Tangoed in Buenos Aires

Our first day in Buenos Aires was a Sunday, which is perfect timing for the giant antique fair and street Tango in San Telmo, an old colonial neighborhood. We arrived in San Telmo at the top of Defensa a cobbled street that is closed to car traffic for vendors and pedestrians. The vendors are a mix of hippie artisans, craftspeople, and antique dealers. Many many of the shops in San Telmo are antique shops and as we learned throughout our stay in BsAs, the portenos love to shop and collect. It was fun and fascinating to wander the booths and stores - stamps, gaucho gear, post cards, lamps, silverware, furniture, knives, glass bottles, sinks, jewelry, clothing, typewriters, old appliances, costumes, music, books and more. Disappointingly either it was an off Sunday or a case of overhyped tourism because we didn't find much street tango. There were a couple of really great musical acts, but inky one group of dancers. Like a lot of things in BsAs increasing tourism is institutionalizing some of what was natural culture and also raising prices. In the last year and a half the prices in Argentina have increased by about 75% in most cases. Still it is pretty inexpensive.

If this sounds like a downer it wasn't the neighborhood was packed with locals and tourists enjoying the fair and the atmosphere. We wandered for a couple hours before finding a seat around 3pm at an infamous restaurant and have our first steak in Argentina.

After lynch we decided we still had time to head down to La Boca, the old port and heart of Tango and culture. We walked down past the stadium for Boca Juniors one of the most popular futbol clubs. People were in the streets drinking and gathering for a game. We arrived at La Boca and El Caminito just as the sunwas getting low in the sky. The buildings in La Boca are a mosaic of corrugated facades painted in a rainbow of colored patches. Traditionally, the buildings were painting with the leftover paint from ships, hence the colors. El Caminito is a short diagonal street famous for impromptu tango and artists. It was beautiful in the sunlight, but desert of any tango performers. We did look in on some dancing and music at a few restaurants. They were a couple different styles - a more relaxed comical folk style, the more serious, dark and sensual dance, and a kind of flamenco fusion. We walked around snapping a bunch of photos and checking out the tourist shops. At the old port we did a bit of people watching and then went into a contemporary art museum for a rooftop view of the neighborhood.

We left the area just before the game started, which is a good thing as things can become pretty rowdy. Back up in San Telmo we went grocery shopping and returned to our hostel in Palermo to cook dinner.

The following day we left the hostel and walked through our neighborhood of Palermo Alto. It's a pretty chic area of doorman buildings and overpriced pizza places. We walked to an area connected by a number of parks. In one was a huge steel flower about three stories tall. It blooms mechanically each day. Across from that was a huge furniture and interiors design store that we treated a but like a museum. Outside we had arrived in Recoleta, a wealthy area of more apartment buildings, designer shopping, and outdoor cafes. The heart of Recoleta is the cemetery. We knew we would take a long while touring the cemetery so we went to find some empanadas for our hungry stomachs. We went to El Sanguino a famous restaurant of empanadas and northern argentinean food. The empanadas- corn and spicy meat were super delicious.

Back at the cemetery we first went into the church, a beautiful spanish colonial structure. Then we entered and all the buildup was totally worth it. The cemetery dates from the mid-19th century. It is the final resting place for many of BsAs's well connected families- immigrants from Italy, Spain, England, France, and Portugal. The entire site is like a city with the mausoleums lined up side by side down "streets". There are instances in the plan where the streets intersect to form plazas. The cemetery is landscaped with wispy trees like from a Van Gogh painting. All together its a completely amazing architectural site. The mausoleums are each unique- mini gothic, neo classical, neo Egyptian, baroque, and even very modern styles. The tombs are multiple stories above and below ground and through the doors- many of them glass it is possible to see stacks of coffins and rows of urns. We spent a long time walking up and down nearly every row and photographing (maybe a couple hundred. Hehe...) We did play ultimate tourist and check out the tomb of Eva Peron, but hers is just one of a number of mausoleums of significant Argentines and world figures.

Following the cemetery we returned to El Sanguino for more food, it was so good. This time we had tamales and a lentil casserole with sausage. Recharged and rested we started walking down Avenida Alvear, a kind of mashup between upper 5th avenue fancy residences and Madision Avenue shopping. Heading east we entered the neighborhood of Retiro, with even more lavish residences, flowered balconies, embassies in former palaces and mansions, and 5 star hotels. At the far end or Retiro is Plaza San Martin, a conglomerate of three squares. Around the plaza were two competing former palaces. When we say palace we mean extremely large elegant mansions for very wealthy non-royal families. Also on the plaza is a replica guiding if Big Ben, go figure. At this point we decided to walk down Florida, a bustling pedestrian mall to Cafe Tortoni for dinner and a tango show. The tango show was okay. It was essentially a sampling of different styles, but the dancing was maybe two minutes at the most each time. This is one of those instances where the cafe was known to have authentic inexpensive shows cast with dancers from the next-door school, but once the word got out it has become a scripted commercial dinner show.