Passing the time in B.A.

I got settled into my new apartment and had no problems with landladies any more. I liked my new place. I started to hang out in a brew pub nearby called Bullers Pub and Brewery. I enjoyed the beer even though I had to pay for it here instead of getting it free like at Shoeless Joe's place a few blocks away. I started to talk to one of the waitresses there and before long we were getting along fairly well. I met a lot of Americans there. The American Embassy was not too far away and this is where the staff from the Embassy hung out so I got to know quite a few of them too. We would get a table outside on the sidewalk and just sit there talking and watching all the people walk by. The food was good there too so I frequently ate there. The pizza around Buenos Aires was almost all margarita pizza. They were good but for me they were a bit bland.

I like my pizza with pepperoni or Italian sausage and it was not available in Argentina. I decided to make some of my own. I looked up the recipe online and bought all the ingredients fairly easy. I mixed some up and let it dry in my refer for a week or so and then I sliced it up thin and brought it in to have them add it to my pizzas. I thought it tasted pretty good for my first attempt at making it. I bought some sausages and squeezed the filling out of the casing tossed it with the spices and restuffed the same casings. It wasn't too difficult to do and any casings I ruined I just scrambled it into eggs for dinner. The cook at the restaurant asked me to start making it for them to put on their menu but I did not want to work that hard with my health so iffy. It would be a good business for somebody there though, I am sure you could get the whole country hooked on your products.

I dated the waitress a few times. She was a student and worked hard at her schoolwork and at her job so she did not have much time for playing. She wanted to be a therapist. Argentina has the highest amount of therapists in the world. There is one working therapist for every 24 people in the country. I don't know how they all stay in business. There are signs everywhere you look. I don't think you could take a picture of the streets in B.A. without seeing at least one therapist sign in the picture. In the restaurants and cafes people are always reading therapy books and talking about therapy. Either they are the most mentally healthy or they have the worst mental health of any country in the world. I am not sure how the high ratio of patients to therapists could tell which case it is.

I talked about going fishing one night in the brew pub and some of the guys that worked at the embassy told me they would take me out fishing. We arranged a day and a time to meet at the dock and I showed up early. A few minutes later a James Bond type of high powered jet boat pulled up to the dock with a few cases of beer stacked in the back and some fishing poles sticking up from rod holders. I jumped in and we raced off up the river. Our target species was golden dorado. A golden dorado had a body shape like a large bass except they have some serious teeth. The fish tends to hang out along the shore of rivers where there is brush overhanging the water especially near rapids or waterfalls. They get large to around fifty pounds. Here is a good link with pictures:
http://www.yerich.com/LaZona.htm
We motored up the river at high speed in this specialized boat that I think must have belonged to the CIA. After a long haul we arrived at a big bend in the river that had some white water and lots of brush along the banks. We started to throw poppers as close to the shore as we could and then crank them back fast. The golden dorado would hit the topwater lures really hard with vicious head shakes as soon as they realized there was a hook. Most of them broke off right away either because the line touched their teeth or they just snapped the line with their head shakes. The lures took a beating and we lost lots of them. We did manage to catch a few and we took just one smaller one back to cook for dinner and released the rest of them. It was hard fishing. One guy had to try to keep the boat in position in the swirling fast water while only one or two of us could cast at a time because of the difficulty of placing the poppers close to shore from an unstable platform. We were kind of hammered on all the beer by this point anyway. It was a lot of fun and after fishing for a few hours we had to head back to the barn because it was a long ride. Going down river in this high speed jet boat was a bit scary. Our captain was insane if you ask me. I laughed almost all the way back to the city of Buenos Aires. It was like a two hour roller coaster ride sitting on a jet engine. My cheeks were sore from laughing and smiling so much. I lost all my pictures from this trip when my computer crashed before I had backed up the pictures. I wish I still had them to show you. When we got back to the dock they let me off and we made plans to meet later on to try the fish we brought back. I went back to my apartment and took a shower. I looked in the mirror after my shower and I was absolutely covered in bruises all over my hips, back, arms and legs. I crawled into my bed to rest before going down to meet up with my friends and I passed out until morning. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I was totally crippled from bouncing in that frigging boat all day the day before. I loaded up on meds and went back to bed after eating a bit of food.

I made it up and to the pub that night and they had saved some of the dorado for me. I tried it and it tasted like crap. The fish was grilled on the same grill they cook all their meat on and the fish picked up all the rancid flavors from the meat. I could not eat it it was so bad. Do not order fish in a restaurant in Argentina. Stick to the meat. The pic is from Wikimedia Commons since I lost my pics.