Big In Japan

Almost six days ago, we set off from Buenos Aires on a night bus to Iguazu, and thus commenced the first leg of our 5 week journey. It takes about 18 hours on the bus, and no it did not have ckickens or anything. I was wondering how I was going to get through the ride with neither Ipod nor book for comfort, but my fears were assuaged when I saw the media lineup on the Crucero del Norte busline. Apparently 1980s nostalgia is even stronger in Argentina than it is in the States. They played a medley of music videos starting off with this gem, and other songs that had been lost to Father Time, before making their way to Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Doo Doo Doo Dah Dah Dah. Then the movies started...almost every American movie that I have seen in Argentina has been for the first time, and not without reason. So far I have seen: The Legend of Bagger Vance, What Happens in Vegas, Shattered, Die Hard 4, and Untraceable. Die Hard 4 was hands down the best.

The falls were amazing. Can´t really put them into words. There were literally 40 waterfalls all in one place, lined up next to each other, in two sometimes three tiers, coming at different angles. On the second day it was sunny so there were rainbows everywhere. It looked like Never Neverland.

Arsenal vs. Independiente

Ok, I´m going to have to make this entry quick because I´m about to leave Buenos Aires behind and start the first leg of our 5 week journey to Peru. In the interest of keeping everything chronological though, I´m going talk about my first genuine Argentinian soccer match. A friend that Lisa had met in Peru, Nacho, scored free press tickets for Independiente vs. Arsenal. We took the bus out of metropolitan Buenos aires to Avellaneda, the barrio where the stadium was located. The game was played in the stadium of another team, Racing, because the other stadiums were undergoing renovation.

The violence associated with local Argentine soccer could be seen in the architecture of the stadium. The were separate entrances for fans of the two teams. Once inside the stadium, the two sides were separated by walls of concrete and barbed wire, with a line of police in riot gear just for good measure. As for the players, they were separated by an actual moat. That´s right, a moat, with water surrounded the actual field, and separated the fans from the pitch.

Nestor Kirchner in Plaza de Mayo

Ok, it´s been a while since I have updated this blog and since almost a month has passed since I wrote my last entry, I´m going to try and start from where I left off. The first weekend after our classes, I think on Saturday night, Lisa and I were set to go out. We left from her apartment and stopped by Alicia´s so I could drop off my backpack. Alicia was watching the television and it showed the Plaza de Mayo where there was a huge Kirchnerista rally to support the president in her (their) continued opposition negotiate with farmers over her proposed increase of export taxes. Christina Kirchner had proposed a hike in the export taxes on all agricultural products from around 34% to 42% in order to balance the budget. Why was the budget out of balance you ask? Because her husband´s previous administration had doled out tons of funds to the urban workers to shore up their political base and to buy a few votes here and there, thus creating budget deficit. But that´s neither here nor there...

Having never been to a political rally, we decided to check it out. When we arrived there were people all over the Plaza de Mayo, carrying banners, chanting and drumming. Representatives from various unions and organizations with awkwardly long and opaque names. In order to get a better view for the photographs, we moved to the top of the bank that surrounded a circular fountain on the edge of the plaza. As Lisa was taking pictures of several of the banners behind us, I noticed a commotion and bunch of people running, a coalescing around something about 200 meters in front of me. As the crowd moved, I saw a man at the center of the crowd. That´s Nestor Kirchner! He didn´t have any bodyguards, at least none that were recognizable, which surprised me because this would never happen in the US or China.

The crowd moved towards us like a hurricane, slowly and with a peaceful of eye of the storm around Kirchner, moving with an indeterminate trajectory. It slowly made its way towards us, meandering around the fountain, where an unfortunate news photographer lost balance trying to snap a picture of the ex-president and fell in completely. We also would have gotten a picture but just as he approached us, we were knocked down to the ground and by the time we got up the storm of people were headed away from us. The guy looked incredibly afraid and uncomfortable, as he very well should have been, moving through a mob apparently without a security buffer.

Not bad to see the ex-president of Argentina in the first week I was here. Fun fact: they call him el pingüino because he used to be governor of Santa Cruz, the southern most province in Patagonia before he became President.