Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is huge. Really huge. Like New York huge. It was an overwhelming place to be--a city with 7 million people. That’s more that the entire nation of Paraguay. We were only there for a day and half, but the city certainly made an impression. It felt more dangerous than any other place I had visited. This fear was later confirmed when our friends Ben and Sophie told us about their experience of being robbed at gunpoint while walking to La Boca--a famous section of the city where the Tango was created. I am glad to say that I had no such experience in Buenos Aires, but their story did make me think twice. I didn’t take many pictures because I sometimes carried nothing but a little cash and a water bottle.

We stayed in this great little neighborhood with cute shops and an artisan market a couple blocks away. I loved it. The first day we were having lunch at an outdoor cafe near our hostel when I spotted two familiar faces. It was Jason, one of our Kansan friends that we had met in Asuncion. I could not believe that in such a giant city we randomly bumped into our American friends. We spend the rest of the afternoon together visiting an artisan market and an area called El Caminito. It is this beautiful historic area near the port. The buildings are painted in sections of different bright colors. When they were originally built the residents were only able to get paint by boat, and they just painted until that color ran out. It is distinctive and beautiful. Another fun thing about Buenos Aires is the strong Italian influence in the city. In the early 1900s there was a huge wave of Italian immigrants which impacted the arts, the cuisine, and the language. The residents speak Spanish with the inflection and intonation of Italian, which was perfect for me since I studied Italian. I think I accidentally picked some of it up, so I will probably get made fun of now in Asuncion. Oh well.