A missed flight, a diversion to Lima, serial ham and cheese toasties, no sleep Sunday night. All part of the adventure. On the last leg from Lima to Buunos Aires, we fly over the Andes, and I remember why I came. To see this.
I know it’s a crap photo. But how to adequately describe the reds and browns and purples of the long line of volcanos, the emptiness of it, the way it seems to stretch to infinity? Well, I just tried, and failed.
So operation Western Union went very successfully this morning as we shovelled mountains of cash into my rucksack and then hot footed it back to our hotel room checking over our shoulders for anyone following us, to count it in our darkened room like we’d just robbed a bank.
There are two rates here, the official red rate and the black market blue rate which gets you three times the amount than the blue. This is because inflation is rampant here, so Argentinians are converting their pesos into dollars, at a huge rate, to protect their assets; as a consequence the rate we get is also very high. It means If we can pay in cash ( which you often can’t – the cemetary made us pay on a card, boo), we pay a third as much as if we paid on a debit card. So lunch today, after our brush with death in the cemetary, was two chicken sandwiches, an extremely generous celebratory (because we are not dead yet) campari and orange and a beer for 13 quid, while sitting in the sun serenaded by a guy playing the violin under the branches of an absolutely massive and famous gum tree. No more drinking at lunchtime though, as I wiped out the rest of my afternoon.
At the Recoletta cemetary we discover that the prestigious portenos (Buenos Aireans) don’t bury their dead, they inter them in huge family crypts with windows so you can see the coffins sitting on shelves like objects in a macabre pantry; some of these mauseleums are old, broken, forgotten, gathering dust as there is no-one left to remember them nor pay for their upkeep. I wonder why they don’t bury them; or perhaps why we do? It must get pretty whiffy in the heat of summer, is all I’m saying.
Breakfast on our second day and we eschew the hotel as they don’t take cash and go to a cafe. Clive wields his Spanish expertise and orders two tostada, expecting toast and marmalade. Guess what? Two ham and cheese toasties arrive; our fifth in 4 days. Thank God I brought senna.
Travellinglight 