Some Day Trips

Yesterday, a group of us took a little day trip to San Antonio, a sleepy gaucho town about two hours west of Buenos Aires. We walked around, went to a gaucho museum, went to a typical gaucho saloon-type place, and saw some, uh, gauchos. Yep. It was a gaucho kinda day. At one point, I saw a sign that said, among other things, "churros." I forced the group to take a detour. We ordered some churros, and the guy behind the counter told us that he had to prepare them, and would we mind waiting. So we ordered some beers, took a seat, and waited for the churros.

When I tell you that these churros were so amazing that I had to lower the volume of my pleasure groans lest I embarass myself too much, I'm not exaggerating. They were insane. Warm, lightly crispy and sugared churros, with just the right amount of dulce de leche INSIDE of them, so that when you took a bite, your experience was as follows: first, the light crunch of the outermost layer, then, the soft, chewy, sweet taste of the churro dough, and finally, the warm, gooey, heavenly experience of dulce de leche. Oh. My. God.

En route to San Antonio:



Sitting on a well outside the gaucho museum:



Some gauchos on horseback in the street:



Today, a different set of Argentinians took me and Diana out on a sailboat all day. We drove to San Isidro, a suburb of Buenos Aires, and got on a boat and spent the day on the Tigre River, swimming, talking, drinking, and playing Beatles songs on the guitar. At one point, one of the guys, Matthias, took the guitar and started strumming and singing a song from....THE SOUND OF MUSIC!!!! I couldn't believe it when I heard those sweet words made famous by my dear Fraulein Maria, reinterpreted by a stoned 30 year old Argentinian male: "Perhaps I had a wee-ked child-hud, Perhaps I had a meeserable youth...but somewhere in my wee-ked, mee-serable past, I must hev done some-ting gud..." Another guy, Alexis, when asked about a scar on his chin, recounted a story from his youth. His older brother decided he would make, you guessed it, a dulce de leche churro out of Alexis, with Alexis as the dulce the leche, and a bunch of pillows held together by belts as the bread part of the churro. He tied Alexis up so tight that the poor boy could only stand very straight and hop around. Eventually, he got tired, and tried to rest himself against a countertop, but he lost his balance, and timber-like, fell flat on his face.

But all the dulce de leche churro talk made me a little crazy for some more of my new all-time favorite dessert. Alas, in the middle of the Tigre, there were none to be found.

With the two guitar players, Matthias and Marianno, on the boat:



Tonight is my final Saturday in Buenos Aires. But honestly, I'm TIRED! I don't think I'm going to do a seven o'clock in the morning sort of night. No puedo mas!