Having begun to familiarize ourselves with the city, Dan and I attempted to act as resident tour guides and show my mom the best sights Buenos Aires had to offer (in retrospect, our itinerary should have included more shopping, but we did our best). It was a warm, cloudless day, so we were able to go everywhere on foot. First, we walked to the Recoleta Cemetery, which my mom was as taken by as we had been during our initial visit. We then journeyed to the nearby Japanese Garden and Paseo del Rosedal, both of which were outdoor venues with beautiful landscaping. After, we walked through a section called Palermo to have a lunch of ice cream. As we sat and ate our treats, jet lag began to take hold of my mom, so we thereafter returned to our hotel.
At night, my mom opted to unwind in her room while Dan and I went out. We had heard from many people about a weekly drum show called Bomba del Tiempo, and went with a few of our tour friends to check it out. After arriving, we entered into a giant warehouse and collectively made our way toward the front of the room. A little after 8 o'clock, 15 red-shirted performers walked onstage and took their places behind a variety of drums and shakers. One of these individuals soon positioned himself at the conductor's post and started to signal to the band. At first, a few drummers began to beat on their instruments. Then, more joined in at a complimentary pace. Each time the conductor lifted his hands in a new motion, the drummers adjusted their tempo. The result was a mesmerizing flow of sounds that had the crowd moving in motion with the beat.
Four conductors took their hand at leading the band, each with varying degrees of success. One leader, for example, seemed to force the beat through unnatural jerks of his hands and an uptight posture. My favorite conductor, by comparison, looked like a seasoned musician, and had the band members and audience grinning from his ability to orchestrate incredible rhythms with ease. My friends and I were completely entranced by the music and were utterly disappointed when the performance ended after two short hours. We cheered loudly as the drummers took their bows. One of them then shouted something in Spanish that we thought translated to, "Follow the drums." We weren't sure of what that meant, but four of us stood around for awhile longer to reflect upon the experience.
About 20 minutes later, after the warehouse had mostly cleared out, we heard the faint sounds of music nearby. We went outside to find the source of the sounds, and were ecstatic to see a group of people gathering around a handful of drummers. The musicians began to take to the streets so, along with many others, we decided to "follow the drums." My friends and I were captivated by the sounds and were all dancing to the beat of the music. As we moved through the streets, many residents came onto their balconies and waved to us (though I imagine many others covered their heads with pillows--it was 10 o'clock on a Monday night and we were probably not upholding noise ordinances).
At one point while we were walking and dancing, I unzipped my bag to grab my phone for a picture. As I reached in, my heart sank. Somehow amidst the chaos of the scene, my phone disappeared. My friends waited as Dan and I walked back a few blocks to search for it, but it was nowhere to be found. I felt almost certain that I had been pickpocketed, and my belief was only strengthened by the fact that my bag was zipped and my phone was almost instantly turned off (we discovered this after trying to use Find My Phone).
At that point, we had lost sight of the band and the crowd, and the four of us went to a nearby restaurant to get some food. I accepted my loss as a best-case scenario, as I knew all of my phone's information was backed up, it was my only valuable missing, and I hadn't been assaulted (we had heard a few stories from people in our hostels who had been attacked in Buenos Aires or Rio). And even despite my lost phone, that evening turned out to be one of my favorites nights of the trip.
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The next day, I went with my mom and Dan to get a basic replacement phone. I ended up buying a Samsung, the same brand Dan uses. He was so excited about the prospect of converting me to his device that I almost began to question the source of my phone's disappearance.
Once we had sorted out my phone situation, we took my mom to Florida Street to convert some more US dollars to pesos. I think she was a little sketched out by the process, but was a very good sport nonetheless. From there, we took my mom to a few other parts of the city she had not yet had an opportunity to see. We were once again treated to nearly perfect weather, so we spent most of our time walking around, stopping at market stands, and even riding on swings.
At night, my mom, Dan and I met up with three of our friends for a steak dinner. The restaurant was touted as one of the best steakhouses in Buenos Aires, so needless to say we were all very excited about the meal. Among the six of us, we shared three massive cuts of meat and an endless supply of sides. We all ate until we could fill ourselves no further and needed to take deep breaths to recover.
I was happy my mom had a chance to meet my British mates who I had grown very close to over the three weeks of our joint travels. My mom returned to the hotel after dinner, but the five of us stayed out to get drinks on what would be our last night all together. We spent a couple of hours sitting around and talking, before we finally had to say goodbye. Even though we were not traveling in the same direction, we sensed, and hoped, that at some point we would cross paths again.
Glad to be reading my favorite blogger again.
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