Exploration

I finally fell asleep around 5am local time, after talking with my brother and his wife for about 45 minutes on Skype, checking email and surfing the net, and ended up sleeping until 1pm the next afternoon. I definitely needed that 8 hours of zzzzzzss.  First order of business was to change rooms; Alexandra moved me from a dumpy triple to a classy double that had been recently renovated. The Hotel Pergamino is in process of being slowly renovated and fixed up, and while some of the rooms are very nice, others are straight out of the third world.

I walked out of the hotel around 3pm into the most beautiful day. The temperature was high 80s, low 90s, with almost crystal-clear skies interrupted by only the occasional loping, whispy cloud and a cool breeze coming in off the Atlantic.

This would never happen in the U.S., but this is a completely different culture with a markedly different schedule.

I spent the day wandering the streets, neighborhoods, beaches and plazas, just getting myself oriented and acquainted with the city. After walking most of the day, and a quick nap around 7pm, I eventually headed to dinner at Cocolino across the street on Tucuman around 10:30pm, which is early for Argentina.

I ordered the “especial” 4-course meal, which included a couple beef empanadas for an appetizer, bife de chorizo (steak specialty) for the main, lechuga y tomate (lettuce & tomatoe) salad as a side and peaches for dessert.  Along with bottled water, a 1.5ml Pepsi and the tip, the total came to 30 pesos (just under $10 US at an exchange rate of 3.15 or so).  I’m really liking how cheap everything is down here.  Heading out of the restaurant around 12:15pm, I was surprised to see two families, each with children younger than 5 years, headed into the restaurant to sit down for dinner. This would never happen in the U.S., but this is a completely different culture with a markedly different schedule.

A word about time scheduling in Argentina and Mardel: most businesses open around 9am, shut down at 1pm or 130pm and re-open around 4pm or 5pm for another 4 hours. Restaurants don’t open until 8pm at the earliest and the dinner “hour” really gets rolling from 10pm to after midnight.  Bars don’t get busy until after midnight and clubs/discos often don’t open until 2am. With bars & clubs closing at 6am, I’m not sure when anyone sleeps around here other than maybe a couple hours at night and a few more in the afternoon.

Part of this scheduling difference is due to the time. Despite being only 1 time zone ahead of the eastern U.S., Argentina has instituted an interesting daylight savings time that actually puts the country 3 hours ahead. Because of this, there is still plenty of daylight left at 10pm.

Back at the hotel and settled in my new and improved room, I couldn’t sleep again…..my mind was racing with excitement about all the things I would experience and all the places I would visit over the next year of my life.

Part of the excitement is definitely due to the relative open-endedness of my travels and the inherent adventure endowed to the trip because of this. The Mexicana flight I took here was a one-way ticket. I have no return flight booked and only a vague idea of where I’ll probably be in 12 (or 8 or 14, who knows) months, based on an anticipated itinerary, when I plan to fly back to Chicago and figure out next steps.

Finally, around 8am and with the Sun already high in the sky, my body wrestled my mind to the ground and physical fatigue took me under.