On April 23rd I returned to the United States from two weeks in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentina is a fairly well covered area of this message board thanks to contributions from Moondog, Ezy, Andresg1967, and many, many others. However, every time I take a trip it is customary for me to write a long winded, detailed, and exhaustive trip report when I return. This will be no different and I will try to write this report in the usual fashion.

This trip to Argentina was hastily put together. I only had about a month or so to plan, and for me this was a big deal. After all, when I made my first to Thailand in November of 2001 I had spent about six months planning and mapping out what I wanted to do on my trip, researching security needs, what to do and what not to do, hotels, bars, and reading up as much on Thai culture as possible.

I did none of that for this trip. Short of reading up on places to go on ClubHombre and taking down addresses and researching hotels, my prep time for this trip was non-existent. Perhaps I am more comfortable with world travel now that I had two trips to Thailand under my belt? I don’t know. But I didn’t spend much time preparing.

I bought the ticket in early March and I was very stupid. American was running a deal to Buenos Aires for around $600 until the end of February. I was supposed to order the ticket on the evening of February 28th. Instead, I was an idiot and went to Nogales and forgot all about my plans to purchase the ticket that evening. When I went to check prices on March 1st, that $600 ticket was now $750-$800. That is when I went to Priceline.com. I specified the dates of April 9th through the 22nd, filled in my information and bid $500. About five minutes later I was informed United had accepted my bid. With all the taxes and crap Priceline adds, the final price of the ticket was $585.35. Priceline claimed I saved $256.05 based on the lowest published fare at the time I purchased the ticket.

My flight would be from Tucson -> Denver -> Miami -> Buenos Aires. Then on the return I would hit Buenos Aires -> Miami -> Los Angeles -> Tucson.

Tucson sucks to fly out of anyway, so I figured I was going to have to have two stops regardless. I could have flown out of Phoenix and probably gone straight to Miami, but then you have to take the damn shuttle up there. By flying out of Tucson, I got my parents to drop me off and pick me up at the airport which made things a lot easier. The extra stops didn’t bother me much.

Now with my ticket purchased, it was time to research where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Good ole Dart seriously lowered my expectations for this trip. Mr. World Traveler Dart has been to Costa Rica, Argentina (twice), Thailand (three times) Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil (twice) and Panama. He ranked Argentina third or fourth on his personal list of destinations and told me not to expect Thailand. With all the negative talk from Dart, I really had low expectations for the trip and wasn’t even that excited to go. But because of a unique work opportunity there, I had the time and chance to go so I figured what the fuck.

I got really excited when I started checking out some of the escorts sites like Escorts-Argentina.com, Platynum.com.ar, and Area-vip.com.ar, but this quickly soured after I read a lot of the girls are airbrushed and look a LOT different in person. Then I read that only Escorts-Argentina.com, is 100% WYSIWYG and the girls at a lot of the other sites have managers.

Then I turned my attention to the nightclubs and the brothels. I wrote down all the addresses and entered them into the PDA and even downloaded all of the Club Hombre bar photos into my Sony Clie. This was really handy. I had the pictures and the addresses of the places all on my PDA so I didn’t have to memorize addresses or carry around lots of maps and pieces of paper. Madaho’s seemed like a place I really wanted to check out. I really liked their website Madaho's and the place looked really plush and nice inside.

I had also read that in order to call escorts, you should print out about five or six girls for each one you planned on meeting. But I had a better idea. I decided to download the entire contents of the sites to my laptop by using Teleport Pro. This way I could just sit in my hotel room and browse for a girl on my laptop and then give her a call.

As for the hotel I took the advice of Godfather and Dart and used Mayra at ArgentinaGo.com to book the hotel. I really liked the pictures of Dart's room at Design Suites and decided that is where I wanted to stay. Unfortunately, the big room was $85 a night and the small suite/room was $60 a night so I just booked that. I also asked Mayra to arrange for a car to pick me up at the airport ($55 pesos) and for a cell phone for the duration of my stay ($1 peso per call and $10 pesos per day minimum).

She was great to work with. I also asked for her local phone number just in case I needed to contact her one I arrived. I debated between staying at Art Suites or Design Suites. Dart said Art Suites was closer to the action but not as nice. He also said Design Suites was nicer, but not as close to the action. I chose nice over close and decided on Design.

I added the addresses of some massage places that were posted to the Buenos Aires section and then downloaded the Masajes.com.ar and the Gemidos.com.ar sites.

With hotel, flight, airport taxi, and destinations to see once I got there all taken care of now, all I had to do was pack and go.

Here is an updated item list of things I took on this trip:

• Passport
• Credit Cards
• Bank ATM Cards
• SRS-A27 Sony Powered Speakers from Amazon or your local Wal-Mart (StrikeEagle is right. Really don’t need these on the list. I’ve taken them three times now on trips and have never used them. The goal was to play some music for the chicas in the room, but I never got around to it.)
• RCA RP 5012A Digital Voice Recorder from your local retailer. http://www.rca.com/product/viewdetail/0,2588,PI700266-CI700031,00.html
• AA and AAA Duracell M3 Batteries (for camera, speakers, digital voice recorder, and mp3/cd player) from Costco
• Gateway 450X Laptop with extra 8-Cell Lithium Ion batteries for the long plane trip.
• One 50-Watt Foreign Travel AC Converters and one 1600-Watt Foreign Travel AC Converters for speakers, laptop, and electric razor. (Actually, I didn’t even need these this time around. I just need the plug converters as most of the electronics I had run at 110 or 220.
• Olympus D-370 Digital Camera. CNET Review here
• Any kind of large fanny pack. I have one from EastSport Outdoor Company
• Moondog's Maps of Buenos Aires located here
• Site destination and tourist checklist with downloaded pictures from Clubhombre.com at 320x320 resolution in a Sony Clié Peg-SJ30/U with reviews here. In case you don't know, Club Hombre has photos of the all or most of the Argentine bars (with addresses) available for download on the individual bar pages for PDA's that support resolution of 320x320. I found this extremely helpful. This way I just show the cab driver the address and picture and never have to utter or word or memorize locations. The link to the Buenos Aires Bars section is here
• Seiko ET2240 Spanish English Translator from Amazon. Although, I also downloaded some English-Spanish dictionaries and verb conjugators for the Clié which proved to be much more useful. Plus, the Clié was backlit and Seiko Translator was not.
• AstroGlide from the Club Hombre Store. Check out the Free Sample from the AstroGlide website as well
• Durex Extra Sensitive Condoms. This is my personal favorite for condoms.
• Vigel from the Club Hombre Store (Thanks DonGringo for the heads up).
• Then the standard stuff, Clothes, Socks, Boxers, Shoes, Soap, Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Mouthwash, Shampoo, Conditioner, Razor, Extra Blazes, Deodorant, Music CD's, CD-R's, Contacts, Glasses, Aspirin, Campho Phenique (for insect bites), and Bottled Water for the flight.

Nice work, anxious for the rest.

Moondog

Xenono,

Great start! I heading to BA for the first time on Saturday. Your list included some great things I'll add to my luggage. Thanks for the tips.

Sterling

Xenono:

Good introduction!

I have a question regarding the AC Converters: Which one is the appropriate for laptops, the 50-Watt one or the 1600-Watt one?

As a comment, Radio Shack labels both as not suitable for computers, and the ones sold by the local leader Alamtec (Uruguay or Parana St between Sarmiento St and Peron St) are too sturdy.

Beware about switching power sources! I brought my laptop on July 2002, and the power supply was able to work under 220 VAC, but the motherboard burned wen I returned to the States and connected the power supply back to 110 VAC. It seems that the switching mechanisms not always work well (at least on my Dell Inspiron power supply).

Thanks,

Andres

(Message edited by andresg1967 on April 29, 2003)

Officially, I don't know which one you should use. But based on experience I say use the 1600 Watt one for laptops. When Dart and I were in Thailand in 2001 he fried one of the 50 Watt ones. The 1600 Watt one worked on his Dell notebook fine. To this day that laptop makes a funny noise when the hard drive starts to spin. We figure the 50 Watt one was not passing along enough juice.

As for switching power sources I guess I have just been lucky in that regard. I have done it on two trips now without incident. Once to Thailand and this time to Argentina. I guess I may have just been lucky. Perhaps I will go back to the voltage converters.

BTW, I should have Days One and Two posted in about an hour or so.



(Message edited by xenono on April 29, 2003)

Most laptop power sources are rated 100-240v; that is, they work on US 110v currnet and 220v Argentina current. You shouldn't need a converter. For other devices (powered speakers, Plam & Digicam chargers, better check the rating of the power source, or fry the thing).