Abasto mall

Abasto Shopping Mall on Corrientes

When we visited Abasto de Buenos Aires, I looked up & snapped this picture as two security guys were emphatically saying, "No photos," to Mike, but since he doesn't speak Spanish, he was just waving his hands & saying, "No hablo español." Then I looked over & rescued him, but I had the shot.

The guards explained that it was a security measure. When I explained that we were moving to Cafayate, they said, "Calafate?" Lots of people do this, which surprises me some because Cafayate is SO much nicer, I'm guessing, than Calafate, but now I'm learning that people visit Calafate to see the glaciers.

Petito Moreno glacier, Calafate, Patagonia

Later, one of the security guards came by & talked to us for a long time. He admired my "Castellano" & said he wanted to practice his English, but we spoke in both languages about Cafayate & the United States. He has a brother who married a Mormon & moved to Salt Lake City. Clearly, he misses him a lot.

The mall was like a US mall. We passed through & walked across the street to a combination asado & Chinese restaurant. The latter was quite good. I wish I could remember the restaurant name.

Owner Susan Fujii adds:

I just have to add that if you have children, this particular mall is *paradise* for them as they have a wonderful Children's Museum (Museo de los Ninos) on the 2nd floor! It is far better than many, many US Children's Museums (and we've been to some very nice ones with our 5-year-old and 3-year-old) and features an enormous hands-on "city" where kids can do all sorts of fun things. My girls' favorites were singing, dancing, and operating the production cameras of a "real" TV studio, flushing themselves down the giant toilet slide, making milk and milk products in the dairy center, and grocery shopping (and being cashiers) in the awesome super-market.

It truly was amazing and lots of fun! Also the food court, unlike most in the US, sells wine and beer and has a great assortment of delicious restaurants.

And there was also a huge indoor amusement park there called "Neverland" complete with a hot-air-balloon ferris wheel ride, swinging pirate boat, and more, that we didn't have time to check out as we had to run to catch our plane (much to our girls' chagrin!).

eating & sleeping & shopping

Sometimes it seems that all we do here is eat & drink. I'm not complaining.

Last week in Cafayate we got to longing for pork chops, so we dropped by a Super Pollo on Calle Calchaqui near the plaza. The signs on the wall said cerdo (pork) but listed no prices. We took a number & waited while others bought unbelievable amounts of bife (beef) & some pollo (poultry). I also studied the carved-up vaca (cow) chart & picked out the useful fact that lomo means loin.

When a fellow behind the counter called out ochenta y dos (#82), I asked whether he had lomo de cerdo. Yes, he did, so I asked whether it had os (bone) or not. Both, he said, so yippee, I asked for 2 bone-in loin pork chops. He looked in the chest freezer & found no pork, so he headed into the walk-in freezer & returned shortly with a frozen bone-in pork loin. After cutting a thin chop, he held it up for me to see. Demasiado delgado (too thin), I said. ¿Mas grueso (thicker)? he asked. Sí, I said. We walked out with 2 thick chops that cost us 15 pesos. They were delicious.

Every time we come to Salta, we stop at a hole-in-the-wall cheese shop on San Martin for a half kilo of white, semi-hard, goat cheese that we break easily into chunks & eat off & on all day. To find the shop, cruise the north side of the 800 block.

Our jaunt along San Martin was in search of a colchón (mattress), 2 por 2 (2 meters square). Numerous folks told us to go to MaxiKing, but we found MaxiKing's mattresses too duro (hard) for us. We are bony, & I am arthritic. It was odd to find at least 5 stores all selling MaxiKing brand within 2 blocks, but Salta & Buenos Aires are like this. They have single-use shopping districts. We walked through the music & the bookstore shopping districts in Buenos Aires a few weeks ago.

Because our favorite mattress ever was a Simmons, we trekked over to Alto NOA shopping mall at 6 PM & sprawled on a few Beauty Rests. Blandito (soft), we kept saying. Yup, we found one we liked, only 6+K pesos, at least 4 times the price of a high-end MaxiKing, but hey, we sleep a lot. Fascinating to learn that getting a mattress delivered to Cafayate costs only about 150 pesos.

Friends told us today that when we go Simmons to buy the mattress, we should tell them what we want, offer 5K pesos cash, & see what happens. They also told us about buying their new camioneta (pickup). They withdrew cash of the ATM for days on end & borrowed cash from everyone they knew & went to the car dealer with cash, the only way to get a good price, that is to say a good price here, where cars are not cheap.

On the way back from Vaqueros, the same taxi driver recommended a lunch place, Charrua, muy muy bueno, he said, so we went. It's on the corner of Caseros & Vicente Lopez. Of course we were the first ones there, but wow, it filled to bursting by the time we left. Couples, families with children, multi-generational families, etc., & most of them seemed to be regular customers.

Because we pigged out on bife de chorizo last night at La Lenita on Balcarce, we ate pollo today. Mike's meal was a fabulous pollo al ajillo con papas. After the first taste, he said he could now translate ajillo (garlic). His papas (potatoes) were thin rounds cooked golden & semi-crispy. I only ate 2, because I was scarfing down my pollo curry which came in a baked basket made of herbed cracker dough (exquisite) along with rice & sauteed red/green/yellow sweet peppers. For all this plus bread with condiments, a half liter of vino tinto, & a bottle of agua con gas, la cuenta (bill) came to 88 pesos.

The waiter at Charrua, like many waiters here, ask where we're from & what we're doing here. Our answers of Hawaii & building a house in Cafayate bring smiles. In the middle of last night's meal, the waiter gave us a regalo (gift) of steaming hot, fresh-made empanadas. The Charrua waiter today gave us regalos of limoncello, an icy cold lemon-flavored drink served in liqueur glasses, absolutely delicious. I look forward to buying a bottle.

For tonight, I'm thinking 1 tamale & 1 glass of wine. Moderation, right?

el shopping

We buy fruit, vegetables, meat, chicken, cheese, & eggs from the street of shops just off the northwest corner of the plaza in Cafayate. Walk 1/2 block north on Mitre from the plaza & turn left into the street of shops. The man at one of the fruit markets tells me the freshest produce is available on Thursday evenings.

Half a block east of the southeast corner of the plaza, on Belgrano, you'll find the supermarket where we buy paper goods, soaps, fresh milk & yogurt, bread, canned goods, small kitchen items, etc.

Instead of buying wine on the plaza, you can save 5 pesos per bottle by walking 2 blocks north on Guemes to the vinoteca (wineshop) across from Resto Bar Bacos.

For nuts, dried fruits, tea, beer, & an unpredicatable collection of other comestibles, go to a pulpería. In Cafayate, you'll find La Última Pulpería on Mitre, just off the plaza & across from the Macro bank.

Cafayate has at least 2 pharmacies. Amoxidal 500 (Amoxicillin) is 25 pesos for 16 500 mg doses & requires no prescription.

If you want more than a chata (literal translation: flatboat), check out the hottest cars at Expo Agro.

first days

At dusk on our second night at La Estancia, we drive down the main road past the Heath Club. As we cross a patch of wet road, a flight of Whistling Herons rises before us. I’ve never seen this bird except in Argentina.

Syrigma sibilatrix, Chiflón, Whistling Heron

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¿Donde está la farmacía? Where is the pharmacy?
Around the corner, the woman says, one half block plus a quarter.
To the left? I say.
Si. She nods & grips my upper arm. Where are you from?
The United States.
Have a wonderful visit.
Smiles & smiles.

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I ask the young pharmacist for Suphedrin, & he brings me a box of 10 tablets. I tell him that my husband has had a fever for three days, that he is coughing badly. The pharmacist goes to the back & brings out Refrianex Compuesto, a cold remedy containing paracetamol for fever, ephedrine for congestion, chlorpheniramine for allergy, & bromhexine hydrochloride for coughing. Even though I don’t recognize 2 out of the 4 ingredients, I agree to try it instead of the Suphedrin. When I ask for Mentholatum, he brings me Otrivina, an Argentine equivalent. 70 pesos.

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At la pulpería, which is what general stores, country stores, have been called for three or four centuries in Argentina, the owner breaks away from the circle of old men drinking beer & mate to ask how he can help me. Fruta seca, dried fruit, I say. We go back & forth in Spanish until I understand to say higo for fig. He walks between barrels to a countertop covered with dried fruit in plastic bags. He offers me a fig, which is delicious. I decide to buy 200 grams of dried figs & 4 dried whole peaches. Later the peaches prove to be magnificent.

As we turn back to the main counter, he says what else, & I choose a bottle of the excellent Burra Roja beer from San Carlos & a half dozen eggs. Bastante, I say. ¿No mas? he says. He adds it up, 43 pesos, & when I see the sum on his notepad, I say cuarenta tres. He congratulates me on my eyesight, explains that blue eyes mean good eyesight, & recites a longish poem in Spanish about blue eyes. I understand some, not all of it, smile with delight. Un poeta, I say. He assumes a small proud smile.

On my way out he escorts me, points to a bag of dark plant material that he says is good for cough. I explain that my husband is sick with a cold & that he has been coughing for many years. My new friend turns back behind the main counter, reaches up, & pulls down a dark brown bottle labeled Arrope de Chañar. He points to a large plastic bag full of small round orange fruits: chañar, 1 kilo for 5 pesos. I decline the kilo but accept the 12 peso bottle of fruit syrup. 1-2 teaspoons in warm water 3-4 times a day. I suspect this remedy will work better than what I bought at the pharmacy.

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Back home, I strip last night’s roasted chicken from the carcass & drop the bones into a soup pot with an onion, salt, peppercorns, & plenty of water. I don’t have any herbs. The bones boil for 2-3 hours, fill the house with the wonderful smell of chicken stock. Later I strain the stock, let it cool, remove most of the chicken fat, add fresh onion & fresh vegetables from Juan Romero Sr.’s garden — red & green sweet peppers, round green zucchini, hubbard squash — & cook the vegetables for 10 minutes before I add the coarsely chopped leftover chicken for the final 5 minutes. My first chicken soup in Argentina. It will feed us for 3 meals.

chicken soup for a cold

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This morning a large white sheep, oveja, probably the grownup version of the small white lamb we saw with its black sibling last October, jogs into Ginny’s yard. A long dirty white rope trails from its collar. I run outside & snag the rope, only to be jerked hither & thither while I try to lead the sheep off the newly leveled, about-to-be-landscaped yard & back into the meadow across the street. Everyone is laughing, los trabajadores (workers) & Mike, who wishes he had the camera which is bouncing on its strap around my neck. I want to tie up the sheep but don't see a good place. God forbid I should tie the sheep to a metal utility box, & the sheep should pull the box cattywampus or out of the ground entirely.

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The black bird in the tree looks like a Red-winged Blackbird, but when it flies, I see that the bright-colored patches are yellow, a Yellow-winged Blackbird.

Agelaius thilius, Varillero ala Amarilla, Yellow-winged Blackbird