One week in Luis Guillon

When I arrived at the airport in Buenos Aires I was greeted by my Argentinean friend Max and his little boy Manuel. It was so nice having someone waiting for me on the other side. I didn’t have to figure out buses, hostels, taxis, I just jumped into his car and we were off. I met Max in 2007 when I was in Egypt. My boyfriend at the time and I arranged to do a Felucca trip on the Nile, which is an old wooden sailboat with nothing much to it. There was Me and the boyfriend, a Canadian/German couple who were kind of hippyish (we picked them up along the way when we admired how they rented bikes to Philae Temple), two Asians who only spent one night, a girl in her mid 30’s who was either also Canadian or Australian I can’t quite remember and then Max the crazy Argentinean. I remember having chats with him on the boat, hearing his crazy travel stories and borrowing his lonely planet which my boyfriend refused to buy. The one thing I remember most about Max was his batteryless flashlight which you were only supposed to wind up once and it would last for 24 hours but you could constantly hear his flashlight during the night grinding.

I had kept in touch with Max and during my time in Mexico, Central and South America he always asked when I was coming to Argentina. This time I could finally answer him. I would be in Argentina in December and he told me I could stay with him in Buenos Aires.

What I didn’t quite realize was he didn’t actually live in Buenos Aires...well he lives in the province of Buenos Aires and close to the airport but very far from the centre so I was staying in a suburb and had to commute into town. At times this was frustrating and it seemed every time I went into the city I didn’t get there until the late afternoon and I got completely lost. The nice part about staying in Luis Guillon was it was quiet and relaxing. I got to experience real Argentinean life staying with a couple. Max’s girlfriend is a beautiful talented woman, I got to practice my Spanish with her and meet their friends. One evening we were invited to her friend’s apartment for drinks and dinner which started around 11:30pm. It seems everyone does some sort of art form in Argentina, Max’s partner Paula makes bubble glass art and her friends make ceramic and paint. I had always admired the Argentinean artisan lifestyle whenever I had seen them traveling in Latin America.

I was happy to be able to wander around the city and come back to Luis Guillon with Max and Paula to have a nice late dinner with wine, conversations in Spanish and learn about what they do, Buenos Aires and Argentina in general. I helped Paula with her website for the items which she sells so she can see who is looking at her site and have it translated. We spent a while discussing how she could better sell her products but I was thinking more so business minded and she thinks more like a Argentinean Artisan traveling to different ferias in the country and sometimes in Spain. Her products definitely have a niche and would sell very well but she needs to get into the high end market and away from hippy markets.

Most people come to Buenos Aires for the parties and huge night clubs I came to see the real life as I do everywhere and just be. Instead of Pacha I spent a Friday night at Max and Paula’s personal film festival with just a few friends, drinks and homemade sushi which was fantastic. We watched the most bizarre movies till late in the night and discussed them a little afterwards which I didn’t need an enormous Spanish vocabulary for all I really needed was “Que malissima!”

I enjoyed my time in Luis Guillon with Max and Paula but I wasn’t really experiencing all that Buenos Aires had to offer and I wasn’t really getting to know Argentina or so I thought, so I decided I would leave to come back and really know Buenos Aires. I knew I would be back to visit Max and Paula they were amazing genuine people and were becoming very good friends. There was a reason I had stayed in contact with Max he is one of the those special people you meet when traveling that you can meet up with after years and it’s just the same if not better. It was a very different Buenos Aires experinces than most would have but it was my one week in Luis Guillon.