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Another day in BA
Entry 62 of 323 | show all | print this entry |
We got up wayyyy to early and after a quick bit at the hostel headed forthe bike tour. The day was shaping up to be in the high 20´s, but with no humididty and a slight breeze. Beautiful day for a bike ride. We spent the morning in the old parts of BA, San Telmo, the birth palce of Tango, and La Boca, where the working live today. in the late 1800, many Italian immigrants came here, and their roots are very visible. The pizzarias, the way people talk, accents, hand gestures, almost like little Italy. Tons of tourists hand around Caminito street, famous for its colourful buildings.
http://www.callefloridastreet.com/rest/b05.htm
After the bike tour we wandered around the city, and enjoyed the old historic buildings and the people of BA.
A few interesting things to note here about BA, and Argentina in general. First of all, it is quite the culture shock from Peru and Bolivia. Here streets are paved, people are dressed like in North America.
Down town BA is packed with men in suits and ties, and nicely dressed women. Maybe everyone works in a bank here. The place is full of beautiful building from late 19th century to earl 20th. Makes for much better sceneray than huge glass high rise buildings.
Every single corner has at least 2 cafe. The funny thing is, it seems to be begging for a Starbucks or Second Cup or some other chain. We only found two chains in the entire city: Havanna and Mc Cafe. Yes, McDondald´s has a section in every eretaurant that is labelled McCafe. They know how to fit in. All the other ones are just independentaly owned. And they are all full of people all the time. Argentine love their coffee. You order a coffee with milk, and for a $1 you get a good coffee, two small biscuits, a samll OJ and a small water. And you just want to sit and chat and people watch for hours. How they get anything done is beyond us.
If for some reason you cannot make it to the cafe, they will bring it to you. A common site is to see a waiter, or waitress, going down a busy street with a tray and cover on it, and inside is a coffee of cappuccino. When you need a coffe, you need a coffee! Not sure if there is a ´20 minutes or free´ guarantee.
A few more facinating things about BA. People here love their dogs. Enough so, that when they are busy having coffee, they feel the dogs need to go for a walk. There are tons of professional dog walkers with 10 - 15 dogs with them all around the city. These range from highschool kids to retires and everywhere in between.
The city has many ´plazas´ which are cool grassy areas in the middle of the city. Because it is spring here, people are out and about all the time, just sitting in the plaza, chilling making out, having a beer.
Wednesday night we signed up for a Tango Experience, which was to include a lesson, dinner and some practice. and of course, wine!
The lesson was quite cool. We did not learn any steps. rather the approach and attitude it takes to tango well, and to lead Tango well. Quite a different approach to dance lessons than what we are used to.
Dinner was pizza for a change (that really seems to be all they eat here, steak or pizza) followed by some more dancing with intermitten lessons. We did learn a bit about the history.
Way back when, the brothels were really busy, and the men used to sit around downstairs, waiting for their turn. While waiting the frequently drank lots and got frisky with each other. Tango was started by men dancing. It combined some European ball room moves like waltz, polka etc with some african moves like candoble (read Salvador blog from mid Oct 2006) and some latino (salsa etc).
For a long time tango died and was not seen or heard in Argentina, but in the last 20 years it has been coming back and the young and old alike are out there dancing up a storm in clubs and on the streets.
We saw a particularly cool older couple on Florida street ( a pedestrian shoping street) putting on a great show.
By 2 ish we were quite spent and tangoed out and decided to head back to the hostel.
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