Mu and I have pushed on from a too short long weekend in one of the great cities of the world, Buenos Aries. This is a city with great bones, and by that i mean the legacy of Argentina's faded wealth yielding impressive buildings, grand boulevards, and a pervasive shabby chic urban tablet that grows on you at warp speed. The below pic shows and example of those bones, it is a port area that was developed in the 1800's and then abandoned due to the growth in volume and ship size. These great warehouses sat empty for decades, or worse. Then, the city took up the effort to restore their grandeur, and so for the last twenty years, the Puerto Madero barrio has been an urban gem.
When we planned this phase of our travels, I was a little worried that my excitement would be reduced when we visited places that I had already been. Eight or so years ago, I spent 4 months bumming around South America, right before starting grad school at duke. During this time, i got to travel with a childhood buddy for quite some time, visited family friends in Brasil and did my first extensive and lengthy solo travel.
Those wanderings were wonderful, feeling both the grandness of this continent and the ease of traveling in the backpacker circuit mu covered in a previous post. I have many fond memories of that time, so part of me was curious to return to this places to see how they have stayed the same or changed, and how I have stayed the same and grown. But, another part of me worried that the repeating of some places might decrease excitement. So much of our travels are driven by seeing and experiencing new places, and I wondered how it would feel to remove that stimulus when we hit up a number of places I have been, and enjoyed, before.
I need not have worried. This last weekend, we rented an apartment in the charming San Telmo barrio, site of the original European entry into this part of the world, chock full of old mansions that have seen better days and yet remain youthful with the street art adorning their walls. Home of a huge sunday market with thousands out on the street. With speakeasies to get a beer, old time serving up the Argentinean meat delights and the choripan stands tiding you over with the cheap and delicious chorizo sandwiches that tasted just as good 8 years later.
Rather, I found that returning to this beloved barrio and city actually kickstarting my brain with memories that had long faded to grey. Instead of feeling less excitement, I kept remembering a moment that I enjoyed in San Telmo or other parts of the city. This recall led to a deeper engagement that i had anticipated. There was also the enjoyment of showing my lovely bride a few little spots that we would have otherwise missed, a personal stitching of meaning into our time here that enriched both of us.
In a number of ways, visiting BA is quite a bit like visiting NYC. Yes, there are some cool things to enjoy, but it really becomes more about indulging than seeing any particular site. The most famous tourist site in BA is a cemetery for the rich and famous, after all, in posh Recoleta barrio. Both have those good bones and a grandeur of a different time while being squarely of this time and moment.
Also, you walk a ton, of course, and being out and about is all that is needed to get a sampling of the life. Both have a fair bit of open space which is getting used heavily on the weekend as we got in lengthy jogs and shared the paths with hundreds.
Also, neither city sleeps, these two cities are some of the only places I have been where calling it a night at 3 or 4 am makes you feel old. And, you can eat like a king, as I touched on above. If we lived in BA, I would seriously pack on the pounds with the delightful combo of steak, chorizo, pasta and vino. What a way to go.
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