Muy buenos Buenos Aires

If I thought I might love Argentina, then Buenos Aires confirms it for me. The name does it justice...with it´s perfect climate and stunning good looks Buenos Aires es muy buenos.

We choose to stay at Hostel Carly in the neighbourhood of San Telmo and it feels like home straight away. Like Brighton it´s full of fading granduer, crumbling old mansions, hundreds of antique shops, squares filled with artists; it is sensuous, both moderna y classico.

We watch tango in the Plaza Dorrego over late-morning coffee, then rummage through excellent vintage shops all afternoon. If I didn´t have to carry my already full rucksack for another 10 months then I´d have gone shopping crazy! Instead I put down all the shoes I´ve fallen for and sensibly settle for the vintage sunglasses that I don´t need :) Ritch finds some super-cool shades which at last ease the trauma of his favorites that broke in Rurre, and he can finally take off the black arm-band.

We find a little cafe that´s showing the 2nd half of some Champions League football and order a large bottle of beer to share. As the game and the beer finishes we make moves to leave, when an old guy tells the waiter to put it on his tab and send us over another. We politely protest but he insists; another neighbour assures us that this is normal Buenos Aires behaviour and to enjoy the generosity. So we stay, but my instincts are telling me that this isn´t coming from the goodness of this man´s heart.

I tell Ritch my suspicions, and we decide to buy him a drink back, so as to square things up. Ritch takes him over a large whiskey and goes to sit down with him, but the man makes it clear that he has no interest in speaking Spanglish with him. Then the minute Ritch steps outside to smoke a cigarette he is straight over and asks me to come to his house with him. That´s thankfully all I understand of what he´s saying, but the collective embarassment on every other male face in the bar confirms my worst fears. Our reassuring neighbour from earlier steps in and the guy goes back to his table completely unfazed. We thank our friend and leave.

At first the head-turning had been quite flattering and funny, but it BA it went overboard to the point that the only time Ritch seemed to be visible was when he was stopped with handshakes and congratulations. I have never had that kind of blatant harassment in any other country...I don´t know if it´s the Italian blood or what, but they all need a cold shower.

We walk all over the city, which is huge and diverse and totally stunning. From the skyscrapers and busy shopping arcades of el Centro, the edgy (ie. dodgy) Boca, the manicured green parks and posy bars of Palermo, to the Knightsbridge-esque Recoleta...all are decorated with beautiful statues, monuments and fine old buildings. It´s quite overwhelming in the way I guess diverse London must be to tourists, but we´re smitten. Exhausted, we take the subway back to San Telmo and it feels like coming home...this is the first place on our travels where I can imagine living.

Friday night and we decide to get a cheap bite to eat and save our money for the bars and clubs. We head to this stand-up bbq place which is even more Sopranos-esque than anywhere else we´ve been. It´s run by a guy that looks like a boxer but used to play football for Boca before he ruined himself with booze and gambling. It´s always full of his ganster-looking mates and more than a couple of old soaks. But he serves the cheapest and best steak sandwiches and choripan (spicy sausage in a roll) which smothered with garlicky chimmichurri is heaven in a bun for less than a quid.

The guy that stepped in the other day when I was indecently proposed to is in there and buys us a drink...with assurances it´s not a prelude to perving! His name´s Martin and the 3 of us hit it off so he offers to show us the best places to go on a Friday night. He´s a really good guy...when the angry butcher turns up to demand the payment of the overdue meat bill (I kid you not) and the Boca guy looks like he´s gonna whack him, Martin is the one sane voice in a sea of drunken male bravado. And when another couple of old drunks fall in love with me (I attract all the good ones!) he acts like an embarrassed brother and whisks us away for the best night out we´ve had since we´ve been away.

We go behind 'the red door´, a bar with no sign that we would never have known existed. It´s full of young locals and a great mix of people from all over the world who´ve made BA their home. It´s so far removed from the tourist-filled bars of Palermo and we know we´ve struck gold. We drink rum, play pool and talk to pretty much everyone in there...it´s so friendly and we have loads of new mates by the time we leave at 5am.

Sunday in San Telmo is absolutely amazing. All the streets close to cars and turn into an art and antiques market. Lots of weird and wonderful performers add to the crazy carnival atmosphere. There´s an old lady in eveningwear miming to opera in front of a red velvet curtain, a mermail sat in a huge shell selling 2nd hand jewellry, two girls all dusty and wearing antique lace look as ancient as the items for sale on their treasure trove stall. We wander around in a daze. Later as the stalls clear away to make a dancefloor for an evening of open-air tango, a buff Brazilian performs brilliant capoeira (a martial art) and we hear the approach of Brazilian drums. We turn the corner and there´s scores of drummers pounding out a samba as the streets fill with dancers. I think Brazil is calling us!

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