Minor Misadventures

Which included misdirection, small malady and mosquitoes……

One needs little things to be not quite perfect to fully enjoy everything that goes right!

It begins with the fact that I still haven’t got a SIM card or a functioning phone – can’t say I’d missed it until Friday night.

Early evening we hopped a taxi to Café Ideal – an old fashioned ‘confiteria’ near the obelisk in downtown BAs – but having arrived there that way, I can’t say I was exactly certain of my bearings. I stayed to watch Lesley strutting her stuff in the Belle Epoque surroundings for nearly an hour and then she despatched me for some retail therapy. 

                                                            Cafe Ideal milonga

 BAs is built in the American grid-like fashion – so it was a matter of taking straight lines to the pedestrian shopping street…which I did. I wasn’t too successful – a pair of flip-flops and a packet of plasters later I began to head back about 7.30 to meet Lesley at 8.00. David used to say I would always turn the wrong way out of a shop – and, well, I must have. It didn’t help that it was getting dark, the shops were closing, shutters were coming down and landmarks changed. I asked directions – but realised I didn’t know the name of the café – and asking for a ‘confiteria’ was like asking for ‘the tea shop’. A helpful hotelier surmised it may have been Café Tortoni – but of course it wasn’t and that was 5 blocks in the wrong direction.

So, now 8.15…no phone and totally disoriented……minor panic but then prayer and taxi….luckily I still had the notebook with carefully printed address of my guesthouse. When I got there, there followed all sort of delays to contacting Lesley – including discharged UK phone, blocked guesthouse phone, no internet….and so it went on BUT, dear readers, where there’s a will there’s a way – and finally we connected with huge relief. I have to say, I was just berating myself for getting lost and more worried about Lesley thinking I was in a gutter somewhere – and she was equally remorseful at not having given me the café name or marked up my map for me!

She got back ‘home’ with the most delicious 40 peso slab of beef and fried potatoes – and we murdered that and a bottle of delicious red Cafayete wine from the Salta vineyards!

                                                                   Rain in Palermo

Apart from that….we explored the Palermo district on Saturday (between heavy,  thundery showers). It’s smart and Americanised and we ended there with a pizza dinner. There were loads of Italian immigrants to BAs so the Italian fare is excellent. We did however plug through heavily cheesed, huge pizzas with a large bottle of brown ale – and the stomach was bound to react.

Next day, Sunday, doing major retail - in the sunshine! - at the mile long market of San Telmo I felt distinctly odd.  Back home, despite temperatures of around 26 and steam-room humidity, I donned a cashmere sweater and crawled into bed! A couple of hours later I felt a whole lot better and last night’s sleep has consolidated that…..I even managed some light sewing – alterations to the clothes bought in the market on the advice of my stylist, Lesley.

                                          The market with entertainment....

So, the last minor irritant, the mosquitoes, is as nothing….In fact my strategy of keeping all room openings shut whilst lights are on has succeeded in keeping them away from my bed; I haven’t yet heard that night-time, dive-bomber whining….but keep reading, I expect I will…………..