My last day. What to do? Truly, this is such an incredible city that even walking around is a big experience. However, I decided to take a tour into the country. My plane didn´t leave until 9:30 pm, and I had arranged for a late check–out, so I had pretty much all day. No problems. Or so I thought. I booked a tour that was to take six hours. It went to Temaiken, which is a zoological park, kind of like San Diego Wild Animal Park. It was about an hour outside of Buenos Aires, and I thought it would be nice to get out into the country and walk a bit, as I knew I would be spending more than twenty–four hours on airplanes. I checked last night and again this morning with the people at the front desk in the hotel.
“You are sure the tour is only six hours, right? You are sure I will be back by 3 pm?”
“Yes, of course. Do not worry. Six hours maximum. You will have lots of time to get to the airport.”
I had a strange niggling feeling inside me, which I should have trusted and just not gone, but instead, I believed them and was anxiously awaiting my pick–up in the morning. The tour guide was only about fifteen minutes late for the pick up, but then we spent the next hour picking up other passengers, and driving to an area beside the stainless steel flower where some of our passengers got off and transferred to other buses, and other tourists boarded our bus. Once we got to the flower, it was actually pretty interesting as there was some sort of mini gay pride ralley going on.
At the front were folks with a large pink banner stating in English, although I am not sure why, as everyone was speaking Spanish: "Freedom – We Want To Marry". There were TV cameras, people hanging out behind a barrier, some of them in “gay costumes”, many with signs saying in rainbow colours, "Equality Now", "Freedom", things like that. There were many tourists at the flower as well, and music was playing and folks were excited, so it was an energetic event for sure. Then amidst much yelling and organizing, they started the parade, and the leaders marched down the street. There were about fifty of them, and they were very lively, dressed up, rainbow everythings, wigs, signs, clothes, flags, and a big rainbow balloon arc. I think they must have been rehearsing for something because after they had marched about one hundred yards, they stopped. The truck at the end of the parade backed up to the place where he started originally, and the people turned around and went back to where they were, lined up all over again, ready to march yet once mroe. The TV cameras were filming everything.
Well after an hour from the initial start of the tour, we actually started the tour. Our guide was a young Argentinian woman, Mariana, who spoke in both English and Spanish. She explained that there were actually two tours on the bus, and those of us going to Tamaiken (that´s me) will be dropped off, given our tickets, and then picked up again at 5:30 pm.
Wait a minute! 5:30! That means I wouldn´t get back to the hotel until after 7, at least an hour AFTER I have to leave for the airport, and I hadn´t even begun to pack yet!
“Mariana, I was told we would be back by 3 pm. Are you now saying we won´t be?”
” Yes, we never come back that early. We leave the park at 5:30.”
“ But I will miss my plane if I do that.”
“Yes, well, there is nothing I can do. The bus leaves the park at 5:30.”
So I told her we should put our heads together and figure out a solution because I was not about to miss my plane for North America to look at lions and tigers. To make a complicated exchange short, she arranged for Luis, a taxi driver friend, to pick me up at the park at 1:30. Of course, I was terrified that he wouldn´t come, and there I would be, stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back to the city. But it was an unfounded worry, because exactly at 1:30, Luis pulled up and drove me back to the city. And of course, I not only had to pay for the entire tour, most of which I missed, but also for the private taxi ride back to Buenos Aires.
On our way to the park, we drove by the water, and there were literally hundreds of people fishing from bridges, and the road. I didn´t see too many fish, perhaps they kept them in the water until leaving, but there sure were a lot of fishing rods out there. We saw many joggers,, long–distance bike riders, and of course the ubiquitous dog walkers. There is always a lot to see on the streets of Buenos Aires. We drove along a modern big freeway with at least two toll stations, and then finally turned off to get to Temaiken.
Now, the park. As far as zoological parks go, it was lovely. I have very mixed feelings about zoos, and am not even clear why I wanted to go, except I thought it would be nice just to walk among trees and flowers, and in fact, it was. All the enclosures were built out of natural materials, stone, wood, etc and there were no cages or bars or anything at all like that. All the animals had little signs saying if they were endangered species, etc. There was lots of educational material, and young people working at the park gave little expositions about the animals or insects or whatever. This was not a tourist park, but an Argentinian park, so everything was in Spanish, there was no English at all, but that´s okay, I pretty much know my animals anyway. I think I liked watching the flamingos and the meerkats the best of all, especially the latter. When I first got there, I went to the information kiosk and asked how long it took to walk around the park.
“ Oh, four to six hours, more it you go slowly,” the young woman smiled. Luis, the taxi driver was to pick me up in just two hours.
It was wonderful to walk. I just walked deep into the park for one hour and then turned around and followed the “salida” signs until I could find my way out again. At one point I stopped for a quick snack. I ordered the only thing on the menu which I did not understand: a superponcho. I had no idea what that was, but was kind of hoping it might be a hot dog. Luck was with me, I think, as I got served a very long, very skinny, very undercooked weiner. It came with three packets of mayonnaise, one of which had some poor critters feathers accidently glued to the outside.
Once I was back at the hotel, I had one small errand I still needed to do, so ran back out to Avendia Florida, which is really only three blocks away from the hotel. As soon as I turned onto the road, there it was again – anothger tango show in the street, This is the street that is pedestrian only, so there was lots of room for the dancing. I had learned that originally, tango was banned here. It had orginated in the lower–class neighbourhoods, and the upper–class or high society people did not approve of it at all. Originally, only men danced the tango with each other. Women didn´t dance until much later. Tango was especially danced out in the suburbs. Ultimately so many people were “secretly” dancing that in 1912, the high society people organized a big tango event, and it was the first time the tango was danced publicly by the upper classes. After that, the dance was accepted. In 2009, after being lobbied by Argentina and Uruguay, UNESCO declared the tango as a world heritage of humanity, an intangible cultural history.
I had made a stop at Starbucks again on my way back to the hotel. I had begun to get a tad tired, after a week of four hours sleep a night, and needed a hefty caffeine fix. This time when they asked my name I said “Estella”. They got that wrong too, but not the coffee – it was strong and good.
When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, the customs and immigration area was small and dingy and not overly impressive. However the departure terminal more than made up for that. It was huge and glitzy with loads of upscale shopping. It was quite beautiful. And so I left Argentina, flew to Dallas where the plane had a flat tire and we sat on the runway for almost four hours, and then got to Vancouver. I think I walked more in the Vancouver Terminal in two hours than I did a whole week in Argentina! I do not like that airport. But I do like Beunos Aires, and although I was happy to return home, I was very happy to have experienced Buenos Aires and hope that I may return one day. Hasta Luega.
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