A Time for Fasting, Now for the Feast

Clayton here. Though we'd like you to feel sorry for us, thinking we are starving, we must tell you the truth. We have eaten better on this trip than ever before in our lives. In my father's earlier years, it is said that at the dinner table all the food would start on his left, and he would finish whatever remained when it came to him. Perhaps this runs in the family, for in high school I was once dubbed "The Garburetor". (The name never stuck and I must admit I've met bigger eaters than myself.) I tell you all this for the purpose of explaining how much food we ate at El Boliche de Dario, an all you can eat grill. It started with a basket of bread and four meat empanadas. Then came the real meat, half of which I didn't recognize: ribs, steak, some type of organ (I think), chewy tubular things, sausage, and some stuff that I will never try again. Also delectable cheese patties, and four plates of the "best fries outside of Belgium". They just kept bringing it. I've never been that full. I was so full my vision began to blur. Took us twenty minutes to walk the five blocks back to the hostel. The sad part is that Piet beat me by a half a steak. No, you simply cannot feel sorry for us.
Buenos Aires has been a delight. We've done a lot of walking, seen a lot of sights: Recoleta Cemetery, where people are buried under big mausoleums of different sizes and shapes (mini Taj-Mahals you might say); the Plaza de Canada, in the middle of which is a large totem pole, but that's all; in one of the main squares we watched a group of mothers march around the centre, each holding banners or photos of the loved ones that they had lost during the "Dirty War" of the 70's; we toured one of the top five opera houses in the world, Teatro Colon; a couple of different museums; a circus/art show; and the first ever world cup of horseball (I had never heard of it either). Lots of things that would take too long to write about. But we must mention the football game.
Piet has been saying all along that we would be going to a soccer game in Buenos Aires, hopefully between Boca Juniors and River Plate, one of the greatest rivalries of sport in the world. We were one week too late for that, and the tickets had been sold out for a year anyway. So we toured the Boca Junior museum and stadium, where Maradonna played. Then we caught the River Plate game yesterday afternoon. Waiting for the bus, we could hear it before we could see it. I would bet the rest of my bank account (which isn't a whole lot any more) to say there were 100 people on that city bus. Most were dressed in red and white, half of them were singing, the young guys were pounding the roof to keep time, and all the old ladies were smiling. I asked Piet if we were going to be able to sit with these fans, and he said, "what do you mean, 'sit'?" Sure enough, besides half time, we stood for the entire game, right in the very centre of the rowdy crowd. I've never experienced anything like it. My first NHL game, the crowd was silent and I was bored to tears. My first NBA game I actually fell asleep! But now... well, it's hard not to fall in love with soccer after that. We guess there were more than 50,000 fans. The singing never stopped, from the bus 'til a half hour after the game. Drums and cymbals were just below us, pounding out the carnival beat so you could feel it. Some guys didn't even watch the game, rather they stood on rails and took up the role of conductors, urging everyone else to join. I think we were the only two not singing, though we were doing our best to show support for the home team. (From the bus Piet had seen a Boca fan beating up a River fan on the street. They take it seriously.) Pretty hard to describe... sometimes I thought the concrete was shaking, and sometimes you could catch the echo from the rest of the crowd. Twice, a giant flag was unrolled from the top of the stadium to the bottom of our section, covering probably a fifth of the stadium. We missed the final goal because we were under the flag. It didn't matter because noone really stopped singing to cheer when there was a goal. When the other team scored, everyone sang louder. And not a drop of alcohol in sight. It was an amazing experience.
Anyway, today we leave for Iguazu falls, then to Bolivia, as we have decided to skip Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay (there is just too much, as we have been saying). Argentina will most likely occupy a special place in our minds, there has been so much, and yet there is still more we would like to do here. Someone told us, "a good traveller always leaves something to come back to". Maybe he's right. Until next time...