Destination: Argentina
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Borges y Paraguay’ by Bajofondo
by Jim Benning | 09.04.09 | 2:57 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzSouth Carolina Governor’s Mystery Vacation: Is He a Tango Addict?*
by Jim Benning | 06.24.09 | 1:07 PM ET
Nobody seemed to know where South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was for days. His wife said she didn’t know but wasn’t worried. His staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. The police got involved.
Well, today the governor emerged at the Atlanta airport saying work had been stressful and he had gone to Buenos Aires because he needed a vacation and “wanted to do something exotic.” He said he spent the week driving the Argentine coastline.
Some don’t buy his story. Speculation about what he was really doing is rampant. Talking Points Memo has put together a handy timeline of events surrounding the mystery trip.
Anyone have any good theories?
Call me crazy, but I’m going to suggest the governor did indeed go to Argentina—because he has a tango addiction. I have no evidence for this. I just like the idea of it and think it would make for a good HBO movie.
Come clean, governor. Is it tango? If it is, it’s OK with us.
*Update 11:37 a.m. PT: Well, I was close. The governor gave a press conference clearing up the mystery. It was a tango of a different sort.
*Update 4:34 p.m. PT: Gawker commenter flossy has the line of the day on the mixed messages earlier about the governor’s whereabouts: “In all fairness to his aides, “I’m getting some Argentinian tail” sounds a lot like “I’m hiking the Appalachian trail” when you’re on a fuzzy satelite phone connection. Who hasn’t had that kind of innocent misunderstanding?”
Interview with Kelly Westhoff and Jen Paulus: CheSpotting.com
by Eva Holland | 05.08.09 | 11:43 AM ET
REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas Eva Holland talks Che and the meaning of his ubiquitous image with the founders of a new travel photography site
The Buenos Aires Twitter Detox
by Valerie Conners | 04.21.09 | 9:30 AM ET
Photo by Valerie Conners On a trip to the Southern Hemisphere and with a need to disconnect, Valerie Conners pledges to embrace a Twitter-free vacation
Hotel Tipping: A Change is Gonna Come
by Alexander Basek | 04.01.09 | 10:30 AM ET
I’m pretty good about tipping in hotels. I don’t mind dropping the bucks for bellmen—especially after I spent two days as one at the Hotel Giraffe for the New York Post—and I agree that some money for the maid in an envelope is usually the way to go. However, I had an interesting situation in Buenos Aires that made me wonder whether I made a cultural faux pas.
At the moment, BA is in the throes of a change shortage. There simply aren’t enough coins—you see signs everywhere that say “NO HAY MONEDAS” or demand exact change if you’re buying a pack of cigs. The buses in Buenos Aires only take coins, so the commute for a lot of working people in the city is rather difficult. I accumulated a fair amount of change over the course of my stay, and on the recommendation of a friend who lived in the city, I gave it to one of the front desk fellows at my hotel who had been helpful. He seemed a little ... surprised, though he said “Great! For the bus!” after an awkward pause. Still, I felt weird just giving someone a handful of change as a thank you.
Have you guys ever given unorthodox tips in hotels? Cookies? A hat? Tell me I’m not the only one.
A Visit to the Alvear
by Alexander Basek | 03.31.09 | 2:51 PM ET
While in Buenos Aires last week, I got a chance to tour the Alvear Palace. As part of a test of social media web 2.0 blahbitty blah, I also tried to tweet about my tour, with marginal success. It’s really hard to type little messages on your phone during a meeting with someone and not seem like a total jerkwad in the process.
Maybe, though, I gave you guys an eye into what the travel-writing game is about—namely, nodding appreciatively at pools and gym machines. OK, I actually was impressed by the Alvear’s gym—the machines have flatscreens with videos explaining how to do all the exercises. That’s right in the wheelhouse of a doughy nerd such as myself.
Trip Drip
by Alexander Basek | 03.24.09 | 12:30 PM ET
I like to think of myself as pretty worldly when it comes to hotels and hotel design. I don’t mind sacrificing a little to stay someplace pretty, whether it be some space or comfort. But sometimes, hotel showers baffle me. I’m staying at the Moreno here in Buenos Aires this week and the shower looks amazing: rainfall showerhead, slatted wooden floor and just a small glass partition with no actual door to enclose it.
Functionally, it makes no sense. The water spritzes everywhere else but on the partition when you use it, and there’s no door to close to prevent that from happening. I’m a relatively clean guest, yet the hotel is actively encouraging me to make a mess. Plus, some of the shower water stays on those wooden boards overnight. If I were a groggy, first-thing-in-the-morning shower taker, they’d be slippery beams of death. This happens to me time and again: great looking shower, but it fails in the whole keeping water inside the shower area part. Do the hotels just not care?
I don’t mean to single out the Moreno; I like that shower, and if they want me to be a little messy, fine. In a nod to their understanding and patience, I promise I won’t eat a meatball sub over the room’s white cowskin rug.
What We Loved This Week: Twitter, Portland’s Cheap Eats, ‘Before Sunrise’ and More
by World Hum | 03.13.09 | 2:18 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days:
Valerie Conners
Trip-planning via Twitter and the fabulous tweeps following @worldhum. I’m heading to Buenos Aires in April and have been posting questions out to our twitterverse of followers, looking for tips on sights, food, estancia tours and more—the response has been so warm and incredibly helpful. What an amazing resource. Some great ideas have crossed my path and are making their way into my itinerary.
Eva Holland
I watched one of my favorite travel movies, “Before Sunrise,” again for the first time in a couple of years and was thrilled to find that none of the crazy, spontaneous magic of Jesse and Celine’s one night in Vienna had worn off. Here’s a classic sequence:
Best Cities to Drink Coffee
by Terry Ward | 03.12.09 | 10:33 AM ET
REUTERS Terry Ward takes a look at seven of the best cities in the world to sit and sip
Leave Home Without It
by Tom Swick | 02.19.09 | 10:07 AM ET
Contemplating and celebrating the world of travel
Argentina: Home to ‘The World’s Most Annoying Economic Crisis’
by Michael Yessis | 12.03.08 | 4:15 PM ET
There’s a coin shortage in Argentina, and it’s driving people in the country bonkers. It’s particularly acute in Buenos Aires. Joe Keohane explains in a story for Slate:
Everywhere you look, there are signs reading, “NO HAY MONEDAS.” As a result, vendors here are more likely to decline to sell you something than to cough up any of their increasingly precious coins in change. I’ve tried to buy a 2-peso candy bar with a 5-peso note only to be refused, suggesting that the 2-peso sale is worth less to the vendor than the 1-peso coin he would be forced to give me in change.
A benefit for some travelers: “Subway employees are occasionally forced to wave commuters through because they are out of coins,” Keohane writes.
New Travel Book: ‘On a Hoof and a Prayer’
by Frank Bures | 06.04.08 | 10:51 AM ET
Full title: “On a Hoof and a Prayer: Exploring Argentina at a Gallop”
Author: Polly Evans
Released: April 29, 2008
Travel genre: Larkish travel, equine travel
Territory covered: Patagonia, Argentina
Che Guevara: Revolutionary, Icon, ‘the Guy Who Invented Those Mojitos’?
by Jim Benning | 06.02.08 | 12:13 PM ET
Uh, something like that. In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, Ben Ehrenreich reflects on Che as pop icon, Steven Soderbergh’s Che and “Chevolution,” an intriguing new documentary about the famed Alberto Korda photo.
Doing the Shoddy-Journalism-Charge Tango*
by Jim Benning | 04.02.08 | 11:00 AM ET
The Argentine Post details similarities between a March 16 New York Times story about Buenos Aires’ expat scene and a Jan. 15, 2007 Newsweek piece.
* Updated, 11:52 a.m. ET: We should note that a Times editor has responded, saying there was “no plagiarism at work” while acknowledging problems with the article.
All Hail ‘The Burrito King of Argentina’
by Jim Benning | 12.03.07 | 10:43 AM ET
In our ongoing quest to chronicle the spread of Mexican food —Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex, you name it—around the globe, we note the rise of the humble burrito in Buenos Aires. At The California Burrito Company, which was co-founded by a 24-year-old expat from California, eating instructions are posted on the wall: “Pull back the foil wrap as you consume the burrito.” There’s even talk of expanding to Montevideo.
Photo by rick via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
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