South America Recap

We had 4 days, nights in Rio, landing at 10 am on a Wednesday. We had 3 days, nights in Buenos Aires, landing at 10 am on a Sunday. First up, Rio de Janiero. Here was the view from our hotel rooftop pool.

There's no denying that Rio is a beautiful city. The top two attractions (Corcovado and Sugar Loaf) are lookout points that give great 360-degree vistas. The beaches are really nice, super long with giant waves. 

The only problem is that Rio knows it's beautiful. As if, they know people want to come here, so they don't have to bother with transportation infrastructure or doing anything about the safety concerns. Oh yeah, and they price gouge tourists wherever they can. It starts with a $140 visa per person (though that can be blamed on the U.S government, as it's a reciprocity fee. The U.S. waives the fee for 36 countries, mostly Europe.) And continues at the ATM, where the convenience charge was 12BR ($7.18). The same price as a can of Pringles. 

At a normal-looking dinner place, entrees were 28BR and even McDonald's was charging over $10 US for a meal. It felt like the entire Zona Sul (Copacabana and Impanema) was one giant hotel minibar. By the end of the trip, we were drinking sodas and waters from the hotel fridge, since they were the same price as on the street. 

As for transportation, they have one metro line. We were able to use it one day, to go from the beach area to downtown. But couldn't use it any other time to go to restaurants or the main attractions. Which meant taking cabs everywhere. Most of our cab experiences were negative. The very first time, our own hotel doorman gave us a cab and then told the driver as we were getting in, that the price should be 20BR. He made it seem like he was looking out for us, wanting the driver not to overcharge us. But if he had used a meter it wouldn't have been that much. 

Then we wanted to go to Cristo Redentor, aka the big statue of Jesus on top of Corcovado Mountain. We were looking forward to taking the train up the mountain. In Visual 1, we hailed a cab at point A and wanted to go to point B.

  Google Maps says it's a 10km cab ride, should take about 10 minutes. Instead, we got the cab driver who DOESN'T KNOW WHERE CRISTO is. It's only the #1 landmark in Rio. It's only a big statue that you can see from just about anywhere in Rio. If you're a cab looking for tourists, don't you think that you should know where tourists want to go. This is where we went:

  Google says 19km at 40 minutes, and it took us about 45 minutes. Not only were we lost, this was running up our meter to 45BR (should have been about 20), we were losing daylight at Cristo, and he didn't even take us to the train station. He dropped us off at a point halfway up the mountain, where we could only take shuttle vans the rest of the way. Oh yeah, and he had a GPS. (The thought was raised, is he scamming us? If so, he deserves an Oscar. He asked about 4 different locals (Where is Cristo?) and genuinely looked like he had no idea what he was doing. 

His error was compounded when after Corcovado, we came down and there were no taxis. There were drivers, but they were "private car services" that wouldn't use a meter. He wanted 52 and I haggled him down to 45. But we really didn't have a choice. It was dark and we're halfway up a mountain and there's only 3 cars in the parking lot with more tourists on their way down. Then came a moment that I'm still not sure what to make of. We had just gotten in the backseat of the private car service. Before we pull away, one of the other drivers who was standing around, comes over, hands a 10BR bill to the driver and says to us "you dropped this." The driver hands it back to us. We drive away. I know for a fact I didn't drop it. Even if I did, why not just keep it. It seems like a scam. But how does it work? Maybe if we were standing around, he could hope that I would pull out my wallet to put the bill away, and then mug me or something. But handing someone in a car money for no reason? If it's a scam, it's a terrible one. I didn't trust the money. So whether it was counterfeit, laced with drugs, or a GPS tracker or something, I just paid our driver with it at the end of the ride. Whatever. 

Our last complaint was a surprising one...it was hard to find good, Brazilian food. Our first lunch came at a place highly recommended and it was mediocre sandwiches. The "street food" snack bars offered what looked like more mediocre sandwiches and weren't cheap either. We ended up having some pizzas, french fries, and pasta for the most part. Which in light of my earlier minibar analogy, it seemed like we were really at a Rio theme park, and not a separate country. 

Okay, ALL of that said, Rio is a beautiful place, the beaches are nice, we had fun, and almost all the attractions we went to were good. The best attraction actually was Corcovado/Cristo Redentor. The view was better than at Sugar Loaf, plus you had something to look up at. I went hang gliding, which was the first time I've done anything like it. It was definitely worth it, even though it cost $200 US, including a hidden tax and the pictures (which I haggled down and almost didn't get.) We took a jeep tour through the Tijuca rain forest--just taking the ride was better than the times when we got out and stopped to look at stuff.

 
We did get to a Churrascaria (Carretao) the first night, which was pretty good at 35BR/person. Of course, I couldn't understand what they were offering me, so I just had to stare at the big chunk of meat on the rods and say yes to everything. (They did offer us dessert at the end. Of course it was extra, but it was worth it because the chocolate was so good.) 

And we did see a samba show (Plataforma for $100 US/person). Keeping in line with the rest of the Rio culture, it was designed strictly for tourists and wasn't that impressive. In short, it seems like it's a city that is better suited for packages, especially if they include transporting you to attractions. And 3 days is enough. Looking back, I find it similar to Venice, in that you go to see things that are worth seeing, but it's not a place that you need to experience again and again. 

This feeling was amplified by our experience in Buenos Aires. As soon as we got there, we loved it. It's definitely more our scene. A couple things helped right off the bat. First, we both have four years of spanish, so leaving portugese behind was a welcome change. Our hotel, Babel Hotel in San Telmo, was super awesome. Only 6 rooms so they had great service and helped us out with daily recommendations. And Argentina is cheap! The peso exchange rate is basically 4 to 1, so that 70AR steak (that would cost $40 in the states) is only $17.50. 2 chocolate-covered churros on the street? 5 pesos, or $1.25. Our first day we visited the awesome San Telmo street market where Brit paid for 80AR for a cool antique bottle and I paid 45AR for a Messi Argentina jersey. (Funny thing about the bottle--it looks like a bomb when put through the X-ray machine and I was stopped when leaving the Charlotte and Rio airport--though not BA, I guess they're used to it.) 

We followed the local customs and went to dinner at 10pm! Our first night we went to Amici Miei, the best meal of the trip. It's an Italian restaurant with Argentine influences, which makes sense because of all the Italian immigrants. (Which explains all the gelato.) We ordered a four-cheese pizza to split as our first course and it was as good as any we had in Italy. I got a giant steak with Argentine sauces and Brit got some good pasta. It was here that I had the best wine of the trip, a Norton Sauvignon Blanc, 15AR. Big, awesome meal and it was only $55 for the two of us. 

After dinner we went to La Confeiteria Ideal for a milonga--a bar where locals dance the tango. Here's a typical cab exchange: 

C: Donde a? 

Me: La Confeiteria Ideal en Suipacha. 

C: (blank face) Suipacha...Que? 

Me: La Con-fe-ter-ia I-deal. 

C: (blank face) 

Me: Es milonga en Suipacha. 

C: Oh! La Confeiteria Ideal! Vamos! 

My accent is so bad that even when we were using the right words, it was a challenge. It never failed to amuse and frustrate me that they would eventually repeat exactly what I had said from the beginning. It was cool to see the locals dance and this was Brit's favorite part of the trip. 

The next day we had an amazing lunch at Cumana. The best empanadas I've ever had--and they were only 3,90AR = $1. I had spicy beef and a ham and cheese. We toured a bunch of the city on our own, Casa Rosada, MALBA, Women's Bridge, Boca, the largest bookstore in Latin America, the Evita Musuem and the Cemetery where she's buried. 

For our second night we booked a professional tango show: Senor Tango. This was my favorite part of the trip. We loved the dancing, the music, the singing, the spectacle. WAY BETTER than the Rio Samba show, and only $75 for the two of us, not $200. 

Sounds like Buenos Aires is perfect, eh? We might have thought so. If I hadn't been pickpocketed on the train at 6pm on our last night in South America. I'm planning on writing more about this eventually, but we were on a crowded train when I man pretended to be sick. 10 seconds later my wallet's gone from my front pocket. It ruined our night. We had to race back and call internationally to cancel our cards--thank goodness Hotel Babel was so helpful and started all the calls, covering the spanish until I reached an English operator. We did end up having dinner at 1am, but we still weren't in the mood. As much as it sucked at the moment, I only lost about $200. Which was less than the surprise $140 entry fee/person when we got off the plane in Argentina. It could have been worse. It could have been better if I hadn't carried both credit cards and both bank cards and all the cash we had at the moment. But it happens. If you can afford to go to Buenos Aires, you can afford to have your wallet stolen in Buenos Aires. The whole trip was worth it, and was interesting to see how undifferent South America is. The world is full of people just living their life. I preferred BA to Paris. With the language, the food, the affordability, the tango, I would definitely come back. Brit said next time we come we'll carry a dummy wallet with a clown hankerchief attached.