The trip so far...

Well, it´s been about a week since my parents came into Argentina. We spent most of our time walking around Buenos Aires and eating as often as possible. Lunches, dinners, breakfast, you name it, we ate it. The highlight was definitely on Thursday night, when we had our nice meal, relishing in the quality only a big city like Buenos Aires can offer. My mom was a bit underwhelmed by my wardrobe, but they let us in anyway, so I wasn´t too worried about it.

We had heard that there was a wonderful little colonial town called, appropriately, Colonia. It was a quick 1 hour trip over the river to Uruaguay, then back to Buenos Aires at night. We decided that the noon ferry would work well, returning at 6:30pm that night.

Everything worked out well on the going portion of the trip, if it was about a half hour late in the end. So we sat down and had a nice lunch, not in a particular rush. Then we hit the sites, trying to get to the various museums and whatnot, but there were some issues with the tickets, and currency. (What do you mean you don´t take Argentine pesos in Uruguay?) Then there was the whole time change. Apparently, no one thought to mention that the country, while only an hour away, was also an hour ahead. So we only had the chance to see one museum, and climb the lighthouse quickly after realizing that we had a half hour before we needed to check back into customs. But it was a fun day, if exhaustingly quick in the end.

The next day was the big day. Polo. Yes. Polo. And to answer your very first question, no one was wearing any Ralph Lauren. We had heard that polo was big here, but had no idea how big. So we checked on the internet and found out that the national polo championship was that Saturday. So we bought tickets immediately. It was a great decision. We had no idea what to expect, which may have added to the amazingness of it all. We took a taxi to the polo field.

There are a million people there, at least. Perhaps two or three million people, waiting in line to enter the stadium. People are not drinking beer, they´re carrying wine in fancy carrying cases. I imagine there were cheese and crackers stuffed into some secret pocket as well, cooled by a gold plated mini-refrigerator. This may not be true, but that´s what I imagine. Walking the length of the stadium gave you ample opportunity to watch the horses prance about, getting a bit nervous under hundreds of years of vines that covered the stadium pillars.

Once we found our seats, we turned around to see a massive field, about 280m x 125m, or something like that. From what I could tell, it looked like it was approximately one mile wide and two miles long. But, you know, that could have something to do with perspective and optical illusions. Anyways, the match started and we immediately realized that we had no idea what was going on. Why were these horses running around?

Why did the referees blow their whistle? Isn´t it funny to watch a referee on a horse? That in itself made us laugh for a good five minutes. Then there was actually trying to follow the game, since this was the championship. Argentina is known as the best in the world, and this was the best of the Argentines. So, this is about as good as it gets. And the game was awesome. No team ever got that far ahead of the other. The stakes were even higher than I guessed before, because a horse broke its leg during the game, hobbled around for a bit before the horse-ambulance came over to take it away. (Is it still alive today? Who knows? My mom said it was a good thing she didn´t hear a gunshot, but I think that´s a bit pessimistic.) Then, with the score tied at 16-16, two minutes left in the chukker (the 7 minute time-period they use to divide the game) a rider was thrown from his horse. Thrown isn´t really a proper description. Shot from a cannon is more like it. He rolled for probably 20m before he came to a halt. The horse pulled a hamstring or something and was taken off the field (again, no gun shot was heard) and the ambulances came for the guy, who was the team capitan. He shook off the tossing and got back on. End of standard time. Start of SUDDEN DEATH (not that we knew that at the time.) Guess who scored? If you guessed it was the guy who got tossed, you would be wrong. But he did pass it to the guy who scored for a victory. That was my team! Woohoo! Awesome. The crowd went wild. We left and grabbed a drink of some bubbly wine to celebrate the incredible event.

Sunday we spent walking around San Telmo, looking at antique shops, and we spent the night at Cafe Tortino, which is the oldest cafe in Argentina. The tango show at night was a blast.

Monday we travelled to Bariloche via plane, the fastest mode of transport we´ve had for awhile. Today we managed to do some hiking around the Llao Llao park, which was great. It was bookended by a tea at the fabulous Llao Llao hotel, where we showed our true colors by thieving the jellies brought by our waiters. They apparently saw us put them in our backpacks, and as a joke brought out four more brand new ones to let us know that 1) they saw our low-class riff-raff for what it was, 2) we must need way more jam than just two little jars, and 3) they appreciated the laugh for the day. Embarrassing, yes, but absolutely hilarious when shared over a cup of darjeeling tea.