Return
of the Mustard People
(July
12 - August 8, 1998)
You can click on "photos"
to get
directly to the photo page.
Well, I wasn't planning to
write a travelogue this week because the
plan was to have a rather quiet, unexciting weekend. HOWEVER, STAY
TUNED!
Friday night Diane and I decided to branch out on our own and find
someplace to eat somewhere away from the hotel. We had eaten 5 of
9 nights
right around the hotel and that is very unlike us. We walked down
to the Florida
(pronounced Floreeeda). Now this was more to my liking as there
were
musicians, mimes, etc on this pedestrian walkway. We found a
cafeteria to eat in and
learned that
beef is not beef anywhere you eat it. We will now only have beef
in the more upscale restaurants we have been eating in. The beef
that we had
in this cafeteria was horrible. It could have passed for the
scraps that
the other restaurants throw out.
Saturday started out as a rainy, cool, dreary day so we went down to
the restaurant and had a big breakfast and went back up to the room to
let
the weather clear some. The plan for the day was to take a train
out
to Acasusso (sounds Japanese, as so many words we see around the city)
to find the Harley-Davidson dealer to buy t-shirts that Diane's friend
asked her to
buy for her and her husband whenever we are out of the USA. We
got a late
start (2pm) because we forgot that many of the stores close from
1-3pm.
Acasusso was very nice, sort of like the suburbs. We saw some
very nice, clean
residential streets, some marvelous houses, and a nice quiet ambience
about it,
very unlike Buenos Aires. We got the two shirts, stopped at the
McDonald's
for a snack and headed back to the hotel. We met a couple from
Houston who were
on the same train as us that were doing the same thing for some friends
of
theirs. Saturday night, Diane, Merle and I walked over to Puerto
Madero, some refurbished warehouses down along the water, to find a
place to
eat. We decided on a place called Columbus and it turned out to
be great
food. It was an Italian restaurant so we had a break from the
beef and chicken that
we have been eating. I hadn't had rissotto in a long time so I
had a
great Rissotto di Mare (seafood in a rice dish in case you aren't
familiar with this
meal).
Sunday started out as a nice quiet, but cool day. After
breakfast, Merle, Diane and I started out for San Telmo, an old section
of BA where we
would find vendors, as well as people dancing the tango on the
plaza. We were about four blocks
from the Sheraton and only a block or two past the Catalinas IBM
building when
it happened. A youngish (20s) guy and gal came out from behind
the
cover for the bus stop and started speaking to us and waving and
pointing to our
backs. I turned my back to Diane and said "please tell me I don't
have mustard on my back". Diane replied "yes, you have mustard on
your back and down your pants legs". You guessed it. The
'mustard people' struck again, this time all
three of us got spritz with mustard.
HOWEVER, they did NOT get close enough to us to lay a hand on any of us
to try and
pick our pockets or Diane's backpack. I immediately brought up my
video
camera, turned it on and pointed it at them and that caused them to
immediately start to move
away. I followed a little, but mostly using the zoom to get some
footage of them as they
went back across the street. The guy moved quicker than the woman
and I couldn't
get
much of him on film, but I got some of the woman, although she held her
hand up to
her face some of the time. They both got into a taxi, probably
part of the
ploy, and took off.
Diane and Merle came up the street asking if I got
any film of the old guy across the main avenue. Unfortunately, as
soon as he
saw Diane and Merle pointing to him, he split and I didn't get him on
film. As
we put the pieces together, Merle remembers seeing the old guy cross
the main
street from our right and he must have come right up behind us as we
crossed one of
the side streets and squirted us in an instant with the mustard and
then crossed back over to the other side of the main avenue. Then
his young
partners took over. I'm still annoyed that I
didn't
pick up on that guy crossing the street because WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THIS
PLOY and STILL
we got nailed, Merle for the SECOND time this trip. The good news
is
that they didn't get anything and nobody got hurt. We don't
suspect these people
are dangerous people. They move off if they think you're on to
them.
Diane also has a security device that emits a high frequency, high
decibel sound when
the pin is pulled and she was ready to pull the pin if the guy and gal
didn't back
off.
We discussed whether we should go back to the hotel to change, but
Merle said maybe we should just continue on with the mustard on our
backs. That would tell any other low lifes that we had already
been taken and they would leave us alone. Sounded like a good
idea, so we continued on to San Telmo. I told Merle and Diane
maybe the next weekend we should spritz ourselves with mustard before
leaving the hotel to ward off these low lifes and make them think we
have already been attacked by some of their peer low lifes.
We made it to San Telmo and we did feel better there because there
were more people around and some police. We think these people
target
folks where there aren't many people around as witnesses. We did
see a couple
doing tangos on the plaza. We also met a family from NJ that were
on vacation,
having come from Santiago, Chile to spend a few days in BA. We
warned them
about the mustard people.
From there we walked over to the Caminito area, which was also quite an
adventure. To get there we walked through some areas that
probably made my
blood pressure go up and Diane's heart race. Once we got to
Caminito, which had
vendors and performers on the streets, we were fine. We took a
taxi back and
I write this as we wait to go out to dinner at 6:30.
So our planned unexciting weekend turned out to be rather exciting
after all. My manager had told me that by not ever wanting to go
to South America, that
I was 'limiting my experiences'. Hmmm. I think I was
happier with
my limited experiences to places like Tokyo (where I feel 100% safe),
Paris,
Madrid (although Diane's purse was picked here on a 1995 trip),
Stockholm, Zurich, etc. I'm sure this will be my one AND ONLY
trip to South America. Not that pickpockets don't exist in
Europe, but our
feeling is not one of being safe here.
Tune in again next week to see if the adventure continues. We
hope to go spend a day at a gaucho ranch (estancia) next Sunday.
Return to
International
Travelogues
Menu
Return to
Roaming America Main Menu