I leave La Boca, wander off in the general direction of San Telmo, quickly lose myself in a grey maze of streets that don’t seem to lead in the right direction. The sun seems to have disappeared for good, and all of a sudden a tall man in his mid-thirties and a tracksuit is at my side.
“Where are you from?”
I answer his questions in short sentences, a little nervous in abandoned, unfamiliar streets. He stays at my side for a few blocks, quizzing me on my life, my visit to Buenos Aires, my job. Telling me I’m beautiful. Wondering about my civil status. I’m beginning to feel the tiniest knot of fear, scanning the streets ahead for any sign of life, or passage through to a main road. It’s not like me to be so frighten so easily, and this makes me more uncomfortable still, wondering if animal instincts are trying to tell me something.
But we reach a corner, and he stops.
“It was lovely to meet you. I just wanted to talk to you and tell you you’re gorgeous.” And he kisses me on the cheek, and is gone, and I feel guilty for being so suspicious.
I reach a main road, and follow it north to Parque Lezama. Here there is life; Sunday afternoon wanderers, picnic-ers, lovers, tourists. A tall man is walking a ridiculously tiny dog, and a troup of musicians is in full swing beneath a tree with low, sweeping branches. Some of them play real instruments – guitar, violin, trumpet – while others are keeping beat on percussion instruments improved from buckets and crates. The sun has come out again, so I sit on a nearby park bench and listen to the wild gypsy music.
A girl in a pink tutu runs past me to grab the hand of her boyfriend, dressed in a tux and a monster mask, and as I watch them dance it takes me one dizzyingly surreal moment to remember that today is Hallowe’en.
The tall man with the tiny dog hugs his young daughter, and they wander off together as the band pauses, and the guitarist swigs a beer. I listen a little longer, and wander off as well.
On the corner of Defensa and Juan de Garay is Café Crema, with today’s menu scrawled on lined paper and taped to a window. We had eaten there before and loved it, and I push open the door and find a seat by the window, order a coffee and media lunas, croissant-like pastries that completely fail to reach the light perfection of a real croissant but are delicious nonetheless.
The waiters are grey-haired, clad in black and white, corteous without being obsequious. They give the impression of having worked there fifty years, and as I sit in the black-and-white tiled, red-trimmed interior, I have the feeling the only things that have changed in those fifty years have been prices and hairlines.
I sip my coffee, watch the comings and goings, nibble on my pastries.
Later I wander up Defensa, pass a man painting a low wall with a tango scene. Half a block beyond, a gorgeous old blue and green car (a Cadillac, I wonder?) is parked in the middle of the pedestrian street, a man in brown hat and sports jacket seated on a stool a few metres away, strumming on a guitar and singing. A woman of indeterminate age, with curly, bleached blond hair sits on a smaller stool in the shade of a grey and yellow beach umbrella that extends from the trunk of a car.
I push through the crowds thronging the market in Plaza Dorrego, the clicking cameras, more tango. I spend ten minutes admiring old jewellry and vintage clothes before the inevitable claustrophobia amongst all those people sets in, and I push my way back out again, heading for Independencia.
The streets of San Telmo are wide and clean, lined with cafes and boutiques and antique stores and vivid street art. I zigzag, knowing I’ll hit Independencia sooner or later and can follow it home. On Bolívar, just half a block up from its corner with Estados Unidos, I come across El Ruffián Melancólico, and lose myself among its second-hand books for almost an hour.
Stacks of old magazines spill across the floor, and the dusty, musty smell of old books closes in as I run my hands along their cracked spines, pause over some, pull them out and breathe in their pages. Freud is there, and de Beauviour, and Hemingway, and Neruda, and Engels and a whole pile of Latin American applications of Marxist theory. I briefly lust over a beautiful old edition of Don Quijote, reluctantly place it back on the shelf thinking of budgets and a pile of still-unread books waiting for me in Cusco.
Every corner and niche and untidy pile of books and maps and newspapers scoured, its treasures identified and pined after, I return to the street, set bearings for the hostel, start thinking of Palermo, and parties.
From: http://brinkofsomethingelse.com/
Argentina offers a great life…as it’s supposed to be lived. We’ve tried to put our finger on why this is true, exactly. What is it about Argentina that keeps drawing us back? That attracts hundreds of thousands of travelers every year? Is it the wonderful food and the long dinners that last for three hours at a stretch? The best beef in the world…fabulous wines and entertainment that goes on into the early hours of the morning? Or is it that, every time we return, we find new sights to see and new places to explore?
If you want an idea of what to expect from the inhabitants of Buenos Aires (commonly called portenos), you can’t get any better than the common saying “Portenos are Spanish-speaking Italians, educated by the British and who want to be French”. They are the city’s life force, filling it with a lively (and distinctive) Spanish that’s unlike any other in the world and making the city the eclectic and enjoyable place it is today.
We stayed at the Hotel Paname-ricano which was across from the Obelisco, a sixty meter high monument, built in the thirties, where people come to celebrate sports or political events. The Panamericano is a five star hotel with an excellent and attentive staff who were very helpful in assisting us in navigating the city. It is centrally located and near the famous Florida Street where the shopping is easy and the cars are banned. It has a spacious lobby but the real attraction is the rooftop health club and indoor pool from which one has a spectacular panoramic view of the city. We enjoyed the extensive buffet break-fasts and afternoon coffee breaks in their lounge, made all the more tasty with an assortment of complementary chocolates. In fact our most memorable dining experience was at the renowned Restaurant Tomo 1 which has been in the hotel for years. First class service and first class cuisine make this dining Mecca second to none. Check out their menu at www.tomo1.com.ar and learn more about the hotel at www.-panamericano.us.
