Buenos Aires

Wednesday 17th February.

Dropped off some laundry on the way to the Subte station and had breakfast at Café Tunin nearby, coffee and three "media lunes" half-moons, small sweet croissants. Then got the Subte to Plaza de Mayo and explored the San Telmo area nearby. It's supposed to be one of the oldest parts of the city but it didn't seem particularly quaint. Came across several professional dog walkers each with about half a dozen dogs in tow, so you need to watch where you are walking. The area probably comes alive at night when all the restaurants and bars are open.

Terrorist's manhole cover? 

From there walked to Caminito through a rather shabby area. By now, what had begun as a grey and overcast day, had brightened up considerably. 

Life Size Cartoon Characters in San Telmo

Typical Magazine Kiosk

The place to come for brake parts. 

Realised I had reached Caminito when I saw the dozens of tourist buses. The area is very quaint and pretty but incredibly touristy with dozens of shops selling souvenirs and tango "dancers" on every corner offering to pose with tourists. Several open-air cafes and restaurants have tango dancers performing. All the guide books tell me I ought to see a tango show but the taster of the ones in the restaurants leaves me totally cold. I am sure when it originated in the sleazy bars of the port it was exciting and sexy and fun but what I see here  looks artificial, formulaic and the dancers seem to make a point of looking miserable. The women are beautiful, possibly thanks to thick make-up, wearing "sexy" dresses and the guys are handsome but the net effect is about as exciting as watching my clothes go round in the washing machine. At the end of one of the dance sequences, the woman breaks away from her dance partner to greet two guys at the edge of the stage. For the first time her eyes light up, she smiles, she kisses both of them and she is transformed from a dancing automaton into a real, attractive woman. OK, I understand if your dream was to be a top ballerina and you find yourself dancing tango for tourists, you may not be delighted about it, but I have seen plenty of performers in low end joints working really hard to give their, sometimes tiny, audience a good time. Noticeable that in most of the cafes the eyes of most of the audience were focused on their plates, not the dancers. Maybe it takes more than two to make tango come alive.

Colourful Caminito 

Colourful Caminito

Colourful Caminito

Colourful Caminito

Colourful Caminito

Colourful Caminito

Colourful Caminito

There is a disused dual gauge railway track running through Caminito and I started following it away from all the tourists but was turned back by an elderly lady who, I think, was telling me it wasn't safe. 

Tango Dancers don't Smile

Pay to Pose

Between Dances, Time to Reflect?

After taking in my fill of Caminito and a cooling beer at one of the cafes without a tango performance walked to Constitucion where there is a commuter and main line station serving areas to the South and East of the city, and a Subte station. I have been looking at the possibility of taking a train to Cordoba but there are only two trains a week, they run overnight, can't be booked on line and according to what I have read on the internet get fully booked several weeks in advance. There are lots of buses but it is a ten or eleven hour journey and based on what I saw from the plane looks like very flat boring landscape. Doesn't sound like much fun.

Cathedral to Steam

Back at the Subte station got train to Palermo where Wikitravel tells me Viejo (old) Pallermo is interesting. My map shows a large area as Pallermo and Google has pointed to a particular location as Viejo Pallermo. Spend lots of time and shoe rubber looking around but all I see is a typical mixed residential and retail area. Nothing particularly interesting or exciting. Probably a pleasant enough area to live. In the end gave up and decided to walk back to the hotel through very similar streets. Maybe Buenos Aires looked like Paris fifty years ago but most of the 19th century buildings have been replaced by post 1960's apartment blocks 10-15 storeys high. Nothing wrong with that since it means more people can live in the city but it doesn't look like Paris. 

 

Cafe in Pallermo

In the evening had dinner at Tunin since I was feeling too lazy to go further afield. Meluza Romano con Fritos reads as much more exciting than Fish and Chips but that's what I got. Shame it didn't come wrapped in yesterday's Daily Mirror.