Mate, empanadas, gauchos, river delta, smoky dance bars….tango. A modern city of 9 million souls with working cattle ranches only sixty minutes away. An old Victorian city with a tangle of rivers and bayou neighborhoods, boating clubs and water taxis. A pink government palace and miles of shanty town slums. Like so much we have seen in South America, a place of passionate contradiction.
Our first day in Buenos Aires we set out for the countryside, and a look at an old fashioned farm with horses, cattle, peacocks, ducks, chickens, and a farmhouse left just as it was 100 years ago….with silver in the dining room, family portraits and piano in the parlor, and guns on the office wall. We were greeted by Argentinian cowboys (gauchos) in traditional dress including their wide-legged gaucho pants, heavy leather belts encrusted with silver medallions, and the all important do-everything implement - the knife. After serving a traditional barbecue - meat, meat, meat, and more meat, then a sugary pastry and the traditional tea, mate (pronounced mah-tay), the gauchos demonstrated their horsemanship by riding at full speed towards a tiny suspended ring which they then “lanced” and captured on a thin stick.
Best of all was a display of traditional dance with much heel stomping and strange kicking, graceful arms and use of handkerchiefs. Almost as good was the fast fingering of the guitar players in what seemed like gypsy music to me - raw, fast, pulsating.
On the way back into the city, I got my first look at the tin structures - most often roofless, sometimes with only one wall - where the city’s newest immigrants, mostly from Peru and Chile, live. They go on for miles. They have no electricity and no running water. They are within minutes of the Marriot and Ritz Carlton hotels, the H. Stern and Prada shops.
In the morning we went through some of the older neighborhoods of Vicente Lopez, Martinez, Olivos, San Isidro and Acassusso on our way to the river Parana de las Palmas, one of the main branches of the Tigre Delta. For more than 100 years, the maze of rivers and channels of the Tigre Delta have been a favorite weekend getaway for “portenos” (inhabitants of Buenos Aires). Reminiscent, to me, of the bayous around Baton Rouge, the little islands along the rivers are dotted with whimsical tiny houses, petite gabled cottages, miniscule stone churches. The inhabitants are served by water taxis for transport, and grocery barges for shopping. If you want the grocery boat to stop at your dock, you hang a bag on a stick. Then you get to hop on board and purchase anything from food to brooms.
The final stop was a Tango Master Class, taught by professional tango dancers, at La Ventana, located in the San Telmo district. Along the way we passed the Casa Rosada, or Pink House, which houses the government’s executive branch. So many of the buildings in this downtown area are pink - why? Because they are painted with a mixture of lime and pig’s blood, which reduced the development of mold in this humid country. And every street, or building, has the word “May” in it, to commemorate the revolution for freedom from Spain in May of 1807.
What can I say about tango? A complex mixture of poverty, African culture, Spanish culture, men-without-women culture, squeeze boxes, and guitars all came together to create this dance. Ranging from classical to today’s hip-hop and rock ‘n roll inspired versions, tango IS Argentina. Originally only danced by men, then men and prostitutes, it finally made its way into polite society. It retains a raw sensuality, and can be danced with love, or in anger, or as rejection. Its steps are many, and constantly evolving. It can be simple, or dramatic. It must always be danced with brio.
And this is maybe .0000000001 of what tango is.
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