Buenos Aires – just really good fun.
Excitement and curiosity shroud Argentina’s capital city. Walking nomadic throughout the varying districts it is easy to see why so many flood to this immigrant city. Evita, Diego Maradona, Steak, Wine, Tango, Boca Juniors, Carlos Gardel, Dictatorships and a very silly war. BA has a history worth a thousand books.
Believe it or not, the best and worst steaks on offer have both been in Argentina. The worst was really fucking dreadful, but it was not in Buenos Aires, it was in Mendoza and it tasted like the insole of a hobo’s trainer. The best was remarkable, and it was in Buenos Aires. It tasted how a steak should taste; no funny business, no fancy-pants garnishes, just good clean Argentine beef. The humble restaurant where these happy cows come to die is called Santos Manjares. It’s small, full to the rafters with locals and not very well known by tourists. Classic hipster/traveller thing to say that may be, but there is real truth in it. There are other, more well known steak houses, but rumour has it they have become somewhat of a tourist trap. We had two steaks accompanied by chips and salad, washed down with agua con gas y dos cafés con leche and ended with, no exaggeration, the world’s best chocolate mousse. We had an absolute stormer of a meal for less than £20. In Argentina, that is damn impressive.
The architecture here is very French. The tourists are English. The mood is very Italian and the language is obviously Spanish. But do not be fooled, it all washes together to become, what is, very Argentinian. There are stories hidden in almost every corner and down every side street of the city. The differences in style swing from the glamorous boutiques of Palermo to the grand green spaces of Recoleta. From the exquisitely large monuments of the city centre to the rough and ready back streets of San Telmo. However, the victor in the aesthetics competition has to be handed to the paint-splashed culture-smashed tango-bashed camera-flashed heart that beats in La Boca. It is in La Boca that one can truly start to understand the energy and beauty that pulses through the city.
One thing, amongst a million and one things, that is quite common and quite fun to do in Buenos Aires is take a tango lesson. Quite fun. Without a doubt we picked the coolest and most unashamedly traditional tango club to take our lesson in. La Catedral Club. It is a place that goes beyond cool; a place where a corduroy-wearing bearded narcissist would surely cream himself, before trying to replicate its individuality in a pop up bar back in Shorditch. The lights are low and the air is thick with adultery. There is a slender couple sliding across the floor in perfectly timed moves. They are fascinating to watch; acting out a love story with their limbs, inviting the room into their world with every twist and turn. They pause and the room stops dead. The lady walks over to greet us and, it is clear from the very moment the light hits her face in front of us, she is the fuhrer. For an hour and a half this dark lord of the dance tore into, quite frankly, a complete novice of the Tango. “What are you doing?” she quips as she stops the shameful marching of flat feet and clashing shins, “The Tango… I think, I dunno I’ve not done this before so I was hoping you’d show me how” a response born from forehead sweats and shaky hands. The lesson was in Spanish, which is completely understandable, but to a couple of shit-Brits it was, well, un-understandable. “You look like you’re skiing” her fucking English has picked up a bit now init, cheeky cow. “The Tango is about improvising, you have to be unpredictable” this one really eases the nerves, the others are looking over and notice my hereditary awkwardness. “Yeah but you haven’t taught me the basics yet!” Her hard-boiled face twitches, now she has a vendetta. This goes on for another hour, between partner switch-ups and nervous farts, as the cream of the Tango crop make their way in off the street to drive us tourists back into the sangria splashed corners, and dream of the ease of the Cha Cha Slide.
Salsa is better anyway.
"They’re moving in herds… they do move in herds."
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