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Published: November 28th 2011
After excrutiating Spanish lesson number two (this time my teacher made me have a ´conversation´ with the cleaner, in front of everyone, possibly for comedy purposes); I was pleased to discover a new roomie, an Australian guy living in Brazil. Yay, a friend! The only downside was that he seemed to have only one topic of conversation; the unfavourable ratio of guys to girls. Hoping that he wouldn´t take it as a sign that I was going to help him out with his predicament, I followed him down to the bar and speedily networked myself away from him via a Brazillian guy, an Israeli couple, a Swedish girl and a British girl.
I went out to a club to celebrate my newfound solidarity with other travellers, only to encounter a greater enemy; the Leering Argentinian Male. From what I could gather, it´s a cultural tradition for a man to run up to an uninterested looking woman, grab her forcefully, and girate at her while staring intensely into her eyes, possibly sticking his tongue out a little bit in a cheeky fashion. To signify that she´s interested, the woman looks pissed off and tries to push him away, so he obligingly
rubs himself all over her and swoops in to kiss her at the speed of light. The only thing Leering Male enjoys more than going through this ritual with his fellow country women, is trying it out on female travellers. Especially when there are five of them occupying a low surface area to make his job easier. I spent hour one getting offended, and obsessively thinking that if I was in London I would have thrown a few punches by now. But hour two brought with it the realisation of just how funny shameless, extreme flirtation can be (that is, if Leering Male correctly interprets the universal language of the scowl). After the amusement dwindled, we grabbed a taxi back. I felt pleased with myself that the taxi driver understood my directions, and then equally deflated as the others chatted away to him in Spanish for the entire journey. None of these Europeans and Israelis spoke Spanish as a first, or even a second language!
After my third (hungover) lesson in learning to cope with feeling incredibly stupid; it was time to embrace being British, go to the football and concentrate on having fun. About 30 people from the
Argentina v Chile
Moderate passion from the fanshostel went to watch Argentina vs Chile in the World Cup qualifier at the Riverplate Stadium, as it´s a must while in BA (although I was told that the atmosphere at this game was nothing in comparison to the local Boca Juniors games where you have to jump up and down for the entire match if you don´t want to disappear beneath the other fans). The guy from outside Congress told me that proud Argentinians absolutely thrive on victory, and enter into everything assuming they´re going to win (be it war, flirting or football) but are totally bewildered if, by some stroke of terrible luck, they should be unsuccesful. He´d also predicted that Chile might win this one, so I wondered if I was about to witness puffed out chests and beaming faces, or crying little boys crumpled up in a heap. The crowd was as ´passionate' as I´d been anticipating. Fireworks were thown; flares were set off; loo roll was chucked everywhere and men cried, hugged and held hands while staring into each others eyes lovingly (to the national anthem, on goal one, two, three and four, and as Messi walked past at the end). Argentina won 4:1, and
the whole experience was amazing. I´ve never experienced such electric and heartfelt national pride.
The next day, three of us went to explore some other areas of the city; but only after an hour spent attempting to locate the right bus-stop, and being sent in numerous directions by people who either wanted to appear helpful despite not knowing where to send us, or who enjoyed watching three
gringos walk around in circles looking confused. La Boca looks like ´typical´ Buenos Aires as we imagine it; but actually this colourful style is distinctly different to the rest of the city, because it was home to many Italian settlers. The colours are beautiful, the market is fun and the cafes are heaving while playing live music. However, the best feature of all is The Tourist who spends five minutes trying to stand still enough to get an ´action´ shot with a tango dancer, hoping that her friends back home will believe she learned to dance. To clarify, I´m not a tourist darlings, I´m a backpacker. Tourists are middle aged and stay in expensive hotels, and therefore have no clue about the "real" country they´re visiting. Backpackers, on the other hand, are
under 35 and have cleverly found a way to avoid growing up and taking responsibility. To celebrate the infinite freedom of having nothing to do while being in a country with a hugely favourable exchange rate; they get too drunk to leave whichever hostel, in whichever town and country they happen to be in at the moment (it doesn´t really matter).
Next stop was Recoleta, a very wealthy area. Apart from the beautiful, white 18th century church, the main tourist attraction is the cemetary that´s resting place to many of Argentina´s greats, especially Eva Peron. It turns out that Evita (the affectionate diminutive that she´s still known by) did even more than inspire a few songs by Andrew Lloyd Jowelly Webber and a film starring Madonna. She was a pretty cool bird all round, and seriously hot. At 15 (after her Dad pissed off to live with his ´other family´) she moved to Buenos Aires to become a movie star. She became succesful, met politician Juan Peron at an artistic fundraiser and became his number one fan (slightly cringily dramatising his accomplishments in her radio show). It was in 1945 that the whole balcony scene went down, as opponents
"Don´t cry for me Argentina"...
I´m not sure why Maradona is hanging out with the Perons either within Juan´s party had him arrested to stop his popularity with the workers from threatening the President. This backfired as crowds gathered outside the Casada Rosada, and Eva addressed them from the balcony (unfortunately without breaking into a song pre-written by Jowels). They got married, Juan became President, and Eva wore trousers to show what a revolutionary she was. She set up the Eva Peron Foundation which did all sorts of nice, friendly things to reduce poverty; succesfully campained for women´s right to vote, and set up the Female Peronist Party. Simultanously achieving saint-like status and becoming obsessive about her work, she became ill with cervical cancer, and despite being the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy, died in 1952 at 33; a public loss that sounds similar to how we were over Diana.
In the evening, I ate the obligatory ´tasty tasty´steak with a group of six other girls and one poor guy. Most of the girls had been travelling for a while and missing their fellow confidantes back home, so the pent up men-and-body-clock frustrations exploded out into conversation quicker than you could say ´what cliche?´ Luckily, the guy found solace in silence once the food came out.
I took my first bite of what is renowned for being the greatest meat in the world and thought to myself that it was pretty tasty, but then the others started moaning as if they were close to orgasm before falling into deathly silence until they´d finished. I think it can be confirmed that I´m not the world´s most appreciative steak eater, but I had a lot of fun dipping my chips in the delicious, if slightly bloody, garlic sauce and sipping the amazing Argentinian red wine. The garlic breath and red wine lips acted as a handy Leering Male repellent, as another fun night in another club followed. The only downfall was that the half ton of cow that my digestive enzymes were getting to work on somewhat restricted my ability to make my hips lie to
Shakira Shakira.
Today, I´m waiting for a 20 hour bus to the Iguazu Falls on the Brazillian border. To distract myself from the hungover wait, I visited the National Museum. This really is the place to go if you want to find out all there is to know about the development of the country, with enough videos and old scripts to keep
you there all day. It has one particular feature of such grave importance to Argentinan political history that it´s really unmissible... Evita´s pretty wedding dress! Needless to say, that´s the only photo I took. I´ve now got an hour left until the taxi comes to take me to the bus station, when I´ll be leaving my new-found nest and hitting the road for the first time!
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Gaz Allen
non-member comment
Memories!
Ah I started my trip in Buenos Aires and then went to Iguazu Falls too. Reading this is bringing back so many memories and lack of memories from the constant grind of nights out. Keep posting and being entertaining ok?