Greasy lomitos

After teaching a lesson in conversational English, which by the way,  is the easiest way to make 30 pesos ($7, enough for our daily food budget), Jer and I went out to Palermo to meet up with my Italian friend in order to practice Spanish (although strange idea, his Spanish is great and his accent works well in Baires). Jer and I got lost, twice, wandered around hopelessly, but some lovely people (4 different ones!) assisted us in finding our way.

We met up with our friend and went to a cheap, local bar to get some lomo (steak) sandwiches and a beer. While chatting, a noticeably intoxicated young man struck up a conversation with us. We invited him to sit down and join us and he bought us a large bottle of beer. His name was Antonio (name changed to protect me!), he was 23, a gardener and daily commuter from way out in Gran Buenos Aires.

The topic quickly went into a variety of topics, one being black women, which Antonio was apparently quite fond of. Antonio then began to tell of his travels in Australia and all over Europe. This baffled me, as prior to this he had mentioned that he makes roughly 30-40 pesos ($US 7-10) a day as a gardener. At first, I thought it was bullshit, but him and my Italian friend discussed Italy, France, and Spain to such a degree that, well he had to have been there, or he has done a lot of research and made up a lot of stories.

Eventually it all came out after the second beer. He began by showing me a tattoo on his back, which progressed into identifying me where he had been stabbed twice in his back. He then showed me were he had been stabbed in further separate events on his hand. Finally, his face, which bared two deep distinct scars to the side of eye, were apparently the marks of the final battle wounds.

As this conversation progressed, it soon became apparent that our new friend Antonio was once a world travelling narco-trafficker who, by the sounds of it, was dealing in massive amounts of cocaine smuggling out of South America. He detailed operations in Spain which included wearing a fake turban and growing a mustache to hide drugs in his hat.

Furthermore, he talked about being a middleman in Bs As, were he would move drugs from the campo (countryside) into the city, to dealers he worked with. He discussed in great detail the difficulties in dealing with the city police, having to pay them off. 80 pesos ($US 20) was the going daily rate to pay of a neighbourhood cop and allow his dealers to work corners. If he was moving large quantities, say 2 or 3 kilos of coke, he would have to pay a cop $5000 pesos (over $1200) for some sort of protection for leeway.

Anyhow, after his last stabbing incident in the face, he said he had enough of the life. It worked well for him, but was far too dangerous and the police were getting too expensive. He moved far out to the suburbs and now commutes daily to work a peaceful life as a gardener. Regardless of the truth, the stories went on and on and were hilarious and detailed. It was rather interesting! At the end of the night he gave me his number so I can call him and we can hang out again! We'll see ...