MY TRIP TO ARGENTINA - 30.10 to 04.11.2005

Buenos Aires: excuse me, are we in LatinAmerica?

Shopping Street in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires ("Good Airs" would be the exact translation into english) is the capital of Argentina. The first impression in this city was that I was simply not in LatinAmerica, BUT IN EUROPE. The architecture, the shopping streets, the parks, the avenues ... it simply has a very strong european influence, that coming from Bolivia, and well ... in general being colombian and having been to other latin countries, the contrast was quite clear.

Parlament, Nicolas (MCVP Cono Sur) & me

Guardians walking in the San Martin Square

Even if hectic (tons of cars and traffic jams) it was a very beutiful environment, that unfortunately I did not have much more time to see and really dig into the history of each district, each monument, each bulding, cause i simply did not have time :( - actually these few photos that I was able to take were inbetween of some company meetings that I had in Buenos Aires. I know all the country is not like this and I was just able to take a look at the superficial side of society, but I certainly could experience a certain level of wealth, no experienced in any other country of LatinAmerica I visited.

Sunny Buenos Aires (me at diverse places)

The truth about Argentinian Meet

Kitchen of the "all you can eat" place

In LatinAmerica in general meet is a very common dish, grilled meet, BBQ style and it is one of my favourite options for a good lunch or dinner. However the more to the south you go in LatinAmerica, the better is the reputation of the meet and Argentina is one of the countries that is very famous for its meet. During my stay in Argentina we got the invitation of an AIESEC in Brazil Alumni based in Buenos Aires now (Delfim calixto, two times MCP Brazil) and had the chance to try the famous meet.

Fernando, Delfim, Nico, Luciano & me

The coolest thing to be very honest, more than the taste of the meet itself, is the shape of the meet, the way they cut it. The meet on the picture for example is called "VACIO" (translated means "empty") and well, the cut is really thick, it reminded me tha shape of a piece of cake, but instead being cake, is juicy meet. Meet is sure good given its quality, but it is a bit tasteless for my standards (I guess they just put salt on it).

"Vacio"

Another day we went to a more simple place (it was an "all you can eat"), where also great meet was available, plus other grilled stuff as the chorizo, and the old good wine, perfect companion for the meet. "All you can eat" concept is your perfect, except for the fact that I never can manage to eat more than one plate, what actually never allows me to take real benefits out of them.

Me, Claire and Lili at "All you can eat" place

In Argentina I stayed in the house of the member committee of AIESEC in Cono Sur (Argentina, Chile and Uruguay), who shared a flat (also with other no AIESEC guys) that was in a very old building in the corner of the streets CALLAO and CORRIENTES, pretty much in the ecntre of the city. One of the coolet thing was this elevator, incredibly old that it was a bit scary to use it, but incredibly beautiful at the same time.

The elevator

The people

The member committee of AIESEC in Southern Cone 2005 2006 is composed by two chileans, one colombian, one british and onley one argentinean, so I really did not have much interaction with "natives" :) In the rest of latinamerican countries argetineans have a very particular fame, crazy cultural paradigms, that truth or not, are quite known to be the inspiration for lots of jokes about argentineans. Basically argentineans are known by being bit arrogant, by beliving they are europeans (if you hear a native aregtineans their accent sounds like italian!!!), by being crazy about football ... the arrogance think, well, I really think it´s bullshit, I did not have any negative experience :), but the football fact, I guess it is pretty much true: the funniest thing i saw was a TV program (a regular one, weekly) totally dedicated to DIEGO MARADONA. I mean, it is his program, but everything they do it 100 % focused on him, presenting from his B-day life, when he filled the whole football stadium with tones of people that just wanted to see him, admire hime, go crazy for him, till silly stuff as him talkim with "GOD", which in the end was him talking to himself, cause HE was GOD. Difficult to believem but truth.

Good Bye Dinner with MC Southern Cone

Finally for all girls that might be wondering about how good-looking the guys are, yes in avarage in comparison with other countries, yes I would say they are cute, but "too pushy" in my opinion (ok, hold on, not that I have had experience anything with anyone, just concluded this by observing and by hearing other women talk aboit it!). One the other hand for the boys, yes, girls are also cute, I personally liked from them (as well as from the guys) is their incredible sense of fashion.

I wish I will have the opportunity to come back to Argentina one day, it is for sure worth to return and discover all these things I did not have time to. So far I just can say BARBARO! and thanks SO MUCH for such a beautiful experience.