San Telmo

This night out went down last week. My connection is horrible in the hotel so going beyond email and facebook is more trouble than I really want to deal with most of the time. It's been nice to be separated from the modern "conveniences" these past couple weeks, but that might be a topic for another time down the road. I'm half way through my time in Buenos Aires, and have really enjoyed my experience here. I spend a lot of time walking around town, seeing the sites, experiencing new things, and just enjoying the time here. It's truly been a once in a life time trip, one which I will always be fortunate to have experienced. I have more stories and experiences to share, I just need to sit down and write them out one of these days.

We went to this old part of town called San Telmo. It's the oldest barrio of Buenos Aires, and full of old buildings, bars, shops and that kind of thing. I even found a place that sells vinyl records and I was told that the markets on the weekend have some vinyl to be found. I'm so there. Anyway, my friend and co-worker Sidney got in contact with an old friend, who has been Beuneos Aires for the past month. The friend, Vlad, wanted to take us to a part of town that Sidney wasn't all that familiar with.


They swing by my room and we catch a cab out in front. As I mentioned San Telmo is an old, artsy, former industrial part of town. It's kind of shady in the dark, but in a good sort of way. I had a good vibe of the area, but there was a lot of trash and graffiti, you know, the unsavory types of places back in the states. We get there, and Vlad from what I understand, has being staying in the area. He gives us a quick tour of the surrounding sites, showing us a plaza type of thing that is supposed to be happening on the weekends. It has singing and dancing and sell lots of things. From there we walk around and he shows us a couple of the nearest blocks. We then go into a small store that was selling beer and wine and I bought a liter of beer and they bottle a bottle of wine and we went over to the plaza, where you can just sit and drink. So we sat down and opened our drinks and I listened to Sidney and Vlad talk about their adventures.


Both Sidney and Vlad travel as much as they can. Sidney has been pretty much all over Europe and South America as the same with Vlad. I don't know how they do it, but I guess they work just long enough to go overseas, then they just travel around where ever they go to. For example Vlad has spent a good chunk of time (at least a year) in South America. He works a bit, then will go hike in Patagonia. He even lived six months in Bogota. I don't understand how they make money to do this, but they do. If I was younger and had a chance to do it over, I'd probably would do the same thing. I see the appeal of visiting other countries and cultures. Anyway, this Vlad guy was a pretty cool guy. Kind of a feisty, sneaky (and I mean that in a good way), and a survivalist. I sat and listened to Vlad and Sidney talk about some of their experiences traveling abroad, everything from animals fighting outside of Vlad's tent in the Patagonia while camping by himself, to getting robbed in Colombia, to Sidney collapsing on a hiking trip in the Andes, to his travels around Morocco. It's was really interesting to hear the stories, both of them could write books on their travels.


After Vlad valiantly defended their bottle of wine from a bum asking for a sip, we walked on to another old bar. There we walked in and had a liter of Heineken and bullshitted some more. After Sidney argued we had to get back to the room because of our early morning, he got talked (I was all for going to another bar) walking a few blocks down to the "Red Door" which was literally a bar, no sign, with a red door. They had these HUGE flight of stairs to get to this bar that had couches all over the place, with really cool American soul music playing. Funny thing though, I think I saw more Americans in there than I have anywhere else this whole trip. There was also some hot girls there that kept coming from the back of the bar. I don't know what was up with that, but it was interesting. Vlad latched on to some young cutie when we left him. We took a taxi back to the hotel to wrap up a entertaining evening....