Back In Argentina

The funniest thing about walking back up to GANNET2 Thursday afternoon was the tail wagging reaction of my wife and the utter indifference of my dog. Rusty looked up and flopped back asleep in the grass as if to say he never doubted my return, while Layne was busy unpacking her Trader Joe’s shopping list. I had a sore throat and an urgent need for tea. So ended my thirty six hour Florida shock horror drama trip. And by the way iPhone 18s are excellent with strong batteries, not too big in the hand and easy to use. I love the new facial recognition which doesn’t care if I’m wearing glasses and seems a lot less intimidating than the biometric cameras in use at border control. Knowing Palantir is storing my DNA is not a comforting thought but an easy to use iPhone…well some loss of privacy for that is okay!

My flight left Miami Wednesday night at six thirty for New York so I was bummed I didn’t have the car for my second day. I like driving and I’d have happily buzzed down to Key West for lunch and a walk but as it was I had a late check out from the Embassy Suites and a shuttle straight to the airport so that was that. The hotel was odd with its huge interior plaza and barely warm showers but it did the job and is close to the airport. Oh and it rained hard in the night too.

Miami airport is vast, spread out across miles of what seems like permanent construction zones which require much walking to negotiate. I sat in a quiet corner and wrote my last blog entry on my new phone with the bigger screen using the airport’s free WiFi and then went looking for my boarding gate. My boarding pass said Gate D11, the updated information board said D43 so I went there  and had a con leche and a Cuban sandwich at the Versailles café while I waited.

I’m reading Precipice by Robert Harris a suitably lightweight and involving novel for travel so when I got to the end of the chapter I put my Kindle away and strolled over to the gate. 

“Not here,” said the lady at the boarding gate. “We’re loading for Guatemala City here, not New York.” She looked it up and flight 2600 was leaving from gate D7. So off I walked with my carry on and my new lilac tote bag from Layne’s favorite grocery store Trader Joe’s. It’s a new product that is selling at a discount and I knew Layne would like it so I used it as my personal bag for the flight and put my camera bag inside. It actually worked quite well. It took an age but I got to D7 eventually, about thirty minutes before scheduled boarding at  the decrepit Miami airport.

There was nobody at D7, no boarding agents no plane no passengers…I couldn’t spot  any American Airline people to ask except a lady driving the golf cart used to haul handicapped passengers around so I asked her. She looked  it up on her tablet which said D7 but she looked at the empty gate and told me to wait in her cart while she went to the office. I sat in the golf cart with my carry on and trendy Trader Joe’s lilac, lined tote bag (I’m going to make it a trendy travel accessory) and waited. 

“The office says D43. It’s getting late I’ll take you there.” So off we went dodging pedestrians. She told me two drivers got fired in the last year when pedestrians walked into their golf carts. She was pissed too, pointing out how unfair that even though the investigations put the pedestrians entirely at fault still the drivers got fired. I told her Argentina is much better, no liability laws so if you do something stupid it’s on you. Her Cuban eyes flashed a glance of appreciation. Back at gate 43 I sat and waited. I overheard a man telling an elderly lady next to me her flight to New York was leaving from gate D7 so I intervened. I explained I’d just come from D7 and they said it was here. The lady spoke a little English but it turned out she was Russian and Valentina was visiting her son in New York after attending a psychology convention in Miami. The man also said the airport was locked down as there had been a shooting which might explain the confusion. He was right too.

Valentina followed me to the desk. “Definitely Gate D7” the agent told us. I asked her to call a golf cart please as we were out of time. Valentina panicked and gathered her bags to start walking. Thank goodness for Google Translate as I explained the problem one painfully slow sentence at a time. Once I had her calmed down we could wait with my glowing neon lilac Trader Joe’s tote bag. Pretty cool huh? Bet you wish you had one. 

We did eventually get on the plane after one last id check by TSA agents. I did notice a lot more ICE presence at the airport but my own experience was normal enough. The plane though looked weird smoking from the roof. The cabin crew said it was normal when plugged into airport air conditioning. Who knew?

JFK airport was shutting down when we arrived at nine o’clock at night which surprised me. No beer no barstool no nothing.  The flight out of Miami was uneventful though I was sorry to be going. 

There was a sadness I felt which must be homesickness. I was surprised but I could happily have stayed a few days…driving around on $4:50 a gallon gas. Cheaper than Argentina, half the price of gas in Uruguay. It’s all in the perspective. 

Boarding the fully loaded 777 aircraft in New York was an epic cluster fuck such as I never want to experience again. They were checking hand luggage as we entered but my carry on is soft sided and folds down when empty which is handy for a van dweller and my luminous Trader Joe’s tote bag in seductive lilac was my personal carry on so that passed muster. Inside the plane was a traffic jam such as I have never seen. The aisles were packed, cabin crew were trying to restore order, bags were being passed hand to hand to hand over passengers’ heads while others were trying to stuff oversized bags into bins in an effort to not have them checked. It was primordial, so I opened a jump seat in the boarding area and waited and forgot to take a photograph of the scrum in the aisle. This was the next morning as people woke up after eleven hours in the plane:

I’m pretty sure I’m going to hell as before I escaped the tangle of bodies I came between a Hasidic Jew in full winter  woolen Polish regalia with hat and tassels and his modest wife who looked horrified by the pressing crush of humanity  and if I say I copped a feel in that crush it was a purely involuntary act and I don’t think either of us enjoyed it as much as we might have. That I believed was the low point of the boarding process but when I was asked if I was a member of a group by a rather accusatory harassed employee and then someone asked if I was the one who had lost my bag in the tone of one seeking to blame someone else for a disaster I denied both charges, averted my eyes from the nice lady in black and found a jump seat in a quiet corner. 

“The FAA would love to see that” another, more friendly crew member smiled. I stayed put, exhausted, rules be damned. I’m an honorary Argentinian. 

Eventually I got to my seat J on the aisle side of row 38 at the very back of a full aircraft. There were only two seats and the window was occupied by a dwarf who said nothing to me the entire trip but sat like a doll with his feet sticking straight out and his head encased in headphones shutting out a cruel world. 

It could not have been a more Fellini-esque journey.

Florida

Thirty six hours in Florida, three flights, and getting a lot done is what I have been doing so far this week. As I write I am awaiting my return flight to Buenos Aires which for some reason known only to American Airlines first delivers me to distant New York where I transfer to a 12 hour overnight flight landing in Argentina on Thursday afternoon. That’s the summary of the past couple of days and the next 24 hours. Layne stayed with Rusty as a cold front swept Buenos Aires and our magical cabin heater stopped heating.

The failure of the SIM cards in both our iPhone 12 minis was the proximate cause of our sudden decision to send me, the account holder of our Verizon account, to Miami. Apparently changing the batteries in the phones prompted the connection to Verizon to be lost. The sales woman in Homestead told me we could have called Verizon (using WiFi) to have the connection re-established so next time I’ll know before I buy airline tickets. 

However after six years it was time to improve our vital communication tools so I suppose it’s no bad thing to have iPhone 18 telephones not least because the screen’s larger and my eyesight is weaker…envy those youths!

I have been flying in commercial airliners since before I can remember. I was born in England and I was baptized in Italy and my parents got divorced when I was 12 so three times a year I would fly from London to Rome and back on school vacations from Hogwarts in England where I was educated. I have no fear of flying but I hate the process especially in these fear filled days of inspections and intrusions and biometrics and suspicion and furthermore switching cultures and climates in the time it takes to travel 5,000 air miles is disorienting to me, so I suffer the process to achieve a goal. 

I prefer GANNET2’s cabin to the tube I sat in for nine hours Monday night on a Boeing 777. The ravioli dinner was gloopy and the one screeching infant did not help life aboard the fully laden aircraft as we labored north against strong headwinds. Layne had organized the car rental which got me a tall Jeep Wrangler to drive around in on Tuesday.

One of the great pleasures of GANNET2’s front wheel drive is the low floor of the Promaster van which with running boards requires no agility at all. I did Tuesday inserting a leg into the Wrangler and then hopping my right buttock up onto the seat and wiggling to get fully aboard. Stepping out absentmindedly threatened to spill me face first onto the pavement as my foot flailed in the air. 

It got the job done with strong a/c for the 90 degree humid day. It was quite the trick to pick up the car at six am in the dark, remember to lay out my Google mapping to Homestead using Hertz’s free WiFi and then not touch that phone lest I lost the route after I lost the signal. No SIM card is a curse. 

The food I miss most from the states is biscuits. Sam’s were highly reviewed but I found it not great but it got the job done with a fillet of catfish and endless coffee. Ah, America! I miss you. 

It wasn’t busy at dawn but a conversation drifted over from a nearby booth, a man with a loud voice preaching to a soul in distress which made the nostalgic homecoming complete even for an agnostic like myself. 

Best of all the diner had WiFi so I entered the highly rated Russell Verizon store at 2929 8th Street in Homestead and steered the very high ground clearance Wrangler due east on some nasty torn up asphalt worthy of Ruta 40 in Argentina. 

They opened at 9 and at 9:01 I was talking to the manager Lizbeth. I was done with two new phones, accessories and a fully functioning Verizon account less than two hours later. 

I know this is is routine but after three years of coping with the vagaries of businesses south of the border to be able to walk in and get it all done easily and efficiently was a joy. It’s also a healthy reminder that we are aliens as we drive through foreign lands. 

Up next a visit to the bank to sign some papers only now I had a working phone with full 5g capabilities. It was five years ago almost exactly when we passed the sign shown above as we set off on retirement. October 25th 2021 leaving the Keys:

When I got to First State Bank in Key Largo an enthusiastic customer was showing off her new puppy to an appreciative clerk. It’s September and this is low season and I enjoyed the pace waiting in line, not least because people who appreciate dogs can do no wrong. 

I had a honey do list from the boss so that involved Publix (Marmite) and Trader Joe’s (Taco Seasoned Beef sticks..?) on carefully laid out instructions.  We tend to think of supermarkets in Argentina Chile and Brazil as being pretty comprehensive but even a relatively modest Publix in the Keys is a thing of choice and wonder by comparison.

There is no doubt I am ready to return.  We’ve been gone a long time and I wonder if we will ever have the energy to drive back this far south again after we return to the States, so one last turn around Patagonia seems like a good idea. Brazil has some beaches we need to check out but I figure in six months or so we will be pointing due north. 

We’ve driven far and wide across the States but there’s lots more to check out and I am ready for a change of pace. Simple things such as described here have taken on the freshness of the new and believe me I noticed the comfortable smoothness of the roads even as I negotiated the sometimes heavy traffic. 

It felt good to be home and I noticed. 

We have friends and relations to visit, places to see and if we get the urge we can easily go south again. 

For now we have business to complete in South America.

Alone At Andean Roads

 Layne spent ten days in southern Brazil’s Pantanal Jungle with photos already reproduced on this page of her sightings of wild animals. Rusty and I stayed at the campground a half hour out of Buenos Aires doing nothing much. 

I glued the fridge door closed, a license plate collector came by and the starting battery died. Other than that it was a quiet-ish week in the campground.

I’m an idiot and forgot to write his name down but we chatted for a while after he introduced himself. The funny thing was I’d already found his Instagram page and knew what he was doing, collecting photos of license plates.

Then I went to start the engine after a week stationary and there wasn’t enough energy to do more than light up the dashboard. That was unexpected. In our original installation I could start the engine using the house batteries by pressing a button installed by Custom Coach Creations but that clever little aide was cut out when we got the new charging system to replace the second alternator. (Note to self: we need to buy a jumper power pack now). The battery is the same size as those used by Andean Roads in Sprinter rental vans. I discovered that after I showed them an online photo: 

…so I figured it would be easy to get a new one. Mine was three years old and was ready to be replaced obviously. That happened on Thursday and by Tuesday there was no sign of the promised replacement so I had a bit of a gringo moment (“in the US a battery gets changed in half an hour in the Auto Zone parking lot..,”) but they called a different supplier and in one hour a two man crew showed up to do the job for $200 which was cheaper than my original replacement US battery.

Anyway the alternator is charging as it should  so we are assuming it was just excessive hard work and old age that did for our 2023 battery. And this whole van has driven 135,000 hard miles sheafs fully laden since we took delivery in June 2020.  Our shake up cruise to Michigan that year is a very fond memory still.

But I’m temporizing as I face the explanation of how I spent my time also gluing the fridge closed.  A long time ago when I was getting used to van life I swung the fridge door and unaccountably cracked the lowest door shelf, the most useful one that holds the big bottles, milk wine water and that sort of stuff. So we couldn’t find a replacement, and we tried and fell back on glue.After the Amazon debacle which wrecked our second alternator and filled the van with heat and red dust I found the shelf was a bit wobbly  so I got out the waterproof JB weld stick and smeared putty on the affected area.

Much to my surprise the repair, as ugly as it was, worked, and didn’t I feel manly as Layne relies on that shelf…then I had the idea as I mooched around the campground to make some improvements. What could improve the crack repair? Why a dose of superglue of course! Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong? 

Allow me to say first that my ministrations worked as the shelf seems secure. However the superglue got all over my fingers which stuck together and needed urgent attention, so without giving the glue fine to dry I closed the door. After I disentangled my fingers I found the fridge was glued completely shut. That caused some panic  and I sat there wondering how I was going to unfuck the situation before Laybegot back. I was not feeling at all manly. So I struggled fearing awful breakage but the foot would not yield. Finally I resorted to Google who advised using a solvent life WD 40 to clean up the glue. Oddly enough that did it bit it was fearsome hour and a half of worst case scenarios. And I broke nothing in the whole cursed operation. I amaze myself. 

This time tomorrow I should be in Miami for 24 hours as replacing the batteries in our elderly iPhone 12 minis has apparently screwed up the SIM cards and the Apple Store in Buenos Aires said they can’t transfer our Verizon phone account to a new phone so me, the man who hates flying and is the nominal Verizon account holder is taking the red eye to Miami tonight and coming back Wednesday. I am instructed to get Saran Wrap and poppadums and I shall get some Yorkshire Gold tea  in addition to two new fully functioning iPhones. Next week after I get back I fly to Peru to see Machu Picchu so my dislike of flying will be surely tested.

Walking Buenos Aires

I find when traveling that my perception of places changes on return visits. The first time we went to Puerto Rico we did not like the place at all. We braved a second visit and something changed, us no doubt not the island and we enjoyed our second visit a great deal. A third visit, a stop over en route to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico felt pleasantly familiar.

I wondered if, on our second visit Argentina’s vast capital city might let us down but I find I still like it more than any other large city we’ve visited in South America. 

Officially three million people live in this city founded in 1536 but 17 million live in the whole metropolitan area of the capital and its residents known as “porteños” act like big city residents anywhere, all hustle, no eye contact, social impatience. Yet the city is beautiful, clean, and in the wealthier center safe to walk day or night we find, with a massive police presence promised by the government to cleanup a city plagued by a history of street crime.

It’s a vibrant city, packed with cars and lacking parking so we left GANNET2 at the campground half an hour away where US$5 a day to park our home safely seems like a bargain. Cabs run on meters and Uber is everywhere, so we are not going to figure out the copious and complex bus system. 

The town has a multitude of statues, unmarked many of them and some even with street names attributed to them.  How did I know the statue was a person call Alvear? 

Layne showed me a new trick with Google lens:

There are parks everywhere too including the United Nations park with the extraordinary Floralis Generica sculpture that Rusty and I admired.

It put me in mind of the Chicago Bean but this thing opens and closes with daylight and is illuminated at night. 

I looked it up the old fashioned way and got a delightfully clunky translation from the Spanish. 

It is said there are more dogs per capita in Argentina than in any country in the world and I can believe it, yet the sidewalks are clean you may be surprised to know. I am not alone in walking Rusty with a plastic bag…

These curious benches look like they are stuffed cloth seats but they are moulded cement which sounds uncomfortable but you would be surprised. 

The city is full of life, stores everywhere not yet replaced by delivery though online Mercado Libre is available. The city thrives with small business commerce and people doing things. The first thing we did was go to the vet to get Rusty his exit papers for Uruguay where we have to go next to replace a battery under warranty. Uruguay requires a blood test for leishmaniasis some obscure disease that only Uruguay worries about. The result will take ten days to arrive the vet told us in her fluent English.

Rusty took the needle as unfussed as ever, and we were not surprised by the $120 charge to get his papers together though a two week wait did seem excessive. In Brazil the vet did an instant test but shortly after we got that the Uruguayans changed the rules requiring the more laborious test. Oh well.

Old age has slowed Rusty down and his walks these days last fifteen or twenty minutes, a block or two from the Airbnb building’s front door. When he’s ready he walks right back to it because he still knows exactly what he wants. The walk is his time as long or as short as he wants. 

We park him in the  apartment and leave him snoring on his favorite rug which gives us time to go out and explore the city. In this case Layne was missing her Jewish roots so we tried an Argentine bagel. It was a bit too bready but the sandwiches were good enough.  

We also wanted to get new batteries for our elderly iPhone 12 mini’s. We can’t buy new phones as the technicians at the store told us they couldn’t guarantee we could get our Verizon service on a new Argentine phone. So new batteries it was then.

The only inconvenience was we had to spend four hours without our phones and before you get snotty about the good old days remember we were at 1899 Santa Fe Avenue and our apartment was at 734 Avenida Del Libertador and the bagel place was as I recalled two blocks right three blocks left from the Apple Store. 

If you don’t believe me how disorienting it is to be without your phone and it’s applications, try it next time you are in an unfamiliar city. 

Google Translate - gone. Uber - gone. Maps? Forget that. Your books? Nope. And so forth. I did have my camera (a Panasonic GX9 with a 24-64mm lens) which if I fidget with the controls can give me the time. But it is useless for mapping. 

After we got our phones back we decided some museum time might be in order and we took an Uber to the Museo de Bellas Artes not sure what to expect. It’s free with a $4 “donation” payment if you don’t have the balls to press no on the credit card machine. We’re tourists so acting like impoverished students or elderly locals seemed churlish.

It was a surprisingly busy place but it’s open till seven thirty at night which seems civilized to allow workers a chance to check out the place. Balzac by Rodin:

What surprised us was how European most of the collection seemed to be. More Rodin:

Gloomy and fearsome Goya donated by two men in 1958. Good friends probably. 

Penitents above had war below. Life was much harsher back then I guess. 

The impression I got was that a hundred and fight years ago when Argentina was a leading economic powerhouse a lot of wealthy locals must have made grand tours through Europe and come back with some treasures, as you did in those days. Then they donated them to the public. It’s an astonishing collection but we rather failed to find the local art. 

12th century sculpture of you can believe it: 

And we got some Argentine contributions before we had to go home. A slave sculpted in 1882 in I think Brazil where slavery persisted longer than other places: 

Poverty in Argentina:

This one had a QR code, “Without bread or work.”  

The walk home seemed as crowded as the museum. 

You may have heard the Muslim mayor of  New York made a stir by putting out trash cans. That cold hat in Latin America. “We pick up between 7pm and 9pm. Neither before nor after.” 

Then we stopped for some expensive fruit. Argentina is no longer the cheap country but once was. A small bag of quality fruit cost $30.

And this stuff is never heard of was translated by Google to “summer squash:”

And himself was ready for his third walk of the day. 

Thursday in Buenos Aires.