Tap. Tap. Crap. Look at the spider webs and dusty rubbish. This place needs some love.
Tap
June 30th, 2009We Smoke
April 13th, 2009Since I have the ability to post from my mobile phone, and have had this ability for some time, it’s rather embarassing that I have yet to use it.
So live from a tobacco shop and cigar lounge in the microcentro district of Buenos Aires I have decided to end the embarassment. Perhaps this will be one in a string of many.
Ps – this Mexican Te-Amo is woefully dangerous
The Bidet Laundromat
March 19th, 2009They said it couldn’t be done, that it wouldn’t be done. But when I promised to use my bidet to wash my clothes if a laundromat could not be found, when all other options were exhausted, I made good on my promise.
Scar on the Sky
March 9th, 2009
Where does one even start with Buenos Aires? The New World Old World city that looks more like the offspring of a tryst threesome between Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid? Yet situated below the belt in South America of all places? Home to 14 million people I have been told, the sprawling, beautiful, and delicious capital of Argentina, honestly, has me utterly smitten and quite frankly, befuddled.
Everything here seems so very known, so familiar. Yet fresh and new. Like a new twist on an old classic. Classic cafes line the boulevards as they should in any properly run city. Tango and football nuisances are scattered everywhere. And beef. Beef and leather emanate from nearly every street corner, grilled steaks thrown on a hot wood-fired grill next to a boutique shop wafting of cow hide and high-end leather goods. The smell is everywhere, omnipresent and nearly unavoidable.
Which leads me to a note on the beef here, indulge my digression. For those that know me they would attest that I am not fond of the steak and potato diet. Quite honestly, it perplexes me. Maybe it’s my Norwegian roots squirming and yearning for something, Anything but more god damn potatoes. And steak? Charred flesh with salt and pepper? Yeah, ok, maybe. But quite honestly that isn’t really my thing either. I don’t get it. Yes I eat meat, I have come to realize that every time I order beef or chicken or pork or fish, something dies. And though I’m not enthusiastic about other living creatures dying so that I may eat, I have inevitably come to the decision that berries and nuts are not the end all be all for me. I have made some type of moral accommodation and in the end I think the true underling lesson is to be conscious and aware of where food comes from. That being said, the beef here is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I have never had better beef in 40 countries worth of travel. Fact. However, the capacity that many porteños (inhabitants of Buenos Aires) have for beef consumption is absolutely incredible. Noteworthy in any intrepid travelers diatribe.
Like most well to do cities, Buenos Aires has a darker side. Surrounded on it’s outskirts by the villas miserias, or miseryville, the slums of Buenos Aires are without footnote or mention in guidebooks. And with roughly 1/3rd of the world’s urban population living in slums, maybe they should. Not every place service high-end fashion and high-end beef cuts. As a traveler, I try to remind myself of this.
Buenos Aires will continue to befuddle and fascinate me. I’m here for awhile. I have a lot of time left to become enlightened.
Suck
February 28th, 2009The beauty with video lays within it’s ability to tell a rich, dynamic story with nothing but the basic and minimal of inputs. Take my recent trip to the bathroom. No commentary, editing, or poppy swank background music required. I could make one of those “priceless” visa mastercard jokes, but I’ll refrain.
Pig Pile
February 22nd, 2009Tomorrow I grab an early morning flight back to Lima in route to Buenos Aires Argentina, which I fully intend to invade with full force. Once there I will set aside ample time to reintroduce oxygen to my brain, catch up on all the meat that has been decidedly absent thus far, and hopefully kill of my inbox of thick procrastination.
Swallow and Hold On
February 18th, 2009“I fall on my knees, trying to find a solution, a truth, a motive. To think that I was born to love, that I wasn’t born to sit permanently in front of a desk asking myself whether man is good…. To make a sterile sacrifice that does nothing to raise up a new life: that is anguish.”
No. It’s not about having kids or planting a green garden full or organic produce, though both worthy endeavors in their own right. In the end, maybe sitting behind a desk somewhere isn’t so bad, so long as the sacrifice isn’t sterile. It’s something I’ve had an incredibly difficult time with in my life. Although enjoyable for intermittent lengths of time, I have yet to find the right desk.
Stone Free
February 16th, 2009
To travellers and tourists alike, a journey to Machu Picchu is exactly that. A journey. To lose site of it in favor of the destination seems like an incredibly short-sighted misstep. To sum up Machu Picchu as simply another Eiffel Tower or Angkor Wat of the world, another checklist of must-sees in the travellers intrepid diary, seems equally misguided.
For me the journey began years ago as a kid. After reading about the ancient Inca civilization and their city in the clouds somehow lost to time and then rediscovered in more modern times, I was hooked. After all, it is the place of imagination.
The Spanish never found the place and still to this day Machu Picchu and it’s place in history is still shrouded in mystery. No one knows what happened to the Inca’s that once called it home. And they scarcely know how such a thing was even built. Was it alien technology? Was it ancient genius? Your guess is as good as mine.
In the end however, where does one even begin to sum up the magnitude of a place like this? The intricate stone work, the sheer magnitude and size, the altitude and beautiful ruggedness of a place seemingly so impractical to allow such a thing to ever be constructed. I simply don’t know.
One will brave humidity, altitude, an onslaught of vendors, train or trail, and the ever present mass of tourists and travellers alike to get here. In the end the journey, not the destination, make the juice worth the squeeze.
See No Evil
February 11th, 2009It’s clear to me that a simpler life may offer certain advantages over a life of seemingly endless wandering. I don’t believe that I was ever destined for such a thing, but every now and then I sit back and imagine that the alternative to this just might be ok.
Vimeo
February 10th, 2009After voicing my displeasure for the quality of youtube videos I changed over to flickr video. And while I have been an ardent flickr proponent, when it comes to videos there seems to be a few key pieces of missing functionality that ruins the experience. And so, I have switched yet again, hopefully for good.
Vimeo is my new darling video home and you can find me here
