24 Tango

Holidays and short breaks
Argentina (2001)
Chile (2002)
India (2003)
World trip (2005-2006)
Libya (2008)

Pictures
1 Croydon to Paris
2 Paris to Iguazú
3 Yacutinga
4 Yacutinga
5 Yacutinga
6 Iguazú
7 Salta
8 Purmamarca
9 Bariloche
10 Bariloche
11 Puerto Blest
12 The long walk
13 Pesca a la trucha
14 Paragliding
15 Ushuaia
16 The end of the road
17 Tierra del Fuego NP
18 Beagle Channel
19 Tren del fin del mundo
20 Perito Moreno glacier
21 Upsala and horse-riding
22 4x4 adventure
23 Hot air balloon
24 Tango
25 Oh no, the trip home!
26 Home, via Paris
27 Back to normality

Argentina

Buenos Aires

Monday 9 April 2001

Our last full day in Argentina. We’ve had such a fantastic time, neither of us really wants to leave. Everything has been so different to London, it has been a real change of lifestyle.

Today we needed to explore as much of BA as we could. We set off a bit later than planned (10am) and started a walking tour of the city. We had decided not to go for museums and art galleries, instead focusing on getting a real feel for the city.

We headed up along Avenida 9 de Julio towards the obelisk. This road is massive. Seven lanes in each direction plus a wide central reservation. Argentinean drivers are known for their lack of road sense, and admit it themselves, and we only crossed this road when the green man was showing or when everyone else moved.

On the way we passed the Teatro Colon, one of BA’s most prestigious opera houses. From the pictures in our guide book it looks like it rivals the Paris opera house. Unfortunately it was closed so we couldn’t take a peek.

We headed down Avenida Pto. Roque Saenz Pena (?) towards the Plaza de Mayo. There are lots of government buildings here and the square is where the mothers demonstrations were held, protesting about those gone missing during the dictatorship. Big banners were still hanging.

The Casa di Gobierno is a big pink building, a mix of red and white, the colours of the opposition political parties. As we passed we saw what we thought was the equivalent of the changing of the guards. But soon we also saw a military brass band and from the Chinese flags flying we reckon there must have been a visiting Chinese statesman or diplomat.

From here we followed a walking tour from the Insight guide through the San Telmo district. Once the area for wealthy people, a yellow fever plague in the 1880’s caused people to flee and it’s now a poor area of town interspersed with artists, museums and poets.

Walking around you got a real sense of former beauty and grandeur. Every now and again you passed a house that was well preserved but most were fairly run down. It had a real feeling of the old parts of Brussels and Paris mixed with a little Italian.

At the end of San Telmo we reached the Plaza Dorego. In summer weekends people come here to have a café chico and to watch impromptu tango performances. Unfortunately we’re a bit out of season!

We ambled back down Defensa, browsing in the antique shops. It was like being in the Laines in Brighton with a Mediterranean feel. You could sense that this antique shops area was probably full of a load of junk and characterised by dodgy characters. Every shop had mate cups so my new-found Gaucho enjoyed looking at them all!

From Defensa we headed down to Puerto Madera, the old docks now converted into trendy shops, bars, restaurants, offices and flats. It’s very like the wharfside developments in London. I’m ashamed to say that a much needed pit stop brought us to rest at TGI Fridays, clean baños were a high priority!

Refreshed we toured the Museo Fregata Punto Sarmiento. This was a naval training vessel built in the 1850’s in Liverpool and is referred to as the pride of the Argentine fleet. The saying “join the navy and see the world” is certainly true in the Argentine navy. They had boards mapping out the 35ish training voyages taken on the ship. All were extensive voyages and the lucky ones got to tour the Far East, Arab states, Mediterranean, Europe, North and South America. It must have been a fantastic experience for those on board.

From here we headed back into downtown and the Galerias Pacifico, a beautiful shopping gallery, for a few last minute buys. Leaving here onto Florida we came across street tango, outside C&A. We were disappointed we had missed it at Plaza Dorego but this more than made up for it.

There were two male dancers and one female, who looked incredibly bored. They hammed it up playing to the crowd but were very good at posing for pictures for us. Weary footed we headed back to the hotel stopping at Avenida Santa Fe and 9 Julio for a few cervezas.

Tonight we went to a tango show at Café Tortoni, the oldest café in BA and one with an artistic and political history. We had chosen the café rather than a big cena (dinner) show in the hope that it would be more authentic and less touristy but neither of us knew what to expect.

It was fantastic! The café had real character and you could picture people setting the world to rights here. The show was in a smallish room at the back of the café and probably seated no more than hundred people. The hotel had made reservations for us so we had a table for two at the front.

The tango wasn’t what we had expected. The stage was tiny and rather than long struts across a big dance floor, rose in mouth, it was a tight intimate dance with fast turns and jumps. I can’t do it justice in words but it was stunning to see. As well as dancers there were tango singers (thoughts of Margerita Pracatan sprang instantly to mind) and the evening really took off when we all had to join in and sing too. Song sheets with the words had been left on our tables and feeling well relaxed and full of steak and wine Stef and I sang away to our hearts content in Spanish to the tango tunes. The only one I recognised was the one Arnie and Jamie Lee Curtis danced to in the film True Lies.

The female singer, to my disappointment as I’m not a huge Lloyd Weber fan, sang Don’t Cry for Me Argentina. Funnily it sounded much better in Spanish than English. A couple of coffees and cognacs later (drunk by Stef, 3 hearty pourings of cognac) and we headed back to the hotel.

We were met by the usual nighttime laughter at our attempts to get into a locked door. They were all interested to know how much we had enjoyed our show and then we headed off to bed.

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