Travelling Hobos

Our first impressions of Argentina

¡Hola de Argentina, amigos!

Hi from Argentina, friends!

Wow—so much has happened in the last few weeks…where do I even begin?!

We left El Salvador in a bit of a whirlwind last week. It takes a LOT to pack up your entire life into boxes, suitcases, and hiking backpacks, and move countries. In fact, it’s not for the faint of heart, as some of you can relate! And this is the third time we’ve moved countries in just over 4 years. Call us crazy if you will—I’d agree—maybe we are!

We literally sold and gave away most of our stuff, sold our car, gave up our rental cabaña, put several boxes into storage with our dear friend (¡gracias, amiga!), and re-homed 4 cats in the last couple weeks—among countless other things! Because the homes for 2 of the cats had fallen through in the last few weeks—due to some aggressive dogs at the arranged homes—we had to scramble to find others who could care for them in calmer environments. Thankfully, the sweet family in San Salvador who’d taken our kitty, Nika, was willing to take Cheetah, our spunky, fluffy little girl, at least until October. We’re hoping to bring her back with us when we settle down (who knows where) later this year.

And our big kitty, Gatito, being quite nocturnal, couldn’t stay at the nursing home where everyone loved him—due to some ruthless guard dogs who are let out at night. But, he was able to go to the beach, joining Nika’s 2 brothers, Stripe and Teddy, to live with an amazingly kind lady from Florida who I’d met a couple years ago. She has a big jungle-like backyard for them to run around, and they’re loving it!

Suffice it to say, they all have great homes now, and we’re so thankful—God heard our prayers! 🙏🏼

We flew out early in the morning on Friday the 13th, since flights were a bit cheaper that day. Being that we’re not superstitious, we weren’t worried that some ill fate would come upon us for choosing that date. In fact, our oldest reminded us we’d flown to Costa Rica on Friday the 13th a few years ago too—haha! Guess we’ve started a tradition.

As we flew above El Salvador, my 10-year-old took this, one last view of the countryside with an epic volcano jutting up.

We met some great people along the way, including a friendly British woman travelling Latin America with her 8-year-old daughter, who became fast friends with our girls in the Panama City airport. We enjoyed some pizza and conversation with them during our 4-hour layover, and the 4 girls played some Uno. They had just spent a couple of weeks exploring El Salvador.

On the flight to Buenos Aires, I sat between my oldest daughter and an Argentine gentleman who lives in Montreal, Canada. He told me that when he’d left 30 years ago, there was just too much political instability in Argentina, and the government kept devaluing the peso to the point where the price of a loaf of bread would rise significantly within hours.

Talking to him helped ease me into Argentine“Castellano Rioplatense” Spanish. The “ll” in words that makes a “y” sound in Central American Spanish has more of a “sh” or “j” sound, making many words sound quite different here. “¿Como se yama?” becomes “¿Como se shama?” even though they’re both spelled “llama.”

He recommended several places for us to visit in Patagonia, and told me somewhat sadly that he’s here to visit his 96-year-old mom in her last weeks of life. As we neared the huge city—16.7 million people—at 1 am, he told me it’s a magical thing to fly into Buenos Aires at night. I looked out the window, and had to agree with him.

After collecting our bags and taking an expensive shuttle to our Airbnb, we were met by the friendly host, Sebastian, at 2:45am. He showed us to our tiny bachelor suite apartment, and noticing all our bags, he asked, “Are you sure there’s enough space here for your family and all of your things?”

It was definitely a tight squeeze, but for just a couple nights, we managed to make it work.

That first “night” we made it to bed at 4:30 am local time, (1:30am in El Salvador), and slept till 11. Then we wandered the neighborhood of Recoleta—a beautiful part of the city—gazing around at all the amazing architecture.

After several blocks, we came across a little café where we had some yummy empanadas de carne (beef). They were packed full of deliciously spiced ground beef with fried onions and garlic.

We were all pleasantly surprised to find that the fruit stands—on nearly every corner—are full of peaches, nectarines, grapes, pears, cherries, mangoes, blueberries, and avocados, just to name a few of the delights—we came at the right time of year!

That first day we must’ve walked about 7-8 kilometres, mostly in Recoleta, remarking on the intricacies of the European-type buildings and the statues of past leaders and heroes. We stopped at 5 city parks, each with a unique playground for the girls to run around. We all noticed how green, well-maintained, and clean the city parks are here—and, how frequently we came across them!

Locals seem so chill, walking their dogs, sitting, watching their kids or the birds, sipping maté in little groups, or just enjoying the company of others. I wondered if that was emphasized a little more too since it was Valentine’s Day— everyone was with their “amor” and there were flowers everywhere! 🩷

We happened upon a huge artisan market that was fun to walk through, and we all had to restrain ourselves, as we know how hard it is to fit all our things into our bags as it is.

The next day, we were up early, got packed up, and took 2 Ubers to our new place in another part of the city called Belgrano. It’s different from Mexico / El Salvador where we all crammed into one car—drivers in those countries didn’t require us to wear seatbelts. Not to mention, we have too much luggage (like camping gear) for just one car this time around!

This apartment is full of beautiful wood furniture and has 2 small bedrooms. Tom and I are staying in the living room with a flip-out couch so we can have some quiet morning time at 6, before the girls get up.

Because our last few weeks in El Salvador were so hectic, we decided to stay a week in Buenos Aires (BA) to regroup. We’re thankful for a bit of downtime before our big Patagonia adventure.

There are so many things that are different here—where does one even begin..?

• It doesn’t get dark till 8 pm—at least right now in summer—2 extra hours of light each evening.

• The culture here is quite European.

• We’re enjoying not having to drive, and just walking around to parks and stores.

• Argentine Spanish sounds more like it’s spoken with an Italian twist, and has lots of words that are new to us.

• We don’t stick out as a blonde family—that’s pretty refreshing after 4 years!

• The cheese, meat, and baked goods are much more like what you’d find in Italy, France, Holland, or Spain—with little specialty shops everywhere 😋

  

• There’s hot water for washing dishes, we can drink the tap water, and we can even flush our toilet paper again, after 4 years!

• And while we’re on that topic, it seems like every home here has a bidet in the bathroom. If you don’t know, just google it!

• Argentina has many varying climates and diverse cultures in one big country—so much to explore and discover.

• It’s challenging to calculate prices here because we are so used to prices being in dollars—inflation has made it so the Argentine peso converts at 1,400 pesos to $1 US!

• There are dogs on leashes everywhere—and dog walkers too. It’s not uncommon to see 7-8 dogs all attached to one person.

  

  We had a fun day on Monday with our new British friends. They invited us to come to “Parque Norte” a water park in the northern part of BA. It was a hot day, and we all got a little too much sun. But the pools were cool and refreshing, and the girls had a blast with their friend.

We found a little butcher shop near our place, and bought some nice cuts of meat for dinner the last few evenings. The great pasta options inspired some fettuccine Alfredo made with egg pasta. I also found some gnocchi (potato pasta) at the corner store and made a tomato sauce to go over it. Tom fried up some juicy, delicious steak.

It’s quite a change to be here. At first I was a little homesick for El Salvador—it’s not easy for me to leave friends behind. But all 5 of us knew we needed a change, and since arriving here, we’ve realized it was the right decision.

Tuesday was a quiet home day, with a few walks around the neighborhood and some homeschooling while Tom caught up on some work.

Then, on Wednesday we took the subway—the girls’ first time ever—and then hopped on a city bus to La Boca, a famous port settlement in Buenos Aires, over 440 years old. Thanks to a suggestion from our British friends, we took a 2-hour guided tour of the area with a group of English-speakers. It was well-worth the effort to get there, and the $13 tickets. This touristy area is well-known for its brightly-coloured buildings, said to have been painted by the Italian immigrants with leftover paint from the ships.

We learned about the artist, Benito Quinquela Martín, who started out as an orphan in La Boca, was adopted at 7 years old, and took art lessons. Later in life, when he became a renowned artist, he used his earnings to help the less fortunate babies and children of La Boca by funding schools and hospitals. There are statues of him and displays of his artwork all around La Boca.

It was so interesting to hear about the history of “fútbol” (“soccer” for many of my readers) here too. The Boca Juniors are an incredibly famous team now and our guide told us about their humble beginnings, and explained to us that their stadium was built up-up-up for lack of space in the area, and it rocks back and forth during games. It now costs between $100-$800 for a seat at one of their games!

On our way back to Belgrano, we decided to wander down to Plaza de Mayo, a famous area of the city where the Casa Rosada (literally: pink house), the federal government building is.

We also looked around inside the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral—the architecture was breath-taking! It has a memorial with the remains of General José de San Martín, Argentina's most revered hero, who led Argentina’s fight for independence in 1816.

I assigned my “students” to write about yesterday and what they learned in La Boca and at Plaza de Mayo. It’s exciting to see our dreams becoming a reality these days—showing our girls more of the world, and letting them learn from their surroundings.

Argentines seem like friendly people, and are apparently quite blunt—they don’t sugar-coat, but say it like it is. For Canadians—who can be scared to offend anyone—that is so different from what we’re used to. I’m learning so much about the culture, just from observing, and reading this little book I found yesterday. The title itself can have varied meanings, depending who you say it to. 😅

We’re looking forward to seeing a bit more of the city before we fly to northern Patagonia on Sunday to begin our big hiking / camping adventure down there. We hope to make it all the way to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. This will require a lot of driving!

I’m sure I’ll have lots more to tell you all in a few weeks, once we’ve seen some of the breath-taking nature of Patagonia.

In the meantime, ¡que Dios los bendiga mucho, amigos!

Until next time, friends! 😊

As the Argentines say, “¡Chau!”