LET'S GO Buenos Aires

Let's Go Buenos Aires
The guidebook I chose to read is from the “Let’s Go” series…it’s called Let’s Go Buenos Aires. I chose the book because it is very recent (just released about a month ago), and because it is supposedly “for independent travelers on a budget, with an emphasis on whatever’s hip, fun, or free”. I feel that the book definitely lived up to these expectations.

With an emphasis on moving beyond the tourist experience, the guide really seemed to offer an “authentic” Buenos Aires experience by making an effort to capture the local culture of the city through facts, accounts, and a surplus of information. While the book includes everything that I would typically expect to find in a guide (food, sights, museums, nightlife, entertainment, and shopping), I was pleased to find that it offered several other useful sections. Two sections, “excursions” and “daytrips”, will be very helpful for when I plan weekend trips outside of Buenos Aires. It recommends when to travel to specific places in Argentina, as well as it offers information on transportation, accommodations, and food in that place. Also the book includes plenty of in-depth maps, and most conveniently, the first page of the book is the “Subte” map (the subway).

“Let’s Go” provides tons of random and very helpful information about what to expect when you arrive in Buenos Aires. Just to name a few things, the book talks about currency and exchange, restaurant tipping, safety, pre-departure health precautions, internet cafes, and crime rates in Argentina. There is one very interesting part of the book titled “Life and Times” in which we learn about the history of Argentina, it current government and politics, the economy, environmental concerns, and cultural details about the city’s food, etiquette, sports, literature, and holidays. You need to buy this book if you are going to Buenos Aires! It has so much information! There are even lists of websites to buy concert tickets, or for certain festivals.

In terms of the reviews themselves, they are helpful and seem to be coming from the perspective of a young student, which is of the most value to me. Thanks to this book I now know where to find good milongas (tango clubs), that if I show up to dinner before 10 PM I’ll be the first one there, and that I should avoid discussing the war with Great Britain, or rooting for Brazil and England in soccer. Since I had planned to buy a bike in Argentina, I was sad to learn that Buenos Aires is not a bike friendly city because of its design and because of its notoriously crazy drivers that ignore traffic rules.

On a different note, this Saturday I attended my first tango class. I have been trying to get to a class for a while now since the dance is a large part of Argentine culture. Tango is so intense and passionate…I wasn’t a very good dancer but I had a lot of fun. The teacher kept saying how tango was just like heroine and we were all going to be little addicts soon. She also told us how in Buenos Aires, at a milonga or a tango club, the men ask the women to dance only with their eyes because (as she stereotyped) Latin American men hate being rejected. Although I really enjoyed letting loose and experiencing the sensuality of tango…I may be scarred for life because I had to dance with a sketchy older man named D.J. who probably didn’t belong at NYU’s free dance class. He definitely wreaked of alcohol and was uncomfortable to dance with. At one point the instructor had to tell him to “loosen his embrace with me”. Gross. Whatever, I refuse to let D.J. ruin my future experiences with tango!