Cross Post

My dear readers, I just did a post for a lovely blog called Unpaved South America about traveling via bicycle here in BsAs. Check it out!

Sweet Sounds

Have we talked about noise? This city is a sonata, beginning with the gentle whirring of a saw around 8:30 am. It usually builds to include a chorus of dog barks, a baseline of gruffly cars without mufflers, the evening’s delivery boys with their puny motorcycles chirping and finally to the crescendo of high school boys high on cheap beer clapping and singing at 3 am virtually every night of the week.

Sounds like it must be hard to sleep, huh?

Anyway, this gives you a sense of the daily life of sound in BsAs. So you can imagine what happens when’s there’s really something to yell about. Dude, you don’t want to be there. It’s something along the lines of a Kiss concert without earplugs. Ok, maybe a little dramatic…

So it was not really surprising the other weekend at Masa Critica when one of our masa ended up in a little fender bender with a taxi, that all hell broke loose. We were riding along, the masa growing into a group of well over 100 cyclists. Cruising through the fancypants neighborhood of Recoleta, the group was like a web covering Calle Callo. When we got to the bottom of the hill, there was already something going down, a rolly polly taxi driver screaming at a hippie dippie kid.


Traffic was starting to pile up, as the fracas was in the middle lane. The group of bikers had pulled into a gas station, people were chatting, smoking, sharing food and drink. Bellowing cars begged their impatience to get the hell out of the way. The cops showed up. The crowd warmed up. And the clapping commenced.

Of course, there were words to go with the clapping. “Bici, si. Taxista, no.” keeping with the rhythm of the rhyme as the argument with the taxista, the police and the kid kept going. The voices thundered together, the clapping adding force to the message of the masa. At one point someone held up the bike to egg the crowd on, the back tire deformed by the force of the taxi. We roared.

Another policeman came and the crowd got louder – “Bici, si. Taxista, no.” The honking continued, the chant too, until our hands were red and our voices hoarse from screaming.

After an hour or so, it got resolved. I have no idea what the resolution was exactly. Satisfied, we stopped screaming, got back on our bicis and headed south.

P.S. Thanks to my wonderful friend and writer Sharon Haywood for the inspiration for this post!

Finding My Masa

A little over a week ago, I had the good fortune of going to Masa Critica here in BsAs. For those of you who don’t speak bicycle, Masa Critica or Critical Mass is the only day a month when cyclists ride in a massive pack. For one day, we are stronger than the mighty car, able to control the roads simply by virtue of the fact that there’s so damn many of us.

It was a cloudy spring day, the sunshine fighting as hard as a cyclist in Buenos Aires traffic to come out. We took the train down to the Retiro train station and on the ride I made a new friend, Julian who was also holding onto his bike as we bumped along. Julian asked me if we were going to Masa Critica. Yes, we were, I responded and Julian joined me and my friend and a journalist from a local paper while we rode along the widest road in the world, Avenieda de 9 de Julio to arrive at Obelisco.

When we arrived, there was a small crew of bikers. My favorite part of Critical Mass everywhere (I have been in DC, San Fran and now BsAs) is the diversity of the attendees. Here there were young and old, the heavily spandexed, the heavily hipstered and everything in between. There was a bike gang with shirts emblazoned with a bike and lightening lettering proclaiming so. A family with their nine-year old who was enjoying his second Masa Critica. I even saw a fixie!

In true Argentine fashion, we started tardy. But before we began, there was a moment where we gathered to hold our bikes up in the air and chant “Masa Critica”.  I loved it, because it made me feel bonded to these fellow misfits in our love of the bike.

We hit the streets, cruising down Avenida de Julio.  The cars were pissed and just got more pissed as we took over the roads. Along the route, there was the sound of horns as loud as thunder, yells as forceful as a slap and raw anger that we were in the way. I never really felt scared because I knew that the masa would protect the masa.

We continued, weaving through the barrios of the city, getting more comments than a teenage girl in a short skirt. “Que raro” or “How strange” was a common one I heard murmured among the crowds who were walking down the sleepy Sunday streets.

Raro. Hmm… To me, I felt at home, home with the guy that had the bike that towered 10 feet high. At home with the punky girl who had a death to cars sign that hung on the ass end of her bike. No matter where in the world you are, you can find your own masa.

Third World Women and Bikes

So… you probably didn’t know this, but Bogotá is a city that rivals any Western European city for bike friendliness. There are tons of bike paths and a weekly event where the bikes take over the vast majority of the city streets. It’s not Amsterdam, but it beats the hell out of my favorite bike lane in Washington, DC (on 9th St NW) where you are supposed to do halvesies with the bus.

Anyway, I have been talking to people about the fab bikeness of Bogotá and something really interesting came up that I have never considered… the gender divide of cycling. Not surprisingly, women of Latin America bike less than their male counterparts. This mostly has to do with the fact that women never even learn to ride a bike because this is seen as something unfeminine. Whhhatt?

Latin America is not the only place where this divide exists. According to research done by the UN, this divide exists in Africa too. In addition to the perception that riding is unfeminine, if a bike is the fastest mode of transportation available, you know who gets it. And it ain’t the chicks, I hate to tell ya.

This divide even exists in the US. Recently blogger Anna Letitia Mumford wrote about the bike divide in US, citing a study in San Francisco showing that women make up 49 percent of San Franciscans, but make up only 23 percent of frequent cyclists (meaning cycling two or more days per week) in the city.

Well, what can we do? First off, teach chicks how to ride bikes. I heard that the weekly cycling event in Quito, Ecuador has a bike riding clinic for women - a good step in the developing world. What else? Hmm… maybe make cuter cycling clothes? Just a thought.

P.S. The photo is the Porsche. Love her!

New York, New York

The tour of the north continues. This week I am staying in Brooklyn and dodging into the city here and there, but mostly camping out in the borough because it is generally so much more livable. The amazing thing about New York (and something it shares with Buenos Aires) is the range of possibilities that are available in one city.

A friend of a friend has loaned me her bike and I rode all over Brooklyn yesterday. It was an inadvertent adventure that unfolded while going from friend to friend to home last night. I rode through Prospect Park after 9 pm, the chill of spring still clinging to the trees and hovering around the lakes and ponds and assorted bodies of water that dot the park. I took joy in the ride home, downhill to the end, even crying out a “yeaaah” as I flew down the other end of the slope that would spit me towards Coney Island on the other side of the park. Ah, my idea of zen.

I even took a bike tour of Brooklyn on Sunday with some friends. We weaved in a line from the Hasidic Jews of Kensington to the Asian in Sunset Park and through the little ghettos of Latins and African Americans sprinkled throughout Brooklyn. Then we hit Red Hook, a hipster enclave laced with projects to stop for a view of the State of Liberty and a snack. A friend remarked how we had been on a world tour in an hour or two and all without an airplane.

There are other New Yorks too… for example I went out on Friday night and was introduced to some new friends, a couple from Uruguay. I immediately loved their accents (reminded me of Buenos Aires) and their warm, fun and highly social manner. These lovely, colorful butterflies and I flitted all about the Lower East Side until the wee hours of the morning, drinking cocktails, chatting in Spanish, and just reveling in the glow of the NYC nightlife. We snaked our way into bars that were in buildings two layers back from the street, speakeasy style that served drinks in teacups and beers in paper bags. We ran into an Argentine friend of mine on the street outside another, all chatting in Spanish as we made introductions and shared some drinks at the next bar.

It is only the greatest cities in the world that can allow you such extremes- to go from being a hippie girl on her bike, hair fluttering in the breeze as she rolls through the park to glam bar hopping in Spanish. While New York doesn’t make me miss BsAs, it reminds me how much I love the city life pretty much everywhere in the world.

Wandering the World

I have a standing date most Wednesdays with a friend to have an intercambio, which is when you meet up and spend half the time speaking English and the other half speaking Spanish. It has been a huge help for me as I am working on my Spanish and has given me the chance to learn a bit more about Buenos Aires through the best source of information – the locals.

The other night I was waiting for my friend in Palermo, outside of the University of Buenos Aires. It was a mild fall night, the shadows of the bare trees reflecting onto the sidewalks and into the windows of the chic boutiques that line the cobblestone streets. As I waited for her to come out of her English class, I struck up a conversation with a woman who worked on the campus as a security guard type. Short, stocky, with a pockmarked face and ill-fitting clothes, we chatted about the erratic onset of the fall. She asked my about my bike, which I had leaning up against the light post a couple of feet away. Did I want to put it inside? “No,” I said, “I’m just waiting for a friend who should be out shortly.” We chatted a bit more and then she asked me if I rode very far. No, I responded, just from Las Cañitas. “Las Cañitas?” she asked, “Where is that exactly? I have heard people talk about it, but I don’t know it.”

Las Cañitas is maybe 20 blocks away, but to this woman, it could have been Mars. Another world.

I will give you that Buenos Aires is a huge, sprawling city, with a metro area as big as Yellowstone National Park. And this is not a phenomenon unique to BA. There are other people like this woman I have encountered in New York, Berlin, and Washington, DC. It’s more about curiosity about the world and this woman (and those who don’t leave their little universes everywhere in the world) just did not have it.

In my travels I have also met the other extreme, people who want to travel and cannot because of their government or their own situation with money or family. These are the people I love to chat with and will usually find me across a crowded room at a party. I am inspired by their love of adventure, especially when I grow weary of my own. They remind me why I go out into the world and how amazing it is to discover all that the world has to offer.

As for the non-nomadic woman, she reminds me about how wonderful it is sometimes to just be home.

Caca!

Dogs. I love them. Many of you have heard me wax poetic over the years about my darling Maxwell, a lovely dachshund whose ashes are now in a box in Delray Beach after 18 years of being waited on paw and tail.

I’m not alone. People in Latin America love their dogs too. Tons of small dogs – Yorkies, Doxies, Toy Poodles -- all nipping at your heels as you walk down the street. While the perritos are no bother to me, I have started to develop a fear of bigger dogs.

I think part of it comes from the fact that most people don’t keep their dogs on a leash. Another contributing factor is the large number of strays around town. It is actually quite horrible, as I often see dogs that are battered, bloodied and scabbed. Sometimes they lay listlessly on the sidewalk and I can’t figure out if they are dead or alive. Other times I watch in amazement as these “slumdogs” exercise the caution of a crossing guard to make it to the other side of a busy avenue.

In the tranquil neighborhood I live in now, there are not a huge number of strays and the pups are well behaved (like the people, generally). But I think my newly found fear can be traced back to a few months ago when I was literally chased by a pack of wild dogs while riding my bicycle. It was terrifying to say the least, the adrenaline coursing through my body as I pumped the pedals for dear life. As I streaked through the streets like Mario Andretti on a bicycle, the six-pack of wild dogs were howling and baring their teeth at me. I could feel the breath and saliva of a bastard German Shepherd on my heels as I put every last bit of oxygen I could find into getting away without getting rabies. Happy to report I escaped.

Stray dogs are not the only things in the street, though. There’s dog shit and lots and lots of it. Everywhere... in the nicest neighborhoods and the mas sketchito ones too. Piles of caca, little landmines everywhere just waiting for you in your new Havaianas.

Shit!

Badass Biker Girl

Some of you know about me and biking… and some of you don’t. I am a crazy biker, highly committed to the bike as a mode of transportation. I love my bike.

I am crazy about the rhythm you move on a bike, somewhere between walking and running. You can gaze, enjoy, see and wonder but a little but faster and a touch away from the crowd. Pic to the side from a recent day on my bike, a beautiful mural.

I love my bike.

In America, I have the most amazing, ridiculously beautiful bike. Prettier and skinnier than Kate Moss. It weighs 17 lbs and glistens with the most handsome royal blue and beautiful details of tiny scalloped flowers.

I really love that bike.

I debated briefly about bringing it here to Buenos Aires, but this is a tough town for everything (including biking) and I can’t imagine my slim racing tires would last long in a town with potholes wider than my behind. But through some good fortune, I managed to pick up a bike for less than $100 from the friend of my old roommate. Score.

It’s kind of a junky beach cruiser and if you look at my profile pic, you can see it in the background. The handlebars broke within two days, which I thought was a sign of my vast strength. No, the dude in the bike store told me, they’re just old. Just like the rest of the clunker, I thought. Nonetheless, it gets me around. The old bag - gearless, with foot brakes – gets me to and from the gym every day, to matés in the park, to friends’ houses. And more importantly, the ability to just explore the city at a pace I love.

My favorite part has been learning how to ride in the city. Riding a bike in a city requires understanding another language – the language of driving. The crazy thing is there is no professor, it is only about understanding how people move, think, act and react.

What's even more interesting is the language of driving in the US and here are probably more similar than the spoken language. Both have extremely aggressive drivers who believe they own the road and see little reason to stop, give an inch to or not permanently maim those who share the road with them. Good times on a bike.

The difference here is that I am mostly ignored on my bike. In DC, assholes love to honk at you on the road as they drive up your ass. Here they just zoom around you, indifferent to your existence. The only time I am acknowledged is when I ride on the sidewalk and occasionally feel the disapproving glare of an old woman, which may be for riding on the sidewalk or may be for being sweaty and dirty in my gym clothes in public. Who knows? Chances are if she yelled at me, it would be in crazy lunfardo and I wouldn’t understand her thick porteña accent.

Anyway, don’t worry about me on my bike. I take it easy, not afraid to stop if the rhythm seems off or if I don’t understand what's going on. Besides, how fast do you think a bike with no gears can go? It’s safer this way, trust me.