El Mano de Dios

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After spending last week wrapped in my winter clothing, I've spent the last few days in a relative heatwave in Buenos Aires. Its roasting up here - about 35 degrees every day. Hopefully, with only a 2-3 weeks left living the dream, the fleece and waterproof have now been banished to the bottom of the bag.

A lot of people rave about Buenos Aires. I can see why. Its a great city with a lot of character. A variety of characters in fact. I've heard it compared with Paris but I wouldn't really agree with that. I may be splitting hairs but it reminds more more of Madrid. Anyway, its the sort of place you could spend a week and not get bored.

The heat has made exploration slow work but with 5 days in town, we've still had the time to take a decent look around. The flip flops have pounded out a few miles by now. We were staying in San Telmo, one of the historical suburbs in the city. It has been the self-styled 'home' of tango since the turn of the century. Apparently San Telmo was, until the 1890s, THE place to live. Unfortunately for the toffs of BA, a yellow fever outbreak forced them to leave their posh digs and head for higher ground. The working class moved into the area bringing tango with them.

San Telmo itself is the sort of place you can just wander round quite happily, stopping every now and then for a coffee or beer at one of the outdoor cafes. We did that quite a bit actually. There is a lovely little plaza which plays host to unscheduled tango shows and other impromptu displays throughout the day and night. We went for drinks there on saturday evening and, around midnight, a 50 strong samba band came through banging their drums and dancing away. A lot of the dancers were kids from the age of 5 upwards. It was a great act; its crazy that something like that can just turn up unannounced. I was as amazed with the dancing as I was with the fact the kids are allowed out so late. The fact is, nothing really gets going until pretty late. That night we couldn't get a meal until about 9.30. As for the clubs, they don't open until about 1.30am.

We went to a tango show - you can't really come here and not go to one. I'm not exactly up to speed on old school dancing and wasn't sure what to expect. It was actually damn impressive: fast paced and pretty saucy. We met an older English couple at the show. Actually, the compere at the show asked everyone in the audience where they were from. Once the English couple cottoned on to the fact we were also Brits they were over first chance they got. What is it about the English that makes them compelled to congregate abroad? It turns out they were on a two week holiday specifically to do tango in Buenos Aires. I got the impression from the bloke that they weren't married. The old rascal probably (rightly) figured that tango classes weren't a bad way to pick up the ladies. The English couple recommended that we head upstairs after the show to check out a tango dance that was going on. We did and there were people of all ages up there going for it. I don't think there is anywhere else in the world you could still see young people going ballroom dancing en masse on a friday night.

We also visited the barrio of Boca, home of the famous Boca Juniors team that, this weekend, was due to win their third title in a row. As it turned out, they blew a six point lead and now face a play off later this week. Tickets were unfortunately prohibitively expensive but I got a look at the ground when we visited the district. Boca is renowned for its famous brightly-painted buildings. It was originally settled by Italians and retains a distinctly Italian air to the place. The cheerful buildings make up for the rather fetid smell that drifts in from the river and you can wander around two or three blocks of more touristy streets, checking out the houses, shops and street cafes. You are warned not to drift too far from the touristy area however: Boca is famous also for being one of Buenos Aires´poorest districts. As the only diversion from the poverty, Boca Juniors is an important and integral part of the community, perhaps like no other club in the world. The ground is right in the heart of the suburb and every alternate shop sold Boca souveneirs or shirts (of questionable authenticity). There is talk of moving to a bigger stadium on the outskirts of the city. Its always a shame when clubs sacrifice tradition for money but here, I think it would be nothing short of tragic for the people of Boca to lose their stadium.

Maradona (never far from sight in BA) is omnipresent in Boca, the place where he began his playing career. Judging by pictures of him at the Boca match it seems he is now back on the cocaine, beer, pies etc. Maradona and Argentina in general are pretty near the top of most English football fans' hate list. The impression I get is that the feeling isn't really mutual. There is no real animosity towards the English here - on the contrary, they seem very friendly and always willing to chat about football. There is the odd cheeky reference to past (ill) deeds: a favourite t-shirt on sale sports an image of the little man and the words 'mano de dios' (hand of god).

Buenos Aires is the place to party apparently. I wasn't really planning on doing an awful lot to be honest. Not to be boring, just that I only had five days to see the place. Nevertheless, the party tends to find you in Buenos Aires. Example: our first night here and our hostel - the impeccable Ostinatto - hosted some end-of-art-show party. As a result of the 'inconvenience' of not being able to use the kitchen we were invited to come along and enjoy the free food and beer on offer. Clearly we weren't the only gatecrashers and half of BA's youth seemed to have found their way in.

On our last night, we treated ourselves to a stay at the Marriott by the main plaza. It was a nice way to spend our last night there, although we did just grab takeaway pizza and watch a movie. Before that, I headed into town to watch Boca's abortive attempt to secure the title. I ended up watching most of it at the back of a cafe straining to see the screen. It was so busy; people were lined up outside peering in. Great atmosphere though. The whole of Buenos Aires seemed to go wild when Boca scored. Unfortunately, the euphoria didn't last long.

The morning breakfast buffet at the Marriott was worth the stay alone - its sooooo difficult to get bacon over here. It was Sophie's birthday that day so she got to choose what we did: shop, mainly. Later on, we took the boat to Uruguay but I'll save details of that for next time.

Finally, in true Brit style, we went to see the new Bond flick the first night it was out. I don't know what anyone else thought but I really enjoyed it. But did anyone else notice the odd Richard Branson cameo?!!

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