Tango But No Cash

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Day 22-27th September

It was either yesterday’s steak or the pikey plane food on the bus of awesomeness but Liz was struck down with her first case of traveller’s tummy. Not a happy bunny! Bless her cotton socks. By lunchtime she was feeling a little better and we decided to take a walk up to the district of La Boca in the south of the city which is famous for all the multi-coloured houses.

I personally had been a little disappointed with Buenos Aires so far and the walk to Boca just furthered my dislike for the place, perhaps I was just tired and a bit grumpy but the walk just reminded me of the crap bits of hackney mixed with poorly maintained Parisian architecture, dog poo was EVERYWHERE and everyone seemed to be either checking out my wife or staring at my tattoos, don’t even get me started on the way people drive or the terrible way the roads are laid out without lanes for people who want to turn off of a main road... plus you really have to watch your step on the bad sidewalks, there were a lot of poor people around, not to the same level of poverty as Rio but more like... well Hackney or Bow in the days when I grew up but smellier because it’s a hotter climate. We got to Boca after about 45 mins walk and I was expecting Josephs amazing Technicolor dreamhouses but instead we were greeted by restaurant touts and were pestered constantly as we wandered around, to the point of being distracted when we just wanted to mooch around the market and look at the artwork and handycraft on sale and take in the colours of the houses, it really ruined the experience for me.

We popped into a shop to buy a Boca football zip up for me, I had decided that blending in somewhat might prevent EVERYONE and their uncle from wanting to stop us and peddle their wares, it cost P$115 which is about 25 quid or maybe less, we were then going to go back and mooch some more hopefully with at least a little less hassle however the top pretty much cleared us out of cash without a nearby cash point which meant Liz could not purchase any artwork so by now we both have the hump and I felt guilty for spending it all, I said we could go back the next day but it was such a mission to get there in the first place combined with a tummy ache Liz didn’t seem to wild about the idea.
About halfway back we decided to take advantage of one of the redeeming factors of this city which is the grid system, this meant we were able to find a more direct route home than the crazy arse backstreet one we took to get there, just over halfway back we saw an open plan cafe in a sunny little square with some Tango dancers prepping, I suggested to Liz that this may just be the place to stop, chill and get our heads back in check we had just about enough cash left for two coffees and the dancers might provide some photo opportunities, to my surprise Liz agreed! I kind of expected her to say no let’s just go straight back as she was clearly not feeling well but the thought of a little sit down and to watch the dancers without being bothered by anyone obviously seemed like a good idea to her too.
We ordered our coffee’s, took up some seats and I whipped out the SLR, unfortunately the battery was really low but I stuck it on monochrome and got snapping, these guys could really move they were very graceful and floated around like they were sliding around on the soapy tiles of the bathroom of love, Liz pointed out that the girl had on a cheap ass dress but that she made it beautiful by how pretty she was and the way she moved and gave it life and the guy... well he had on really baggy trousers which we just found amusing he was like the M.C hammer of tango. When they finished we popped P$5 into their hat and another pair started dancing shortly afterward, this Lady was wearing a red dress and the guy had on a red tie and had a red handkerchief in his pocket Liz pointed out that it might make a great colorsplash (when you use photoshop to make the picture B.W. except for one colour) obviously it’s the red that would be left in, for the first time Liz asserted her dual ownership of the SLR and got snapping away on this new couple and I just took two or three until the battery finally died. We don’t have photoshop on the travel pooter but we have it at home and will certainly be meddling with the pictures we got and be sticking them up on the wall, a small compromise for the artwork we missed out on at La Boca but nevertheless I think having things to display at home that we took or made ourselves makes them even more special. This was certainly the highlight of B.A. for me, the people were friendly the weather was good and the dancing was spectacular I wish we could have stayed all day there were happy couples all around and I even spotted a guy on his own hotstepping home with a bunch of flowers in his hand I like to think to give to his girlfriend or mum, I think it’s a shame that we are staying in such a gritty part of B.A. and that Boca has become such a full on tourist pouncing ground as I suspect that we just got a glimpse of how special and pretty this city can be and you just need to know where and when to go to get it, I have friends who love it here one in particular has all but permanently moved here (hey Saz ;P ) and it’s a shame that she is not here now when we are to show us around a little in person.

With the camera Battery dead and us completely cleared out of cash at this point, our hearts had lifted for seeing a little bit of ze rrrrromance ooh lala!

We headed back to the hostel smiling and joking with each other and window shopping at all of the amazing antique shops on the way.

Liz unfortunately did not get much better when we got back, in fact she started to feel really poorly and was not only dealing with a tummy ache but started sneezing a lot and was showing clear signs of having a cold so we went and got some food and some cash nearby, my friend Saz had told us on facebook of an event called La Bomba which is a live African drumming show that looks amazing and comes highly recommended by everyone here at the hostel too, Liz was really keen to go (even more than I which seems odd to me being the muso of the couple) but due to the lack of a group to go with (busy crowded places like that make me very tense without a few people I know around) and Lizzy having the sniffles combined with travellers tummy meant we just put our pyjamas on and had and early night to have a cuddle, watch some crap films and dream about coffee’s on romantic squares in far off places with dancers floating us off to sleep doing the tango... zzzzzzz

Loadsa lovage

Ellz xx

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