Tigre with the Adams Family

Even before we left for Argentina our friend Hanno told me one of his favorite places when he lived in Buenos Aires was the Río de la Plata river delta area, Tigre. He described it to me and promised that we would visit when we met up in B.A. (for those who don't know him, Hanno is a physics teacher at Punahou School, who is spending his year-long sabbatical here with his family, having married a porteña, Paula, and having taught at the American school here before moving to Honolulu). Even though he described it well, I probably listened poorly (what's new!); I was totally unprepared for what we experienced!

After a 30+ minute drive along the Pan American Highway we arrived, parked, and headed over to board one of the boats that take travelers out to the many islands formed from the silt that accumulates in the delta.

Altogether there were nine of us, including Hanno & Paula; their kids, Sofía & Tim; Paula's mother, Blanca; and our family.

We arrived at one of the islands and began a short trek to a restaurant that I'm not sure anyone really knew existed. As far as I could tell, among the many houses, which Hanno told me aren't live-ins but used more to entertain or host visitors from the city wishing a day of R&R, some people have set up restaurants in the yard. As if we might decide one day to cook in our St. Louis Heights kitchen and then serve passers-by on backyard resin furniture...wait a minute, that sounds like when we entertain family!

The walk took us along a path made of stepping stones sunk into the silt-ground, sometimes turning into elevated wooden bridge structures that spanned small waterways, mostly running along the perimeter of the island, which was really just a short drop straight into the water, as if the island had been carved on its borders.

All the houses were elevated because the water levels change with the flow of the river, and some looked as if they would fall any minute while others seemed built by Tony Montana when he was really running the cocaína in Scarface.

We stopped at a modest house with a parilla in the garage and about ten tables set under trees in the front yard. Hanno immediately led me to the parilla and asked the men if we could stand and watch them cook all the meat. As usual, the at-first-gruff-looking men smiled immediately and launched into a friendly explanation of all the meats on the grill, with Hanno asking questions and me struggling but mostly succeeding to understand all of them.

Once we returned to the table Hanno and Paula ordered us all a family style lunch that included almost everything we saw on the grill, although I couldn't get the nerve to agree to the blood sausages that were hanging like plump purple plums above the smoldering keawe-like wood embers. With Blanca as the best grandmother one could ever imagine at a long lunch, entertaining all four children while we other adults sat (dare I say it's been almost spring-like here for the last week or so), we talked for about an hour-and-a-half and enjoyed being stuffed under the sun.

After such a great meal it's really important to go for a walk to digest, so someone suggested we take a walk around the island. Once again I had no idea who, if anyone, was in charge, and was totally contented to simply walk with Hanno and talk about Argentina. For the first half hour or so we were on a path similar to the one that took us to the restaurant, but sometime soon after we passed the last house and began to follow a small stream the stepping stones ceased to exist and there was only a worn path in the silt. No one seemed concerned so I kept walking until we hit a patch where the worn path was no longer dry(ish) and worn but rather a pool of mud. That got all the kids' attention, especially Jack, who by that point had already left the stones and slipped once, getting himself muddy, but I pointed out that he was already dirty and how much worse could it be...

Another thirty minutes later we were all slipping along in what might have been a jungle except that the trees weren't that thick and I didn't hear monkeys shrieking or anything. Nevertheless, we had to cross small streams on tree-trunk poles laid across the gaps - usually there were only two or three poles to walk on and with only one exception there was one that would serve as a handrail. By that point Jack had slipped at least three more times, as had almost everyone else, and Paula was kind enough to hold his hand.



Not that it always helped!

I have to admit that after about an hour of walking through the trees, I started to get a little worried. While occasionally we could hear the engines of boats, I could also see that the sun was getting lower, and even though we had a map on a photocopied piece of paper it didn't seem to be much more than a sketch of the island Quinn, Tim or Sofía might have produced with a charcoal pencil. What seemed really strange was the fact that every so often there were small recently deceased fish lying along the path for no apparent reason. But no blowpipe-wielding indigenous hunter jumped out at us and no one else seemed really concerned, so I kept my mild fears to myself.

Finally after about an hour-and-a-half we saw a line of houses, and while the stepping stones had yet to reappear I relaxed. We soon passed a man and a woman fishing (I have to interject and say that under no circumstances would I have ever eaten anything from that murky water, especially after Hanno had told me about chemical-dumping factories upriver, so I hope to high heaven they were fishing for sport) who told us that just a few days earlier the water had risen about three feet, surging from winds that I had missed while in Australia, and that explained the reason for the path being so waterlogged...as well as the puddles in yards

and the fish that had mysteriously died so far from the streams. They actually laughed at us for having walked so far. You can imagine how that felt, being laughed at by a couple fishing in mud! We were undaunted, though, especially the kids, who enjoyed slipping and sliding and even picking up debris left by the flood.

Before we got back on a boat to return to the mainland Blanca went into a small store to buy us all some water. Inside the shopkeepers scolded her for our walk, telling us that after floods there are even snakes that are washed around and disoriented, and that we could have really gotten hurt. I'm happy that she waited until after we were all home to share that with Paula, who kindly didn't pass the message on until the next morning!

All in all it was a great adventure, though. Jack, Quinn and Tim fell asleep on the boat ride back

(Paula was still taking care of Jack!)

and as we headed into the dock the moon was rising over the amusement park nearby and the sun was setting on an unforgettable day!

Travel Agent

While I was in Australia Erin emailed me this picture:

I'm still not clear whether Jack is looking at our travel books before bed (seriously, those were his pajamas that night - the long & short sleeve shirt combination and his brother's boxer shorts) because we didn't bring enough of his books on the trip - just in case that's the reason, I bought a bunch more in Sydney and brought them back - or if he's genuinely interested in seeing more of Buenos Aires and Argentina, especially since just before I left Quinn was making his way through the stack, too. Or maybe he's taking it upon himself to make plans for us since we didn't get away during their winter break.

Maybe it was just Erin's way of making sure I came home to my family.

(If so, it worked)

La Rural

Before I left for Australia (I use "left," though Erin uses "abandoned the family") we went with our landlady's family to an annual event held a few blocks from us, La Rural. My first inclination is to describe it as a farm fair on steroids. But then again, I've never been to a true farm fair and I've never done steroids, so I'll let me try again.

La Rural is an event that primarily features the showing of a huge variety of farm animals - horses, cattle, sheep, ducks etc. - as well as other smaller furry four-legged creatures we didn't even have time to see (I peeked into one tent while searching for a toilet for Jack and saw what looked like hundreds of chinchillas, but I've never really seen a chinchilla either so I can't swear to it).

Actually, I'm not sure it's correct to say "primarily features," because in addition to all the livestock etc. were many large farming vehicles manufactured by companies such as John Deere; and cars, motorcycles and ATVs made by companies ranging from Toyota to Peugeot, including an area where one could actually pay to ride with a driver who took passengers in 4WD vehicles through a CRAZY obstacle course with high dirt hills at 45º angles, rails that tipped the cars almost on their sides and see-saw ramps that wouldn't be legal at Six Flags parks!

The last thing we watched was a polo horse competition/exhibition (for sales purposes, I think). We saw the finals, which included roughly eight horses being put through their paces by some very talented riders. I've never seen horses do what they got those to do: make sharp 90º turns, dance backward, come to sudden stops, and generally do tricks not even Jack or Quinn can recreate. When people say that Argentina is a polo power, I will now know exactly why and what they mean. It was really impressive.

There was also a lot of stuff to buy that we could afford, mostly food. I loved some of the John Deere tractors, but for now I think I'll continue clearing our St. Louis Heights backyard with my hands and forgo the urge to purchase a monster to ride over the side. When I finally stopped ferrying the boys (why can't kids ever have to pee at the same time?) through the crowds back to the only bathrooms I knew about - over the Toyota car "stage," through the livestock and mass of porteños, to soiled toilets we went - I gorged myself on choripanes and bottled water. Then I got my usual afternoon cortado doble (double espresso shot with a tiny bit of milk) and felt satisfied. My other purchase of note was a warm wool beanie made by someone in Mendoza. There was a whole line of tents where local-ish artisans sold crafts, and I felt like a needed something authentic from the experience as well as a way to "represent" when I was freezing in Canberra. It's not a look I think will take off in Hawaii...

Jardin Japonés

On the other side of Avenida de Libertador, about ten small city blocks from our apartment, is Jardin Japonés, a parque with koi-filled ponds, statues of famous samurai, a sushi restaurant and a great little greenhouse where we purchased three plants for our lanai: a ficus, a small pine-ish tree, and a plant that I think is an African Violet.

Erin, Maile and the boys have since returned to sample the sushi, but our first trip was a one-hour exploration of the bridges and ponds. Quinn and Jack got a close-up look at flower buds soon-to-open once spring settles upon them. We couldn't decide if the buds look deceived and have peeked out from behind their tightly squeezed fists, or if the slivers of green and pink that we saw are normal. Such seasonal rookies we are!

The oasis in the middle of Palermo was a nice respite from the loud cars and colectivos that we hear all night and day. Jack mimicked mouths of the two-man submarine sized koi – we found too late that we can buy food for them in the greenhouse, but next time we'll fill their bellies. In the greenhouse we found the plants we bought, and a few small fish tanks filled with guppies, but the best part of the garden that day was discovering these small albino frogs, ranas africanas, in a tank in the greenhouse store.

Museo de los Niños

In Honolulu one of Quinn and Jack's favorite Saturday things to do is take a trip to the Children's Discovery Museum, where there are dress-up costumes, ship signal flags and the Aloha Airlines airplane mock-up. For that reason we knew that Museo de los Niños would be a winner when we read about it in our guidebooks. It's located in Abasto Mall, about a 40 minute walk from our apartment (though leading the way, I managed to turn that into about an hour-and-a-half). Shrewdly located to the rear of the top-floor food court, Museo de los Niños has three levels that engage the kids in every experience, from piloting & loading a freight tanker,

to driving an eighteen-wheeler cab,

to flying a fighter jet,



to milking a cow.

And not so surprisingly the kids can even get behind the counter at a McDonalds mock-up and become young employees-in-training (thankfully, neither Quinn nor Jack expressed any interest in handing out fake Big Macs, though I have to admit that might have been because Jack wasn't able to see over the counter and because I commented to Quinn how smart McDonalds is in getting kids hooked early on their branding…).

At one point we all split up, so Quinn and I missed the fútbol cancha, where although Jack was too shy to join the older boys in the somewhat unsupervised game, he practiced his "gol!" call at the public address announcers' table.

Something tells me we will be returning to Abasto Mall on another fin de semana!

Say, isn't that a Cebolla?

So the other day it was my turn to cook, and I turned to the ol' standby, spaghetti with meat sauce. All that really means is that I bought ground beef at the butcher's, which I brown in a pan with diced (or is it minced, who knows?) garlic and sliced onions (maybe I dice the onions). Once the garlic and onions are ready and the meat is browned, I usually dump in a couple packets of the Napolitana salsa I buy at Disco or Carrefour, and the meat is ready to add the the spaghetti. Okay, so just as I was cutting up the garlic I realized I had no more onions in the basket. Lucky we live in the city; all I needed to do was zip down in the ascensor, run around the corner to my favorite mamá y papá grocery story, and pick up a couple onions. Although it was cold and I was only in jeans and a t-shirt, I decided not to bundle up – the trip would only take me five minutes max, I figured – and instead chose to slip my feet into my Scott slippers and throw on my almost-twenty-years-old barn jacket and head out.

As soon as I got to the store I know I had messed up. There was a line – mamá and papá were only letting one customer in at a time – and I was third or fourth in the queue. Even worse, just ahead of me were two young girls I recognized from Lange Ley, one of whom I think is in Quinn's grade, though not his class. Both of them looked back and clearly recognized me…before then looking down at my bare toes. Immediately the two of them turned to each other and began chattering away and giggling. My immediate thought: Poor Quinn -once again his dorky dad embarrasses the new guy at school.

Nevertheless I endured the cold and the humiliation, smiling bravely every time they looked back, and within five minutes it was my turn to enter. For some reason the girls got to stay in the store. I actually don't think they even bought anything, so I'm not sure what they were doing there, but I was too busy trying to figure out how to ask for an onion since I couldn't see them in any of the vegetable bins. I started out like a confident pro: "Yo quiero..." and trailed off into, "um, um…" Then I started making hand gestures that really meant nothing more than something round. I contemplated mimicking a cutting motion coupled with wiping tears from my face, but my better senses ruled. Finally I blurted out, "Yo quiero un onion. Como se dice onion?" knowing full well that the store owners really didn't speak any English.

With great luck the girls came to my rescue. Gigglaughing again one of them said, "cebolla," and then the storeowner repeated, "Ah, cebolla!"

I tried the whole sentence: "Si, gracias, yo quiero un cebolla," and was slightly corrected ("unA cebolla"). Everybody laughed and the old man pulled a cebolla out of the bin and took it to the register. Handing over my pesos, I tried the word out a few more times to practice, looked down at my slippers and then into everyone's face with a sheepish smile, and retreated back out the store, around the corner and back to my warm frying pan and pot of water.

By the way, green beans are chauchas.

A couple weekends ago it was cold and rainy, so we spent the mornings inside with the heat on, but by 3-4pm both days the boys were ready to explode in our tiny apartment. Sunday Erin and I caved and decided to bundle up and trek to Alto Palermo Mall, where we had seen a Fun Factory-like place: Cartoon Network. I know, it was a weak decision to take them to Cartoon Network while in Buenos Aires, but we've found better alternatives since... Inside we found really tame kiddie rides - The Flinstones and Scooby-Doo:

I have never seen a safer ride policy demonstrated by the workers, who looked to be teenagers, much too young to be as patient and responsible as they were. On the Scooby-Doo ride each child was escorted to his or her personal car, which meant Quinn, who only agreed to go on the rides as the big brother, ended up in his own car - what a good sport! Once escorted to their cars, children were carefully seatbelted in and doors were latched. The loading process was easily twice as long as the ride itself. I had no complaints, though; after all, we were there to kill time!

Thankfully, Jack quickly had his fill of two-kilometer-per-hour revolutions after a few rides, and after I returned from a strategic bathroom trip (funny, the bathrooms were across the mall in the food court...) Quinn and I ventured into the arcade area. Jackpot! We found air hockey, which neither Quinn nor Jack had ever before played. After demonstrating lighting quick reflexes and the goal-scoring, quick-twitch wrist that used to zip penalty shots past Duplanty (you reading out there, Chris?) I soon gave up my place behind the goal and let Jack mount the stool (no, I wasn't using it, too!) and take on his older brother. The classic battles ensued for as long as the debit card held pesos and the card reader swiped successfully.