Buenos Aires 4

Guardia Vieja Tango by Israel Hoffmann

A beautiful Sunday with bright sunshine and a cool breeze. I bought my bus ticket for Puerto Madryn for Monday and then had breakfast near Calle Florida for a change. I bought a sleeveless wool jersey for the Andes. I had not brought one because I needed it for the Andes only, Argentina has a wool industry, and I wanted a keepsake of South America. L had said the day before, half-joking, make sure it doesn't have a label reading: Hecho en China.

I caught a bus to La Boca (The Mouth), where tango flourished. In the heyday of tango it used to be a rough and tumble neighbourhood, but is now welcoming to tourists. Carlos Gardel is of course Argentina's hero of tango, his legend enhanced by a tragic death in an airplane crash at the height of his career.

Caminito is a colourful walkway where walls are painted in bright pastel hues. Local artists sell their works there.

A particularly vibrant wall. You can see that street performers also entertain here.

There are murals on the walls.

At La Ribera a guitarist was playing so I took a seat and ordered a chopp. He covered standards such as Garota de Ipanema and Samba de Orfeu. I had noticed that the TV music channel played both Spanish and Portuguese songs.

I had a lunch of filet of merluza (hake) at a corner restaurant. It being Mother's Day in Argentina, the place was packed with families, and Spanish music filled the air.

As this was the old port area, it was a working class area and there are relics from this past. I saw slogans on walls: Pan, trabajo y tuna para todos (Bread, work and tuna for all) and Argentina, hay gente que te quiere y gente que te USA (Argentina, some people love you and some use you). This last was a double entendre, as usar is Spanish for use but here was an allusion to USA.

But the area wasn't frequented by lower classes only, I saw a man talking into his mobile in La Boca. Perhaps the seediness was undeserved reputation; when I bought a can of drink at a general store, the owner thanked me warmly, perhaps pleased that I was not frightened away.

Although I cannot find a connection to La Boca, the very successful and enthralling low-budget Argentinian film Nine Queens, about a pair of con artists trying to set up a sting, and which "stings" the viewer with a surprise ending, always makes me think of this barrio.

I do regret not going to see a tango show in Baires, however touristy and kitsch it might have been. I can only plead that at the time I was not that interested in dance.

In the afternoon I went back to Palermo because I liked the lake. Porteños were taking full advantage of the sunshine and clement weather. I never knew whether the pictured alpaca owner was in trouble with the park police.

In the evening I attended the João Gilberto concert. He was a hour late arriving. Ladies in the seats behind mine gossiped in Italian (it is the second most common language). Eventually he commenced. I closed my eyes, the sound of his voice and guitar filled the hall, and the world vanished. For two heavenly hours he played Brazilian ballads, Jobim songs and his own compositions, and finished with Garota de Ipanema.

Buenos Aires 3

In the morning I noticed a considerable reduction in traffic noise, the weekend having arrived. Besides giving me a list of food to try, my ex-colleague had also given me an introduction to her cousin L. Earlier in the week I had called him and he said he would pick me up Saturday morning. So at Coto, besides breakfast, I bought a box of chocolates as a small present for his family. He turned out to be a tall slightly balding man of 54, very amicable and very easy to talk to. I asked him a lot about Argentina and Baires and answered questions about myself.

He first drove us to San Telmo which is the oldest barrio of Baires, containing historical buildings such as this well-known landmark, a small Russian Orthodox Church with blue domes.

Then he took me home to lunch with his family, first making a short detour to try to buy a microwave oven. Their daughter was studying biology at the Uni and the son was in high school. Also present was her boyfriend. We shared a lunch of cannelloni. When I mentioned that I hoped to visit Mar del Plata, they said don't bother, go straight to Patagonia. I understood that to mean MdP was one of those beach cities spoiled by mass tourism. When I said that the Piazzola piece playing in the background was lovely, he made me a present of the CD on the spot. This was Mi Buenos Aires Querido, featuring Daniel Barenboim, Hector Console and Rodolfo Mederos. It's still one of my favourite albums. I resolved to find a matching present when I got back to Buenos Aires for the homeward leg in under a month's time.

Then he and his wife took me to see a bit of the city. But first a short visit to the street of the last apartment my ex-colleague lived in. I wanted a couple of pictures to send to her as a surprise. We went to Recoleta, which is an affluent barrio. It was a gorgeous day and porteños were out enjoying the sunshine. Recoleta is also known for its cemetery which has the graves of many notables of Argentine history, including Eva Perón or the affectionate Evita to Argentinians. However she is in the vault of her family the name of which, fortunately, my memory was able to supply: Duarte. It fell to me to decide whether I wanted to see it. I decided no, I wasn't that interested. So we didn't pass the gates.

Before taking me back to my hotel we had a stoll in a Palermo park. I wanted to take a picture of but could not spot a pasaperro, a professional dog walker for busy rich people who leads many dogs in one session. Makes you wonder what would happen if the dogs decide to go in all directions at once.