This is the last Argentinian themed blog, and therefore needs to have a bit of a mandatory Tango theme…. So to the last week in the Buenos Aires loft, having a base for a month was such a luxury and saving, we kind of feel like we know Palermo viejo and a bit of soho pretty well, and just loved walking around BA, so 5 or 6 hours wasn’t really noticeable as there was so much to see, although you do learn, given the thousands of dogs (pets), to NEVER take your eyes from the pavements for more than a second….think about it…a snap of the apartment below:
And so to Tango…starting off with my excitable idea of walking about 65 blocks to Boedo and a famous corner “esquina homero manzi” to watch the finalists of the pre championship tango in an outdoor milonga (Loc couldn’t wait). We ended up arriving a bit early, so set up with a bottle of malbec (Loc a little more amenable), as you do (well actually don’t really in BA until about 1am but we hadn’t adjusted just yet!) in the corner bar, again quite famous, and watched a sort of Argentinian family von Trap in style, perform, sing, talk, interview and do everything EXCEPT dance the actual tango, it was a little bizzarre and incredibly hard to follow, but interesting nonetheless, a photo of the baron in action below:
Given the rain all day, the outdoor tango was a little under attended, and a tad soggy, but still fun to watch for a while, and this was definitely my first introduction to falling for the tango shoe, a couple of girls in the cafe had these gorgeous shoe bags and out of them came the cinderella tango shoes…some of you have seen the final purchase via facebook and understand:
And so to our final tango experience and by far the best, starting incongrously, with a trip to La Boca, on the edge of the slightly rougher edge of town and of home to one of the most famous stadiums and teams in the world (think Maradona)…and at the moment the largest spider…!
After spending about 2 minutes on the rather manic tourist streets, we headed to the museum PROA, lunchtime, cafe was a bit full (must have been due to the prime view of the spider), so we ended up sharing with a lovely couple, chatting a little, and were then invited to go to a milonga/tango in town the next evening, quite a rare thing, as for some places like La Nacional, I think that you really need to know how to dance to go, and can only really go to watch if invited…lovely evening, great to watch and aspire to the tango moves, and we were so looked after it was amazing, here’s a shot of us on the edge of the dancefloor!
And so to our final few days in Buenos Aires, it was an absolutely amazing month, and we were sad to leave, but also excited about heading to Ecuador, to finish, a few shots of BA from Puerto Madero…
And for a teaser of things to come in Ecuador (outside of the most rocobarocco ornate gold churches I’ve ever encountered, and a great karaoke bar…) on the more natural side of the trail, this boot, and me in it, are at over 4,000m above sea level, just over twice the height of Mt Kosciuszko, and only a few hundred metres below Mt Blanc!!!
yeehaahols 