Tango Tango

So, one person I haven`t mentioned yet is Dario. A properly properly sound porteno (a native Bs As). He`s related to a friend of mines brothers wife. James Araci (said friend) kindly put me in touch with him and Dario (and his sister Lisa and their buddies) have been really kind in tipping me off about some cool stuff todo.


One of the said cool things we`ve done is head to see the Orquestra Tipica Fernandez Fierro at their own very cool venue Club Atletico Fernadez Fierro. It was brilliant.


I arrived there a bit early and there were Tango Lessons just starting up so I joined in. Of the thousands of words the instructors were saying, I understood only a few but soon enough my partnre and i were swirling round the room treading on my (very short) partners toes. Tango is mentioned everywhere in Bs As and i thought it was just a tourist gimmick, but apparently people genuinely love it. And i can see why. when done properly it`s amazing to watch.

It transpires that the man leads the way and the woman has to try and guess whats gonna happen next. This was not easy for me (a tall, indecisive, polite englishman) but, my partner, Anna (a fairly short, tho mobile, Argentine) was fairly game and i was soon tripping her up on the cramped dancefloor. Twas great fun.

Anyway - when the lesson (or milonga) was over the show proper began. On stage trooped on a pianist, two dudes on double bass, three chaps on the violins and four fellas playing what looks like an accordian, but isn`t. Anyway, they were wicked. With no percussion they banged out some brilliant tango and salsa tunes. I think they`re very well respected and are sort of making tango cool again with their alternative approaches to stuff and things... i don`t really know. all i know was that it was good. yes.

My First Loco In South America

So. Theres this thing that i`m pretty good thats been dubbed a "locochimpo". The root of the name is a long and embarrasing story, but essentially to LOCO is where one royally put ones foot in ones mouth and through lack of thought unwittingly cause offence and / or provides the tinder and the flame to a potentially dangerous situation. (The Brothers Clark and Andy Mac may be able to provide a better description).

On Saturday last week I went to a barrio /district of Bs As called La Boca to meet some New Yorkers I`ve been hanging out with - Kelty and Rob. (In fact i had my first ever thanksgiving dinner in their flat the week before... tho we had steak and chorizo sausage rather than turkey... and some slight american chap managed to eat through half a cow. He had the meat sweats after that, alright).

La Boca is a fairly dodgy neighbourhood and apart from two or three blocks around a very colourful street called Caminto its fairly rough. I heard a story/ travellers myth about a Swedish guy who independently went to see a Boca Juniors game in La Boca and got mugged at gunpoint by some children clad in the blue and yellow of boca juniors. Cute. Its very weird. I`ve never been anywhere where the divide between safe and dangerous is so stark and obvious.

So, naturally, I decided to walk the 10/15 blocks along what i had been told were the "safe streets" from San Telmo to meet them in Caminto. My map reading skills let me down and i took a wrong turn a couple of blocks early. I kept my cool when i noticed my mistake, but still quicked my pace through a couple of quadras and started to sweat when (i thought) folk were giving me some funny looks.

Thankfully, I got there safe and sound, but when i sat and considered what i was wearing i was all the more grateful for still being alive....without thinking i had decided to wear the yellow and blue t-shirt here (this computers playing silly buggers and i can`t seem to paste it in)... it`s obviously no surprise that my beeches / death to boca juniors t-shirt could have caused a few eyebrows to be raised... but, thankfully, no guns.

hola

So - apologies for the break... time really does zip by.

I was a bit worried, before i came away, about how easy i would find it to adjust from a fairly full and busy life to one where i please myself. How would i find not doing much? how would i fill my days?

well...it turns out, its been fairly straitforward and painless (apart from some early starts for school). Time has become a fairly unimportnat concept (apart from for buses and spanish lessons and even then Argentinian time is fairly flexible) and i eat when i`m hungry and sleep when i`m tired (i recommend everyone has a siesta). oh and drink beer when the sun sets.

Today is my last day in Bs As... for the time being. I shall return to this fine city and do it properly. Due to the spanish classes it feels like I`ve not done everything i want to do in this town. However, three weeks into my trip and muy desperate to see a bit more of Argentina and spend some time in somewhere a bit more chilled (Bs As houses a third of the argentinain population).

So, now that schools out, i`m headed out of the city with Don Otto to a town 20hrs away by bus called Puerto Madryn. On route i hope to finally do some reading (i fear i brought too many books) and once there i intend to see a whale or two with my own eyes.

Yo vivo en Republic de Indonesia

So, yes. 59 calle (street) Republica de Indoneasia has been my pad for the last 5 or 6 nights. A lovely, traditional Argentinan house owned by a kindly latin lady called Diana (dee-anna) with her adult sons and two Japanese students - all of whom have made me feel welcome. I have my own room which, seemingly from the moment i entered, my rucksack exploded and I´ve filled every flat surface with my stuff). Diana has fed me well (not helpping my stool count with steak on the first night) and has paitently put up with me taking an hour over dinner to say the simplest things wrong.

Speaking of which, the spanish course has taken up nearly all my time and energy for the past week or so. I signed up for a course starting at 9am, so have been getting up at the usual hour and commuting on a crowded subway train to get to a big old building in downtown...just like being back in Londres.

Except ...
- The weather has taken a turn for the better.
- I clock off at 1pm.
- That crowded train is ace. The line I´m on is the oldest in Bs As and the wooden trams are equally old. The windows at the front have meant I´ve been pushing kids out the way and laughing like Homer Simpson with Spiderpig as I watch the upcoming tunnel...

The course is fairly hardcore and I´ve been spending my afternoons (and some evenings) on the roof of the house trying to get these damn spanish words into my head (all power to Clarkovich for his skills... and all spanish speaker while we´re at it - how do those olive skinned buggers do it?). As such, this holiday hasn´t quite felt like a holiday as yet. However, it most certainly isn´t work so you´ll get no complaints from me.... just not much gloating about yak treking with my new best mates SmurfMan Frosty, Jazz Fingers Gunter III and Peter Puker: Commander in Chunder on the Royal Feet (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ... yet.

(NB: the last bit was for the benefit of my colleague and friend Liz Mickel who complained I wasn´t shoving in enough exclamation marks, crazy names of people you´ll never meet or hear of again and in jokes about being sick).

me no hablo bueno espanol

aye yae yae! espanol es muy dificile.

So it seems that i´ve spent the last couple of days with my head buried in spanish notes trying to figure out whats what. bloody hell - it´s a trickier than an argentinian wonder kid on the left wing.

on the upside, i have moved into a really lovely house near the rio de janiero stop on the Bs As subt. it´s a little way out, but its a properly nice pad. more on that later.

voy ir a una cerveza (o dos!).

ciao

Bs As = cool... and wet.

So, my Dad is a travelling gypsy these days who, according to the rumours my cousin has been spreading around her school, is pootling round europe smoking cannabis. As he himself put it, at least she doesnt know about the cocaine and the heroin.... tho that may change if she sees this...sorry Dad.

Anyway - Mr G Hayes and I have a running fued about how the good the weather might (or might not) be wherever we are. I was looking forward, what with being in the Southern hemisphere, to spending the lions share of the next 6 months being genuinely smug about the excellent climatic conditions I was enjoying. Sadly, however, any plans Ive had to becoming tanned have been dashed by greay clouds and rain drops the size of budgie heads. Hmmph...

La Bomba De Tiempo

Monday night I rocked out with Pete (a New Yorker who runs a Pizza Place in Mar del Plata), Monica (an urban planner from Colombia) and Mike (a well travelled flamenco playing dude from California) to the incredibly cool outdoor KONEX centre to see a percussion band called La Bomba De Tiempre.

The show started with a group of their students knocking out the rythyms. There were about 16 dudes and dudettes playing a variety of percussion instruments and they would take turns to play conductor. It was proper ace to see and hear the way they controlled the bands beat, dropping instruments in and out of the weaving beats. Magic.

Then the real deal started...holy moly, they were properly brilliant. Ive not had a listen to their myspace page so im not sure if its one of those things that are awesome when you see it on your hols and yet the journey home seems to turn the music on the cd into little better than than peruvian pan pipes (of which ive already seen two bands on the street and no doubt with more to come).

The show began very early for Bs As at 7pm and was all over by 10. Well, over at least inside of the Konex centre as outside a load of dudes with percussion instruments (including a cow bell which, for my money, you cant ever have enough of) spontaneously popped up and kept the beats pounding that some capoeira kids used to put on a show as the dancing crowd spilled out into the road.

Muy muy bueno.

Boca post 2

A couple of things I forgot to mention about the game:
- The Throne of Maradona - Before i came away i was told that your man Diego had a throne at the boca stadium and that no one was allowed to leave the ground until the scorer of the "cosmic kite" had stood up to go. When i got in the ground i looked around for a 6ft golden seat, but the guide pointed to 4 yellow plastic chairs in the middle of a row of blue seats as he told me Diego would not be holding court today.
- Man of the match - despite scoring two goals Martin Palermo does not receive the coveted very un-dude MoM award. Rodrigo Palacio played a good game as he danced around the Velez defence, but the tireless running, strong tackles and crisp passing of Sebastián Battaglia means he wins a bottle of the inexpensive yet very tasty Malbec wine which i shall drink in his honour at somepoint in the next few days. Well done Seb. Keep on Battaglia-n. (hmmm).

The first weekend

So, that first night i ended up passing out and so missed the steak dinner with the chileans. However, since then ive made up for it with two grande steaks in two nights (one was probably the best steak i will probably ever have - if you ever go to BA get a steak from La Cabrera in Palermo). That Immodium is starting to feel like a waste of money now...

This weekend Ive been staying in a hostel in San Telmo in BA. Very nice it is too with its leafy cobbled streets. However, that might all end tonight as I have signed up to a Spanish Course and maybe a homestay thingy. The school ive chosen has come recommended by a couple of people, but its also the most inexpensive place ive seen so far. i figured that the money id save on the school could be put to good use when i get fed up with staying in dorm rooms....or to fuel my steak habit...

So... Creamfields took place this weekend, but instead of blowing cash on 15hrs of electronica music (which would have been some kind of hell i think), i instead took a trip the Bombonero to see Boca Juniors vs Velez Sarsfield. Boca kicked their asses 4-0 in quite an exciting game. Bocas star striker, Martin Palermo scored two goals to put him within 6 more strikes of being the top goalscorer for boca of all time. This irked the Velez fans somewhat and they started throwing bits of chairs, bags of flour and bottles of warm yellow liquid down from their tier onto the the bit where we were. Thankfully i was under the lip of the tier and nothing came our way, but twas a bit mental nevertheless...

Well, when i settle into the language school things should calm down a bit and i can fill you in on the other stuff ive seen and done...

Im off to a percussion school / club tonight so that should be pretty cool...

hasta luego (who needs language classes!)

And so it begins...

It´s been a long day... 27hrs since leaving my sisters pad in HBT, Hampshire I have arrived at my hostel in BA, Argentina. Holy Moly. Too tired to write much. Gonna get my head down and then get down to the serious business of beer and steak with some Chilean dudes I met at the airport.

(Dos) Mas later