Tuesday, November 9

We awoke this AM before 6 AM, to really Good Air. We've been sleeping at night with the room A/C on (as has been our norm here) to dampen the sounds of the city and undampen our clothes. When we opened the shutters and stepped out onto our 2 foot deep balcony, the temperature was cooler outside, and the streets 6 floors down were completely dry. Not just dry...but bare. We had heard the garbage truck's diesel engines and squealing brakes about 5 AM, sorting through and picking up the bags and loose garbage left on the sidewalks during the day yesterday, but despite this being a large city, at 7, as I type this, remarkably few pedestrians are on the streets below.
Folks keep curious hours (by our, norteamericano standards). Restaurants are said not to fill up until 10 PM and tango does not really start until after that. Needless to say, we always missed the crowds - great for dinner but less so for watching tango at a milonga (dancehall).
We are eating fruit (just standard US fare: apple, banana, peach and seedy satsuma sort of citruses) and will have muesli con leche with our coffee and (just for fun) tereteré (cold maté) in anticipation of a grand parilla i.e.,grilled bife (beef) and sausages at the estancia. We are up early to walk to a bus stop where we'll catch a tour bus ride to the pampas for a day at La Cinacina, one of the cattle ranch/historical frontier fortresses that porteños frequent for relaxing entertainment.

We are writing now on Wed AM
La Cinacina was a lot of fun. (Larry had originally written that it was a "gas" but Janell eschews the use of the "50's term"). We were joined on the bus by a host of folk from Norway and a few from France, Columbia, Chile, and, most importantly (for us, as we sat near, and talked primarily with them), a few fellow norteamericanos: a couple from Edmonton, Alberta and another couple from Whidby Island in Washington. The Canadians typically spend their winters in Tucson and recognized that the small tree, the "cinacina" for which the ranch is named, is a paloverde.
La Cinacina (and I suppose most estancias) was not a working ranch so much as a dude ranch/hotel/rodeo/folkloric song&dance show, barbecue/asado/grill/parilla (...the host of names should suggest to you the popularity of wood fired beef and chicken and pork in Argentina).
We rode horses a bit


and marveled at the fancy horse tricks the gauchos and their mounts performed: dancing and cutting up


and throwing bolas and spears at a mock rhea and skewering small dangling rings while their horses rode by at full speed.

The rhea is a flightless three toed ostrich-like SA bird that used to roam the pampas back in the days when Spaniards sought silver up the Rio Plata and pampas men were either gauchos or "Indios".
We are grateful we'd begun to learn Cajun dance, so we could do it, in the form of two step and fast waltz when 2 guitarists and an accordionist played most lively.



This last pic,of blogwork, is included just for pg rated entertainment value, and to point out the bidet (blue porcelain unit to left of multitasking blogger).


(This last, too, was posted despite Janell's firm objection!)

We fly home today, and from home, will make more trip pics (and videos) available.
Hasta luego .

L and J

Location:Casa Jazmin (our B&B)