MERCADO DE LAS PULGAS
My first day in Buenos Aires rain was predicted. I didn’t have an umbrella. I had also learned that the electrical plugs are different in Argentina than they are in Uruguay. All my devices were running out of power and I needed the QR code on my iPhone to even get back in the building. The very first thing that I had to do on a Sunday morning in the upscale Palermo area was to get an umbrella and an adapter plug. According to my host’s information there was a nice cafe, Salvaje, near a flea market. I thought a flea market would have an umbrella. So off I went for what turned out to be a mile walk to the restaurant. I learned that while Palermo Hollywood has an upscale restaurant about every 50 feet, so I wasn’t going to starve, there was nothing resembling an umbrella store. There were no grocery stores, either, which was my third priority. I walked and walked. But I saw a Japanese man putting stuff on a shelf in a small store and took a chance on him. He didn’t understand English but when I pantomimed an umbrella, he had one, and when I showed him the American plug I had brought along he had an adapter as well.
I paid with a credit card, but have no idea how to figure out what anything is costing me. Argentina has out of control inflation. There are three exchange rates, a blue rate for dollars, a tourist rate and the regular rate in which a dollar is worth half as much as on the blue rate. I had no idea were to get the blue rate. On the boat I exchanged $25 for an inch thick worth of peso bills, 16,500 pesos. With the credit card I had no idea what I was paying and no idea what anything actually cost either so had nothing to measure costs by. But I had my umbrella and my adapter plug.
I found the restaurant and ate stringy roast pork and lettuce salad. Then I decided to find the flea market anyway. It was said to be only a block away.
The Mercado de las PULGAS antique furniture market is in a huge indoor building which was lucky since the rain was now pouring down. Aisles stretched far in the distance in every direction. I’ll show you a few photographs to give you a sense of what it is like. After visiting the flea market for an hour I walked back to my apartment in a little drizzle, taking photographs of street art and brightly colored restauarants along the way. I’ll show those photographs later.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 