I have left Argentina. I didn’t write a journal entry for the last few days because I’ve been particularly busy doing all the traveling, the back and forth from Purmamarca, back to Jujuy, back to Buenos Aires, back to New York.
It’s been a very travel-packed few days. I got to spend a little time here, a little time there. Going back through the same channels on a faster route—how exhausting. I was this way because it’s more of budget traveling. You’re taking a bus that takes two hours, and slowly driving along these inclines. You can’t rest properly because it’s a bus and, I’m a very tall person. It’s not like I can curl up into the seat and make myself a little nest. That’s not a possibility for me.
And I also used Despegar because it was the best way for me to find discount flights, and flights and times that you may fly that were cheaper than the normal times. That did help me in keeping myself within the budget. I did Flybondi. If you’re in Argentina, Flybondi. They’re not bad at all. It was very good with them.
They accepted my backpack and didn’t say anything about it because at that time I had bought some stuff in Purmamarca. I had bought some souvenirs that had made my backpack a little bit more stuff than when I had originally started off on this journey.
I flew in at five, on the next morning, and I came in for a half a day of work. And afterward, Glenda and I celebrated my last full night in Argentina. And I went to my favorite restaurant there. They have these barbecue ribs, these barbecue-style ribs that you would not think a Chinese restaurant in Buenos Aires would be serving this up at this deliciousness. The flavor is amazing. It blows a lot of things out of the water.
The restaurant is called Fu King. I know, very trendy, very cool. You go in, it’s a very beautiful ambiance in there because it gives you an Asian-style inspired restaurant. It’s not a restaurant like how you would see normally in America, where you have everywhere is a table. They actually have two separate areas, a western side of the restaurant, a bar, and a restaurant side. And then they have an eastern, more side of the restaurant to the back.
Glenda and I always love to go to the back. So we went to the back. And in the back, at the western side, excuse me, at the eastern side of the restaurant, what you’re doing is you’re taking off your shoes, and you’re sitting on the floor, and you’re eating more of that style versus sitting at a table.
You’re sitting down at the table on these nice, beautiful cushions. There are throw pillows and everything for you to make yourself comfortable, obviously, because you are sitting on the floor. But then when they bring the drinks out, they have this lycée martini. I ordered three of them. They were so wonderful. And then the ribs came out. So I order a rack for myself because I’m going to eat all of it by myself and Glenda can have a half.
But it was such a wonderful night, my last night, having dinner, catching up with the coworkers and just saying goodbye to them, my last farewell to them before I go back to New York and just telling them a lot about my journeys and the things that I had seen along the way, giving them my opinion and my viewpoint of Argentina. Also sharing some of what I had actually learned about Argentina in terms of the history, some of the things that I’m not so in love with about the history of Argentina because unfortunately part of the reason why I, as a black person, was so much of a celebrated figure or a celebrity in some sorts in Argentina is because there aren’t a lot of black people here in Argentina. And one of the times that I was out, even I was treated as a basketball player because they thought that I was Kevin Durant.
And that’s how little exposure these people get to black people. Even though Brazil is its neighboring country, Uruguay is right there with dark-skinned people as well. But the history of Argentina is that they did have a little bit of a genocide in the 1900s where they had cordoned off people specifically because they were darker people or the Pueblo peoples or people they thought were undesirables to die of yellow fever.
I don’t think any group of people ever forgave them or wanted to come back there because they know that those people that did that, their grandfathers know and some of them are even still alive. So they just didn’t want to be around in that country, and they’ve not settled in that country. So a lot of Argentina is actually Anglo-Saxon, white, or Italian, white, German, those people.
It’s very interesting and there’s a reason for it. But I digress. It was so wonderful just being able to experience this country and see it in such a light and having the ability to ingratiate myself and put myself under inside the city, inside of the country, inside of a space that’s on the edge of Argentina.
It was just a very enriching experience to be able to have all of those moments all within the span of time that I even got to. And I wasn’t rushed, rushed. I rush myself sometimes, but I wasn’t even rushed to do this.
I got an opportunity to sit down and relax many times, and just to talk to people in my limited Spanish, of course. And it was just so good being able to recount all of those stories even with the office workers that some of them had never been to some of the places that I had been to in their own country. And they were so interested to learn about it and to get my opinion of it.
My last day when I got up, I promised myself I would see Malba because all of the time that I was there, two of the times actually that I wanted to go see Malba, it was closed. I think they close on Mondays or something like that, and another time they had a special event.
I walked all the way over there and they had a special event that I couldn’t attend. But I checked because I kept their calendar in my back pocket. And I made sure that there was nothing going on.
I walked around Malba for two whole hours. The experience of being in Malba was amazing. I saw such beautiful artwork, such cool, interesting displays of Latin American culture. It was an enriching experience in every way. I would definitely suggest if you go to Buenos Aires, do not skip Malba.
Don’t skip the other museums as well. But Malba, I spent two hours in there. And all of those two hours, I was reading something. I was interested in something. I was seeing a piece. I was moving from room to room. In Malba, they have three main sections that you can go into. When you enter the main hall, there’s left, the right, and then there’s the main in front of you. So I went first to the right, then I came back, went up through the main, and then went to the left one.
I’m not sure exactly what exhibitions were where, but I totally suggest that you take some time out and just explore all the exhibitions that are there because all of them were wonderful. None of them disappointed in any way. And the Latin American artists, they really pull you into some of it. The descriptions were both in English and Spanish. So if it’s something that you really want to know about, a lot of them, descriptions were in English. And I also tried to read it in Spanish just so I could understand some of the ones that were not in English because there were a few that were surely not in English.
So Malba is not to be missed. It is not to be skipped at all. And after I went to the museum, I found my way into a cab, got myself together, and departed Argentina.
When I got back, I just was so tired from those traveling days that I wasn’t even able to write about it right then, right there when I got off the plane like I wanted to. But I’m writing now. And I wanted to take a moment to just reflect on all the wonderful things that I saw in Argentina, in Brazil, and my entire trip, and how much I enjoyed being away and the experience of working in a different country, seeing the culture, the everyday lives of people, and seeing them.
Getting to know them better as people, getting to see how they see their country. How they see themselves, how their country is from an outsider’s point of view—and even offer them my point of view of their country as an outsider. It was a wonderful experience. To be able to look back on it now—I am very fortunate and blessed.
-Tall Black Nomad