(I wrote this 2008-04-19, when Buenos Aires was still under a blanket of heavy smoke.)
I went out in the smoke tonight, Saturday night, to try to get food from Chinatown, despite Beatrice's protestations that 20:00 was too late.
As I slowly walked the few blocks to the route 107 bus stop, three 107 buses passed me. I waited at the bus stop as two 107 buses passed going the other way; while I waited, standing in the street, other would-be passengers accumulated: a bald man with gray hair cuddling and kissing with his middle-aged girlfriend as they stood in the street behind me, and two teenagers.
Eventually I gave up on the bus and hailed a passing taxi, which I took to a Citibank near Chinatown, where I extracted money from my bank account via an ATM.
The sidewalk cafes in the commercial district were full of people, despite the smoke blanketing the city; I recognized an acquaintance waitressing at the the restaurant "1810", where we first tasted Argentine empanadas. A few blocks away, as I walked in the direction of the 107 bus route and Chinatown, I found a long line of mostly old people. I asked a young man standing in line what the line was for. He didn't answer for a moment, and then without meeting my eyes, he explained that it was for bread.
I walked along what I thought was the 107 bus route, but I arrived in Chinatown before seeing any more 107 buses. The store I had hoped to go to had closed at 20:30; I walked around looking for an open store, so I could buy peanut butter, ginger root, and packaged ramen. (Ramen only costs $2 a package there.)
I passed a couple of young men with small shopping carts full to the brim of 1.5-liter Quilmes beer bottles, waiting to be let into an apartment complex; elsewhere I passed one or another sentry waiting at a door, presumably to let in people who had gone out.
After walking about six blocks through almost all of Chinatown, I never found an open grocery store, so I went to Todos Contentos and ordered a couple of dishes to take home to Beatrice.
As I waited, I read some of the sports section of the paper. It had a list of the rugby and football games that had been canceled because of the smoke, although it explained that the air "wasn't toxic", just irritating and allergenic. Maybe "tóxico" means something different in Spanish than in English.
As I carried my order from the restaurant to the 107 bus stop, I stopped by "Dashi", a sushi restaurant near the Buddha Bar. The newspaper blurbs outside the door explained that the chef had spent a long time in Perú and had studied in California, so I hoped that perhaps they might have some of the sushi flavors I've been missing here in Argentina: maguro, uni, natto, unagi, ama-ebi, inari, and so on. I, went in to read the menu. Although it had several pages listing an impressive number of different kinds of sushi, more careful reading revealed that they were made from a small number of basic ingredients that did not include any of the above. I was a little disappointed but not surprised.
I walked on. A couple sitting on some steps asked me what my mask was for --- I explained it was for the smoke. Wordlessly the man grinned and lifted his cigarette to his lips and took a long drag, filling his lungs with much denser smoke. I laughed.
I eventually caught the 107 home. Strangely, when I got on, the bus was empty.