The return to the Buenos Aires

I seem to be revisiting a lot of the same cities. Apparently Lima, Cusco, and Buenos Aires are my cities of choice in the bottom half of the Americas. What can I say, I’m a creature of habit! My habits, however, in terms of Buenos Aires are changing a bit. Since I’ve already done a hefty bit of walking around the center of BA, I am transitioning from the newly arrived sight-seer to the second time around “now what the hell am I doing”-er. Splendid question, there, one that seems to keep popping up again and again. Well, as we already know, the rest of the backpacking community seems to find partying and drinking to be the best thing to do, but that’s just not my thing. I get all kinds of curious stares and I actually feel guilty for not wanting to go out and party, but that’s just all kinds of ridiculous, I shouldn’t feel guilty for not wanting to spend my days in hangover fashion. Though I admit, it is so hot here in Buenos Aires right now that I end up spending a lot of time in the dorm room either typing away or reading, because it’s a nice, cool, dark space where I can have peace and quiet yet still have proximity to other people in case I want to go and be social. BUT I have found myself being, in fact, anti-social here at this hostel, as the majority of the tourists here are from Brazil and they sort of clump together. I’ve met a few other single travelers, but I don’t really want to just tag along anymore. Apparently I would rather sit inside the dorm and read and write! And then I have to keep trying to convince myself that there’s nothing wrong with that. But if I get in one good walk a day, then I feel like I haven’t wasted the entire day, you know? Hmm, and that brings up an interesting story. Yesterday I went for my one-a-day walk and decided to wander over to the Congress building, since I hadn’t really gone down that way before. It was hot, hot, hot, so I walked around looking for a good bench to settle down with. My first try didn’t end up so well, with a bench sitting right in the sun. A kindly Argentinean in an 80’s style man tank top was gracious enough to inform me that the atmosphere here is not very good and that the sun is dangerous. The things I would not have known otherwise… But I went ahead and took his advice, and managed to find myself a bench, with a backrest, sitting in the shade. Score one for me! The first people to join me in my lovely bench was a mother with her infant daughter who had just bought some corn to feed the pigeons. And there they went, just inviting all the pigeons over to my bench to come and peck at me. Not very good bench guests, if you ask me. After the little girl got frightened to tears of the pigeons (nice work, mom!) they took off and left me and the pigeons to a stare down. I will maintain that I won, and that it had nothing to do with the corn that was still being scattered by the mother…

So then another pair, a couple in their 40’s or 50’s sat down next to me. They looked like Argentineans, but had a map as though they were tourists. They asked me for the time, I informed them of the hour, and I didn’t give a second thought to their sitting next to me. But maybe two minutes later, I felt something wet hit my arm, I looked down and to my dismay noticed a grayish splattery substance on my arm. Ah, man! Flippin’ palomas! The couple next to me then procured some tissues and started wiping me down. At first, I just thought, oh, how nice of them to lend me their tissues and to try to help me get this sheize off. Then they just kept on wiping. And wiping and wiping, and in places where I’m pretty sure there was no doo! The lady was kind enough to stick the soiled tissue in my face and say, “See? It smells bad!” Yes, thank you, more things that weren’t otherwise obvious! I was a little skeptical, and even more so when the male half tried wiping down my butt, and I know there was no doo there—I was sitting on that when I got splattered. He also tried to try to relieve me of my purse, ever so gently, to help with the cleaning up process. Okay, that was about all I needed, so I said thanks for their help and went along on my way, purse in hand. I’m fairly certain that I was targeted by a “con” artist couple whose game is to throw bird poo (or some other horribly nasty, smelly liquid) on innocent tourists and then try to relieve them of their money-carrying receptacles as well as to fondle them a little bit in the process. Now, I’ve never heard of this kind of con artist before, but maybe it’s a new one, huh? I don’t think bird poo could have flown at me from that particular angle, and they were definitely wiping away in clean areas. They even tried to wipe down part of the front of my face. Uh, hello!

And thus ended my walk yesterday, with a nice shower and an impromptu laundry session. I do need to head out and do my walk for the day…maybe try to callous my feet so I can proceed with my thong-wearing for the next few months. Also, seeing as how my running shoes got jacked on my flight over, I’ll be using my flip flops a lot! Part of me really wanted to be angry about it, but the other part of me realized that it would be difficult enough to lodge a complaint with the airline (the whole Portuguese thing is really confusing!) and I really don’t want to go through all the hassle of filling out a report to get compensated with my travelers insurance…I just don’t know that it’s worth the hassle. Maybe if and/or when I get back to Peru I’ll just buy some new knock-off running shoes. Their New Balances have looked really appealing to me!

I better get headed out for my walk for the day right about now. I can go find a spot in the shade somewhere to read, and feel that I’m appreciating the city in a budget-conscious way, relaxing, reading, maybe reading in Spanish and enhancing my language skills. Oh yeah…