Have to catch up... Just arrived in Mendoza, a pleasantly green city
with the Andes always in the background. The bus ride of 14 hours was
quite fine.
Long distance bus travel
Maybe a few comments for those of you who think a bus ride of 14 or
even 20 hours would just be a sort of unbearable torture. To start
with, the seats are really big and comfy, there is plenty of leg space,
even for a guy my size! Business class in an airplane is usually not
better, rather a little more cramped. Then, the friendly steward or
stewardess is handing out a snack and drinks briefly after departure.
Soon after, dinner is to follow. After the starters which I often
confuse with the whole meal, the main course is served. White wine? Red
wine? Whatever you like... Then you usually get to see a film or two
(of mixed quality). Some folks enjoy a Valium tablet to make them sleep
through all the night. Apparently you can buy Valium freely in
pharmacies hereabouts. The seats almost recline to fully horizontal and
hence sleeping is no problem, anyway. In the morning, you are served
breakfast with coffee or tea. For me, this is the ideal form of
traveling, since you do get an idea of the distances. And the
landscape in between is basically always the same - a lot of nothing!
Well, approaching Mendoza was quite spectacular with the snow-capped
chain of peaks of the Andes in the background.
Buenos Aires Intermezzo
After Bariloche (last weekend), Volker and I went to Buenos
Aires. Volker had to catch his plane back home on Thursday... In fact,
I did not do much except than enjoying the relaxed coffee shops in
Palermo. On Friday Juliana took me out to a local folk music show of a
band of students in a community center, which was lovely. After the
show we went to a parilla "at the corner" in her neighborhood, which
was cram-packed with people - at about half past midnight... Mainly
meat, basic but very nice - and incredibly cheap! Saturday night we
went to an open-air music festival in an area near La Boca with five
very different bands playing: Tango (Orquestra tipico de Fernando
Fierro - crazy boys around 30 with dreadlocks and sunglasses, hard to
believe they play classical Tango, but they do! And very good, too!), a
percussion group (very good as well!), a rap trio (interesting, but
well, not exactly my cup of tea), Portón - a fusion/pop group with very
nice songs and yet an other which we did not listen to, anymore. A
great night out.
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