🇦🇷 A Flat Earther for Now

Hello Adventurers, 

After some punishing marathons in La Paz's high altitude, steep grades, and diesel-y pollution (which prolly gave me even more brain damage), I was physically relieved to spend much of this past week in flat and fabulous Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Depending on one's perspective, this capital city's name either means 'fair winds' or 'good airs', and truthfully I was glad for both. The breeze made the 35°C weather enjoyable, and the clean air helped me kick whatever sickness and/or infection was churning the lung butter up — and out of — my flimsy flesh vessel.

Anyway, after having done three marathons in Buenos Aires in 2018 and five marathons in five days this time around, I can confidently say that Buenos Aires is one of the best — if not most complete — cities in the world.

As such, this issue of the newsletter focuses exclusively on Buenos Aires...to demonstrate that my big claim isn't a hyperbolic hypothesis but a concrete conclusion. And this week, I've tried to go deeper with the city profile...in order to nudge you to visit spectacular Buenos Aires. So cue the music, 'cause it's time to tango, bb.

- Ben Pobjoy

P.S. If you signed up for my monthly postcard project, do know that the January batch was sent out this week!

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 6

• Flights taken: 14

• Kilometres flown: 16,021

• Marathons completed: 20

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 913.3

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 64,005

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: The sincere friendliness of Porteños. I had so many lovely interactions with the people of Buenos Aires, and posted about one stand-out moment on IG 🥰

• The Biggest Obstacle: Rapidly losing weight and trying not to wither away 😨

• The Lesson Learned: I should've bought a shoe holster, and brought a second pair of shoes with me. I have blisters-on-blisters from wearing the same shoes daily 🤕

FIELD NOTES: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

You'll have a grand time in the world's grandest city

I like to joke that I first caught the love bug for Buenos Aires when I was there in 2018 doing marathons...and an unwell person jumped on my back and bit a chunk out of my arm, infecting me with admiration. Even though I had to get shots for Rabies, Tetanus, and Hepatitis C thereafter, the zombie attack didn't alter my initial opinion: this city was phenomenal and had so much to offer in terms of food, architecture, culture, art, fashion, and attractions.*

Buenos Aires impressed me so much that I was almost nervous to return: Would my first impression be shattered? Had I already juiced the city for all that it was worth?

I'm happy to report that my second visit didn't just confirm my first impression, it deepened my affection for this city. What struck me then — and was reconfirmed now — are two bedrocks of Buenos Aires: the people appreciate beauty and the people appreciate good living.

Regarding the first, whether the neighbourhood is bougie or barrio, it is full of colour and history and flowers, everywhere. Regarding the second — and regardless of class — locals have one commonality: their devotion to the holy effing trinity of family, friends, and food.

Here, the pace is slower, and while the times are tough, the existential purpose is noticeably richer: Porteños live to genuinely live. Something I hope the proceeding words and images demonstrate.

*One note on Buenos Aires attractions: I did not visit Tierra Santa on this trip because I hit it last time on a marathon. Anyway, it is a religious theme park akin to a Flinstones re-imagination of Jerusalem where a giant mechanical Jesus rises every thirty minutes from a mock mountain to bless visitors (many of whom are crying). It borders on insane, and is a must-visit spectacle.

CITY SNAPS: A VISUAL SURVEY

Whether they're well-maintained or well-worn, all the local homes are beautiful, colourful, and textured.

Buenos Aires is one of the few South American cities I've been to where the bakeries and the cafés outnumber the street vendors selling fare. Here, locals love to crush a coffee and a pastry before work. And in the evenings, it's not uncommon to see friends and families back at the bakeries and cafés drinking coffees as well as eating sweet treats late into the night.

As an aside, I was mostly eating grub from Dia because I was always on the go. However, this city has some of the most beautiful dining rooms I've ever seen. Goop actually has really good restaurant guides (something my wife taught me) — and from our experience their recos are pretty consistent — so take a gander at their Buenos Aires recos before you visit.

This is a city of flowers. Big homes have nice gardens, apartment balconies have hanging baskets, and working class neighbourhoods have potted plants jammed into their barred windows. Why? Because there's flower vendors in every neighbourhood. They add a burst of colour to the streets, and give this city such a sweet scent.

The newsstands give the flower vendors a run for their money. They all sell printed matter while some also sell kids toys and vinyl records. They function like de facto community hubs where geezers shoot the shit. And me loves it.

A PLACE FOR THE PEOPLE

Before we dive into some stand-out neighbourhoods, I just want to address how Buenos Aires is often called the 'Paris of South America.' I think it's the most lazy comparison simply because there's a shared love of wine and beef and generally similar aesthetics of some buildings and boulevards. But the statement neglects the fact that this place was an imaginative melting pot that charted its own course because it was once one of the wealthiest places on the planet, and was richer than France.

What I want to counter with, is that more places should aspire to be compared to Buenos Aires, as in, "human-centric place [insert city name here] is the Buenos Aires of [insert country name here]." What does this mean? Well, Buenos Aires is a pedestrian paradise of its own creation. This wasn't some post-modern grafting where roads were reduced to shared paths that don't really benefit anyone (i.e. Toronto), it was hard-wired into the original design of Buenos Aires long ago (and is/was visionary).

In the image above, there is 36 feet of width of pedestrian space in Belgrano: a walking path, a running path, a raised divider with shade-offering trees, and then a double bike lane separated from the road by a raised curb. With this type of urban design, it is no surprise that locals are fit and sun-kissed, and that elders can safely stroll everywhere because they don't fear getting plowed by cars.

There's wide sidewalks everywhere in Buenos Aires and the place really does invite you to wander it. Whether you stroll aimlessly or rigorously go from sight to sight, Buenos Aires will fill you with a lot of wonder. I promise!

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH: RECOLETA

Recoleta is a fairly posh neighbourhood full of boutiques and museums. For me, the stand-out attraction there is the Cementerio de la Recoleta which is where the city's rich and powerful have historically been buried (e.g. Evita). This isn't a cemetery of graves, it's a cemetery of ornate mausoleums nicer than most homes! Some even have the fixings of a private chapel, complete with stained glass, skylights, and basements full of coffins to keep the fam together in the afterlife. There, I'm most fascinated by the mausoleums that have fallen into arrears and disrepair; the glass on their doors is often broken so you can peek in and observe their deteriorating interiors (as evidenced by my photo). Strangely, there's an admission fee...but I liked that workers were smoking in the cemetery and there were random dumpsters strewn around it. If this type of thing / aesthetic interests you — like '90s Russell Mills art — then there's also the Cementerio de la Chacarita in the Chacarita neighbourhood. It's free, and much more weathered. When I visited it in 2018, there were broken caskets with visible skeletons and what I believe were some unhoused people secretly squatting in the mausoleums at night. It was a lot to process so I didn't need to re-visit it this time around.

AND WHEN IN RECOLETA, STROLL AVENIDA SANTE FE!

Avenida Santa Fe is a commercial strip that winds through numerous neighbourhoods like Recoleta in downtown Buenos Aires. It's an easy way to simultaneously shop, people watch, and see the flower vendors as well as the newsstands. One stand-out on the strip is El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a bookstore housed in a converted theatre from 1919. It is epic!

And while it's a tad off the strip, swing down to Fueguia 1833, a luxury perfumery and candlemaker with an exquisite showroom that makes incredible small batch offerings. I bought one of their candles five years ago and have rationed the burn because it is so aromatic.

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH: PALERMO

Palermo is a constellation of little neighbourhoods, my favourite of which is the neighbourhood that surrounds Plaza Serrano. It's like a hipster Soho — be it London or New York — full of makers, cafés, shops, and restaurants. I like Fauna for coffee, Tienda Patrón for jewellery, and Terán for shoes. You should visit and definitely dedicate no less than a half day to poking around it. Why? Well, because I'd argue that it offers some of the best boutique shopping in the world.

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH: MONSERRAT

Monserrat is just a general anchor I'm using because there's loads of stuff just outside this neighbourhood too. And all of it is grand, majestic, and historically significant. The Plaza de Mayo is must-visit, not because it is striking and named after the revolution, but because it is where a bad-ass association of Mothers hunkered down to seek justice for their desaparecido children during Argentina's Dirty War against its own citizens. Read up on this despicable chapter of Argentinian history, unsurprisingly backed by the US. Anyway, I won't get too heavy...so we'll move on...but in close proximity to this plaza are El Obelisco / Avenida de 9 Julio, nearby Avenida Corrientes (which feels like midtown Manhattan, specifically Broadway because of the subway, candy stores, and theatres), the iconic Murales de Eva Perón, the Divine Comedy-inspired Palacio Barolo, and the Teatro Colón. There's so much in this general area so go cruise it!

MEET-A-MAKER: GUSTAVO ANNONI

In 2018, I was chopping it up through Palermo on a marathon of Buenos Aires when a storefront full of bespoke, raw leather goods caught my eye. So I paused my trek, entered as a sweaty mess, and met Gustavo Annoni, the sole proprietor of Annoni.

This lawyer-by-training singlehandedly designs, cuts, punches, sews, and assembles every single one of his hand-made leather bags...while running his business...and working his store...and managing all his social media (please give him a follow).

At the time, I wasn't just impressed with his tremendous work ethic, I was impressed with the world-class quality and craftsmanship of his bags. So I grabbed one off the shelf to buy...but Gustavo explained it was just a showroom model. He then invited me to choose some finishes so he could make me a custom bag, saying it would be ready the next day. I gulped, fearing it would be outrageously expensive...but his most expensive bags are only $160 USD!!!

Anyway, I've received so many compliments on my Annoni bag over the years...which I use to transport bottles of wine to dinner parties or as a briefcase to carry my laptop to business meetings. The bag has served me well, so I had to return, document Gustavo, and spread the gospel.

This week, I once again entered his atelier a hot and sweaty mess on a marathon. I began to explain my documentary intention to Gustavo but he cut me off, saying, "I made you a bag five years ago...you're the marathon guy, right?"

I laughed because I guess some things don't change: I continue to move and he continues to make. The only difference is that his designs are getting better and better, and I'm just getting balder. LOL.

MUST-VISIT FOOD MARKET: EL MERCADO SAN TELMO

El Mercado San Telmo is located in an old and beautiful part of Buenos Aires where the roads are cobblestone. The more than 125 year-old market retains its original metalwork and is both a feast for the eyes and the belly. Here, you can buy produce and butchered protein, grab a coffee and wander, eat in the food hall, and/or peruse some of the shops. My fave is the Disqueria Elena de San Telmo e Hijo which sells classic Tango vinyl. This market must be visited when in Buenos Aires.

MUST VISIT FURNITURE MARKET: MERCADO DE LAS PUGLAS

Mercado de las Puglas is located near Palermo and is a massive antique market...I'm talking tens of thousands of square feet populated by tons of little vendors. Some would categorize this as a flea market, but I think it's on a whole other level. If you visit, plan to spend a good half-day here poking around.

Me, I can only spend about fifteen minutes there because I want to buy absolutely everything. Like, if I had a lot of loot and a big home or a restaurant, I'd line up a shipping container and pack it full of this market's gems. The prices — and selection — are unbelievable.

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

I was strolling around El Mercado San Telmo, and it was too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, and just the right time for the kuchisabishii to kick in. So I swung by Merci — which bills itself as a traditional French bakery — and ordered their Veggie Sandwich...sans the creamy white sauce (mayo?). I had low expectations because the sandwich's innards looked soggy and the focaccia bread looked soft...but I got to the market right when it opened so I didn't have many options!

While my observations were right, this antipasto-ladden sandwich had a peculiar twist: it was full of peanuts that added much-needed crunch. Initially, they caught me off guard: I thought I was biting into olive pits until one fell out. Anyway, somehow it all worked: the acidity of the finely minced and pickled carrot / onion mix, the umami layer of grilled mushrooms, and the gentle hits of bitter greens: all of it drenched in a full-bodied olive oil.

I know the peanuts seem like a weird addition to this seemingly Italian sandwich from a supposedly French place, but Merci somehow pulled it off...and I gotta say, I might now be nutting into all my future sandwiches 😂

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Buenos Aires (all prices converted to USD)

• A 250 gram tub of olive hummus, two carrots, and a 500 ml bottle of Coke Zero from a grocery store: $4.01

• An almond latte from Fauna in Palermo: $3.78

• Admission to the Cementerio de la Recoleta: $7.55

MARATHON MUSINGS

A rumination on the abstract-to-me concept of 'home'

My internet friend Adam J. Kurtz recently announced that he’s closing his beloved online store on Valentine’s Day. And for us fans, it’s sorta heartbreaking because he’s such a brilliant and creative empath. But I’m happy for him; he’s going to do new things, and will undoubtedly succeed because he — like no one else — best harvests affirmations to ‘just try and kinda hold on…or at least semi hold it together’ from the rough currents of the ennui and the melancholy of the modern zeitgeist (by the way, that's me paraphrasing and interpreting his work).

And me, I sympathize. I understand the need to turn a new leaf when you’re feeling raked (e.g. I recently walked away from a career in marketing and sadvertising because it no longer contributed to my sense of happiness).

Anyway, Adam’s thoughtful announcement — about no longer feeling it — made me reminisce about all the beautiful bits and bobs I’ve bought from him over the years, things that always made me feel something (which is really huge). Specifically, a key chain of his that reads, “Home is not a place, but you are home”.

It resonated with me a decade ago when I bought it, and I thought about its statement — which has much depth in sentiment — a lot this week in Buenos Aires, a place in which I don't have a home, but a place that nevertheless feels more home than anywhere else.

So what is home?

For me it’s definitely not a hometown — that’s just a patch of dirt that I was involuntarily ejected into — and home for me is even less conceptually tied to a material structure...I don’t think it ever was, and I don’t know if it will ever be.

Why? Well, because I’ve always been on the move. I was born in Canada to immigrant parents, and then we moved to Europe to live in France and Belgium, and then we moved back to Canada where my parents flipped the houses we lived in to climb the economic ladder. And then my parents separated, and the stability of home-as-nucleus was no more. And that’s not a trauma, it's just a footnote. We’d long been on the go, and this turn in life meant we kept going, just a tad differently: now as a family split across different households in different places that rarely had much of a hold on us.

But it all probably did inform my trajectory: thereafter, I blew around Montreal and Manhattan and Memphis before reluctantly moving back to Toronto for a job, back to a city I originally left after university because it never felt like home. And a place I’ve once again left — at least for this year — because it still doesn’t. And maybe less so now because my Mum lives elsewhere and my Dad is back in the United Kingdom.

What I’ve come to understand, is that I’m most at home outside doing marathons as well as elsewhere in foreign places. So home is anywhere but the rigmarole, repetitiveness, and routine of 'here', regardless of where I am or where that is. For many, home-as-structure is a sensible investment that provides a sense of stability and security. I totally get it...but don't understand it...it's just so abstract with regards to who I am. For me, home-as-structure is a cage, and in an unaffordable city like Toronto where I reside, it's a ball-and-chain that necessitates working some high paying but high stress job to just exist in the spin cycle of capitalism where you're house poor, and getting rinsed for all your hard-earned money.

But when I press myself for a definition, I believe that home is a warm feeling that is the byproduct of a synergy between place and person, and the conjoining magic between each party's complimentary personalities. Home is also the feeling of my love for my wife, and her love for me.

Anyway, in Buenos Aires, I feel home: the human-centric city, the wide and shaded sidewalks for infinite wandering and wondering, the sincere appreciation for beauty and good living, the temperate weather, the breeze and the blue skies, the preservation of history rather than the modernist gorging of history to excrete condos in its place, the warm and inquisitive people, the love of culture, the worldliness, the texture, the drivers not trying to run me over, the imperfection and the imagination, and the slower pace. It is a complete place, and it completes me. And that feeling is home.

I don't know if this reality will ever be my reality, but one can always dream and imagine.

And I thought about that as I stood in Diego Maradona's faded blue teenage bedroom in Buenos Aires, wondering what reality he dreamed for himself before he took the world by storm.

I can't even begin to imagine what he imagined.

But I can say that for us two, it would appear that being elsewhere — is and was — always the goal.

RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS

Last December I replied to a District Vision Instagram story seeking people who had done Arctic marathons. I love this brand's 'tools for mindful athletes' philosophy and their products, and responded because I presumed they needed help with some product testing...telling them that while I had not done a marathon in the Arctic, I had done countless marathons in snowy, icy -40°C wintery Canadian conditions which is basically Arctic adjacent. I then signed-off by mentioning I was attempting to do 239+ marathons in 2023, and was available to test anything. It was pretty much just a shot-in-the-dark type of email.

Much to my surprise, District Vision's co-founder Tom Daly personally responded to my email. He said that District Vision needed people who had actually marathoned the Arctic...but congratulated me on my Marathon Earth Challenge project, and asked if he could — to paraphrase — send me a little gift of appreciation for my endeavours. I replied with gratitude as well as my address, and didn't know what to expect.

And then a parcel arrived, containing a pair of their black Nagata Speed Blade sunglasses and their red Caitlin Sports Strap. I was dumbfounded...this was $300+ USD worth of gear from a reputable and respected company for me, an unknown nobody.

I have never owned high-performance eyewear before, and I've just put these DV sunglasses through hell via 20 hot, wet, dusty, and dirty marathons in six different countries in 27 days...and they more than held up. Anyway, the Nagata Speed Blade is amazing: it's so light in weight, so comfortable to wear because it has flexible components that adjust to your head and face, and they stay in place thanks to the Caitlin Sports Strap. Most impressive, is that I've jammed them into my backpack on 14 flights and cannot believe they haven't been crushed into smithereens...which tells you all you need to know about the quality. And they're a big lewk! Total Scott Storch in his prime baller vibes!

So why share all this? Firstly, I just wanted to express my gratitude to Tom for his random act of kindness. I was very touched by his gesture, and the gear has been a godsend on my marathons. Secondly, I know a lot of marketers subscribe to this newsletter, and I believe they can learn something from Tom: he personally engaged with me (e.g. his community), did something generous, he didn't ask for anything in return, and here I am writing about it all...as my brand affinity for District Vision is through the roof, and I'll basically be a loyal customer of theirs until the end of time.

Have any questions about the content of this newsletter? Reply to it, and I'll try and answer you when it's safe to do so!