52 Countries in 52 Weeks, Part 7: Argentina and Brazil

In Which I Visit What Could Be The Two Greatest Cities Of South America, And Come Up With A Theory To Describe Their Differences

Now that I’ve finished two continents, nine countries, and 40,000 kilometres in the first 20 per cent of this ridiculous journey, I’ve started to develop some theories, some notions, that I look forward to testing out in the months ahead, and may or may not end up disavowing.

Some of them are about travel, or about countries in general, but most of them have to do with cities. It is, after all, the thing I report on in my professional life, the thing I’ve focused on my trip on, and a thing that makes for more interesting debates over what makes a city good, and what things we tend to value.

So, with that out of the way, let me give this hot take.

There are mainly two types of great global cities, and the best cities are mullets.

Let me explain.

A sunset look at what is allegedly the hottest spot north of Havana (Manilow, B.)

I spent my final two weeks in South America mostly in its two most internationally renowned cities: Argentina’s Buenos Aires and Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro.

(For accuracy’s sake, I also went to Uruguay’s Montevideo, though I have no particularly strong thoughts about it. Sorry!)

Both cities are on the Atlantic coast and serve as their country’s urban postcard to the rest of the planet. In Lonely Planet’s 2009 “Cities Book” that attempted to rank the top 200 cities in the world, Buenos Aires was 16th and Rio was 17th. There are endless Reddit threads debating which one people should spend more time in.

In other words, in a lot of ways, the two cities are inextricably linked.

And yet, when it comes to how they feel, they are incredibly different.

Buenos Aires is Argentina’s largest city by a wide margin. It’s filled with beautiful museums and opera houses, statues and parks, with the world’s widest road avenue — nearly 20 lanes in total! — forming the spine of the city’s centre, with a big monument (an obelisk) in the middle. There are so many things to do (with the highlights generally indoors), but it’s a deliberate city, and according to the Urban and Cities Platform, its old age dependency ratio is 25%.

In contrast to Rio, Buenos Aires’ most beautiful structure is arguably the Teatro Colón, a famed opera house.

Exploring Buenos Aires was wonderful for my brain. I appreciated the care put into each park, each unique neighbourhood, buildings with a wonderfully blended yet cohesive feel, thin streets that funnelled neatly into a wider streets, disparate parts coming together. I went to a football game in a 100-year old Art Deco stadium, took transit everywhere, and eat way too many steaks. I really enjoyed living there.

Rio is Brazil’s second biggest city, with São Paulo nearly twice its size. It’s filled with beautiful beaches and mountains, parties and street art, with those aforementioned beaches and mountains forming the spine of how tourists engage with the city. There are so many things to do (with the highlights generally outdoors), but it’s a fast-paced city, with an old age dependency at just 20%, and if you don’t like its very specific vibe, it may not be the most appealing place.

Exploring Rio was wonderful for my eyes. It was a visual feast with surprises around each corner, new experiences hitting me from different angles, an intoxicating energy, a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds and nature I couldn’t help but love. I went up a cable car to see the entire city at sunset, watched hundreds of people pack a plaza of a weekly samba night, and biked past kilometres of beautiful beaches. I really enjoyed experiencing it.

Rio’s famed Monday samba at the Pedro do Sal plaza.

Both are amazing! I would happily go back to either one! But seeing them back to back underlined how big cities can often fall into one of two categories.

There’s the country’s big city, and the country’s vibes city. The city where the highlights are predominately inside or involving public institutions, and the city where the highlights are outside or involving spontaneity. The city that is “meant” to be a world class place, and the city that sort of just falls into it.

There are places that bridge this gap, big cities that have an overwhelming number of people and places and things, but also an incredibly vibrant culture separate from the institutional forces that create official public spaces.

(In Canada, Toronto is the big government city, Vancouver is the vibes city, and Montreal is the one that bridges this gap)

Which brings me back to the mullet theory.

Ultimately, there are two key parts: the business in the front (institutional, neatly trimmed and considered) and the party in the back (organic, unpredictable, usually reliant on good genes/geography to ensure a good flow).

When it comes together, it’s a beautiful mullet.

Most can’t pull off a mullet, and there’s no shame in that. Self-selection of where people move to, entrenched economies, geographic forces: they all contribute to a status quo, and it’s hard to be good at all things.

There were times that Buenos Aires seemed a little too cold and sprawly, a lovely diamond mostly shutting down after 7pm.

And there were times that Rio seemed a little too ramshackle or even unsafe, a little too reliant on its natural charms.

But critiquing a great city is like critiquing a haircut: sure, you could nitpick, but if they like it, what’s the point?

After all, the two styles certainly look good on both of them.

Of course, there are some things that both cities have in common.

Despite this trip being, in many ways, a global survey of “world class” cities, the most spectacular moments are less about people and more about the planet.

In between those two great cities were trips to two of the earth’s most spectacular geographical features: the Amazon River and Iguazú Falls.

The Amazon was a cruise, the first of my life, though one I suspect is much different than the megacruises my mind associates with the genre — just four decks, about 200 passengers, as we gently went about 150 kilometres into the massive river before heading back to the hub city of Manaus — and I greatly enjoyed being able to turn of my travel brain for a few days; all my food and tour needs taken care of.

As a river, it was the complete opposite of what I’m used to in British Columbia: wide instead of narrow, brown instead of blue, languid instead of rapid, framed by marshes and wildlife instead of mountains and valleys.

And the animals! Sloths and toucans and monkeys and dozens of birds and bugs and butterflies that were different in shape and size than any I had come across back home.

It is one thing to be told your entire life about a river’s amazing biodiversity; to see it with one’s own eyes again and again is a blessing.

Still, the moment I will remember most from this leg is Iguazú Falls.

Taller than Niagara, wider than Zambia and Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls, the series of waterfalls on the border of Brazil and Argentina are of an unparalleled visual scope, with a series of interconnected trails and raised walkways that provide plenty of ways to observe the natural wonder.

(As opposed to Canada, Argentina and Brazil decided that their world-famous waterfall would be surrounded by a little thing called “nature”, instead of “mediocre casinos and tourist traps.” But I digress.)

However, the big moment wasn’t seeing the falls. It was nearly going under them.

You can take a boat trip with about 30 other people through the rapids and right up to the falls. The tip of the boat was a stone’s throw millions of litres of water falling every second.

It’s hard to describe what it felt like, because I’ve never been next to a tornado or a blazing wildfire or any other act of earth that could instantly destroy me if I became engulfed. It’s hard to describe what it looked like, because the sheer force of the water made if difficult to look directly at its face, let alone take a photograph.

But I could hear it. I could feel it.

And I suspect I will for a long time to come.

The closest my phone was able to get to the falls before I wisely put it away.