Long Hike through the north-eastern part of Bs.As.

Last Saturday I decided to explore the ‘La Boca‘ district and, if there was some time left, as well the little harbor Puerto Madero with its shopping area and its cafés. So I took the subte C to Constitución, terminus of that line at around 11am. I hoped to enjoy the Plaza Constitución but that was not the case. It was more likely a battlefield ‘cos they were rebuilding it. Therefore there were no trees, no paths, no green, but a lot of holes and hills.

 I looked around to see what’s close to visit. But there wasn’t very much - just a church. I went to the southwest heading for the Parque Lezama at the end of the district San Telmo. But to get there I had to undercross a freeway. This area was not one of the best! Grey, lonely and forlorn. After a while I got to a shop that sells fresh self-made noodles.

Arriving at the Parque Lezama I saw the first loros. I decided to head for the only building in this park to see what it is. It was the Museo Histórico Nacional. The entrance is free so I went in. At every corner there was security. I came to the first room. I asked the security guard if it was possible to take pictures and he answered it in the affirmative, but only without flash. I wanted to take a picture of a reconstruction of the bedroom of San Martín. He turned up the light that I could take a better picture. He looked over my shoulder and pointed out the sign of the exhibit to me. I told him that I got it in the picture I showed it to him. He was surprised about the quality of my digicam. When I went on he followed me and asked me for the camera model. We talked quite a lot about the camera, what I’m doing in Buenos Aires and about the exhibits. It didn’t take me much time to see everything ‘cos it was a small museum.

After that I enjoyed the awesome weather in the park watching the loros how they were stealing the bred crumbs out of the pigeon’s beaks. There were also some little poor girls roaming around.

After getting some sun and taking some nice pics headed for the stadium bowl of La Boca entering this district for the first time. I could see the soccer stadium only from outside. It is the home of one of the world’s most famous soccer teams: Club Atlético Boca Juniors (CABJ) with its traditional colors blue and yellow. Right at the stadium there were the Museo de Quique and some fan stores, as well in the Boca colors. From now on the traditional La Boca district started with its colorful houses.

And then, finally, I got to the famous Caminito Street and the place where all the fancy souvenir shops and restaurants with their Tango shows are. Now it’s all about Tango and a competition of the most colorful house. I had some beef with some Tango music and show at the La Barrica.

After this bite I wanted to sniff some harbor air. The water was more than dirty. There was some tar or oil swimming in it. No wonder that the turtle I spotted was saving itself on some floating garbage. I wanted to follow the harbor to get to Puerto Madero but a police officer told me not to due to the bad milieu following. Therefore I had to make my way through the whole district.

Half through San Telmo there were some places that were beyond good and evil. Car wrecks at the roadside, holes that almost cave in, and there were two buses passing me: one with some guys hanging out the windows and shouting loudly, and another that looked like coming just out of a Brazilian slum or Bagdad. It was completely empty except for the weird looking bus driver. The bus had some holes in the windows and the bodywork (like from flying stones or bullets) and inside everything was dirty and ragged. Some windows and seats were missing. At one crossroad there were two guys cleaning the windows of the cars waiting at red light to earn some money. I didn’t see, what they did (wrong) but suddenly they ran towards me and passing me followed by two other guys (one with a wooden cudgel) leaving their car. When those two wanted to return to their car the other two guys came back with big stones throwing them at the other two. They were chasing each other for a few minutes while the traffic at this lane had to wait. It was some nice action… and me almost in the focus of it . At the end the bad guys went off. Nobody was hurt. 

Fortunately I made it to Puerto Madero. There you could find a lot of people with red T-shirts and yellow writing on it. There were just coming from the 10K (10km-run). All the cafés were full of guests enjoying some snack and refreshment at sundown. I went all through Puerto Madero and then back to home. At the end I walked more than ten kilometers in about seven hours. It was a nice and adventurous day! But my feet needed some big vacations now!

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On Monday, I went for the first time to the free Salsa class in Belgrano. The teacher is a small and funny guy from Central America, I guess. There were a lot of old ladies (around 60/70 years) but it was a very amusing group. I was introduced to everybody and they all learned my name really fast. I become integrated into this group immediately. There were only Argentinians. We learned all the different basic steps and a little choreo before he taught us two nice and complex figures. I had the chance to talk a lot of Spanish. The course was a lot of fun!

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btw: when people want to use the ATM and they have to wait until it’s their turn, they do so outside by lining up in front of the bank.

Tanghetto concert

Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the ‘XV Guitar Festival’ this week

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On Thursday, October 15, I prepared my first own mate in Buenos Aires with the mate (cup) from San Telmo. I bought quite strong mate leaves. I used the without sugar of course. There was just a problem with the bombilla. I knew that it’s a crap when I bought the mate but the bombilla came with the mate. It has a spring at the end instead of a filter. It was blocked up very easily. I have to get a better bombilla as soon as possible!

At night, Tina and I watched a movie at her flat and drank a bottle of red wine. On the way back home I saw that they repaired the sidewalk at Córdoba Avenue corner Talcahuano Street. The concret was still fresh. Therefore I thought I could leave my mark for posterity on it and did so. I wrote my name on it that the city of Buenos Aires will always remember me.

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The next day I had Tango class in Belgrano, as every Friday. We learned a new step.

At night I went with my flatmate to the Congo bar to meet other student from the Netherlands, Germany, one from the USA, one from Finland and one from Cyprus. We had a drink or two and then headed for the ‘Asia de Cuba‘ Club at Puerto Madero. We got free entrance and therefore saved $50. It is a exquisite boliche. We ordere two bottles of Wodka with fresh pressed orange juice. It was the first time for me being at Puerto Madero. Next time I have to go there during the day. I stayed there till 5.30am. It was a really great night. We had a lot of fun.

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Yesterday, Tina and I went to the Teatro ND Ateneo at Paraguay Street to see the concert of Tanghetto. It was a great concert. I like the way they mix the Tango Nuevo (created first by Astor Piazzolla) and the ‘electro’ elements. Using in some songs a singer and narrator of some tango stories as well as a tango couple lent variety to the concert and let it seem more authentic. We got free entrance.

The most famous electrotango in Europe and the USA might be ‘Santa María (del Buen Ayre)‘ by Gotan Project which is used in the movie ‘Shall we dance‘.

Gotan Project - Santa María (del Buen Ayres)
(OST: Shall we Dance)

Tanghetto - Inmigrante
(live at Obelisco, Av. 9 de Julio)

After the concert Pedro, Tina and I went to El Palacio de la Pizza around the corner (Corrientes 751). It was a little bit more expensive but it was the second best pizza I have eaten in Bs.As. yet. Later Tina and I went to have some more beers in a café, till 2am.

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Today Tina and I had some breakfast at noon at Plaza Vincente López at Paraná Street in Recoleta. It was a more expensive but very good and substantial breakfast with a very good coffee and selfmade marmalade and jam. The orange juice was fresh pressed and the toasted sandwich had a lot of ham and cheese. It was just perfectly toasted. It was a good way to start the day!, before we headed for some homework…

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Tomorrow I will start with Salsa class in Belgrano. I am already looking forward to it.

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btw: in restaurants they have a table service you usually have to pay.  You get served all the time and you get some snacks (most common are bread with butter or at cafés peanuts, potato chips or olives) while waiting for the dishes.

Tango Festival due to declaration of the UNESCO

Two weeks ago I had a bad intestinal flu. I couldn’t eat anything at all for seven days, then had to do a diet. Now I’m slowly starting to eat normal again, finally.

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On November 30, Tango has been declared Intangible Patrimony of Humanity at the UNESCO conference. For this reason Buenos Aires and Montevideo (Uruguay) organized a huge Tango Festival. Therefore they closed for two days one block of the Boedo Avenue, corner San Juan, the most famous street corner of Tango in Buenos Aires (Boedo district). Here the Tango was born. So Tina and I went there on Oktober 2, at 7pm. They had a stage from one sidewalk to the other. We had nice weather, still around 20°C. They started with typical Tango songs played by a live orchestra. The invited five of the most famous still living Tango singers:  Rubén Cané (*1927), Alberto Podestá (*1924), Osvaldo Ribó (*1927), Julio Martel (*1923) and Juan Carlos Godoy (*1922). The atmosphere was just awesome. After that, the World Champions of Tango Salón 2009 (Hiroshi y Kyoko Yamao, Japan) gave us a little presentation. Then there was a Milonga Popular, they played Tango music and everybody could just start dancing. There were a lot of couples of all ages dancing Tango right where they were standing. It was just great to watch. I would have liked to dance right at that moment - my feet were already moving - but the skills I needed for that were still missing. Later, the orchestra Vale Tango played and Malena Muyala from Uruguay sang with her great voice. It was a great night!

For the next day they had another program. But when we arrived there the stage was gone, the cars were using the Avenue again, and only a few people were standing on the other side of the street. So we asked them and the explained us that the cancelled the second half of this festival due to the death of Argentinian’s most famous singer Mercedes La Negra Sosa. I mean, we knew about her death but we didn’t suspect that they cancelled every event immediately…

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The next twelve days there is the 15th World Guitar Festival in town. More than 250 guitar players from 13 nations are comming to play clasic, contemporary, tango, flamenco, baroque, ancient and regional folk music. Some of them are from Spain, Italy, Argentina (Juanjo Domínguez, Jorge Cardoso, Ricardo Moyano, Juan Falú and the duo Rudi & Nini Flores), Cuba (Iliana Matos and Eduardo Fernández de Cuba), France, Cananda, Uruguay and Mexico (Juan Carlos Laguna), Turkey, Finland, Germany and Syria. They are playing in Teatro Nacional Cervantes (Libertad 815), Espacio Tucumán (Suipacha 140) and Biblioteca Nacional (Auditorio Jorge Luis Borges, Agüero 2502). Free entrance. The grat final will be on October 18, at 19.30 in Teatro Argentino de la Plata (Calle 51 between 9 and 10). Of course Tina and I are planing to go to this event but still don’t know when…

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btw: there is a law to protect foreign culture that says that movies, films and series have to stay in original. Therefore in cinema the movie “The Wave” (dt. Die Welle) is presented in German with Spanish subtitles and “Inglouries Bastards” you can enjoy in German, English and French with Spanish subtitles.

Chambao concert

Last Thursday, 29.09.2009, Tina and I went to the last concert of this year’s tour of the Andalucian band Chambao in the Teatro Gran Rex. It was a very good concert. The music style is called flamenco-electronic, a mixture of Flamenco singing combined with modern elements. I especially liked the guitar sounds!

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On September 19, 2009 the two girls I met at the Frankfurt airport, Tina and I went to San Telmo to go shopping at the market. I first did some sightseeing at the Plaza de Mayo to see the Casa Rosada, officially known as the Casa de Gobierno (”Government House”) or Palacio Presidencial (”The Presidential Palace”), which is the official seat of the executive branch of the Government of Argentina. It is weird having such an important buiding painted in pink!

After that we met at a market hall in San Telmo. They have lot of very old ‘treasures’ there as well as there are some farmers selling their grocery, meat and cheese. I found some maracuyas. They usually don’t sell them in the supermarkets. I finally bought myself a mate (drinking-vessel made out of pumpkin) with a bombilla (metal straw with a strainer at the end) some homemade sweet tomato jam and a bottle of homemade coffee liqueur. Before we went finding some young-designer clothes we had a snack and a capuccino in a café and later on, after ending our shopping day we had a coffee, some medialunas and churros.

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btw:  in (almost) every café they have WiFi and you can use it for free

Gift from Heaven

Yesterday, my flatmate and me went with some friends to Congo bar to have a drink or two before heading for a boliche. We sat outside. Then suddenly at the neighbor table I saw something falling from heaven. It almost hit the lady standing next to the table. She was shocked like hell. This big something “climbed” over the benches and “run” towards me. I was quite surprised!  I picked it up so the others could see it as well. They were astonished. It was really huge! I haven’t seen one of them “in nature” yet. More than ever not that big! It was “hurt” at one side. We decided to eat it ‘cos it would go well with the beer. There was enough for everyone! It is well known for its fat content. Unfortunately we didn’t have any shrimps or something else. Nonetheless this mammoth avocado tasted good. Now I know how a avocado tree can look like and how dangerous they can be.

After that adventure we went to the boliche Crobar. It was the most expensive discotheque I’ve been to here in Bs.As. (AR$ 50 = 9€). It was so overcrowded but the atmosphere was great as the ligth/laser shows. We decided to leave this location at 5.30am ‘cos they just played Electro…

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At the end a “by-the-way”: in case there is no change at the ticket desk down at the subte, or the workers are striking, or the turnstiles are out of order, or there are too many people causing a traffic jam you get free passing