Carne, Alfajores, Maradona y Evita

While in Panamá we are celebrating Fiestas Patrias, a continuous back-to-back public holidays commemorating Panama's various independence days (from Colombia, from Spain), our family took this public holiday opportunity to visit Argentina.

It's still quite a distant from Panama, a 7-hr direct flight to Buenos Aires. But we couldn't find a better time than now since we currently live in this part of the world anyway. And we LOVE exploring. It's still surprising how far south we are going. And I thought living in South Africa has taken us to the most southern part when we visited Cape Agulhas. Buenos Aires is roughly the same altitude as Johannesburg. From there, we still have to fly south on a 3.5-hr flight.

Argentina has always enticed me to visit. I remember my central american friend from way back in Massachusetts described how 1) argentinians are "snobbed" 2) think they're europeans and better than the rest of the continent. I thought this was interesting.

There is an expression in Indonesian "tak kenal maka tak sayang", translated as "you cannot love what you do not know". I think every culture is worth getting to know, and this time it's Argentina's turn.

First thing first, I familiarized myself with the USD / argentinian Peso interesting relationship. "It's complicated" as facebook would say. We prepared US$ cash to be exchanged into Pesos upon arrival and we were to pay everything in cash to bypass the "official" exchange rate. There is the blue rate (it's not black market, hence it's blue) which is worth almost twice the official rate and that would enable us to pay almost half compared to what the credit card exchange rate is. Inflation makes people more "creative".

I am not unfamiliar with cash culture. Growing up we loved our cash. I even trained myself from a very young age to count bills very fast that even guys in Vegas would be impressed. I consider it my party trick 🤣

The Mr, meanwhile, got agitated with how I bundle the cash into 10,000-peso bundles consists of 10 bills of 1,000 pesos. Well, I refuse to take out 20 cm stack of cash out of my bag every time we have to pay for something. Are you with me now?

Buenos Aires is enchanting. It feels like we were strolling the streets of Paris and some of Rome. In some areas we encountered homeless people and what the inflation has brought to ordinary citizens. Some areas are flashy, and just like anywhere else in the world, some neighborhoods are more sparkling than others. Taxi drivers are quite often elderly men. This reminds me of Singapore.

Not where the movie was filmed, but this is the original Casa Rosada

Casa Rosada seems like an obvious first thing to see if you remember the musical Evita with Madonna playing Eva (Duarte) de Peron. I also found out just today (thanks, Wikipedia) that she passed away at the age of 33. That's awefully young! Keeping up with the theme, we also visited Cementerio de la Recoleta. It must be one of the most beautiful cemetery I have been.

Boca Junior was the club Maradona started his soccer debut. We spent time walking around this colorful neighborhood and had a very touristy lunch + tango show there. Upon leaving the place there was a Maradona look-alike ready to take photos with bypasser tourists. I was tempted to take a picture too, if not for my pride of not doing all the touristy trap. We did snatch a $10 Maradona jersey for Lars though. I don't know which is worse 🤣fake Maradona, fake jersey, or the fact that I fell for one.

San Mateo market was another favorite of ours. Various stalls of food, antiques, alfajores of various brands. Choripan (chorizo served on a bread, like hot dog but way better) was what we were eyeing on, but the place was full full!

Last stop of food adventure was Cabaña de Lilas. The restaurant was recommended by friends (argentinians and non-argentinians alike) so we should definitely give it a try.

Let me pre-warned all vegetarians thinking of visiting Argentina; there is a chance you'll make an exception for the extraordinary argentinian meat 😅

I know the Argentinian and Brazilian are neck to neck as to who has better meat on the grill. After trying both, I have to be very honest I'm team picanha (picaña) 🇧🇷

I noticed these red/green light warnings for when cars getting out of the garage. I thought that was a brilliant idea. Just some random thoughts while strolling the city.

When it comes to sweet, there is only one kind. V and I played the spot game. Whoever spot a dessert that is not dulce de leche base, wins!

There is an obsession for alfajores and I conclude there is a huge market for it. Even the big brands wanted a chunk of the market.