Cheese: a country obsessed

In a TV advert for cream cheese, a fat chef in whites sings, “La comida sin queso es como la vida sin beso”. (Food without cheese is like a life without kisses). This pretty much sums up the Argentine attitude to cheese. There’s lots of it. Everywhere. Sometimes its presence is a little dubious: fried meat in breadcrumbs topped with mountains of cheese, or in that obscene dish, trout with Roquefort. Blue cheese and fish is something I don’t think I will ever get into, even after months of living here.
And then there's the pizzas. Oh, the pizzas! Just the subtlest hint of tomato sauce under a thick blanket of melted 'muzzarella'…

However one cheese-fest I would recommend is provoletta. An Italian cheese with herbs the Argentines melt until it turns into a soft, slightly rubbery consistency. Cut the crispy surface and gooey cheese oozes out of the middle. Tuck in, and battle with strings of the stuff connecting fork to nucleus. Delicious.

The only thing is, Argentines tend to have provoletta as a starter, often served before a fat steak. When we tried this a month ago, we didn’t sleep and felt ill for days. Ah, what novices we were! Half a kilo of melted cheese before a 350g steak requires training of course. Slowly, slowly, we’re getting there… The other day we tried this combo again and only felt slightly ill. Result!

Cakes in the capital

Buenos Aires has its own distinct smell. Of warm sunshine on dirty streets mixed with the delicious aroma of parilla (grilled meat) on every corner, often overridden by the sickly sweet whiff of dulce de leche-filled meringues and pastries…

Argentines are sweet-toothed carnivores. After a juicy steak lunch, there’s always space for pudding. Enticing smells seep out of the hundreds of panaderias and confiterias dotted around the capital. In the window, fussy cakes adorned with colourful candied fruit or cream, and media lunas (croissants) sprinkled with icing sugar, stuffed with dulce de leche or sunshine-yellow custard tease our taste-buds. More obscene still are the gigantic meringue pieces, stuck together with the ubiquitous dulce de leche.

Then there are the beloved yet clinical looking ice-cream parlours: men and women in white hats scoop out balls of paradise, such as banana with dulce de leche; some portenos opt for the sticky dulce de leche, chocolate or strawberry sauce to be poured on top of their mountain of ice-cream. Things aren’t just sweet in Buenos Aires, they are wickedly, sickly sweet – and me and Ed have begun to love it.

Ghosts of Argentina’s past

I lay awake last night, unable to sleep. Horror stories of Argentina’s Disappeared filled my sleepy head and visions of grieving mothers walking round and round the Plaza de Mayo in silent protest haunted me that night. Strange to think that while the youth of Europe and America were busy fighting for women’s rights, peace and free love in the 70s, young Argentines were disappearing, being tortured and killed – only 20% of those killed were guerrillas. Others were deemed subversives by the military dictatorship just for having read the wrong books, or being friends with the wrong people. Human rights groups estimate the number of those killed between 20,000 and 30,000, although the real number is not known.
For a while, people didn’t know how bad the situation was. Gradually they noticed more neighbours, friends and colleagues disappearing, but there was nothing they could do. When they learnt about the extent of the horror, they were struck with fear, turning a blind eye in order to protect themselves and their family. But parents of the disappeared couldn’t ignore what was going on. They pleaded with authorities to release their children, but the authorities denied any wrongdoing, told them their children had probably just run away from home.
Particular horrors I’d read about just wouldn’t get out of my head. One such story was about conservative parents who reported their own son to the authorities, thinking a night in prison would do him good and stop him going on marches, maybe improve his homework. He was never seen again.
There’s a magazine here in Buenos Aires published by the Mothers of the disappeared organisation. On the cover this month is an elderly woman, wearing the trademark white scarf on her head that marks out the mothers of the disappeared. Yesterday in the subte I stared hard at her wrinkled face, her pursed lips and the grief still clearly visible in her eyes. There was still a hard determination too in those old eyes, typical of the Mothers of May. These mothers still demand to know where their sons and daughters had got to. “Where are they now?” the banners say, even though the abducted youth of a time gone by are clearly no longer alive and they know it.
How can these old mothers forget, or forgive? They never will, and their trauma is heightened by the fact that many of their children’s tormentors were never punished – to this day some of them walk free. The government decided it was best for Argentina to put the past behind it, hoping this would help the country to heal. Yet it hasn’t and never can for parents of the disappeared, who live in fear of coming face to face with their child’s killer in the supermarket or the cinema without even knowing it. Can you imagine?

Going round in circles in Cordoba bus station

Fact-checking information on buses for work went a bit like this:
“Hi, we are journalists and wondered if we could ask…”
Man behind counter stares at us with a fake smile and his face doesn’t budge as he picks up the ringing phone. 10 minutes of waiting for him to end what turned out to be a personal call - during which we learn about what he has had for lunch and what he would like for dinner - we try again:
“Hi, we’d like to know how many times a day this bus company goes to Villa General Belgrano?”
“Go to ticket office number 40”
“But I thought this bus company went to V. General Belgrano?”
“Yes it does, but we have two ticket offices and you must ask the other one”
So we trot down to ticket office number forty and start again…
“3 times daily” the fake-blonde says robotically.
“And to Carlos Paz?”
“No, we don’t go there. Try ticket office 23.
So off we go again.
Ticket office 23 say, “we don’t go there. Try ticket office 40.”
“No, no. They told us to try you!”
“Que raro. We don’t go, they go.”
We give up on these two and try another ticket office altogether, having seen signs for Carlos Paz advertised on their stand.
“Oh no we don’t go there.”
“But it says here that you do?”
“No, we used to but we don’t anymore.”
“And to Catamarca? It says on this sign that you go there…”
“Nope, we don’t go there either. Our sign is wrong”
So, this is the glamorous world of fact-checking in a bus station with over 90 ticket offices. Needless to say, it took a while.

A magical stay at Los Potreros estancia

If I could choose to be reincarnated, I’d pick coming back to life as Harvey. Although a little fat, he’s the picture of health and he’s happy. No wonder. Harvey, a black Labrador belonging to the Beggs - an Anglo-Argentine family who own the idyllic estancia Los Potreros - has a perfect life. His silky black coat glistening from his morning swim in the farm’s waterfall, he pulls himself up from the patch of grass where he was sleeping and waddles over to greet us as we arrive, tail furiously wagging and head lolling to-and-fro contentedly.

He’s not the only one that gives us a warm welcome. Lou Begg canters up on horseback, hops off and shakes our hand, with a big grin on her face. We’re offered a lemonade by a uniformed staff member, and boys in flat caps and jodhpurs take our battered backpacks to our room. Cosy and rustic, with antique paintings hanging on the wall and a old metal wood-burner, it’s a bit like being in rural England. Until you look outside…

The 6,000 acre farm is within the sierras chicas of Cordoba province. Dramatic mountains surround the farm in every direction – no hint of ‘civilisation’ visible to the eye. Silence reigns, apart from the clucking hens and a crowing cockerel who tiptoe right past our cabin. Harvey lazily raises his head as a hen gets particularly close, but then slumps back down again and settles back down to sleep. He’s used to the company of other animals on the farm, including horses. And he has to be, as here at Los Potreros it’s all about the horses. 160 of them to be precise. These creatures are beautiful and incredibly well-trained. Novice riders, Ed and I felt completely safe. Soon after arriving, we rode amongst the whispering long grass, and brought back the fouls. A day later we were confident enough to play an amateur’s game of polo – one of the world’s most dangerous sports.

The estancia is a breeding farm, and the Beggs’ passion for the animals is obvious. The family have been doing this for generations. Kevin Begg’s ancestors came over to Argentina from Glasgow to escape the famine. On arrival, the work that was promised to Kevin’s great grandfather in Buenos Aires was a disappointment, so he packed up his bags and his family headed up north, to Cordoba province where he started up the estancia all those years ago. And as I sit here, surrounded by beautiful green fields and listening to birds twitter, I feel grateful he made such a clever move.

What’s so special about staying at the estancia – apart from the idyllic location – is the way guests are treated as old friends of the family. Meals are taken together with the other guests on the veranda of the main house on sunny days, en famille. As we sat down to eat that first day, conversation flowed between us English, an elderly American couple, a French couple, and our Anglo-Argentine host. A motley crew if ever there was one, but by the end of our stay, we felt like a little family. We meet again at 8pm for pre-dinner drinks, before being treated to another delicious regional delicacy – carbonada, a hot pot of vegetables and pork. On our final day we ate parilla outside, and Kevin jokes we’re probably eating one of his prime Aberdeen Angus cows, which he sells to the local butcher, who he buys his meat from! I stop, mid-mouthful, feeling guilty, thinking I could be eating the brother, mother or sister of one of those beautiful black cows we passed today, on the way back from our ride. But I don’t hesitate for long, as it tastes so good.

Time to go, and we get into the 4x4 that takes us down the dusty track and out of the estancia. Lou and Kevin wave us off, and Harvey runs after the car for a while, before he gives up, and heads back for his afternoon siesta in the sun. I wonder what he will be doing later. Will he be accompanying the guests to the polo field? Or bringing in the fouls with Kevin? Whatever it is, he doesn’t have to leave the estancia today like us, or tomorrow or the day after that, or ever. Ah Harvey, what a lucky Lab you are.

Cerro Colorado - a bit of a low point

We were the last people on the bus when it chugged to a stop, parking up beside the dusty track. Cerro Colorado turned out to be a tiny town with no more than a few houses dotted around. Its famed for its pre-Colombian cave drawings, the oldest in Argentina, yet no signs of the town developing into a tourist hotspot. Urbanites that we are, we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Forget mobile signals, or the internet. Here, most people didn’t even have a landline that worked. Three wide-eyed teenagers looked on mutely, sipping on their Fantas through straws as we struggled with our backpacks. Where the hell were we? The panic in our eyes must’ve been obvious, because the bus driver took one look at us and kindly offered to drive us down the deserted dusty road to where we were staying, in his thick Cordoba accent which I barely understood.
‘La Italiana’ was owned by a rather lonely old man, with thick eyebrows and again, to our foreign ears, a completely unintelligible accent. We dumped our stuff, and went in search of the ‘boliche’ the owner mentioned was down the pitch black, unlit road. It turned out to be a small shack selling everything from dusty crisp packets to homemade empanadas. We ordered a dusty crisp packet, a couple of empanadas and a big bottle of Quilmes to help us get through the night. Back at the cabana, the owner said he was barbecuing a goat and did we want some? Being British, we said yes, even though we meant no – purely to avoid hurting his feelings. He brought in a huge plate of shredded meat - chewy, fatty, and rather disgusting. Fifteen minutes later, he brought in another huge platter – a second helping. We nodded in appreciation and said thank you, terrified of hurting his feelings, even though most of the first platter had ended up in the bin.
The next morning the weather turned unbearably cold. Our teeth chattered as we huddled together, listening to the guide talk through the cave drawings. Although most of them, it seemed, were unexplicable. “And his squiggle,” he said too often, “has not been deciphered yet – we don’t know what it means”. Time to go, but no one could agree on what time the bus left. We rocked up at the bus stop, which turned out to be a cement hut with no windows or doors in the middle of the motorway. Here, we waited for 2 hours in the company of a toothless old man who spent the time tapping his feet rhythmically to stave off the freezing cold. We were glad to leave Cerro Colorado.

La Cumbre & our loyal walking companions

La Cumbre is a quiet middle-class town, lined with quaint little houses. “Muy tranquilo”. Everyone seems to know each other here – which could drive you mad, but it felt friendly, and safe. Where were the people of La Cumbre? It seemed everyone was on a day-long siesta. But as night fell, all the restaurants swung open their doors, and the previously deserted streets filled with people. Young lads drove round and round on their motorbikes, honking at pretty girls walking by.
A memory from La Cumbre that will stay with me forever is our walk in the hills with two newly-made friends… of the four-legged variety: our hosteria was owned by a very laid-back family, who let their dogs roam freely. We set off on an afternoon walk, but immediately noticed Rita and Puccini, their two mongrels, were following us. When we stopped they stopped. When we started again, so did they. Concerned their owners would worry, we headed back to warn them. The owners’ 12-year old daughter shrugged and laughed. “Siempre siguen! No hay problema”. Fine with us, we were glad for the doggy company and set off on our two-hour walk. And so off we went, with young Puccini running off ahead but turning back once in a while, waiting for us to catch him up. Rita, the loyal and elderly dog, huffed beside us, never leaving our side. Exhausted but happy, we reached the hosteria, and the dogs slumped in the grass, tired too after their walk in the mountains. The next morning after breakfast, we lugged our oversized rucksacks out the front door. Puccini started to walk up the road expecting us to follow, on another walk which we felt he’d been looking forward to since our last one. When we packed our luggage into the boot of a clapped out taxi instead, the two dogs watched on with their tails down and cocked heads. Sad saying goodbye to our four-legged walking companions, and it made me pine for a little dog of my own even more.