buenos aires, 100 pipers, insane woman, checkpoint drug search, down 2 2

in our apartment in Buenos Aires, located in the quiet section of Palermo, we´ve enjoyed several home-cooked meals, bottles of wine, cigarettes, laughter, and crazy dance sessions, all of which culminated in the smokey chaos that was last night. lizzie and i killed the bottle of 100 pipers, our good friend, (cheap scotch)after drinking beer and rum throughout the day. then we danced madly to james brown and sang Kokomo at the top of our lungs. I made a fool of myself several times partly because i lost my mind to some of the good earth, given to me by a couple dudes on the street corner who had just finished filming a coca cola jingle for television. when i said i was from california the first thing they said was "oh! jim morrison" then they said they spend most of their time on the streets, that the devil lives in buenos aires (and LA, new york, etc). i agreed and then lizzie and i bought cuban cigars.
today i am very disoriented.

our bowel movements have been quite regular this week. here´s why: we make a big salad with avocado, palimtos, onions, garlic and tomatoes every night, using lots of olive oil. then we eat either brown rice and lentils or a big pasta. i am adamant about throwing curry into everything we eat, including eggs in the morning. i also have put us threw hell with several cloves of garlic in all the dishes. i believe in the power of garlic and i wont back down about it though sometimes i have to sneak it in because the two ladies say they cant handle it. but then they rave that the sauce tastes good. in addition we go through lots of Quilmes (cheapgoodbeer), 2 bottles of Malbec and occasionally 100 pipers. for dessert we cut up peaches and sometimes bananas and heat them up on the stove, and then pour dulce de leche on top. AND THEN we cut up white chocolate and sprinkle it on top so that it melts into gooey heaven.
so that is a bit of our home life.

at the beginning of the week we went to the zoo and the botanical gardens. they had a snow leopard which was fucking awesome, just runnin around its territory and occasionally jumping in the air or trying to escape through the metal door in the back. also some beautiful white lions, crazy monkeys, a HUGGGGE turtle, and a section with farm animals which ally was happy about because "they are animals too!" i listened to the Panda Bear album on my ipod and was constantly confused because the album has noises which sometimes sound like roars or sounds of elephants. i will let ally or lizzie go into more detail about the animals. oh, they also had these little rabbit looking things and beavers with rat tails running freely through the park so you were kind of immersed in the whole thing whether you wanted to be or not. the botanical gardens were very nice and peaceful and had cats EVERYWHERE. Andy (our friend from Bariloche) told us there would be wild cats but we didnt expect as many as we saw. the cats would even group together behind trees to conduct meetings, and they´d also taken over a large square where they segregated themselves according to fur color, minus one stubborn son of a bitch who was sprawled out with all the "tabby cats"... we took some pictures and then cooked our feast.
the next day we walked a shitload and hit up the Belles Artes museum which was pretty cool. Ally dug the Rothko painting and gave me a little knowledge about his style and i got pumped up about Picasso and lizzie was really into this crazy visual thing which fucked with your perspective.
then we began walking to the MALBA museum and it was pouring rain and we saw their current exhibit on andy warhol. i listened to the velvet underground and they had some cool modern art and then we cooked our feast and passed out eating ice cream.
The following day was spent in San Telmo. very cool section of the city with tons of little antique stores with all sorts of crazy stuff. we went through many of them and didnt buy anything and then drank at a nearby bar and ally and i stumped lizzie with games like black magic and other strange things. but she figured everything out and then had dinner at Desnivel, a place frequented by locals where lizzie and i had a kick ass steak and ally had a shitty pasta but a good piece of grilled cheese with tomatoes. we also had sangria at this cool little cafe in san telmo which was in a kind of courtyard and seemed to be somebody´s apartment. the sangria was made on the spot and gave a nice buzz. Plaza Dorrego was also a good time. lots of people selling art and jewlery where we returned the following day for lizzie to buy this spoon necklace kinda thing with jewels on it. then we were sadly convinced to go into a bar which had a cool upstairs section where we could smoke and drink and they said we would see tango for free. we didn´t know we would be THE ONLY people inside and that the tango would occur right in front of our table, that it would last 5 minutes, that we would be forced to take awkward pictures, me with the woman and lizzie and ally with the guy (while wearing their hats and scarves)....and then of course we had to leave a tip.
people here are very clear about tipping. the waiters always make sure to tell you that "the tip is not included" when they drop the check, and the guy who puts your backpack into the bus will wave a couple pesos in your face to make sure you tip. on the way to buenos aires this pissed me off so i gave him 2 pesos and told lizzie he didnt deserve anymore, but when we arrived in buenos aires our bags were soaking wet. he gave me a really dirty look after getting the 2 pesos and i knew he had power so this was a fuckup on my part.
anyway, yesterday we went to La Boca, which was a mistake because it was pouuuuring rain and though Caminito looked cool (a little neighboorhood with really colorful houses and people selling art and jewlery) we rushed to find a restaurant/bar. people will do anything to get you into the restaurant (see tango situation above) and when we asked if we could smoke inside the woman said yes, and when we sat down our waitress Virginia (who was cool and on top of her shit) apologized and told us that "it is IMPOSSIBLE to smoke inside"...so we drank Quilmes, ate bread with tapanade that was taken from a jar that hadnt been cleaned since 1974 and ate some decent empanadas. then we took a cab back to san telmo and relaxed until night.

a few other things we´d left out from before:
1. when we entered Argentina, from Chile, we stopped at customs and 2 argentine police officers came aboard the bus and went DIRECTLY to lizzie, ally and i and started searching our bags. they asked each of us if we smoked marijuana and went through everything we had, smelling our ipods and even the trash we were carrying. this took about 15 minutes, was fairly awkward and then they apologized and walked off the bus. nobody else was searched and afterwards lizzie said that the old dude from San Luis Obispo who was sitting behind her said "man, i was afraid they were gonna search me...i got some pot on me right now". Later i saw this same guy running frantically through the streets at one of our stops on the way to Bariloche. he was crazy and kept yelling at people in shitty spanish while looking for an atm. i needed an atm too so i was stuck with the dude. while we were walking he kept saying that somebody must have called ahead to tell the police officers to search us. he was very adamant about this but said that he was lucky to be old because he could put on his reading glasses and look innocent. i did not like this guy.

2. in Valpairiso there lives an insane woman. Lizzie and Ally saw her cause a scene with her boyfriend/lover (also insane) which i will let them describe. this occurred at some restaurant in town and was very awkward according to them. anyway, they told me about this woman and it seemed wild but i didn´t think much of it UNTIL we were sitting in an empty bar, just us three, drinking malbec before our bus left at night. the woman came in and sat down at the table closest to us. ally and i were facing her and lizzie had her back to her. lizzie insisted this was more scary but i must argue that because her face was on fire and had sprinkles of dark chaos everywhere. ally and lizzie told me not to respond to her when she spoke. this did not however deter her from speaking to us, NONSTOP for an hour. lizzie can verify what she spoke about, but i think it was everything from her family, to why she doesn´t have money, to what she does in town, etc etc. she would laugh, flirt with the young waiter, ask us questions (to which we did not respond) and then laugh and continue talking. ally and i had to work hard to avoid looking at her. maybe we seem like bastards for all this but anybody would have done the same thing. if not even the strongest would get sucked into a whirpool of insanity. before we left she walked right up to our table and asked for a cigarette. i told her we didn´t have anymore (true) and then she started singing a little bit before yelling "FUCK YOU" and going out into the streets to wreak havoc.

now lizzie is gone and ally and i are relaxing today. i need to recover from last night and we needed to leave our apartment and get a hostel for two nights before leaving for Igaucu falls on monday. we spend a couple days there before going to Florianopolis in Brasil to chill out for a few days at the beach. then we meet up with my family. we miss lizzie already and wish her a safe trip home. hope everyone is enjoying the thanksgiving break. peace and love
ciaooo