go back next time, we could rent a small house for one month for around $200 per month. The average wage in Ecuador is between $200 - $300 per month, so people are doing actually pretty well -- cause the food in the markets is cheap, and everyone in Ecuador has more than enough food to eat.

The markets are packed with food, so by the end of the day there is a lot of extra food, and anyone that doesn't have food is provided for... People have big hearts and take care of each other, and they also took care of us very well.

When you compare Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia to the southern part of South America they are very different. So Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay are a whole different world, and thats really the main reason we visited Ecuador. We wanted to see what it was like to live in the Andes in a basically rural nation where the natives are still in the majority.

Basically the countries that Simon Bolivar freed from Spain around the revolution of 1820 are the Andean nations plus Columbia and Venezuela. The Andean nations are considered to be Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia even though the Andes actually run from Venezuela all the way down to Patagonia.

The favorite part of the trip for us was the jungle which we visited in the southern part of Ecuador. The towns of Vilcabamba and Zamora were absolutely lovely, and we were there for about one of the three months. The average stay in Ecuador was around 7 or 8 days, and during our journey we moved around 14 times, staying in some places for a short time, but mainly staying in places we liked for about two weeks.

One of the highlights of our trip was teaching English, which I posted on my blog.

Ecuador is really not that far, especially from Miami its less than four hours, but we flew from LA, which is more like six or seven hours. On our flight home, we flew over Central America and Mexico at night, and I was blow away by how populated Mexico really is. There are small towns pretty much the whole way. Where as in the southwest, you can fly for miles at night and really not see many lights, pretty interesting.

So we are back here for awhile, until we figure out the next step or journey... Hope all is well with you.

Best regards,
Michael

Ingrid Betancourt is Back Home

Pictures of Ingrid Betancourt's Journey Back Home

http://picasaweb.google.com/stormangerman/Ingrid

I am seldom moved by such a historical event, but this one was really one for our hearts. In times of such sorrow and suffering through out the world it is so nice to see a ray of hope on the horizon and know that everything will be all right. Ingrid prayed and suffered each and every day for six years, and when she was finally free I believed it was a time of celebration on the planet.

Having spent three months in Ecuador, I followed this story as it evolved and read in Spanish the stories, editorials, and pleas for her freedom. While we were in Latin America, a war scare broke out over a dispute between Ecuador and Columbia, and once again we couldn't believe that we were there witnessing the struggle first hand. Of course all of this was in Spanish, and the context for my understanding of this situation was some what muddled at times.

It is a joy and a pleasure to share with you some of the photos that I have captured in this historic day on planet Earth. I am happy to share these with you as a prayer for peace and the hostages that still remain in the jungles of southern Ecuador.

Peace,
Michael

Teaching English in Ecuador

One of the most rewarding aspects of our journey has been the ability to teach English in Ecuador. Our most recent teaching experience occurred at Copalinga in the town of Zamora on the edge of the jungle. Michele and I really enjoy the opportunity to share our knowledge of the English with others who are willing and able students.

Martiza has been one of our best students. She is probably in her early 30´s and she has two children Alex and Jessica. The first day we taught Maritza her two children were also with her. They already knew a bit of English and working with Mom and her two kids was very nice.

Of course there is always a double edged sword of anything you do in life, and teaching English is no different. As Katrina pointed out to us in Isinlivi, education is a great thing for kids living in small villages, but it is also a detriment, as the more educated someone is, the less likely it is for them to remain in their small agricultural village and till the land and tend the animals. Why, because as we get more educated, we also want to apply our knowledge out there in the world, and we will usually make the sacrifice to leave our native home and venture out into the world based on curiosity, the willingness to do better in life and the material possessions that most of us desire at some point in our life.

Maritza is the employee of the owner of one of the hostals we stayed at. She is an extremely capable employee, Mom, esposa, y all in all great person. But does the owner of the hostal really want her to become educated in the English language and then discover her abilities to go out into the world and make a better living for herself.

Our we as teachers serving her well by educating her in English and giving her the skill set to earn a higher wage and venture out into the world away from her native village, home, family. All questions that should be carefully thought out before venturing into foreign territory in parts of the world in which we are not that familiar.

Needless to say, having Spanish skills that are good enough to teach English as a foreign language to native Spanish speakers is quite a rewarding experience, and one that I would recommend to anyone who is traveling in the world and learning a new language. Its a great way to learn Spanish and interact with the local people, and at the same time help someone else in the world who has a curious mind and body.