Tango of Buenos

"Tango is the dance of love, you must let your partner feel the emotion in your heart.
But for beginners, it goes anti-clockwise, '1..2..., 1,2,3."

Buenos Aires was a cultural delight, similar to Santiago, that made us feel at home. Fine art's, cafe's and plenty of trendy bars to spend time in.
Another special surprise in B.A. was joining up with Jamie's Sister, Jacqui, and her partner, Alex. They would travel with us for three weeks across South America before returning to Australia and leaving us behind.

With seven days in B.A. we ended up staying in two locations, San Nicolas firstly, then altogether in Palermo. Which became our New Years Eve venue.
A few highlights while walking the city were an old Theatre that had been turned into a book store. With book shelves for the seats and a cafe/reading area on the stage. Glorious magnolia trees across the city, remarkable architecture and buildings and a reliable bus and metro network.
The Recoleta Cemetery sent shivers down your spine, the crowd taking selfies of Evita's grave seemed uninterested in any other tomb.

We found our New Years Eve preparations a little challenging. There was limited social media information we could access for our area and we read a lot about things being quiet around the streets of B.A. as people spend the time with family or in house parties. We found a number of restaurants we could have reserved tables at but the price was appropriately too expensive for us. So instead we crossed our fingers and hoped to walk around the Palermo streets and see what we could find.

Sure enough, life was about. Some hamburgers at 9pm with schop beers went down a treat. Then over to a nearby square and a busy bar to order some drinks. It seemed the waiter's or staff weren't prepared for the volume of customers so after sitting inside for two hours with one drink, we quickly dashed outside at 11:55pm to witness a random public crowd count down and then somehow a bongo band began playing. They commandeered a street intersection, their music and dancing attracted several hundred other party goers and very soon we had our own street party happening with fireworks being shot upwards into the trees. The only traffic willing to venture through were the metro buses, the bus honking seemed to match the bongo beats and the crowd were forced to mould around as it pushed through, then close in behind it as it rushed off along its route. Wondering how long the random street music would last, we departed nearing 2am with it still echoing behind us.

Feliz 2019 Buenos Aires.

A slow start the following morning, we wandered the afternoon to see more sights and fill our bellies with empanadas.
The evening of the 2nd took us back into San Telmo for a beginners tango class, then an exhibition of professional dancing with a wonderful live band lead by two accordian players. It seemed the 'rules' of Tango were quite strict. Before the Tanda commences, you must select a partner with a stare and a nod. Uncertain how forthcoming these stares would be, Ian and Alex glared wide eyed at our partners while Jamie and Jacqui looked down at their drinks. After some instruction we then had the fortune of observing professionals that showed us some evocative and emotional dancing. Something we were a long way off even attempting. Though a Tanda at the end of the evening got us up on stage and we huddled in the beginners middle and sort of tango'd, sort of waltzed around a bit.

Our final few days in BA were spent relaxing and walking the local suburbs near Palermo. Jamie surprised Ian with a gorgeous new haircut and we enjoyed an Argentinian bbq and wine for our last evening.

A beautiful city and gorgeous country. We were now looking forward to Iguazu before venturing into Brazil!