JOIN USI don’t want to talk about it,” he said with a catch in his voice when we told him that we sympathised with him for his loss. The normally cheery receptionist at our hotel in Buenos Aires wasn’t heartbroken because his girlfriend had run away with someone else, but because Argentina had lost to Chile in the finals of the Copa America 2016.
Two minutes later, he was virtually sobbing that his country had reached the finals year after year, the last World Cup too, but again, had not quite made the cut. We were leaving Buenos Aires that day and everywhere, even at the airport, we were greeted by a sea of gloomy faces; as grey as the morning when even the normally blue skies cried in the form of a light drizzle.
The Latinos are passionate people, riding a roller coaster of emotions and the Argentinian capital too reflects the Latin spirit that stirs beneath a stylish European façade. Indeed Buenos Aires is part histrionics, part grandeur and all of it is splashed with dollops of colour that spurts like blood from a punctured artery!
The Portenos (locals who live in the capital) are intensely life-affirming, “overdosing” on football, the tango or consuming mountains of dulce de leche, a thick, sweet caramel which is slathered on toasts, sandwiched in cookies and dunked in ice creams; or even when sharing mate (pronounced mateh), a bitter tea-like brew that is sipped through a straw from a small decorative gourd and passed around a circle of friends and family.
Passion in the air
Buenos Aires has a playful, lively spirit, but does not immediately sweep you off your feet in one of those graceful moves of the tango, a dance that originated in the poor barrios (neighbourhoods) of the city, San Telmo and La Boca. After the yellow fever epidemic of 1871, the rich moved away from these areas to spiffy Recoleta and 10 years later, immigrants from Europe took up residence in the former mansions of the rich — one family per room. And this is where tango was born, in the multi-cultural overlapping of sounds that spilt out of the conventillos (or tenement-like dwellings).
Buenos Aires “tangoes” into your heart, its footsteps feather-light, its moves and pirouettes often abrupt yet studied. By the time you leave, you want encore after encore! In the short time that we were there, Buenos Aires drew us under her spell and we identified with the locals’ love for their icons — star footballers Messi and Maradona; Pope Francis; former first lady Eva Peron of Evita fame; Carlos Gardel, the famous tango dancer...
The city’s pan-European architecture, its florid Spanish-style villas, French palaces and mansions and art deco and art nouveau masterpieces and passion for pasta underscore the fact that this is a complex Latino-European city. Indeed it is hard to find Buenos Aires’s core, and it’s best to explore its distinct neighbourhoods each with its own personality and a cauldron of colour, a-swirl with black and yellow cabs, slightly beaten-up buses lumbering down broad tree-lined avenues edged by grand palaces and villas, rivers of people talking and gesticulating, or sitting at sidewalk cafés sipping coffee. Did we touch the city’s soul in spiffy, French Recoleta, or in slightly frayed La Boca or San Telmo?
Or did the city open up its heart to us when we stood in front of the Casa Rosada, the Presidential Palace sitting at the edge of Plaza de Mayo, scene of many protests, sit-ins and demonstrations in the city’s turbulent history? From a balcony in the north wing, Eva Peron or Evita, appeared and gave stirring speeches to the adoring masses or “shirtless ones”, as she called them, during her husband’s 1940s presidency. In fact, former President Carlos Menem allowed singer Madonna to use the Presidential Palace for the famed 1996 movie Evita, hoping to lend the 19th-century Renaissance building a spritz of glamour.
The square, which has resonated with rousing protests over the centuries, has layers of sorrow, joy and hope, and is rimmed by iconic buildings, the Cabildo, former seat of the government, the grand Buenos Aires’ Metropolitan Cathedral (now famous as Pope Francis’s former parish) and Casa Rosada. In this square began the country’s freedom struggle from Spain which it won in 1810; thousands gathered in the square to demand the release of Juan Peron, Evita’s husband, imprisoned by his own party which feared his growing popularity. He was released, and, a year later, became president in 1946.
Indeed Buenos Aires is the capital of a country that has over the decades “tangoed” with democracy and dictatorship, populism and prosperity; this spawned street art said to be amongst the most vibrant in the world. Initially, it took root as strident political graffiti, outlets for grief and sorrow, and has today evolved into playful outpourings and humorous insights into the life of the city. La Boca, a frayed but atmospheric neighbourhood has the longest mural in the world — essentially faces of the poor and dispossessed who stare blankly or sorrowfully from the walls of the barrio.
Laid-back lives
This working class neighbourhood brimmed with colour, especially in Caminito, a street with corrugated iron houses painted in lurid hues where tango dancing couples offered to pose for a photograph — for a price of course; a tenor belted out Spanish ballads even though he did not have an audience; wax effigies of Pope Francis and Maradona smiled at each other outside a café and bodegones (traditional eateries) dotted the alleys. Artists’ studios, funky boutiques, aromatic cafés snared the senses even as tango music blared all around us.
A few blocks away, San Telmo, the oldest neighbourhood in the city — multi-cultural and funky — throbs with a lively antique street market on Sundays which escalates into a street party with impromptu tango shows...
And on our last day, we followed the Evita trail into the Recoleta cemetery where we touched the soul of Buenos Aires in what has evocatively been called the City of the Dead. There, Nobel Laureates, great artists, a famous boxer and rich aristocrats of the city lie in eternal slumber. The simple grave of the glamorous former First Lady is even today adorned with fresh flowers. We entered via a grand neo-classical entrance and discovered that the cemetery is laid out like a city with paved streets, street lamps, alleys, plazas and even benches with the tombs possessing a mausoleum-like grandeur. Beyond its borders, Buenos Aires pulsed like a heart under stress, and high-rises peered into this tranquil oasis like inquisitive aunts.
Couples sat on benches licking ice cream and shooting the breeze in a city park even as a group of men and women dragged a cross, singing hymns that wafted upward on the breeze. Outside the cemetery, a covey of women shared mate, while a group of musicians played jazz riffs on their guitars, long hair flying. In Buenos Aires, life and death are just rites of passage in the grand scheme of things. They prefer to retreat to the camaraderie of their Sunday barbecues and shared mates, knowing that living in the moment is what matters.
Fact file
Argentina is a great stand-alone destination and there are convenient connections via various airlines’ European, Middle East and US hubs. Buenos Aires can also be done as part of a South America tour or an extension to a jaunt to the US.
Buenos Aires has beautiful hotels, hostels, guest houses and rental apartments.
The best time to visit is from April-June (autumn) or from September-December (spring). In this season, hotel rates are reasonable. In the months of January-February, summer time crowds and room rates peak.
Getting around the city is relatively easy with the Metro and buses. It’s best to take radio taxis at night.
For more information visit Inprotur (Argentina Tourism Board) at: www.argentina.travel/en