BA

It is said to be "Sex with your clothes on" .... the Tango

Buenos Aires …. A city with style, edge and contrasts. Around 40% of Argentinians live in greater BA. There are no suburbs on entering the city, it goes from agricultural farmland growing the huge quantities of beef required to sustain this nation’s meat devouring habit to light industry. Then it’s directly into high density housing in an almost never-ending monotony of grid streets lined with dirty apartment buildings decorated with clean laundry.

Plaza de Mayo

Highway flyovers conduct traffic past the barrios with toll-charging ease. Exits drawing off and adding to the fast moving masses of metal, their pilot’s masters of aggression and arrogance.

selling bongs in front of a copper!!

The streets of the city are filled with every walk of life. Down and out bums litter the occasional doorway shouting a litany of hard edged banter to their neighbour, their well-fed dogs sleeping through the alcohol fuelled exchange. Walls and shutters strung with random graffiti, brickwork and masonry almost impossible to be seen. Some, the simple inelegant tagging known the world over, tarnish on any surface its ‘artists’ touch. Contrasted with this are sides of buildings that are themselves works of art. Occasionally religious, often political but undoubtedly thought out and visually provocative.

All this bordering streets sporting litter and evidence of the cities canine population. But this city also appreciates the beauty and monotony-breaking natural outline of nature as trees, wide boulevards and parks dominate the inner city streetscape.

 

It’s the people that give this city a feel. Hipsters haunt the marketplaces. Their abstract art just as much confusion as their haircuts, their zippered and tied clothing as intriguing as their stares. Browsing the art and antiques is a collection of tourists and well-to-do locals. Vendors sharp eyes cataloguing each browser with practiced discern. Simple rubber-necked tourists or potential buyers, their judgements reflected in their attentiveness.

On the streets a myriad of humanity. Always on show, the Latin passion as a young couple trade harsh words and flailing limbs. Around the corner a community playground filled with screaming kids over-looked by over-weight mothers, their attention more dominated by the local gossip than the shenanigans inside the fenced municipal area.

Meanwhile well-dressed folk walk furry companions, chatting on cell phones and adjusting expensive sunglasses, their canine mates getting some out-of-apartment exercise while giving the street sweepers something to do.

It is a city that feels both beautifully European with its architecture and fashion conscious shoppers as well as edgy, its riot barricades in place around the parliament, not having been removed for 12 years, covered in un-selfconscious slogans. Where else can you have the sensual tango next to a cocaine addicted national football hero?