It's now been over one month since I've arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I'm still not thinking of packing my bags to go back to Canada.. I'm still living at the house in Acassuso and I might eventually visit Don Torcuato, Escobar and Rosario, Santa Fe.
The month went by fast and I no longer consider myself a tourist here in Argentina. My main piece of advice to people wanting to visit or live here, or anywhere in Latin America is that you
learn Spanish.. Learn some basic phrases at least and perfect your Spanish once here and practice conversation skills with locals. Let me add the Argentine accent is different than Spanish spoken in other countries, as they change the pronounciation of certain letters.. Cheques are useless here in Argentina, and traveller's cheques are more a pain in the neck than anything else. There a
cambio place on Florida street that accept them, but the invonvenience of getting there and signing the cheques with your same indentical singature isn't worth the hassle, really.. I would avoid bringing them, bring some cash and a credit card instead.
Vegetarians coming to this beef country may at first be discouraged, but as a vegan I eat very well here.. Tofu is relatively easy to find here and there are many
dieteticas (natural food stores) in the city. In many supermarkets you can find
milanesas de soya, veggie burgers, vegetarian
empanadas and veggie hot dogs. In downtown Buenos Aires in a barrio called Belgrano there is a Chinese food store that sells many different kinds of soya products, spices and greens. There is also an Indian store not far from there, where mung beans can be found. There's always a good variety of fruits vegetables in season here, so one lives very well without eating any meat or dairy.
There are also many vegetarian rstaurants here. Here in Argentina, yoga is very common, as well as holistic healing such as Reiki, aromatherapy and Bach flowers. You can find places where they do Ayurvedic healing, and other types of yogic healing. There are three Kundalini Yoga places that I know of in the area of the Capital Federal. In different parts of the city you can find many metaphysical bookstores, where they sell CD's, books on Reiki, yoga and on just about any other spiritual/metaphysical topic. They sell Tarot, Angel and other oracle cards sets, as well as Runes here.
There is definitly no shortage of spiritual and holistic practices here, and vegetarians will have absolutely no issues in that respect.
Keep well, hasta pronto,
Sabine.