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Published: January 19th 2011
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Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is four cities in one. It has the charm of Paris, the dynamics of New York, the trendy atmosphere of Barcelona and the harbour of Rotterdam. But above all it is Buenos Aires. It is an amazing city with 13 million inhabitants. Where the restaurants are completely full at midnight. Where everyone eats meat. Where music is everywhere.
Our Hotel (Carly) is in the middle of the San Telmo area with its cobblestoned streets. Like in Montmarte. Here the world turns round the tango (not the opposite). From our hotelroom we hear the tango orchestra´s on Plaza Dorrego, just around the corner. The tango is like sugarcane. Sweet and strict, it sweeps, but it will never break. Sad and full of desire. It seduces your senses. Bordeaux red and black are the dominant colours, reflecting both sides of the tango: sweet and strict. The dancers are fully concentrated, the heads together, the hips free. It is not allowed to laugh, at least not for the man. Intense glances. Sweeping legs. At night the terrace on Plaza Dorrego is completely full. You can eat and drink here, watch the dancers and listen to the tango orchestra´s.
The bandoneons make the characteristic tangosound, mostly there is a guitar, sometimes a honey sweet violin, a piano or a flute. Now and then there is a singer, who sings like an Italian operasinger. Drama! We do not understand a word of it, but we are about to burst out in tears.
Around the square is a little market where you can buy earrings, leather belts, hats. There are plenty of shops with beautiful antiquities, paintings and there are pubs and restaurants. Still later other bands join in: salsa, bossa nuova, jazz, latin jazz, funk, blues and all kinds of crossovers. Even popbands are allowed to play at the mecca of the tango.
La Boca is an area not far from here. It is a poor area and at some spots even dangerous. The houses are colourfull and everywhere are bands. It reminds me of the stories of my father who sailed the world and who told me of all the music he heard in South America. But here it is over the top. It is too much. Far better was the tango show in the Piazzolla hall. Dinner and drinks included. Classic tango, modern tango, valses and milongua´s
follow eachother in high tempo. There are also some gaucho dancers. They dance like Russians. Instead of bola´s they have handkerchiefs. (Bola´s are bullets of stone. The gaucho´s swing them around attached to ropes to catch rhea´s or guanaco´s. Darwin also tried it once, but the only animal he catched was Mr. Darwin himself). And instead of rhea´s the gaucho dancers catch the lady dancers. Good orchestra, good dancers, wonderfull singers. The beautiful hall is full of Argentinians who react on the singers. It is as if we are back in the thirties of the last century when Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel played in the famous Teatro Colón in the centre of Buenos Aires.
Next to me are two ladies who join in with all songs. At the end of the show they ask if we liked the show. I tell them we liked it very much. ¨Gracias. muchas gracias´, they say as if they were the actors.
But Buenos Aires has also its dark sides. In some tiles of the pavement in the San Telmo barrio we see the names of people who disappeared in the seventies of the last century during the Dirty war. Near the
monument on the Plaza de Mayo in the centre of the city veils are painted on the pavement, reminding the veils of the Mothers who demonstrated there, because their sons were lost during the regime of Jorge Videla. It is not far from the Casa Rosada, where Evita Peron Duarte gave her speeches from the balcony and electrified the people.
The dirty war is not forgotten. Everyone seems to know Maxima. She is married with our crownprince. When I say I am from Holland I get often the question: ´Do you like Maxima? (Her father Zorreguieta was minister of agriculture during Videla´s regime). When I say the Dutch like her, but are not charmed by her father , I get a hand. But we also meet people who do not not like Máxima because of her father. They are shocked that Jorge Zorreguieta still has an important function.
There is a lot to see in Buenos Aires like the Reserva Ecológica Costanera, a big parc at the border of the river. Or the Puerto Madera, which looks like a copy of the port of Rotterdam (or is it the opposite?). Or the River Plate Stadion, where the Dutch lost
the final from Argetina in 1978. But it is terribly hot. Walking around is almost a punishment. Last Sunday it was 36 degrees Celsius. We cannot sleep in our room. We have the doors open. Everyone can see us lying in our bed. But the hot molecules refuse to leave our room. They stick together in our room. Diffusion? Forget it!
Today it rains. Finally! It is too late: tomorrow we leave. For Tierra del Fuego, in the very south of Argentina, the farthest point of our trip.
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Is not "bolas" (balls). Is "boleadoras".