Mahanics on the Road: San Antonio de Areco and a Tattoo in the Pampas

Four days of wanton indolence, great food, and South American Orientation
Now that we're retired and we have way more time than money, we have the luxury of padding the travel itinerary with a few extra lazy days here and there. It is a great way to get oriented. So we traveled Detroit-Atlanta-Buenos Aires, where we met up with Chris and Gary, who had flown Phoenix-Dallas-Buenos Aires for our pre-trip we cobbled together months ago. We researched possible candidates for a lazy orientation and we did good. Real good. Muy Bueno, as they like to say down here.

Our B&B

Our Room

San Antonio de Areco is a lovely colonial town about 80 miles north of Buenos Aires in the agricultural ranch country known as the pampas, home of the gaucho culture that Argentina is known for. We had booked a great B&B run by a wonderful local family--sisters Valeria and Lucila did the heavy lifting, but matriarch Marta and sculptor brother Marcelo were there for local color. They ran a silver museum that faced the colonial plaza, and the beautifully sculptured grounds housed the B&B. Charming as hell. It included a wonderful breakfast and we know it's not about the money but we spent more per night at the Motel 6 in Youngstown last summer (a trip we chose not to include in our BLOG chronicles!)

What will Dr. McCord say?

We just enjoyed the town, adapted to summer and Argentine culture, brushed up on our Spanish, rode the hotel's bikes around the town and the countryside and had some great typical meals, which mostly consist of the famous Argentine beef. Roger was tempted to email a photo of some of this fare to his cardiologist so they have something to talk about when we return.

A Tattoo in the Pampas

Roger has always thought that if someone didn’t want him to gawk at her tattoo, she wouldn’t have had her body inked in a spot where he could see it. And he has always thought tattoos were terrific conversation starters: “Oh, I see you have a portrait of Charles Manson tattooed on your kneecap.Was he a zany character, or what?”

So he became interested in striking up a conversation with a tattooed young woman poolside at our B&B in San Antonio de Areco, about 80 miles north of Buenos Aires. We can’t say they were particularly attractive, the tattoos, but they were numerous; she had more tattoos than the Taylor homecoming court.We knew she spoke only Spanish, so it caught Roger's eye when he saw English writing wrapped around her leg, pretty high up where the panty line might be, were she not in a bikini.

He tried discreetly to scarf an eyeload of text, moving ever closer to bring the words into focus. And Linda's like, "WTF!! Get your head out of there!” And Roger's like, “But I’m only trying to read her thigh!” Which only served to get the Argentine girl agitated, further obscuring the text.

When he finally got the thing deciphered, it turned out to be:

Who wants to live forever

When forever is Today?

That’s a lot of philosophy for a small thigh. She explained that it was from a Queen song.