And so our next adventure begins!! As I write this, I am sitting on the outside balcony of the Red Level club at the Gran Melia hotel in Iguazu, sipping on a nice cuppa as I look out to the incredible waterfalls about a mile away. Not a bad way to start a morning.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Lets catch you up first. This adventure has been (literally) years in the making, as we booked the main part of our trip over 2yrs ago – a cruise on the Nat Geo boat Endurance to explore Antarctica. We have some very well-traveled friends who visited a few years ago and said that it was one of the most incredible places they had ever been to – so we had to see what the fuss was about for ourselves!! Our journey starts here, in Argentina, with some time in Buenos Aires, then a quick side quest to see Iguazu Falls ( one of the seven natural wonders of the world) before flying to Ushuaia to get on the boat and brave the Drake’s Passage crossing to Antarctica. All in all, we’ll be gone for about 2 and half weeks, and I’ll do my best to keep you posted in real(ish) time!
Our journey out was smooth and uneventful – no running through connecting airports or missing baggage this time! We were flying with Aeromexico, via Mexico City, so it was fun to try a different airline and alliance network for a change (usually, I’m madly chasing points in my never-ending quest to requalify for United Premier 1K status) so instead of heading for the Polaris United lounge, instead we got to visit the Delta Sky Lounge at ORD. I have to say – it was pretty nice! The food was good (lots of tasty vegetables) and they even had a Chicago style hot dog cart set up in the back of the lounge! (alas, only noted after consumption of said veggies – probably for the best). As we walked to our gate, we discovered parts of Terminal 5 that I had never seen before – its massive and it all looks brand new. I’m sure it probably isn’t – but it was new to me!!
Anyway, the flight to Mexico city was pretty short – just under 4 hours and we had plenty of time for our connection, so we made our way to the Aeromexico lounge to wait. Mexico City airport was quite crowded and full of shops that would sell you blingy Day of the Dead t-shirts and it took us a couple of attempts to find the lounge, but we got there in the end. While the lounge was uncomfortably warm, the drinks were cool, so it did the job and after a couple of hours, it was time to board for our 9 hr flight to Buenos Aires. The boarding was suitably chaotic (umm… Priority pass, anyone??) but it didn’t take as long as you would have expected from the length of the line (weird how that happens sometimes). We were on a Dreamliner so it was all very nice and spacious with a stylish toiletry kit from Etro (again, a nice change from the usual United bag of Sunday Riley products). The meal was a fairly generic chicken dish but it was tasty enough. On the flight from ORD to MEX, ManpanionTM and I watched Titanic together – we thought we’d study up, just in case anything goes pear-shaped with our cruise amongst the Antarctica icebergs. And YES!! They both could TOTALLY have fit on that door!!! On the flight to EZE, I opted to watch a few episodes of The Repair Shop over dinner – I think I was probably crying before the opening credits had even finished! That show seems to have a direct line to my tear ducts. Although I’m not sure you are allowed on that show unless a close member of your family has died within the last 6 months (“actually, its in honor of my grandma, who died in the cab on the way here – she’d have been so happy to know her stuffed bunny was being restored to its former glory”). I mean – where will it end? Is there going to be a Repair Shop – Grandad Edition? Jay Blades in his Cockney accent and flat cap saying “Alright then – leave ‘im with us. We’ll give ‘im a bit of a clean and see what we can do to tidy ‘im up. He is quite broken though so we can’t promise you won’t see the joins, but we’ll do our best….”
Anyhooo…. the flight was actually pretty bumpy the whole way (white knuckle alert) so I don’t think I got a huge amount of sleep – I think if you are lying down wondering if you are actually asleep or still awake, you are probably still awake – unless you are having some really weird meta-type dreams. My FitBit later told me disapprovingly that I had gotten 1hr 2 mins of sleep – but refused to further classify it into deep, REM etc out of pique. So by the time the breakfast cart was wheeled around, I was feeling pretty groggy and spacy. I will give you this Life Tip for free, however. The airplane loo is NOT to be lingered on. It is a VERY brutal way to be woken up from your slumberous morning pee when it decides you’ve sat there long enough and suddenly flushes underneath you without warning. I have never jumped up so quickly from the toilet!
More awake now than I expected to be, I returned to my seat and had another fairly generic meal with a breakfast of fruit, yogurt and omelet. I wasn’t all that hungry but it was something to do and I didn’t think my heart could take another episode of The Repair Shop, after the workout it had just had. We landed on time and without incident but had a bit of a wait to get through immigration. Despite being one of the first off the plane, we seemed to be at the back of the line in a queue that moved slower than you thought it should. It was the queue equivalent of a kale salad. No matter how much you eat, it never seems to get any less but instead somehow regenerates and, after 20 mins of munching, your bowl still looks as full as it did when you started. Our immigration line was just like this (with less kale, obvs).
Anyway, the upside of our long line wait was that our bags were already trundling round the carousel by the time we got there (yey!), so we picked them up and headed out to arrivals to meet with our driver. I had pre-arranged a pick-up through our hotel via What’s App, so before long, Hector was there with a smile and to load us into the car for the drive into the city. We were staying at a hotel called the Fierro Hotel – a small boutique place whose main attraction was the private Jacuzzi spa that we had on our rooftop balcony https://fierrohotel.com/. I know ManpanionTM loves his hot tubs, so I always try and find a place that has one (and that doesn’t cost a million dollars a night!). I had booked our room from the previous night so that we would be able to get into our room straight away (we are too old to hang out in hotel lobbies til 3pm waiting to check-in) and rest up ahead of our evening’s planned activity. Our room was very nice (if a little red for my taste) – but freezing cold and neither of us could figure out how to work the AC unit, so we had to ask the front desk for help. Also, the hot tub was only warmish, so wasn’t ready for immediate use, so instead we took a quick nap, then headed out to find some lunch (amusingly, our hotel offered breakfast from 7am – 3pm!!!).
Our rooftop terrace smelled very strongly of smoked ham (presumably due to the kitchen vent pipe just off to the side of the roof!) so both of us were getting peckish. When we asked the guy at the front desk for a recommendation, he gave us a name of a local place he liked, a restaurant/bakery called Oli. I had noticed on our welcome letter that the hotel manager was called Holloway (from Ireland, as it turned out), so I asked the chap at the desk if that was him. He said no, but then said that the hotel staff had been wondering if I was related to the manager as there were a bunch of Holloways (I wonder what the plural of that would be? A confusion of Holloways?) who had come into town for his birthday party – including one from the US called Sally – so they were all super-intrigued to know if that was me!! I thought about popping up to the bar to say hello (which is where I’m sure they would all be) but figured having so many Holloways all in one place at the same time would probably do something irreparable to the fabric of space and time, so decided to err on the side of caution and leave it as a curious coincidence.
Lunch was tasty, if a bit odd! We like to try local specialties where possible so picked a traditional lunch item called fosforitos. The description made it sound a bit like a puff pastry savory sandwich (think ham and cheese croissant) but it was distinctly not that. It was decidedly sweet as the flaky pastry was covered with a thick sugar glaze that wasn’t unpleasant to eat, it was just not quite what we were expecting! We tried the two different versions – one with ham and cheese, the other with pickled cucumbers, some cheese and a type of mango chutney. We followed that with some salad and fries – that’s a balanced diet, right??
After lunch, I was definitely starting to feel the effects of only having 1hr of sleep, so we hustled back to the hotel before I could get too grumpy and took a long, long delicious nap. By the time we woke up, the hot tub was hot enough to be worth the effort, so we soaked in the tub and soaked up the atmosphere (and hammy smells).
Then it was time to get ready to meet with Ana at 8.30pm for our private tour of the milongas of BA, the clubs where tango is danced. We had met Ana during our last trip to BA and she was a terrific guide, (see https://sazzinthecity.com/2024/03/25/) so she was the natural choice to tour with again, especially given her personal knowledge of tango (she used to dance regularly). You can find tango pretty much anytime in BA, (although a lot of the clubs are closed on a Monday night) and the dance originated in BA and Montevideo. The milongas that Ana took us to were very local – two were underground (one of which also used to be a brothel) and the other at street level. The entrances were almost hidden, such that you would walk straight past them if you didn’t know they were there. None of them were glitzy or showy – they were all gritty, dark places that were very basic in appearance and not at all for tourists. We were pretty much the only people there who were not there to dance – which was very cool. Knowing you were getting a truly authentic experience that hasn’t been sanitized or manufactured for you in any way was a real privilege.
As we sat and watched, Ana explained to us some of the culture of the tango and the clubs – each club has its own set of strict rules that govern how you should behave during the tango. She said that tango culture is not at all forgiving and is “very cruel” so if you broke these rules, you would not be treated well. For example, unless it is explicitly stated, the man always proposes/asks the woman to dance. Its old fashioned – but that’s how its done and understood to be so. Also, if you arrive as a couple and sit together, you are expected to dance together. If you arrive on your own, then you are available to dance with whoever asks you. There are rules about how often you are allowed to dance and how you need to be of a certain standard to dance during the most popular times of the evening. If people observe you are not a good enough dancer, you will not be asked to dance. If you are a better dancer, you are expected to dance around the outside of the dance floor (where more skill is required to navigate the edges – especially as it gets more crowded) vs the lesser skilled dancers who remain in the middle (less maneuvering required). During the dance itself, you are serious in demeanor (we called it “resting tango face”) with no talking – and it is important you are not seen to be “trying too hard”. You need to give off a very languid, laid-back air as if you can only just be bothered to dance. But then as soon as the music stopped, everyone would break into smiles and quickly chat with their partners, before it was then time to put the Tango Face back on, get serious and start dancing again.
We visited the first club just after 9.30pm (after a slice of traditional BA pizza from a famous local place – think deep dish but with even more cheese!) and the last club just before midnight, and it was very interesting to see how the dancers and overall vibes changed as it got later in the evening. The dancers at the last club were of a higher standard than at the first one (where there were only about 4-5 couples dancing), and even within that, you could easily pick out the best dancers. It was like rowing (a boat, not shouting rowing) – when its done well, it looks so easy, smooth and fluid. When done less well (ie when I used to row, ahem), you can see the effort – even if they trying to hide it. Because in the clubs we visited, it was the rule that you could not dance with the same person for more than 3 dances in a row, we got to see how differently someone would look with a different partner – which was very interesting, given that the man always leads for the woman to follow. We watched this guy dance with two separate ladies and the styles were so different – the first was very ethereal, graceful and just beautiful to watch, the second felt more spiky and sexy. Both were amazing to observe (watch out for the couple that appears around 25s in the video below – they were incredible).
After the third club, it was just after midnight, so we decided that we should call it a night as we had an early start the next morning for our flight to Iguazu (the clubs go allllll night until 6am!). So we Uber-ed back to our hotel (side note: the quality of Uber cars here are definitely creakier than back home – our last one was making some very strange noises!) where we bid a fond farewell to Ana and finally clambered into bed just before 1am. It was a great evening, exactly what we had been hoping for, and a terrific start to our vacation. Next up, Iguazu Falls!
1 Comment
Love it! From the flight to tango tactic evening, I laughed so hard! Must also give the repair shop a try!