Argentina 2005 - Tango, Kisses and Toronto

I spent time in the Argentine summer - in Buenos Aires and the Entre Rios province, and Christmas with a friends’ family. My imagination was constantly fed with a kind of intensity that still rings. This is my account, containing thoughts and photographs.

If I have to apply five turns to the screw each day for the happiness of Argentina, I will do it. - Evita Peron (President of Argentina 1919-1952)

Latins are tenderly enthusiastic. In Brazil they throw flowers at you. In Argentina they throw themselves. - Marlene Dietrich

Learning tango in Buenos Aires

Tango performed in Buenos Aires

Milongas in Argentina are tango halls where people come well dressed. The central space is for dancing, where a gentleman can succumb a girl to dance, but usually only if he can dance well. Milongueras in Buenos Aires are of all sorts - from bohemians to conservative milonga lovers that honour the waiting game between man and woman. Although this dance is so sensual, often erotic, it takes much control to bring a man’s partner to dance in truest tango. It remains the dance, but a restrained and incredibly teasing dance. The act of asking a woman is not one of asking, but one of telepathy. It’s provocative and heart warming, the way a man’s gaze is caught by a woman, and they come together from two sides of the room. In between the 1920’s classical numbers of Argentina’s great days (enjoyed by aristocrats), comes a break. But no ordinary break, one of perception, when a partner looks to the next dance and another partner. The husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, become simply “themselves” in milongas. It is as if being free to share physical love with others should never have been confined to just two people, this seems to be the accepted matter. With this primitive love, there is a dinner party atmosphere. In the words of a baldy man I met - “Buenos Aires is where the first world meets the third”. The straightforward manner in which people speak, men banter and flirt, and women give signals - takes getting used to.

Entering the milonga, there is a dignified grace. I’m told the milongas get filled up around 1 a.m. One afternoon, my teacher Gabriela taught me what it feels like to canter, to raise the middle of my chest and hold the lady close, letting her breathe like we have one set of lungs. It was slow, serene, needing concentration. I was told not to be a peacock, but a tiger, and made to abide! Tango is a way that needs a delicacy, and sureness; the girl feels the man’s thoughts instantly, so confidence should never materialise as brutishness. The weight and trust of the lady is given to the man. When I was watching in a milonga, almost all the women closed their eyes while dancing.

Getting to Buenos Aires was a real trek for me, via Toronto and Santiago, taking 24 hours in planes. Santiago’s airport in Chile was a small place, but very modern. Before getting to Santiago for the first time, I secretly hoped that goats and sheep would get on the plane with us! Not to be, sadly!

Buenos Aires has shown me how sweet and wonderful things can be. It’s a thriving city, decorated with people who are tempered and thoughtful. The greenery, architecture, restaurants, bars and roads have a vibe. Dancing the sexy, structured tango nose-to-nose/nose-to-ear felt like being a character in the movie Grease, but Latino.

Learning to tango

A figure eight

The figure 8 is a basic move in tango. Thinking about the number 8 inspired this doodle.

The figure 8

The figure eight resolves itself. It’s perfect. It remains loud, but two perfect circles, in remorse.

Drawing - It draws in the most elegant way of all the numbers

Circumventing - It avoids everything like the plague

Covering - It covers everything, but leaves breathing room

Everlasting - Yes, it will continue sketching its form for good

Directing - Far from being never-ending, it knows exactly where it’s going

Distracting - It takes its path, but not forcefully.

Misdirecting - Two circles, it takes two baby!

Trying to be seven - Is there misery in being a number, does it want to be 7 or 9!?

The Tigre River Delta

Coming to Tigre was easy, I had much banter with people - which was set to become a common theme of getting around Argentina. I met lovely Mariana who ran a church where I had a room in their accomodation. She said I was her first British friend. She spoke well, walking along with her lady bike with a basket, without a care in the world.

I went to a place called Tigre, and along the river delta, found a place on an island resort called Aku Aku. Along this summer paradise for people, mainly visiting from Buenos Aires, I hired a kayak from a lovely man. The heat was searing, I put on a wad of suncream, but nothing gave, I got inside the heat after a while, forgetting it was there and ripped away my orange lifejacket which helped a lot to relieve the pressure.

I skimmed on muddy waters past many houses, all beautiful, probably second homes to the elite of Buenos Aires. I found the homes on stilts, large masses like stones hanging off the river. I was kayaking away like crazy. I felt like a native Indian on the Amazon, these rivers were huge, and people were bathing in it, so there must not have been any alligators or piranhas. I had no swimming shorts, so didn’t dare take a dip in my underpants in case they took a while to dry. I was almost overturned a few times from massive waves that came from powerboats jetting on the river.

It’s the beginning of my Argentinian adventure. I’m on the main street in the city in a rocking bar called Olaf’s, there’s so many beautiful people everywhere with bodies to die for. There’s a huge bottle of Brahma, the beer, and crisps on my table. On the street in main Tigre, near the waterfront, all the boys are trying to outdo each other in their pimped cars. Modified, ancient American Dodge models, Ford Ka’s ripped to pieces. Red, purple, bright yellow, latin rap pumping at the back. This is young life. This is the young world at its most shining brilliant. I’m going to dash into its’ arms, excited!!! careless!!

The next morning, the sky was shining a different kind of blue, a blue fresh and new. The sun beat down on hibiscus flowers and morning traffic honked and energised its way into Tigre’s harbour.

Colon, Entre Rios

The meal at Colon

I found an empty restaurant on my rented bike around late evening. There was nothing but a few people in the open air glass cabin, and a large fireplace roared with a heavy iron grill laid across red charcoals. On it were tongue-lickable pieces of barbequed chicken. It was a clear, black night, sliver of moon. After glad-ragging the guys, I sat and they laid a feast of half a barbequed chicken, perfect and tender, and potatoes, salad and two glasses with freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberry juice. There, I exulted in one of the most pleasant meals I’ve had abroad. In front, the quiet river sighed, asking me to lend it some. Some stray dogs came, I fed them bones. I cycled to the main street afterwards, had a dulce de leche caramel ice cream and bulged my belly. I went to sleep, a perfect night of quiet pin-drop sleep with beautiful dreams about lands of rain, thunder, falls and people walking chihuahuas.

The hot springs of Colon (aguas calientes)

I was going to visit Las Palmas National Park, with its protected palm trees, but it involved cycling on my useless bicycle for twenty four kilometres across dust track. The alternative was to sit at the natural hot springs all day, where I’m writing this entry after a salad and all-over body massage. This morning, in my excitement I ran my bike into soft sand and fell right off, ramming my legs on the stony pebble road and grazing my knee. I cleaned up the blood at my posado, felt childish and and head low, sauntered off again somewhere while the turquoise sky dropped a fiersome sun into the stretching rios of occassional boats and crackling coastal twigs underfoot. Relaxation is important, I feel like meditating, but I’ve never tried it properly. A zen soldier without Spanish, as close as they come. “Alone” is no good word, I feel empowered, not alone, I have nothing but my thoughts and the occassional Spanglish banter. This lonesome peace was a spa.

Pregnant women at the beaches of Colon

The women in Colon absolutely flaunted being pregnant. Them thoroughly welcome the opportunity to shout out their baby loving sexual bodies, pregnant to the brim. I cycled past the beach, there was various child bearing hotties in tiny, skimpy underwear. It was a real turn on.

One was heavily brimming, face beautifully tranquil, with a tiny red thong, small red bra with thin straps and a light beige glow, moist skin. She walked like a model, delicately stroking her belly with long nails painted crimson.

L’Estacion de El Vigilante, near Constitution del Uruguay

The Ranch

My time at this ranch started with a bang in the early morning at Colon. The getting out, bus to Constitution del Uruguay was hurried and uneventful. Juan (lawyer, perfect English), whom I was later to know well, met me, declaring my Indiana Jones hat the best identification. I was driven 25km by Estella into the country after a quick tour and entered the vast ranch outbuildings. Now Estella and Lorenzo Moras own El Vigilante, employing a maid, some farm hands and a true gaucho and his family. Estella had thick fingers and wrists, with nails painted white, perhaps representing her mix between farmer’s wife and now, host of a ranch accepting visitors. Her voice and way was like the evening, drawn out, utterly lazy, and dominantly powerful.

Tito and family

Tito was an Argentinian gaucho of a fabled breed that I had always pictured in my mind. He was thick all over, grinning, stout like a unbreakable tree, with massive hands and sun-reddened thick skin. His hat was a black sombrero that sat high above his ears held by black threads that held up his hair which was combed down. His belt was like a wrestlers’, studded with coins which people had given him. He proudly held it out and showed me the 5 dollar pieces, grinning like a cat and uttering random bouts of Spanish and “acka”, the sharp tongue mischievious.

His sweet kid was the shyest child I saw. But on a horse, the child was unmoved, the silence to me was noble. This must be the natural course, over many generations, of gaucho families. The wife never said anything, and shied away from company. They had this home in a farm outbuilding, but lived in a nearby gaucho town. The same town whose town square looked like a huge bit of cleared grassland with a stone in the middle. In this town, the chicken vendor was also the truck mechanic. The size of this town with such a low population was astonishing. Gaucho children played with rusted bikes, and people’s cars were ancient, the kind I saw always broken on roads in rural Mexico a couple of years ago.

Horses and the surrounds

The poor horses kept being bothered by thousands of flies. I rode for many hours, right across to the soya fields, wheat fields, the fallow land for next year.

There was a crossroads once, Marlboro country. The kind of crossroads I imagined from movies. The real crossroads of life. Four dirt tracks met in that much emulated legendary setting. In three directions, the land stretched as far as someone dared to see - right into the nothingness. It made me wonder about the lost world. The land stretched like an immense horse, waiting to be ridden. In a classic moment, Tito got off his horse, and scrafed his necktie. We yapped some quick Spanglish and politely, he dipped his hat, gesturing that I rode well. He got back on, and we roared silently on our beasts, into this new world.

Once, Estella, Juan and I went in the car to pick up curtains that the wife of a nearby chicken farmer had made. All their chickens were destined for European plates. There were parrots flying in the trees. Once on an evening clicking with the sound of woods, Lorenzo told me how to know it’s the parrots. In one field, the demon cows broke into sacks of wheat which were stored there, and eating the wheat meant for sale. Night fell across the ranch, and our civilised dinner was almost exactly like I thought it might have been in a British colonial house. The beef we had one lunch was the yummiest I have ever had, undoubtedly. Inside the home was relics from two generations, and a really old phonograph. Old guns and French paintings were hung on the walls.

Outside, was a typical gaucho game - the idea is that you throw coins into this thing, getting points for whatever holes they go into. When I went to sleep, the night played an orchestra of every imaginable kind. Luckily, I had kept the door closed to keep the flying insects away from the inside, since outside was like walking through heavy hail of insects huge and small. Ruddy flies kept landing on my ears.

Bites of a civil afternoon conversation with Juan

Juan: “Lao-Tzu said ‘Wisdom is gained at home; without travelling anywhere’”

Amit: “Like in quantum theory, if you observe the thing you love, you make it less romantic than your imagination”

Juan: “We Argentinians don’t recognise our nationality. Why? Almost all famous Argentinians chose to die outside Argentina, like Borges.”

Amit: “Your family has only been here, like many others, for two generations. You are more associated with Italy. Time will develop affinity in people to cherish and develop their Argentinian identities.”

Amit: “The women here are incredibly beautiful”

Juan: “… Our clash of European descent and Latin culture …”

Amit: “What makes your wife the one you love so much?”

Juan: “There is no checklist. I really feel for her, and that’s how I knew she would be the mother of my children.”

We went on to talk about India, Rabindranath Tagore, the atom bomb, the frailty of the popular view, Machiavelli and love.

Gualeguaychu

That morning in Gualeguaychu

Gualeguaychu (it’s hard to spell the beggar!) is famous for its carnival.

So sometimes the blazing sun makes you feel different. A special morning afforded itself to me before my afternoon bus to Parana. A dharma in observation, I became Buddha of Gualeguaychu, I sat, hot, in a parilla, drinking beer and the tremendous, beautiful sun made the pink pillars, white walls hot and glow. A man on a bicycle held the shoulder of a man on a motorbike, getting a ride. And (as many times before), past walks an Argentinian beauty, hot and mad raven eyes, flowing wavy hair, striding, powerful, skirt, boob tube, so pleasant, ever-knowing, not even meddling with ‘slutty’, glancing to me, glancing everywhere. The blokes never had to prove themselves, they kissed each other lovingly! The river beyond quiet, some stray dog would slip between the barriers, down the stairs and into the river, such was the midday mad blisteration, wanting nothing but to burn skin dry.

Green trees, parilla I was in, roasting charcoal, my senses overloaded. Smell of meat, leaves, all. Sound of mad Spanish riga mate quick-breathing words get me breathing faster. Eyes saw wild, colour blindness. Skies, shrubs, dogs, hobos, blue benches with little flakes peeling, such proliferation of madness, and all the time, I read The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, the man peers, privacy not a concern, interested in anything, like the women. The life of these dharma bums in California made sense, Japhy was right, I now realise. Why do we live in a cycle of work-produce-consume, work-produce-consume? But what better to procrastinate so, after such a nice night of sleep?

They are starved of nothing here - madness, beef, women, beer, sun, moon, river, green, pink, white, love, winks. I was totally high. I had my barbeque at the parilla Los Cascadas and pleaded to my motherly hotel lady to bring a taxi fast, and just managed the bus to Parana. The savanna lands flew by in some Zen stability, pleasant as the day I was born, I feel for everything. The girl at the tourist office - Alinia, I think of her eyes. They had in them yellow, green-blue, violet, black pupils, outer cornea fire. She looked and she made me weak, sending a knife into my adventuring, lonesome, braveheart … she sunk her eyes, not realising her own magnificence. Every time she lifted, her face went down again like a puddle evaporating in summer, with those undress-me marble eyes.

So the bus broke down, we waited for yonks. Eventually a random dude waved his huge hat towards another bus that looked like it should have been in the scrapheap decades ago. I finally got to Parana.

Parana and Rosario

Of Parana, and spending Christmas with Facundo and his family ‘n friends in Rosario

I met a baseball player’s wife at the station, she had these beautiful Romeo Gigli glasses. She knew I wasn’t local in the bus station and offered to take me to a place to stay that Alinia had told me about. They had the sweetest baby, a cute piece of butter.

I stayed at the Hotel Provincial, the owner was lovely, we got on famously. I liked Parana more than any other town, their people were the most open and friendly in my street escapades. I went to buy fruit once, which was a battle, just to buy one freaking plum! Popped into a phone place to call Facundo many a time; got a ticket by going back to the bus station somehow to Rosario, which around Christmas is almost undoable. I met a girl from Poland and we had dinner on a balcony overlooking the main square and then went out barring late … and then etc.

I went to Rosario the next day on the bus, and Facundo found me at the station. We bantered about old times, cooking meals in summertime in Bath, such great memories of student life. His family was wonderful to me, their dog Roko was instantly my friend. I met his friends - many people, it was such a blur. We went from place to place, shopping, meeting people, collecting bread, doing this, that, blah. I was dazed, it was so awesome. Everywhere I went the chat started, and I would try to explain in broken Spanglish. I stayed for a while with Luciana and Ramiro, and we cooked the most AWESOME barbequed chicken in the top of the apartment block for lunch, in the shocking heat. Memories of Colon, mmm! A few of them are trying to startup a company, so I had a techie chat, and I had a spiel about my quotations book. We drove around to places in the country, and I shook hands and kissed a sea of faces.

Christmas Eve was nuts. The family gathered, dined, and conquered. The banter increased hard and fast to midnight, as the wine flowed. Presents were unwrapped and everybody was happy. Me, Facundo and his friends went out in Rosario. I’ve never seen this many people go out this late anywhere! The streets were packed. We stayed out until the morning. I got the bus to Buenos Aires after Christmas day.

Toronto

From oven to fridge

I left Argentina finally. And went to see Lea in Toronto. On the plane, I was next to a young guy who had never been on a plane before, so he took pictures of everything. His excitement infected me, and I heard fresh, virgin things from him - like he kept putting on the seatbelt really tight, and once asked “Do I have to wash this spoon before giving it back [to the air stewardess]?“. Lea came with Rajesh in the early morning, and produced a red hat, a green jester’s hat, and a Xerox overcoat. My backpack only had one warm black jumper and I had nothing else for the cold.

We settled into a cosy little apartment, had much gossip and banter. We buzzed around Chinatown, there was a shop that sold curry chocolates - yuk! It was like Camden. That day, we went ice skating with another one of their friends. I kept falling over, wearing my jester’s hat, looking like the cream of Toronto! And them little kids can skate like demons, damn them! We went to a house party for a mother that night, where everyone was Russian or connected to Russia and they seem to all be named Olga. The Olga party. An Irish pub after that.

The next day, a friend of theirs joined us with sister for a road trip to Niagara falls. We drove through the industrial lands into what didn’t really look like countryside. We stopped at a shopping place, I grabbed me a huge can of Canadian beer to feel great and we were back on the road. At a diner before Niagara, we had lunch. On the menu, there was a challenge - a Can$30odd meal which would be free if you finished it! I wasn’t feeling that hungry, though might’ve caned it and then got hospitalised straight after!

Niagara was a huge paved strip of cheapo shops and casinos and random horror shows. It’s probably loads of fun in summer. We still had a great time. The falls on the US side were lame, the Canadian side was better. Rajesh, Lea and their friends treated me well here, we cooked dinner at home on the last night. I woke up early the next morning, back on Air Canada, and saw the glittering yellow lights of Heathrow. The pilot was yapping away so merrily, he must’ve been high. He once said this little snippet:

If you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life

So I thought about these words by Canadian-pilot-guy for a while, seeing it was my home and all that.

• What a stranger does in a foreign land is of great interest to the people who live there
• Returning home brings new views to the home I knew

Photos from Toronto and Niagara

[Photo omitted - Caption: With friends in Toronto]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Ice skating in Toronto]

[Photo omitted - Caption: The jester hat I wore while skating]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Toronto sights]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Road trip to Niagara]

[Photo omitted - Caption: En route to Niagara]

[Photo omitted - Caption: At Niagara Falls]

[Photo omitted - Caption: The mighty falls]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Canadian side of the falls]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Last day in Canada]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Me at the falls]

[Photo omitted - Caption: Final moments at Niagara]