Adios America

Happy Bird-day Megan!

On our way from Iruya to Buenos Aires we spent one night in a nice hostel called Malka up on a hill looking out over the quebrada (canyon) in Tilcara. The town is a kind of strange mix between hippies and locals with nice views and hip restaurants. We enjoyed the views and a nice dinner and then pushed on to BA, a 22 hour journey on a sub-standard coche cama (but still not bad at all).

view from hostel in tilcara

When we got to BA we headed straight for our friend Paula’s house. We had spent a lot of our time with Paula when we were in El Bolson and she had invited us to come stay with her and her family when we got to BA. It turns out that she has one of the nicest families around and they all treated us like king and queen for our first couple days in BA. Their house was a bit further from the center than we wanted to be, so we scoped out a nice modern studio in a part of BA called Palermo Soho, got a smoking good deal, and got ready to settle in for the next 10 days.

paula turns 27

Buenos Aires palermo pad

The afternoon we moved into our new place, it was cold and overcast so we picked up a chicken and rice dish from a nice little bakery and went to our cozy apartment and ate it up. After that we took a siesta. And after that, everything went to hell.

Haley woke up from the siesta feeling sick and unfortunately it turned out not to be just a feeling. She was very sick all afternoon, but luckily I wasn’t so at least I could do some taking care of. She felt a little bit better by the time we went to bed at 1am and we both fell asleep hoping all would be well in the morning. We were wrong. Haley woke up feeling sick at 3am and headed toward the bathroom. She didn’t quite make it. She lost consciousness half way there and fell down and smashed her face into the hardwood floor. Fortunately, although she doesn’t remember, we think she had started to sit down so she didn’t fall from as high. She had been carrying a glass to fill up with water so I woke up to this loud bang of glass on floor  (which I thought was body on floor) and ran over to see my dazed and confused wife waking up with a boxer cut above her eye.

I did my best to calm my dazzled girl and eventually she calmed down enough to make it back to bed. Luckily Haley’s sister Megan, who’s a paramedic, happened to be on skype and we called her up for a long distance video diagnosis. She couldn’t quite tell with the tiny video image if haley needed stitches, but she thought it might be worth it to head to the emergency room and get it looked at, plus get some fluids into her intravenously… only one problem: haley couldn’t stand or even sit up for more than 10 seconds without getting light headed and on the verge of passing out again. Lucky for us we just had to go about 30 ft to the elevator and then 30 ft to the front door of the building to get a taxi. An hour later the nice doorman had gotten us a taxi while haley lay on the floor in the lobby of our building. Off to the guardia (ER) with my sick wife.

We picked the public hospital because it was free and we figured that anyone could put some stitches and an iv in right? It was definitely a bit different than the hospitals we were used to at home. After getting the receptionist to look away from her soap opera that she had playing at full volume, she took down haley’s name and passport number (on a very basic form, with no carbon copies that the doc ended up sending home with us so there is literally NO record of us ever being there – so different from home) and sent us to a waiting area that was full of homeless people looking for a warm spot to pass the night and smelled like one of the carnicerias (butchers) with no refrigeration (which have been plentiful on this trip). Next a security guard came over and took us to a room and told us to grab any doctor we could find if we wanted a chance of seeing anyone anytime soon. It turned out he had taken us to the wrong room but soon we were in another nasty room which was the stitch room.  For the next 2 hours I stood in the hall and grabbed every doctor and nurse who walked by to ask if they could put in a few stitches. The big receptionist was back to focusing on her soap opera and was not happy when I asked her to check if anyone was coming. She called someone and yelled at them and still nobody came.  After 2 hours a doc came and said the cut didn’t need stitches and put some steri strips (like stitch bandages) on and said if we were worried about haley not being able to sit up for more than 10 seconds than we might want to see a specialist and have her evaluated..maybe another 5 hours wait.  He didn’t mention that haley’s inability to be upright might have something to do with being severely dehydrated and we should maybe take care of that. WebMD told me that and my good doctor friends confirmed it. After another 15 hours of filling haley with electrolytes and water and lying in bed she was healed.

This picture makes this room look very clean. I promise it wasn't.

muhammad haley after her fight with the floor.

During this time we also got addicted to Breaking Bad, which at this point we are not happy about.

Two days later I got food poisoning too, but not nearly as bad. Funny that much of our time in Central and South America we have been eating unrefrigerated food from street fairs where they use one bucket of water to wash dishes for the day and nothing happened. We come to the fancy euro capital Buenos Aires and get super ill.

Other than that, we saw lots of Bs As sights (Jardin Botanico, Recoleta Cemetary, fancy mansions, Belle Arts museum, Eva Peron museum, Puerto Madero and its Bs As casino, San Isidro, Casa Rosada, Puente de la Mujer, Congresso, Teatro Colon, Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Viejo, Palermo Soho, Palermo normal, Las Canitas, Retiro, San Telma Feria, craaaaaaaaaaaazy Florida street, and much, much more).   We also took Tango lessons (tango is NOT for me but Haley loved it) and heard an amazing Tango orchestra, ate at some cool restaurants and rode the bus and subway (SubTe) a lot.  We also got to hang with some great friends we met in Argentina in earlier travels.  As we said, we stayed with Paula for the first couple of days but we also went to her birthday party over the weekend and met all of her wonderful friends.  And we had a super fun (and delicious) evening at Caro and Quique’s uber cool apartment in Congreso.  Wish we could move all of the great people we have met on this trip to California….

louder dammit

best dinner in BA

yayyy.

big flower in ba. i think it used to close up at night, but it didn't look like it was functioning when we saw it.

yayyy.

Today we get on a plane to Bangkok via Johannesburg and stop speaking Spanish and hopefully get some tasty food and massages soon.

Other notes:

Everyone here between 18 and 35 has facial piercings a la Cindy Crawford mole (like a stud where her mole is).

Walking through the streets of Bs As is a constant game of chicken.  If you are not an Argentine, we promise that you will lose this game.  If you want to not get bumped into, YOU have to move .  Also, when a pedestrian tries to cross the street, cars generally accelerate and swerve toward you.

Our neighborhood in Bs As was popular with transvestite hookers.  We got home late a lot so that was interesting to watch….

I tried to learn a little thai with Rosetta Stone, but it’s really hard.

There are so many people, cars, and buses in this city it’s nuts.  It makes Manhattan look mellow.

We are pretty scared about the tropical heat to come.