‘This city has more psychiatrists than any other city on earth. It also has more dogs than children under 10 years old. I guess a surefire crisis every decade explains both those things’.

Firstly, though: blast Taylor Swift to heck for her inconceivably widespread following.

This city — Buenos Aires — is arguably the one I’ve looked forward to most.

Everyone’s got good things to say about it. Every single one.

Anyway, I’ll spare you the angst: it justified that pedestal.

Not all plain sailing from the top, mind. The day prior to our arrival we spent 4 hours flicking through all the familiar platforms trying to locate a room, single bed, sofa, dusty corner or damp, dank store cupboard on which to rest our heads. Only after several nosedived WhatsApp chats and a bout of mild panic did it become apparent why the city was seemingly sold out: Swifties. We arrived on day one of her three shows in the city. How in the tupenny fudgebar did this happen? Managed to snag two beds in a dorm for way over the odds. All sorts of reviews mentioning robberies, bedbugs and other delightful things, but what choice do we have? Could’ve been a whole lot worse. Never underestimate that mob.

So how about it?

San Telmo is a gorgeous area of cobbled streets, small kioscos and ornate colonial balconies. It’s Barcelona meets Paris meets some other delectable European flavours, complete with an ever-bustling market and mucho cyclists.

The city palms are back and beautiful, dotted on streetsides and abundant in the city’s many parks. There’s a highly effective metro system. At every turn there’s a cluster of delicious looking eateries. I had the sense very quickly that this is what happens when aesthetics start a love affair with gastronomy, and the two hold fast with aplomb.

But the poverty is more stark. As it tends to be in big cities, capital cities. Here though you sense the immediacy of political impacts — you wonder how the perpetual crises have chewed up and spat out people in different, equally debilitating ways. I remember complaining to George about something a few seconds before seeing a man drinking from a 2 litre bottle of lemonade in a makeshift bed under a bridge. 

I was probably complaining about the washout, because our first full day was a total washout. I think it’s the only complete write-off we’ve had on account of weather, which isn’t bad going so many months in. We had ventured out when the proverbial heavens opened their floodgates, and spent about an hour sheltered by the side of a road, taking it in turns to step out and attempt to hail a taxi. Eventually we made it to Palermo, which we’d heard was the ‘place to be’ for first time visitors to the city. Seemed bleak to be honest, but we were saturated so it was a tarnished take. We returned to Palermo Viejo and Palermo Soho a few days later, in the sunshine, and very much enjoyed its colourful streets and neo-bohemian appeal. 

RELEVANT FLASHBACK

On our Uyuni tour we became friends with Rick and Lotte. Splendid Dutch couple they are. Said our goodbyes back then in San Pedro, merry on wine and saddened by the inevitable. Alas. When we’re rocking up to our Buenos Aires hostel for the first time, Lotte’s up there on the balcony ‘oh hi Sam, hi Georgie’. The bloody chances?! Apparently actually quite high; Swifties have booked everywhere else eh.

So we rolled with them a fair bit over the next few days. Rick & Lotte. Not the Swifties. Why am I giving her so much page time she’s already a global superstar. Featuring so heavily in this blog is only gona make her blow up more. 

G and I spent the evening of the washout at a wonderfully rustic old literary bar called La Poesia, where we played cards and drank vino tinto beneath the exemplary lighting. Fascinating editorial bulletins and poems adorn the walls. Jolly good show. 

One of my favourite ever writers is an Argentinian. Jorge Luis Borges. He lived and wrote and was inspired by Buenos Aires. His work is characterised by a gorgeous complexity, torn personalities, and labyrinthine paradox. His fictions and short stories are pieces I’ll return to time and time again, whenever I get close to believing I’m a semi-capable scribe.

Now then, from books and words and sentences and shit to another topic I like. Let’s talk about football for a hot minute. South America loves football. It’s as much a religion as actual religion, I’d argue. Argentinians really bloody love football, and it’s easy to see why. They’re World Champions. They’ve got Messi. They've got some legendary heritage n all. Yada yada. There’s an international break whilst we’re in situ; they play and beat Brazil. The energy in the bar is electric. We also head down to the Boca region of Buenos Aires one afternoon — it’s rough around the edges but infectiously colourful, with Tango bars and a market pitching tidbits for hiked prices near the docks. It’s also home to Estadio Alberto J Mufa, where Boca Juniors play. We don’t go in but it’s absolutely massive, and it must be something to hear the roar of its ultras on matchday. 

Aaaanyway. We were doing some browsing a while back and found out that Día de La Tradición — a celebration of traditional values and gaucho life — is taking place just a few hours away in San Antonio de Areco. Obviously we’re about that. 

It doesn’t take much to persuade Rick & Lotte to get involved. He’s always had dreams of being a cowboy, and gauchos are quintessential Argentinian cowboys, so we all hop on an early bus out of the city, chomping at the bit for some idiosyncratic festivities. Only thing I recall from the journey is a lean peloton of cyclists on the motorway. Danger danger, high voltage. 

Right nice couple of days. The washout from BA hadn’t swerved San Antonio de Areco so the big park outside of town was right sodden on the Saturday, meaning everything was cancelled. Bummer, but no bother. After a seismic Asado we mooched around and watched horses trot to and fro and sipped cans of beer, wondering how long the visual stimuli would suffice. Then we were summoned by a gaucho family led by Pablo. Legend is a title thrown about willy nilly nowadays, but they were all legends of the absolute and irrefutable variety, offering us drinks and more food (we’re struggling at this stage), teaching us the local dance of Chacarera, and encouraging raucous support to vehicles struggling through the sludge. They’d also welcomed a middle-aged Irish couple and a professional equestrian photographer from France into their marquee. What a crowd. A couple of hours passed this way, and their wonderful warm welcome felt more a reflection of gaucho values than we’d have found had the festivities not fallen off. Unreal energy from start to finish. 

We headed into town to this gorgeous, rustic pub on the corner just off the main square. Absolutely rife with gauchos, and here it transpired that in the absence of pastoral peace, equine skills and impressive herding, gaucho culture is all about the bevvies. It was like being in a pub garden in Bristol in summer before a big sports fixture, with beers in abundance, large round bellies, deep chatter and mild toxicity, except here the attire wins out in a big way. Traditional gaucho wear consists of alpargata shoes (similar to espadrilles), strong cotton bombachas de campo trousers which are flarey as anything but close in at the ankle, and then the beret-like sombrero. Every Gaucho seemingly also has a distinctive coin belt and facón — a knife they take everywhere for meat and utility. 

Biiiiiiig traditional scenes in the evening. Grand fires churn out carne after carne around the main square, where people dance the Chacarera to live music for hours on end. We get involved at intervals, much to the amusement of certain locals. We were touched by the sight of elderly couples moving rhythmic and assured to the guitars and age-old tunes. They’ve known the moves since they were strong enough to walk, and this day is for them. 

Sunday morning we grab some empanadas and grab a spot at the squareside. For a couple of hours aaaaaall the Gaucho factions and families in attendance parade on their horses, adorned with unique markers of their region or ranch. Some stunning dress and even more stunning animals on show. There’s the odd two-year-old child galloping along on a fairly large horse. Endearing and irresponsible in equal measure, that. Does country-wide gaucho culture have a centralised health & safety officer or is it provincial? Roll with it. Big band energy n all. So yeah, things aren’t cancelled, which is nice. It’s also bloody hot, which is mostly nice. The ‘skills’ in the park consists of 1) breaking in new steeds; all sorts of bucking energy with a wee man trying to cling on, and 2) gauchos that specialise in herding and guiding like 15 identical looking horses on a flamboyant loop of the arena. It was impressive, and it was insightful, but that was it for us — we hitched a ride to the bus and headed back to Buenos Aires. 

Pretty fond of taking a walking tour in big cities. It gives some structure and context to what would otherwise be a seismic, meandering amble. This one stood out because the guide was some sort of historical, architectural, political, literary polymath. He introduced himself as a guide and a journalist, and I wish for the life of me I’d asked his full name because I’d love to read some of his articles. Fascinating, erudite guy. Here is a rapido account of what we learned, or what I can remember of it. Consider it a cluster of unstructured nuggets. 

Argentine congress has a doctrine pertaining to liberty and the right to welcome everyone. When one of their innumerable financial crises hit, people tried to burn down the house of congress three times. They’re at liberty to do that, no? 

There are, as you well know, loads and loads of psychotherapists in the city limits. 

I touched on this in the last entry but the guide gave us ample nuggets with regard to the giving away of land to Europeans in exchange for infrastructure. This was post-colonial and explains the epic diversity of Argentinian heritage. Fast forward. The country’s having a bit of a flourish, with plenty of thanks to big imports from Germany and France. Bit of a pickle when WWII broke out. Something something about pseudo-neutrality. 

There’s neo-gothic architecture flanked by brutalist buildings and at one point we’re instructed to scan the skyline because it ‘makes no coherent sense’. 

One building called Palacio Barolo reflects Dante’s Divine Comedy, split into hell, purgatory and heaven. The ground floors are dark, as you rise there are cloud balconies, and you can’t get a lift beyond the 14th floor, as you have to earn heaven

The country’s had seven (!) coup d’etats and dictatorships since the turn of the 20th century. An especially horrid period saw protesters disappear in great number, never to be found. Talk of torture and drops in the middle of the ocean. Elderly mothers of the disappeared still appear and campaign for answers. 

We learn about Evita Perón and her vital role in the regime of her husband, Juan Domingo; how she rose from actress to union leader to voice of a nation, and how their partnership invited dissent and hatred from opposing factions. When she died, not only was her funeral the biggest gathering of people in Buenos Aires until the World Cup win last year, but her body was subsequently stolen and spent like two decades being moved around to prevent political unrest. Wild story. 

This is a country that had 5 presidents in 2 weeks, with one lasting only 9 hours. This is a country where countless economic initiatives have crumpled and folded, leaving its inhabitants at best confused, and at worst desperate and desolate. This is a country that’s endured debt unlike any you’ve known. The state of affairs in a financial sense is as difficult to comprehend as it is relay. The guide tells us that the imminent election is between “a genuine psychopath, who gets his political direction from his dead dog” and “a man who would not sensibly stand a chance to win any other election anywhere in the world”. Rock and hard place comes to mind. Since the tour, the psychopath’s triumphed, so this oh-so-turbulent country isn’t quite done yet. 

For three more days we carve a rough course through the city’s different districts, taking in grand buildings, impressive art and emerging hotspots. We pass through the botanical garden, the city zoo, and a gorgeous rose garden. A spectacular city for a mooch, it really is.

One evening, with Rick & Lotte, we go to see some classical music at the grand, ornate Teatro Colon. When buying tickets we’re told ‘it’s a violinist’, but when we arrive there are just two cellos on stage. A little is lost in translation, evidently, but it doesn’t detract from the skill of the two players, who work through compositions both rousing and intricate, before finishing with a sublime rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. 

On our final night, we meet up with a couple of old amigos, drink several Aperol Spritz, play Jenga, and finish with some delightful Argentinian/Indian fusion small plates in the heart of edgy Palermo. Relatively piddled as we get on our way, and on our way we are, outta here, as southwards as it gets. It’s a testament to the integrity of our taxi driver, because on the way to the airport we’re both throwing up zz’s and kicking out fumes of booze. He could’ve driven us to a quiet street, left us napping, and removed all our belongings, but he didn’t. 

That’s the end of this entry. Jolly good show.