Manifestacion by my favorite Argentine painter, Antonio Berni


I forget so much all the time-- and more now than I used to-- that I figure I´ll jot down a few simple obervations on Buenos Aires whie they´re still fresh in my mind. The people seem friendly and prosperous. They look a lot better than Americans overall, especially in terms of physical fitness. You definately don´t see lots of obese people around, although I see lots of fast food joints so there may be an obesity-explosion in the future. The folks look like Europeans... Italians, Germans, Brits, Spaniards... People dress really well. I think a lot of men think they have to wear suits and ties to show status.

I never saw so many hair salons in my life. There must be one on every block. There´s also a policeman on every block. These guys look different... less "European" and I have a strong feeling they may be poor provincials.

Prices are incredibly good. I just had dinner at Oviedo, the best seafood restaurant in town, totally fancy and DELICIOUS. In NY or L.A. it would have easily been a $60 or $70 meal. It came to $25.

Everyone is so helpful and friendy-- except the Bush-haters at the Brazilian consulate. This is definately a city I could live in. I walk miles and miles everyday and it feels completely safe, day or night.

I think I lost track of what relaxed was after the whole election thing. I have nothing pressing bothering me whatsoever and that feels incredibly good. I need to involve myself more in that when I get home.


UPDATE: THE BUILDINGS

Porteños-- residents of Buenos Aires-- live in apartment buildings. They are everywhere and they all have a porter/doorman/security guard. The city gives the feeling that it has been a giant contest among architects for the creation of something unique and pleasing. Like with so much I have found in Argentina so far, outward appearances are very important. The residential architecture is very much alive and exciting and gives the city a vibrant sophistication.

I think the first time I figured out that, generally speaking, renting a place was better than staying in a hotel was 1970. I rented a house for a couple of months on the beach in Goa. Once I figured out the function of the herd of pigs on the property, everything was smooth as silk and I settled in for a nice leisurely stay in my very first post-college home-of-my-own. It took me about 3 days to convince myself that I was actually a Goan and start, relatively speaking, integrating myself into the pulse of the community. I don't recall ever seeing a hotel in Goa although I'd hear from the hippies and other travelers who came to our beach-- the one that was 30 steps from my front door-- that there were hotels.

When you're staying in a place for less than a month, renting a place is tough. After my 10th trip to Thailand I finally figured out that a secluded villa on Phuket was way more what I was looking for than a berth at even the nicest of hotels. I don't think I ever put on any clothes for weeks at a time. And then a couple years ago I rented a villa overlooking the Ayung River in central Bali. Except to go pick up a friend who was staying at the Ritz, I never even visited the tourist ghetto on the island and, as far as I could tell from my vantage over the Ayung, I was indeed the only non-Balinese on the entire island.

These days, whenever I can, I always rent an apartment or a house rather than stay in a hotel. So, when planning my trip to Argentina a few months ago I was delighted when Lieber, an Argentine waiter at my favorite raw foods restaurant, told me that renting apartments was a very normal thing to do in Buenos Aires for anyone staying at least a week. Perfect! I found what looked like a reputable rental agency that specializes in dealing with foreigners and quickly found an apartment in the part of town (Recoleta) everybody was telling me was the safest and best located.

The apartment was perfect, right on Posadas, across the street from the Four Seasons Hotel-- a light, airy, well-kept one bedroom, with a living room, dining area and kitchenette, fully supplied with everything from sheets and silverware to a free phone for local calls, Wi-FI, a doorman and daily maid service. And the price? Prices vary based on location, size, all that stuff, but generally it costs for a week what you would pay for a night in a comparable hotel.

The agency I used was BytArgentina and I couldn't find anything online about them being unscrupulous or anything like that. My experience with the agents I used on Bali, BaliVillas, was superb and I just assumed-- uh oh-- that BytArgentina would be as good. They weren't-- and I mentioned what went wrong in a story I did a couple weeks ago about safety and scams in Buenos Aires.

In this case, the company (or perhaps the owner of the apartment, more likely), shrewdly not accepting credit cards, only cash, managed to separate me from $500. I had no recourse other than to suck it up. Something similar had happened to me in Tangier decades ago at the El Minzah Hotel (best in town), a $100 travelers check having been removed from the safe behind the reception desk! Left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but, after trying a couple of less grand hotels, I wound up back at the El Minzah a few times since. I know for sure I'd never rent an apartment through BytArgentina again (nor from Graciela Ujaque, the owner of the apartment). Would I rent an apartment in Buenos AIres again? 100% yes. Let me tell you why.

Aside from getting a sense of belonging to a culture that most hotel guests can never experience, there are some tangible reasons I like to get my own place. I don't eat junk food and I take breakfast seriously. Even in NYC, where I do stay in a hotel, I always get one with a kitchenette. That way I can stock up on healthy goodies (fruits, nuts, etc) and on breakfast goods (blueberries, melons, papayas, lemons...) and have a place to store them and prepare them conveniently. It is virtually always much less expensive to rent your own place than to stay in a hotel. And it's far more personal.

Not everyone agrees, of course. One of my friends found my luxurious villa (with 4 servants-- including the best cook on the island of Bali-- and a swimming pool) akin to camping out. She was eager to move to the more... sterile environment of the Ritz. (I talked about that syndrome a little when I discussed the Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires a few weeks ago.) Some people, maybe most, would prefer to be pampered and to have everything done for them, something more likely in a hotel. Me, I like going to the local markets and shopping for day to day stuff. You start to feel the rhythm of the town's life. Last time I stayed in Marrakesh, I gave up on the Mamounia and stayed in a riad instead, sort of halfway between a hotel and an apartment; well, not halfway, but we definitely had the feeling of being part of the neighborhood.

When I flew into Buenos Aires from the U.S., the plane didn't fly over the city and I never got to see a bird's eye view. I walk a lot. Porteños I talk to are amazed that I walk as far as I do-- like from San Telmo to the outer reaches of Palermo. Buses, taxis and the subway are cheap and efficient but I love to walk and always find it a good way to get to know something of a city. My guess is that a walk from Bio, my favorite veggie restaurant, way out on Humboldt in Palermo to San Telmo is at least 4 or 5 miles. Flying over Buenos Aires after my trip to Corrientes and Misiones provinces I was stunned by the staggering giganticness of the city. It just goes on and one and on. There are 36 million people in Argentina, with lots of wide open spaces. 11 and a half million of them live in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area.

In Manhattan all my friends think I'm crazy because I love walking from the 50's down to, say, Little Italy. I get to see a lot of Manhattan. But not all of it-- and none of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island. Buenos Aires is much bigger; much, much bigger. And remember what I said about how Buenos Aires is such a vertical city with everyone living in apartment buildings? That would be in the city center areas. There's plenty of horizonal living in Greater B.A.

Argentina is also a very large country. It's not like any of the European countries, where you can drive anywhere in a day. Not by a long shot. The nonstop flight from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego is around 4 hours, about the same as Los Angeles to Atlanta. And from Jujuy in the northwest down to Tierra del Fuego... my guess is that it's further than from Maine to San Diego. Unless you have a lot of time and love long distance driving-- and I've met quite a few travelers who do and who are revelling in their Argentine vacations-- you have to fly. The problem with flying around Argentina is that it's expensive, for many people prohibitively expensive.

Every Porteño I tell I'm going to Tierra del Fuego lights up and tells me how wonderful it is. When I ask them if they've ever been, they all say no. I still haven't met a single Argentine who's ever been there. As one of my friends mentioned "It costs less to go to Miami or London. So..."

For foreigners there is a way around this. In Latin America there are a lot of things stacked against tourists, even to the point of hotels-- not to mention national parks and things like that-- which charge more to foreigners than to natives. In a few cases, they even charge more to certain foreigners (i.e.- like those who live above the equator) than to others. But there is one little, or not so little, instance where the situation works in reverse. You know what a Eurail Pass is, right? Aerolinas Argentinas, the national airline, offers something like that-- a mindblowingly low rate for internal travel. The catch: you have to fly into the country on that airline. And that isn't always convenient or even cost-effective (especially since Aerolinas Argentinas isn't hooked up with any of the big airline networks that share mileage plans).

I stumbled upon a way around that little catch. Uruguay is right across the La Plata and if you're in Buenos Aires why not visit Uruguay anyway-- Colonia, Montevideo and Punta del Este? I took a pleasant one hour ferry trip over to Colonia and then a bus to Montevideo. There are also ferries direct to Montevideo. After seeing a bit of Uruguay I took the quick, cheap flight back to Buenos Aires. And that meant I flew into Argentina from a foreign country, making me eligible to fly anywhere inside the country for next to nothing.

My next travel tip will be how to trick the nasty Brazilians into letting you into their over-priced country.


UPDATE: AND THE COUNTRY AND CITY AREN'T THE ONLY THINGS THAT ARE BIG AROUND HERE!

To answer an e-mail from a friend, it isn't just Buenos Aires, the metro area, and Argentina, the nation, that are big. The portions in restaurants also seem to be very large. Aside from the all-you-can eat buffets, even the chic restaurants serve hefty courses. Food is plentiful and the folks down here like to eat and they like to party. Like I mentioned earlier though, you don't see the kind of obesity in the people that you see all over America or, more and more, in Europe.

There's something perverse about a non meat-eater writing a guide to Argentine restaurants. Meat is the biggest deal down there. Everyone I ran into was so proud that Argentine beef is the best in the world-- and with the least cholesterol, no less! But non-meat eaters travel to Buenos Aires too. And, believe me, you can eat as well there as anywhere else. I'm not a vegetarian. I eat fish as well as vegetables. On the other hand, I don't eat sugar or anything made with flour (pasta, bread, cakes). And I love to eat. I'll do a specific paragraph below about the Buenos Aires veggie restaurant scene. But first let me say a few words about top restaurants in town.

As a prelude, I'll just mention that Argentina is a large and rich agricultural country with great quality food and a wide array of products. In the north there was tropical jungles and in the south, freezing near desolation. In between it's temperate and everything grows. Eating is good in Argentina. It might not be as cheap as it is to eat in Bolivia or Peru but for a tourist who could afford to get there, it's damn cheap. And the portions are generally really big. High quality, big portions, good prices. How you going to go wrong?

Generally recognized as THE best restaurant, Tomo 1 is in a hotel of faded glory, the PanAmericano (Crowne Plaza). Fortunately Tomo 1 isn't faded at all and it isn't of the hotel, just shares an address, Carlos Peligrini 521, right near the Obelisque, in what you might call the center of town (an absurd concept in Buenos Aires). Anyway, they serve lunch (weekdays) and dinner Monday through Saturday. It's been something of an Argentine institution since 1971 when the Concaro sisters, Ada and Ebe, opened it in a house in Belgrano. It moved to the Panamerico about 12 years ago. For an Argentine, 90 pesos for a meal is steep, like 90 dollars would be for an American in L.A. or NYC. But 90 pesos for us is around $30. And that's $30 for the best restaurant in town where every dish is mouthwatering and designed to be absolutely perfect. One sister does lunch and the other does dinner and their philosophy places flavors above all other concerns. Everything I ate there was delicious and nothing came to the table that you could get anywhere else.

If another restaurant gives it a run for its money it would be the newer (2004)-- and way hipper and more glitzy-- Casa Cruz in Palermo. The place blew me away to the point of doing something I had never done before in my life. I photographed the menu; take a look. This place is all about unique combinations of ingredients. Frommer or Fodor or something like that claims this is the best restaurant in town. I'm not going to argue with them either. It's not easy to get into though. I was unable to get reservations twice. They serve 'til 3AM or until you're finished eating.

Most concierges who you ask for the best restaurants in town will say there are 3 and add in Sucre. Sucre is excellent, but in my opinion not on the same level as Tomo 1 and Casa Cruz. It's bigger and not quite as smooth as the other two. The food's very good but not as unique or memorable. It's kind of out of the way too.

In fact, I think I'd put Oviedo, a posh Old World seafood restaurant in Barrio Norte, in as my third favorite restaurant, over Sucre. It's clubby and feels fancy but it was actually pretty relaxed and the food was superb, almost like you're eating in a grand restaurant in Spain rather than in Argentina. (And even though it's "officially" a seafood restaurant, people say they have incredible beef and lamb dishes as well.) Everything is done with a lot of flare.

Most of the tourists I talked to missed these incredible world class restaurants and were delighted to have their meals at Buenos Aires' traditional grilled meat restaurants, parrillas. People I met raved about El Obrero in La Boca and La Brigada in San Telmo as the best parrillas in town. After that everyone's second favorite choice are the omnipresent pizzerias and Italian restaurants. They literally are everywhere. Buenos Aires is almost as Italian in culture and character as it is Spanish. Buenos Aires also has Chinese restaurants, Thai restaurants, German restaurants, French restaurants, etc. And plenty of MacDonald's and crap like that too.

It wasn't hard finding good vegetarian food either. Although my favorite veggie (and organic) restaurant was Bio in Palermo, the "veggie scene" is centered around a store/restaurant called La Esquina de las Flores. Since I rented an apartment for my first week in Buenos Aires this was a place I could buy some basic groceries, although not fresh produce. And they have great take-away. The women who run it were mostly humorless, forbidding, harried and unfriendly. Right next door is another veggie place, Lotos, which is kind of Chinese veggie. Florida is the huge pedestrian street in the center where everyone walks and shops. There's a huge veggie cafeteria called Granix (open for lunch only) where you get as much as you can eat for $7. It isn't high consciousness food but it's good and tasty and a great place to go if you're hungry. I heard of 2 or 3 other veggie places that I never got to check out (including a Hare Krishna place I didn't want to check out, sugar being the main staple of the Krishna diet... which explains a lot).

Howie at Iguazo after the "safe incident" in Buenos Aires

The most regular Google hits this site gets come from people finding a piece I wrote last Christmas called Is Morocco A Safe Place To Visit?. My conclusion, having visited the country a dozen times since 1969, is that it is. Now you don't have to go traveling around the world to find trouble; trouble'll find you anywhere, and certainly in Paris, London, New York, L.A., San Francisco, Sydney... yeah, anywhere. My luckless friend Roland has been to Marrakech three times and was robbed the first two times he was there. But I rate Marrakech safe, as well as the other big cities listed above, and Buenos Aires unsafe. Let me tell you why I came to that conclusion.

A few weeks ago, just before leaving for Buenos Aires, I was laughing about how Bush's drunken daughter was robbed in San Telmo, a Buenos Aires hotspot (while surrounded by her Secret Service bodyguards). I was laughing because there's no amount of grief that could come to that infamous family that I wouldn't find amusing-- and because the daughter is just like the father: an irresponsible jackass who can't figure out how to behave among people. However, once I spent some time in Buenos Aires I started feeling badly that I had laughed. Everyone gets robbed in Buenos Aires. Everyone? Well, no, that was an exaggeration. I wrote something the other day about how Americans that are afraid of anything foreign can stay at the Park Hyatt and be in a virtual plastic bubble of American-ness (including a safe and prophylactic environment).

On the other hand, I haven't met a single Argentine without a story about crime in Buenos Aires. Everyone who hasn't been robbed has a brother or sister or best friend who has. My friend in bucolic Posadas has two sisters who moved from Misiones to cosmopolitan Buenos Aires. Both have been robbed numerous times; one was robbed 6 times! Buenos Aires crime isn't all directed at tourists. It's directed at everyone, including tourists.

Conventional wisdom for travelers is always to be alert and use common sense and then you won't be a victim. Mostly that works. But it works less well in Buenos Aires. The stories are legion! You get everything from the mundane stuff: pickpockets, purse and camera snatchers, crooked taxi drivers... to some really exotic shit: roofies in the drink at night/naked and penniless in a strange place in the morning. I ran into a guy from Milwaukee who had driven his motorcycle all the way down from Wisconsin to Argentina. You have to be pretty tough to do that. And then he got to Buenos Aires. Tom has a great web site about his trip, and the whole thing is worth reading just because he's such an engaing writer with a refreshing perspective. But here's a segment about his misadventures in Buenos Aires:

Sadly, the two most entertaining things to write about are also the most unfortunate for me. First, I was robbed. And, second, I flirted with the possibility of serious personal injury.
 
The robbery took place in the morning at a small park in one of the three medians that separate the lanes in the 14-lane avenue I referenced earlier. I was reading the paper, enjoying some breakfast, when I suddenly realized that a bird had just pooped in my yogurt and on my leg. I figured this to be revenge for not sharing my donut with the crowd of birds gathered around my feet. At right around this time, a man in his 50's walked by and motioned to the birds in the tree directly above me. I stood up to survey the breadth of the poop, at which point the man directed me to a cement post a short distance away where he claimed there was water. Near the post a woman in her thirties noticed my leg and offered some of her Kleenex while addressing me in an apologetic tone. I was not in the mood to have people wiping poop off my leg, so I brushed them away. It was on the way back to the hotel that I realized that my camera was not in my pocket.
 
I also had had a video camera and some cash on me, so they didn´t fleece me completely But I was pretty irritated, and I had evil thoughts of breaking all of that woman´s fingers one by one.  Strangely, the more I thought about it, the less upset I got. It's one thing to be robbed, but to be bamboozled by a three-person (including the deuce squirter in the grassy knoll) squad in an elaborate artificial poop ploy is quite another. I admired their audacity and originality, and, as an aside, I believe that the fake poop recipe involved a spicy mustard.

Actually, it isn't all that original. They were doing the exact same thing in Delhi in the 70's, around Connaught Place. It's just one of countless schemes Porteños have come up with to separate people from their money and possessions. Why Buenos Aires?

There are a lot of theories, although I should point out that most of the huge Latin American cities are crime infested and relatively unsafe. Argentina is a very materialistic place and somewhat superficial to boot. Everybody who's anybody-- or wants to be-- wants to at least appear to be on top of things. That costs money. And of the 11 million residents of the city, a great many millions of them are poor. It looks like a very prosperous city, a very, very prosperous city. But you don't have to go far from the core, away from the Microcentro, from Palermo, from Recoleta, Belgrano, Retiro, Barrio Norte before you run into some serious poverty. Shanties surround the city. And there are sections right in the heart of it you don't want to walk through. A ten minute stroll from the 4 Seasons and Park Hyatt you could stumble onto Villa 31, a ghetto that many Porteños claim is at the root of a good deal of the street crime in town. Along with urban myths about how teenage murderers cannot be legally punished and that kind of thing, you get a picture of Villa 31 being filled with young people sitting around and listening to cumbia all day-- think rap and hip-hop-- and very addicted to Paco (think crack). You'll be hard-pressed to find too much sympathy among Argentines for the residents of Villa 31 and the other villas miserias and their unfortunate inhabitants but here's the other side of the story.

So what about me? You know how I walk everywhere-- and at all times of the day and night. I walk for miles and miles in any direction and sneer at anyone who tells me it's unsafe. Did I run into any of the famous Buenos Aires street crime? Not first hand. But that doesn't mean I wasn't robbed. I wasn't robbed in one of the villas miserias though; I was robbed in Recoleta, Buenos Aires' "Beverly Hills." I was the victim of a trick at least as old as the one that Tom fell for with the pigeon poop.

I rented an apartment through a "reputable" Argentine agency that connects landlords with tourists who are spending at least a week in the capital, ByTArgentina. I picked an apartment in an upscale building on Posadas, a pretty posh street. I figured I would play it safe for my first week. What a joke! The landlady, Graciela Ujaque de Narnesi (Grace Ujaque of Buenos Aires and Miami) met me at the apartment and gave me a key to the safe so I could leave my money in it. When I left a week later, $500 was missing from the safe. ByTArgentina promised they'd get back to me; they haven't. Does that mean I won't go back to Buenos Aires? of course not. I'll just be... more alert next time.



WHAT ABOUT MEXICO CITY? IS THAT ONE SAFE?

Like I said, there are problems with all the big Latin American cities, not just Buenos Aires. New Years Eve's Washington Post did a story on the safety of traveling to Mexico's gigantic capital. The article talks about politically motivated problems and common street crime. "Street crime also has long plagued this 580-square-mile, traffic-clogged metropolis of more than 20 million residents. The list of crimes encountered by travelers is daunting: pickpocketing, purse snatching, mugging, armed robbery and rape, according to the U.S. State Department's consular information sheet on Mexico. 'Instant kidnappings,' in which the victims are abducted at gunpoint and forced to empty their bank accounts to pay a ransom, also are common. Even hailing taxis is considered risky. Is a trip to a place with so many sore spots worth it? And if you go, how best to stay safe?"

The writer insists that Mexico City has a lot of draws recommending it. He recommends avoiding certain neighborhoods and suggests avoiding oft-used scams and ye olde bullshyte line about taking "every precaution you would in any large city." As well as carrying minimal cash, leaving the bling back home and trying to "blend in." (The jewelry business in Argentina is ruined because no Portenos in their right minds wear anything real anymore.) He thinks you'll be safer if you avoid areas around the airport and central train station-- a good idea in any big city anywhere-- as well as Garibaldi Square, Pensil, Tepito, Buenos Aires and Santa Julia, the area behind the National Palace and the Zocolo at night.

Everyone says the green and white VW bug taxis are to be avoided. Even a U.S. Embassy employee in Asuncion warned me against them! The hotel concierges say the same thing about the non-radio hotels in Buenos Aires, although I found them problem-free (and less expensive).


UPDATE: GUANGZHOU IS WAY WORSE

Hong Kong is as close as I ever got to Guangzhou (Canton when I was a geography student), although I always wanted to go. After reading about the Hand Choppers, a motorcycle gang that doesn't bother removing a purse or ring but opts for severing the whole hand, I've decided to stick to Shanghai and Beijing.

One of the highlights of traveling is always the folks you meet. My trip to Argentina was especially rich in this way and I was lucky that so many people in Argentina speak English and that my L.A. Spanish got me around otherwise. One of the people I was most impressed with is a remarkable woman named Amelia, a music business connection, who I went to dinner with when I first arrived. Our mutual friend Steve, k.d. lang's manager, had introduced us via e-mail. Amelia had been arrested during the time when the generals ran a fascist state in Argentina (the most recent, historically speaking)-- and she's a vegetarian; we got along great. Today she e-mailed me with a critique of a blog I wrote a couple weeks ago about safety in Buenos Aires.


ABOUT THE UNSAFE CITY

by Amelia Lafferriere


Think back to the ear of Menem, our Arab Muslim-converted-Christian-(for the sake of politics) president (1989-1999), who introduced Argentina to the quick fix policies of neoliberall economic politics with its systemic unemployment policies and de-industrialization. strong introducer(the first after the militars),and Supposedly a close friend and huntig companions of the Bush family, Menem followed the military dictatorship. His policies converted the country into a desert in terms of productive industry and real jobs-- which continued under De la Rua-- and created a deep chasm between rich and poor, nearly annihilating the middle class (a middle class which had been the pride of Argnetina, the only country in Latin America that had managed to maintain a strong and healthy middle class over the decades).


Buenos Aires, where, as you so correctly mention, half of the population live if we put together the Capital and Gran Buenos Aires, started its process of economic and then social degradation. Menem presided over recession, hyperinflation, privitiziation of ultilities and a tidal wave of foreign "investment." Menem's endemic corruption and his quick fix policies got him re-elected but they were catastrophic for the long-term financial and social health of Argentina, leading to bankruptcy and severe dislocation in every sphere of human endeavor. Parallel worlds began to take root-- a world of the rich and a world of everyone else.

Shopping centers and gated communities for the wealthy were sprouting up, here and there-- like gentrified Puerto Madero, funded by international capital... while social welfare was left to rot and whither away on the vine.

People of the suburbs, with no work and no future started to invade the city, sometimes taking empty old abandoned houses and turning to street robbery to get by. The result: growing unsafety and insecurity for the society. (Current policies about this issues are not helping, but that s another song.)

There are a lot of tourists coming all the time and sometimes they are very visible for these desperate people, making them obvious targets, not to say that locals do not suffer this unsafety as well, probably far more, in fact.

Regarding major crime-- like kidnapping and car theft sometimes leading to murder-- it is often that we find bands of ex-policemen working in combination with lumpen proletariat from the exurban villas (barrios), doing all this, most frequently in the suburbs. I'll call this a residual of last military government (what is called mano de obra desocupada, this meaning that these people were employed in kidnaping and robbing people for political reasons and when democracy came back, they had no "legitimate" work... so they changed their targets. We have been in "democracy" since 1983 but this situation continues today.)

What I can conclude is that Buenos Aires at this time has more insecurity and less safety than it had ten years ago. There are neighborhoods that are more exposed , especially those visited by tourists, although all neighborhoods throughout Buenos Aires suffer the situation, Fortunately we can say that so far the kinds of robbery prevelent in Buenos Aires is NOT followed by murder... most of the time. 

Anyway the climax of unsafety of Argentine society comes with the fact that we have a high profile political missing person for over 3 months. Mr Julio Lopez, a worker who had been kidnapped and tortured in the seventies, and who remained alive by chance, has given in the trial to one of his captors ,a miliray government sanctioned murderer named Etchecolaz. After his testimony-- on his way to hear the judge read Etchecolaz' sentence-- he vanished.  

Etchecolaz is now in prison, where he belonged many years ago, but Mr Lopez, a 78 years old man, seems to have suffered a kidnapping for the second time, and we all presume he is dead.

The very idea that this could happen now, is really frightening-- and although it does not affect everyday life on the surface, the way it used to in the seventies, for me is the most serious security and safety problem we have at this moment...

Like in all big cities, but starting in Buenos Aires in the '90s, drugs have become a terrible problem, mostly cheap and low quality drugs that are readily available in the impoverished suburban neighborhoods. That and the lack of opportunities for people are the keys to a developing culture of crime here.

Still, I like to think that the pulse of this city has to be taken in view of the continuous work in the cultural arenas. People are massively working in the fields of music, cinema, theatre, education... putting on festivals. Universities are still free in Argentina and the fact that two graduates have recently won Nobel prizes are a great source of inspiration for many people. Buenos Aires is a place where you find friendly peopl everywhere, where you can spend several hours in a cafe-- and for the price of a cup of coffee, you can read the newspapers of the day, or a book, talk with people who see conversation as a living art, people with open minds who make it possible to have so many different cultural expressions welcome all the time in the city. Still today Buenos Aires is a city with a pacific coexistance of different religions, as Jew (Argentina is the second country in numer of Jewish population after Israel and the U.S.) and Arabs and Muslims. We have often ecumenical ceremonies of all the religions together with Catholic and different Christian churches, together with the Jewish and the Muslim faiths. 

Could this be-- the remains of what Argentina was going to be and didn't come to be, but still a part of it.-- breathing... and helping us all breathe and hope.


UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY MORE POLITICAL LOOK AT THIS

I did a piece over at Down With Tyranny if you'd like to look at it from an even more political perspective.

I rented an apartment in Recoleta, an upscale Buenos Aires neighborhood. The apartment is great-- kitchen, bedroom, combo living room/dining room. I´ll do all the details for anyone interested in renting when I get back. I just wanted to share some thoughts today.

I spent most of my day trying to get a Brazilian visa for my 2 day stay on the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls. Originally I had no intention of staying in Brazil but the only hotel on the Argentine side (IN the park) was solidly booked and there was a room available in the one Brazilian hotel in the park. If you don't stay in one of those two hotels you stay about 15 miles from the park. After I became aware how much Brazil discourages American tourists I would have put up with the 15 miles, but by that time I realized that there is NO WAY to travel from Iguazu into Paraguay without crossing into Brazil (visa).

I found all this out in L.A. when I got my easy, friendly Paraguayan visa. The consul told me I also need a Brazilian visa and that that takes between 8 days and 2 weeks. I was leaving in 5 days. I rushed to the Brazilian consulate immediately. They only answer questions between 9 and 1 and it was 1:15 so I´d have to come back the next day just to ask a question.

Eventually I tricked their Kafkaesque phone system into letting me speak to a person who pretty much admitted what I was coming to understand: Brazilians are friendly and like everyone-- except Bush. They hate him, like most people in the world. Unlike most people in the world, however, their government takes it out on Americans.

At least I'll know not to take anything personally! Long story shorter, I decided to get the visa here in Buenos Aires. Easier said than done. So many lines; I hate lines. But I waited in front of the building and then in front on a computer terminal where I had to fill out documents, all intructions being in Portuguese and Spanish naturally. Then I had to wait on a really long line for an hour or so where a lady told me I had to show a ticket in and a ticket out and needed the address and phone number of the hotel, etc. When I told her I was entering Brazil by taxi from the Argentine airport and leaving for Asuncion by bus, she said if I didn´t show a ticket I couldn't have a visa. No exceptions.

The concierge at the 4 Seasons-- the hotel is across the street from my apartment and I've adopted the concierge station there-- had a great idea. She called the hotel's travel agent who issued me a refundable ticket from Iguazo to Sao Paulo to Asuncion. Meanwhile I got Aerolinas Argentinas to send me an e-ticket. Back to the Brazilian lines. It takes 3 days to get the visa once they say OK. I had to make it by 1PM. I made it with nearly 5 minutes to spare. Of course then I had to go to a bank half a mile away to pay the $100 fee. Thursday at 4PM I can pick up my passport with the visa (unless they think of another reason to deny me access).

Europeans and Latin Americans don't need visas, by the way, just the people who allowed Bush to grab the White House (twice); it's hard to fault them.

A lot has changed in my life. When I first started my travels I was hitchhiking and sleeping wherever I could find a free spot to curl up. I remember as a teenager having a step (on a steep staircase) in a Haight Ashbury crashpad I could call my own for a week. I never even imagined there might be something better. Come to think of it, there probably wasn't-- not for this person at that time in that place. But as Fate bumped me along in life, many things did change substantially and one was my ability to afford to stay anyplace I want. Especially as the president of a large corporate record label I started getting used to my corporate expense account and what it could get me in terms of amenities. It became easy enough to justify staying in the most expensive hotels and eating in the very best restaurants in order to make an impression on business associates. (That worked out well, except healthwise, where all that rich food doesn't do anyone any good.)

Anyway, long story short, I long ago went from sleeping in a crashpad to sleeping at a 4 Seasons or Ritz. My old Warner Bros corporate travel agent still helps me with reservations-- bless her heart-- and she has a tendency to push me into old habits... not that I'm all that resistant. When I was planning out my Argentina trip, she kept telling me that the best hotel in this town and that town was below my comfort level. Actually, all of them were just fine. And some of them were superb, like the Posada de la Laguna in that wetlands I visited.

When I first got to Buenos Aires I rented an apartment-- and I'll write about that experience next week when I'm back home-- but the minimum for an apartment rental is a week so when I flew back to Buenos Aires for a few days here and a few days there in the middle of my stay in South America, I stayed in hotels. First up was the hotel of preference for the music industry, the Caesar Park in Recoleta, a block from the apartment I had rented. It was luxurious without being over the top. And the staff was down to earth and friendly. It's owned by a Mexican chain and I found it a very simpático place.

My wonderful travel agent had convinced me, however, to spend my last few days-- after returning from the rigors of Tierra del Fuego and before returning to L.A.-- in the "best hotel in Buenos Aires," the Park Hyatt. This was a big mistake for me. It's a temple of conspicuous consumption. I checked in... and checked out. Let me tell you why.

First let me say that the rooms and public spaces are absolutely gorgeous and top notch, as good as any Park Hyatt anywhere (and don't mix up the Park Hyatts with any other kind of Hyatt-- night and day. The Park Hyatt in Tokyo was my favorite there and the Park Hyatt in Hamburg has been tied for my favorite there, though both, I might add, were paid for by my company.) The price, including tax, even after a corporate discount rate, is $460/night, about the same as a week for the apartment down the street and almost double the price of the Caesar Park. Now, granted, the rooms are way fancier at the Park Hyatt-- but not double fancier. But that isn't why I checked out so fast.

The Park Hyatt is primarily one thing: America in Buenos Aires. They have done everything they could to make the hotel as comfortable as possible for people who aren't particularly capable of cultural emersion. This is like Buenos Aires on pablum. And those were the kinds of people it attracted. I've been in Argentina for over a month and this is the first hotel where I heard more English-- American accented English-- than Spanish. And the place positively reeks uptightness in every way. I hated it. I actually hated everything about it (except for the giant monitors on the computers in the business center).

On top of that, the rush to make it a technological wonder has left it difficult in terms of functionality. It took me an hour to figure out how to operate things like the lights and I never did get the phone system down! (Which is just as well, since the one call I managed to make-- a local call that would have cost me 30 cents anywhere else, cost me $2.00 there, nice and American: lookin' for profit centers everywhere. No one in their right mind other than an American with money to burn would stay at this place.) Nice gigantic big screen TV that came on to CNN no matter what you were watching when you turned it off though. But simple little things that turned me off to the hotel were the fact that it was noisy as hell and that I couldn't get to sleep 'til after 2 AM, even though I was on the 9th floor. (I think some Argentine team had won a soccer match and it was another excuse for noisy parties in the streets. And Argentine teams win soccer matches every day or two, believe me.) Even worse was the exquisitely appointed baño. Yes, the bathroom is gorgeous; unfortunately everytime the upstairs neighbor used his, you were treated to a symphony of plumbing-related noises in my room.

And at check in I was informed no late check out (my plane leaves at 10:30 PM so that's a real inconvenience), no breakfast included-- probably the only hotel in South America with this policy-- and, of course, no upgrade, something I can always live with. Fortunately, my pals at the Caesar Park, approximately 40 steps down the street, had offered me an upgrade to a suite and the far more important late check out (not to mention their lavish breakfasts). So here I sit, in the Caesar Park business center where my old pal Diego, the business center manager, makes a great research assistant for my Down With Tyranny blog. And at half the price. And with no corporate expense account... well, everyone loves a good deal.


UPDATE: WHEN IT COMES TO RESTAURANTS, ON THE OTHER HAND, BUENOS AIRES' BEST DO NOT DISAPPOINT

Argentina is blessed with a very high quality of food-- lots of delicious fruits and vegetables, the best meat in the world, great seafood. Whenever I go to a grocery store and ask if they have organic stuff I'm usually told most of the fruits and vegetables are raised without chemical fertilizers. I don't know if it's true or not, but it sure gets repeated all the time. As for the restaurants, the level is generally pretty high. Every European tourist I talk to mentions that the food is way better than what you get back home.

I'll do a report on the health food restaurants of Buenos Aires in a few days. But I did want to mention a couple of haute cuisine places I've discovered in Buenos Aires that everyone should try out. Because they are all catering primarily to middle class Argentines-- rather than tourists-- the quality is superb and the prices relatively low (think of a peso as a dollar in terms of buying power-- and we get three pesos for a dollar). Portions in Argentina always seem huge. These people enjoy their chow and they serve lots of it. So we're talking about high quality, low cost, big portions.

Now when we get to the best restaurants in town, we're in the realm of stuff worth writing home about. Started-- and still run, 30 years later-- by 2 sisters, Tomo 1 is generally considered the best restaurant in Buenos Aires. It's in the Panamericano Hotel near the Obelisque (a kind of town center in some ways). The philosophy of the restaurant is really simple: buy the best and freshest ingredients, prepare them with loving care and skill (one sister does lunch and the other does dinner), make sure everyone concerned is thoroughly professional. I ate there last night. The philosophy works. Everything was mouthwateringly delicious, including a sample of the absolute best tomato soup I had ever tasted, an endive and pear salad I would like to eat again right now and a fish I had never heard of, a "lemon fish." The waiter told me it's in the tuna family and the quality is that of sashimi. Completely scrumptuous!

click so you can read the menu

Just as good-- some say better-- is a less "establishment" restaurant in Palermo, Casa Cruz, where I ate a couple weeks ago. This one was more about combining ingredients into artful ways, artful, unique and delightful. I tried getting another reservation for my last dinner in Buenos Aires and, as usual, it's booked solid. My suggestion is that anyone coming to Buenos Aires make a reservation asap for Casa Cruz. I think I tucked away a menu in my luggage and when I get home I'll photograph it and append it to this report.


UPDATE: I NEVER WENT OUT CLUBBING IN BUENOS AIRES, BUT THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING GOING ON

Sunday's NY Times gets right down into it, at least from an ex-pat point of view.

“There are expats everywhere tapping into the city’s thriving cultural and arts scene,” said Grant C. Dull, Zizek’s founder, who also runs the popular bilingual Web guide WhatsUpBuenosAires.com. “And it’s not backpacker types, but people with money and contacts.”

Drawn by the city’s cheap prices and Paris-like elegance, legions of foreign artists are colonizing Buenos Aires and transforming this sprawling metropolis into a throbbing hothouse of cool. Musicians, designers, artists, writers and filmmakers are sinking their teeth into the city’s transcontinental mix of Latin élan and European polish, and are helping shake the Argentine capital out of its cultural malaise after a humbling economic crisis earlier this decade.

...Comparisons with other bohemian capitals are almost unavoidable. “It’s like Prague in the 1990s,” said Mr. Lampson, who is perhaps best known for winning a Bravo TV reality show, “Situation: Comedy,” in 2005, about sitcom writers. Despite his minor celebrity, he decided to forgo the Los Angeles rat race and moved to Buenos Aires, where he is writing an NBC pilot, along with his Web novela, www.historyandtheuniverse.com. “Buenos Aires is a more interesting place to live than Los Angeles, and it’s much, much cheaper. You can’t believe a city this nice is so cheap.”

I rented an apartment in Buenos Aires so I could get the feel for living here. Every morning I prepare breakfast, pretty much the same stuff I have in L.A. I go shopping at a supermarket, Disco, and at small vegetable stores. Today I had half a white melon, very much like a honeydew, stuffed with blueberries, strawberries, pecans, lemon juice. I also prepare my own lunches. Dinners find me going out to try Argentine restaurants. When I get home I'll do a whole story on the health food scene and on the vegetarian restaurants I found-- and I´m pretty sure I've found 'em all. But today I want to write up a review of a haute cuisine restaurant my favorite concierge suggested. It's new and not in any of the guide books yet.

In fact, the whole area isn't in any of the guide books yet. The restaurant is called Chila and the area is Puerta Madera. It is the newly gentrified docks region and, man is it ever gentrified! No old word charm here, except there were two three-mast naval schooners docked along the bank and a full navy band playing a concert. The area looks real snazzy and upscale and with a grotesque combination of TGI Friday and Hooters on one side of the river and glistening highrises, complements of ABN-AMRO, Hilton, Nextel, LG, and lots of construction cranes dominating the other side, it's just the kind of area I'd steer clear of. But then I would have missed Chila.

The concierge had helped me trick the rotten Brazilians out of a visa and I wanted to celebrate with a wonderful dining experience. She said she had just eaten at Chila and that it was brand new and a secret that no one knew about yet. She said it would be empty. It was. Lucky me.

The Argentine dining scene, beyound the empañadas and parrillas is pretty sophisticated. And there are nouvelle Argentine restaurants everywhere. Chila's chef is preparing bold and exciting meals, combining delcious and unique, if not traditional, flavors. The waiter suggested a cold avocado cream with shrimps sauted in cayenne pepper. It was completely delicious and I would have liked three of them. So much for the old canard that you can't get any spicy food in Buenos Aires. As a main course I had a Sole farcí. It was stuffed with mushrooms and shrimps and in a lime juice and coconut milk sauce; served with a simple green salad. I'm glad it was a couple of miles from my apartment because I needed the nice long walk to help digest such rich food.

The restaurant is impeccably designed and would get highest grades from Zagat in the decor and service categories, two things I never care about. (I'm just in it for the food.) I do care about prices though, and here they are great-- at least for Americans. The meal cost me 75 pesos ($25) and it would have been a $75 meal in NY or L.A. Exchange rates used to work that way for Americans in Europe too. Now they work against us in the same way in Europe. Here, as long as you go to places specifically catering to locals, your dollar stretches triple.