Field notes
Argentina
Get acquainted with the character and the corners of Argentina.
The character
Argentina feels everything at full volume. Dinner at ten is prompt and the football is theology. The national music is about loss and is danced beautifully anyway, which is the country in a single image.
Buenos Aires considers itself a European capital that drifted across an ocean, and it has the boulevards and the psychoanalysts to argue the case. The rest of the country, glaciers to vineyards to red desert, mostly lets the capital talk.
The visitor's main adjustment is the clock. Lunch is late and dinner is later. The milonga doesn't warm up until past midnight. Nap like a local and stop checking your watch. The watch lost the argument here decades ago.
When to go
Seasons are flipped. Spring, meaning October and November, is the kind season in Buenos Aires. So is fall, March and April. Patagonia's trekking season runs roughly November to March, and its wind is a permanent resident at every season.
Mendoza's grape harvest lands around late February and March, with festivals to match. Iguazú Falls runs hot and humid most of the year. Go early in the day, before the heat and the buses both arrive.
Money
The currency is the Argentine peso, and its relationship with stability is famously dramatic. Exchange rules and rates have shifted repeatedly in recent years, so check the current situation just before you fly instead of trusting anything written more than a few months ago, including this.
Cards are widely accepted in cities, and foreign-card payments have at times gotten favorable rates. Keep some cash for small places. The asado has no card reader and never will.
Getting around
The country is the eighth largest on Earth, and the distances mean domestic flights for most itineraries. Buenos Aires to Patagonia by road is a project, not a transfer.
The long-distance buses are a national art form, with reclining beds and overnight routes that save a hotel night, meals included. For inside Buenos Aires, the subte and taxis are cheap, and the city is walkable for hours at a stretch.
Do this
Eat an asado without hurrying it
The grill is an institution measured in hours. Say yes to the chorizo and the provoleta early, and pace yourself. Leaving an asado early is noticed and remembered.
Go to a milonga, not a tango dinner show
The shows are athletic and aimed at you. A milonga is a neighborhood dance hall where ordinary people dance seriously. Watch from a table, take the beginner class beforehand if you dare.
Walk Recoleta cemetery
A city of marble mausoleums where Evita's grave hides on a side street, found by following the people who look lost. The marble streets stay quiet even with the tour groups in them.
Stand in front of the Perito Moreno glacier
The glacier calves ice off its face almost daily, close enough to hear. The boardwalks do the work. You just stand there revising your sense of scale.
Skip this
Caminito beyond the photo
The painted street in La Boca is a postcard that charges for itself in overpriced menus and tango posed per photo. Take the picture, then eat lunch in another neighborhood.
The tango dinner show as your only tango
It's competent and expensive, about as close to a milonga as dinner theater is to a wedding. If you see only one tango, make it the real room.
Worth knowing
- Argentina has more psychologists per capita than any other country, with a whole Buenos Aires district nicknamed Villa Freud. Therapy is discussed at dinner, openly, like football.
- Dinner at ten in the evening is standard. Restaurants at eight are empty except for tourists, who the staff treat with gentle medical concern.
- The bandoneon, the wheezing accordion relative at the center of tango, was invented in Germany for church music. Argentina heard it and decided it was for heartbreak instead.
The notes end here, for now.
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