Steak, pizza and lamb: Argentina

A five hour bus ride from Asuncion and a trek through three borders ( Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina) brought me to Iguazu Falls in Argentina, one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world.

I met up with my friend Cathy and despite the late afternoon rain, we decided to try and see Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side. Our driver did his best, but a line-up at the border, lots of construction and a miscommunication in Spanish involving Park vs Waterfall meant we missed the last entry so we returned to Argentina and what I was looking forward to most: steak.

I had visited Argentina twice before and my fondest memories had been of delicious, inexpensive steaks. This time did not disappoint. We found a restaurant and ordered the meat platter for two. Steaks, chicken, sweet breads soon arrived and we dug in:

Stuffed, we returned to our Airbnb to prepare for the next day’s journey to the falls.

Two circuits were open at the falls, the upper and lower with the former giving you lovely vistas of some of the falls:

The roar of the water was deafening but unfortunately drowned out by the constant whirling of helicopters ferrying tourists above the falls. We made our way to the lower circuit, where we got up close and personal with more of the falls:

Along the way we were entertained by the falls’ very cute rodents, the coaties:

Before flying to Buenos Aires, we were given a lesson in Argentinian economics. Hyperinflation prevails and the peso is constantly being devalued. If we exchanged US$ at the official rate, or withdrew cash from an ATM, we would receive about 850 pesos to the dollar. But if we used a credit card or went to a blue marketer, we’d received about 1050 pesos to the dollar. The blue market is not legal but is tolerated and we exchanged our dollars on the blue market, at shops which doubled as shoe stores:

On to Buenos Aries, where we took a walking tour of the center, seeing the National Congress, the Presidential Palace where Evita had delivered her Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina speech, and the Obelisk, commemorating the city’s 400 anniversary but having nothing else to do with Argentina. More interesting are the painted white headscarves in the main square. When previous governments had disappeared many youth, their mothers would gather once a week, white scarves on their heads, and silently walk in pairs around the square:

Another walking tour took us to La Boca. Originally a port where millions of immigrants from Europe, mostly Italian and Spanish but also German and Eastern European Jews, arrived between 1870 and 1950. A few of the tenements in which they were originally housed have been restored, coloured brightly and now house souvenir shops and artist stores:

La Boca is also football mad and its favourite son is Diego Maradona, the Argentine great , whose image is everywhere but overshadowed only by Messi, the current Argentine football hero. His image dominates in La Boca including on a balcony where long lines form to take a photo beside him;

The large number of Italian immigrants brought some of their culinary traditions, including pizza, to their new country. Pizza places are ubiquitous but we ate in one of the famous old pizzerias, Bancheros ( since 1932):

We enjoyed a few more days in Buenos Aries, visiting the Japanese Gardens, the Evita Museum, the Opera House and indulging in a few more steak dinners before it was time to leave for our next destination, El Calafete, in the Patagonia region of the country.

A three hour flight gave us our first glimpse of Lake Argentino which dominates the area:

El Calafete is known for its great hikes. Not being much of a hiker, I satisfied myself with a day bus tour to one of the nearby glaciers, Perito Moreno. Ideal for non-hikers, the various metal trails offer different views of the glacier:

A boat ride offers a different view:

Beautiful yes, but having visited Antarctica in 2010, not overwhelming.

But the lamb was. El Calafete has good steaks but it is famous for its lamb. It’s also famous for its guanaco goulash, a relative of the llama, but I chose to stay with more familiar foods. I had lamb twice, both excellent and both relatively inexpensive:

And so I leave Argentina, stuffed with steak, pizzas and lamb.