Argentina - Land of Che Guevara, Evita and Diego Maradona; home of Tango and Gauchos; fifth biggest producer of wine and the country with meat so good that it supposedly rivals South African meat.
Needless to say, my expectations for the first stop on my trip were high.
Buenos Aires welcomed me with close to zero temperatures, chants and posters. Sadly they were not to celebrate my arrival, but as part of a protest for higher pensions, better health insurance or easier access to the much-sought after US Dollar. Despite my short stay in town, I soon realised that protests and demonstration must be a characteristic feature of Buenos Aires and occur for any reason, anywhere and all the time (very much like marches in South Africa…)
Unfortunately the sentiment that things were not going quite so well also seemed to affect the mood of the Portenos. May it be because of the cold weather, tough economic conditions or an unexpected character trade, everyone I met was in a bad mood, unfriendly and unhelpful. From the waiter to the bus driver, from the shop assistant to the tourist advisor - people were surprisingly grumpy and one-worded.
But leaving its people aside, Buenos Aires has got a lovely nostalgic look and feel to it that would provide an ideal set for a Woody Allen movie. Beautiful colonial style buildings, wide Avenues framed with big trees, and charming Cafe's with big windows and wooden furniture. Everything looks a bit old and outdated, yet dreamy and charming.
And this is probably why I was so surprised to find that in all buses and trains, which looked like they had been borrowed from a 1950s film set, everyone had access to free and fast Internet. Not only underground trains have high speed Internet in the middle of a tunnel, most public buildings and even places of interest also have free wifi. Needless to say I was very impressed - the city seemed to be one big wifi zone and had an IT infrastructure that would make the one of most European cities look outdated.
Just as I was warming to Argentina and started to think that this was a sensible place after all, I realised another thing that was less impressive and indeed rather strange... and disgusting!
It turns out that in Argentina (and apparently most of South America and even European countries like Greece) plumbing is of a very poor standard and toilets can block up easily. As a result (or maybe there's a reverse causality issue here) it is not customary to throw toilet paper in the toilet. Instead, people throw it in a bin provided in the bathroom. This may seem natural here, but is completely against the better judgement of a well-brought up European girl (and hopefully boy): you are supposed to throw the used toilet paper in the bin next to the toilet for some poor cleaning (apologies for being politically incorrect) lady to come and collect it? Or use a toilet after someone spent half an hour digesting a burrito and left the dirty paper as evidence in the uncovered bin?
Even after a couple of days of contemplation, I have yet to come up with a single good explanation why a country can develop a first class IT infrastructure, but fail to build a sewage system that allows people to do their business without having to look at the previous users...
btw, real photos will only come after the trip - for the moment it's iPhone photos only...
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