The big news in my life lately, beyond visits from three friends: I have a new camera! It’s a Canon Powershot SX130, and it hovers on the line between point-and-shoot and D-SLR, with full manual functionality and 12x optical zoom. Given that my last camera was literally a decade old and barely worked–if I balanced it on my knee, I could usually get a half-focused shot–the improvement is hard to describe. As you might imagine, I’m ecstatic.
Yesterday I brought along my new camera as my friend Dan (visiting from the U.S., by way of Mexico City) and I trekked over to a highly under-appreciated corner of Buenos Aires: the city’s informal Bolivian market in the liminal barrio of Liniers, just about the farthest point in the city from where I live. To get there, we took Buenos Aires’ new Metrobus, the city’s first bus rapid transit line, which opened a few months ago. It was indeed quite fast, carrying us the 12 or so km from Palermo in about 40 minutes. The end of the line, Liniers’ bus terminal, is right on the city’s border with Buenos Aires province, and it’s about as far removed from the onda of Retiro as a neighborhood can be. It’s also home, almost inexplicably, to one of BA’s main Jewish cemeteries.
Dan and I spent an excellent afternoon exploring, buying dried goods, and eating (Dan had a chorizo sausage cooked on a shopping cart!). Here are some photos from our afternoon in BA’s Little Bolivia:
Como el pulpo 