Mates & dates, my typical routine in Buenos Aires. 🇦🇷
A typical week in Argentina as a single 32-year-old Australian lad, once you've ticked off the typical tourist sites and decided to form a routine around work and lifestyle.
Righto, this one is for single lads after you’ve rocked up to Buenos Aires and ticked off as many of the classic tourist activities you desired, and got a bit of the partying under your belt and out of your system.
What do you do now?
let’s say you’ve decided to set up here for a while like I have, and you want to get into a somewhat healthy routine or a productive schedule. Well, this is what my typical week looks like.
I’m a man of habit, and love a routine that typically involves this:
Working.
Gym.
Cooking good quality high-nutrient food (meat, dairy, eggs, and fruit).
Regular dates and catching up with mates.
Planning a holiday escape from the city (yes, Buenos Aires is still a city in Latin America and noisy as fuck).
Working: My typical day starts by stumbling (pre-coffee) out of the apartment around 10 am and depending on how I feel I’ll either work from home or go to my favourite cafe.
I Should be keeping this cafe a secret because I love it and don’t want it to get over-ran, but it’s called La Noire in Chacarita, about a 5 min walk from my apartment, it’s essentially my “office”.
Once I arrive, I down about four, Australian quality, $1.50 flat whites before 12 pm, making sure I’m there for 10:30 am (US markets open time in Buenos Aires). The staff are lovely and wifi is excellent. There are always pretty girls coming in and out, it’s distracting. This seemed to hit a few nerves on Twitter, obviously depends on what you do for work, but I’ve found on my travels that if you put the time in, you can find a decent cafe to work from that ticks all the usual boxes.
So, I sit in La Noire most of the day and rack up a bill of <$10 including breakfast, (it’s Argentina and I tip well). It beats sitting in an office in the West, too scared to have a conversation outside of your job role in case you offend someone. Also, co-working spaces can be wanky and full of woke lefties that would likely glue their hands to the road supporting climate change (Just Stop Oil flogs) or the extremely overpriced and crowded Selina co-working hell holes. But, to be fair the WeWork in Buenos Aires looks fucken epic, and only $90 per month, trouble is it’s too far away from me.
Gym: Whenever I’ve had enough of trading I head to the gym around 1-3 pm, to beat the knock-off-work crowd, such a luxury with this lifestyle.
The best gym I’ve found is the Megatlon chain. I’m certainly no serious bodybuilder but gyms are not Buenos Aires’ strong suit. They’re seriously crowded, people can be pushy, and I max out the range of dumbells at a measly 34kgs. Especially coming from Australia where gyms are epic. My membership was $120 for 6 months so I can’t really complain. If you stay in the Palermo area the Megatlon at Los Arcos is better than Villa Crespo. Also, there is a good gym in Palermo Soho called Always, you can rock up to it and pay $3 for a day pass.
GT Tip: If you want to spend less time in the gym and get the most out of your workout, listen to podcasts and follow on youtube the 6x Mr. Olympia, from the 1990s, Dorian Yates. The Dorian Yates training method will transform how you approach workouts and your attitude in the gym. My bodybuilder mate got me onto this training and I noticed it so much. Also, follow P.D. Mangan on Twitter for the best advice on diet, workouts, and nutrition.
Food: It’s an unbeatable feeling straight after the gym wandering into a Parrilla (Argentine steakhouse) and ordering a big fat steak for $10. I think I’ve documented that enough, so, as you’ve decided to stay here in Buenos Aires for a while it’s time to do your own cooking.
I grew up on a hobby farm in Tasmania, and from an earlier post I wrote (regarding my thoughts on vegans), you could probably guess my diet is mostly meat, eggs, dairy, and some fruit. This diet can be difficult and expensive in some places in the world but Argentina has the best farmland for this diet in the world. Lucky for me I live close to Avenida Corrientes, Villa Crespo, which has me covered for all of these categories.
Local carnecerias (butchers) are where it’s at, actually, even Coto, the main supermarket chain, has great meat. People find it funny that I’m obsessed with meat here after all my time here, but it’s seriously it’s a huge part of why I live here in Argentina. Buy a cast iron pan and stock up on Argentine ribeye from the butcher, 1kg will cost you $5! I love picada (ground beef) and which costs $2.5 per kg, and milanesas which is the Argentine schnitzel are about $1 each. Estancia Don Miguel Carniceria on Avenida Corrientes or Cabana Juramento in Palermo is the best.
I strongly recommend attending an asado if the opportunity ever presents itself. I think no other BBQ in the world comes close to an Argentine asado.
I found a good shop for farm dairy products called La Vacalin Lechera, which has artesian yogurt, milk, and butter. Tienda Nova is an upmarket deli supermarket, which has my free-range eggs, and a whole lot of other good shit, both of these places are on Avinida Corrientes but are a chain and are scattered all around Buenos Aires. Lots of quality fruit stores, usually owned by Peruvians. You pay 70c for an avocado and $1.20 for a punnet of blueberries. Ridiculously cheap prices.
Dates: It’s very easy to tee up a date as a foreigner. Local women seem extremely interested as to why you are here. I’ve been through stages where I go on many per week, then have some weeks when I really can’t be bothered. It’s certainly nice to have this as a choice, unlike in Australia.
I can’t tell you enough how much of a game-changer it was when I finally got my own independent apartment after months in rule-stricken Airbnb’s with hosts keeping a close watch at the door of who comes in and out (I was in catholic conservative Peru). This certainly set me back some fun times. Lads, definitely get an Airbnb as separate as you can from the hosts.
Once settled, don’t let dating app messaging take up too much time as it can be distracting from your work. However, the apps are unreal in Argentina. The general consensus amongst some of my well-travelled friends is that Buenos Aires is the number one city in the world for dating apps.
Go from dating apps to Instagram and get to the point quickly, meeting for drinks or coffee. Argentina is one of the only places I’ll go for a first-date dinner because it is so cheap. Because everything is open so late here, you’ll struggle to get a girl out of her home before 9 pm, that’s about as early as Argentines have dinner too. Tips are to pick a bar/restaurant combo so you can either just have drinks or do dinner.
Obviously, with dating, the more Spanish you learn/know the better in Latin America. Argentina is very different from the rest of Spanish-speaking Latin America. Argentine girls are not Latinas (in my opinion) and many will have a decent level of English. My lack of quality conversation skills in Spanish hasn’t set me back too much, but I find that it will do the longer I stay here. Tough for a bogan Tasmanian who use to fuck around in high school language class, with the go-ahead from Dad who would never get the belt out for the dismal grades I got in Italian.
Mates (buddies to you Americans): Because it’s easily the best city in the world to eat out regarding price and quality I usually head out a couple of times a week for dinner with the lads, it’s always good to have that to look forward to. Also, catch up with the lads every Thursday at the bar. This is the best Spanish lesson I get, although everyone is either educated in the US or a gringo, they all speak Spanish. I also love an end-of-week cigar, especially when you can get a decent cigar for 1/3 the price that you would pay in the US.
Planning holidays: I always need a holiday to look forward to, even if I’m loving life in my routine. I base my holidays on how much money I make options trading. Lucky for me, I’ve had a good trading month and that means I’m off to Europe for a short trip tomorrow.
Flying out of Buenos Aires can be a ball-ache. There is a reason you’ll hardly hear an Australian accent, and there are fewer Americans in Buenos Aires than, let’s say, Mexico and that’s because it’s a fucken expensive long way to get here. Take this as a pro or con if you like, but for me after 4 years in Bali, Indonesia (basically another suburb of Australia) it’s a pro. There is one exception here, I’ve found that domestic airfares in the low tourist season can be reasonably priced.
It was a welcomed sight when I check prices for my second trip to one of my favourite places in the world, El Chalten, Argentine Patagonia. Low season prices are a real thing and I feel you get the best geoarbitrage and experience, sometimes prices are slashed by half, as I found out when I booked a cabin in El Chalten for $30 per night, ($90 per night in high season). Also to top this trip off, return business class flights to El Calafate (the closest airport to El Chalten) with Aerolineas Argentinas came to a total of $350, for a 3 hr journey each way. Just wait till you experience the silence and sheer breathtaking space Argentine Patagonia offers. After considerable time in noisy Buenos Aires, it’s honestly a feeling like no other. The 2.5hr bus ride from El Calfate Airport to El Chalten will confirm this.
One of the biggest tips I can offer to save yourself so much logistics and hassle is to book flights from the smaller airport AEP (Aeroparque) instead of the main international airport EZE (Ezeiza).
As a 32-year-old single Australian lad I think the ideal routine, in my mind, can be summed up simply;
Short intense gym workouts 4x per week (Dorian Yates method).
Working towards early financial freedom (not for the purpose of retiring at 65 years old).
Good quality animal-based food,
Mates (with the same train of thought) and regular dates.
Holiday for a complete change of scenery.
I’ve found it takes a few months to really get used to a new city until you find a consistent rhythm and routine. I highly encourage this type of slow semi-assimilating traveling, as it can be an extremely liberating feeling of achievement setting up something like this in a completely foreign country, escaping the nonsense that’s taking over most Western countries.
If a muppet like me, from a small island in Southern Australia can make it happen in the Southern Cone of South America, anyone can.
Thanks for reading, if you know anyone else interested in this content, please share it with them.
Cheers,
Jordan.
A few things:
- If you've offended 'people' on twitter it means you're doing it right.
- Those hotties can be so distracting! So rude of them!
- As a married (Ecuadorian wife) 51yr old in NYC with 3 girls (all over 14) I'll read all of this vicariously.
- Reading this was great fun.
- The pictures add to this greatly, especially the cafe's and food.
Good reading material - thx man.
Good read, thanks for sharing