Insomnio en San Telmo

It´s slightly past 7:30 AM here in Buenos Aires and I am WIDE AWAKE despite having gone to bed after 1 AM. As a huge fan of the sleep I am entitled to post-grad school, I find this current insomnia - in fact, total hyperactivity - interesting. As silly as it sounds, I think I am overstimulated by this vast city and its liveliness, especially after being in a country like Ecuador for so a month where the pace of life is much slower and the people quite different (for being more the same to each other, from my outsider perspective, compared to the diversity in a large city like BA).

Although I am a morning person in general, I decided not to adjust to the time difference so that I could adapt to the Porteño (Buenos Aires inhabitant) way of life, where dinner takes place after 8 PM and lingers to sometime before the going out out hour of 2 AM. Of course I am still too prematurely old and boring to be going out then, the point is that I want to embrace the idea of a nice siesta during the day, a leisurely (meat filled) dinner and being up late and sleeping in (those close to me know this is a VERY hard concept for me to adopt personally). But it has been easy the past two days since arrival, thanks to the long journey to get here and sleepless plan ride during the night - there has been a lot of napping. And I anticipate more napping today given that I have been wide awake since 5 am: I am proud of myself.

Maybe the inability to sleep can be attributed was the churros I ate, dipped in the richest hot chocolate I have ever consumed, at a tango show last night (at the well-know Cafe Tortoni). It was quite the diabetes-inducing evening, given that this treat was complemented by a bottle of the first red wine I have enjoyed in quite a long time - it helps that I was not allergic to it as I am with some reds! It was an Argentine wine (of course) and made want to go to the wine country Mendoza in the north of Argentina. And we may just go there ... itinerary after Buenos Aires definitely includes Iguazu Falls but unclear from there before going to Peru. We may take buses and trains through Northern Argentina into Santiago, Chile, and fly to Lima from there Bolivia is now out of my mind because of the recent change that requires US citizens to obtain a visa! Oh, and the civil unrest there, too... anyway, I ramble on about this because if anyone has suggestions or advice (bus, flight travel in Argentina and Peru), please email me!

It sounds like people are beginning to stir in San Telmo, the neighborhood of our hostel (Garden House, Art Gallery, which is a quirky large place decorated by local artists and with friend staff). San Telmos is the city’s oldest neighborhood, where the elite lived until the plague drove them elsewhere, but it has recently been [ ¨revitalized¨ and touts itself as artistic,with its numerous antique shops, cobblestone streets and lots of artists and dancers. The tango show we attended last night (which felt like more dramatic theater to me!) was nearby but closer to the center of town. I will upload pictures when I have the chance to get to an internet cafe (dont even have a usb port of the computer in the hostel!). I am eager to share pictures of our adventures thus far, limited to our neighborhood and that of Palmero, full of large open air park space and fun shopping in the Palermo Veijo.

For now, I am going to read some Pub Med articles in hopes this can get me to sleep - well, I jest to some extent about this being a boring activity because I am very anxious to get back to working and starting my career (though once I go back to the daily grind I´ll lament not being an aimless traveller). But not anxious enough that I will not be fully immersed in enjoying the next few weeks. I really feel like I am on vacation right now in comparison to my last month in Ecuador, where I felt more like trying to LIVE there rather than just being a tourist (and also feeling the transition off living on a couple of dollars a day ¡Que lastima!)