Balcony railings in La Boca
Stepping out in Buenos Aires
Foot fetish, anyone? In Buenos Aires, it’s all about feet – from tango to shoe-shopping to soccer, finds Belinda Jackson.
When Buenos Aires pouts – and that is often – it is the sexiest pout in all the world. Paris might have its mous of disapproval, Cairo its quick tsk of rejection, Bangkok its smiling refusal. But when Buenos Aires mixes its regret with tragedy and a touch of sulkiness, it is a lip-biting, swoon-inducing expression that makes you want to be mean to its residents just to see that seductive pout again.
For Argentina, the world is a stage on which to perform, and watching a street tango in Buenos Aires is the ultimate expression of that drive. It sounds corny to go to the city’s most heavily touristed district, San Telmo, and throw money to dancing couples. But it’s all so beautiful and tragic: she in a scraplet of sequins and high-rise stilettos, her beau encased in the formal garb of shiny spats and tight-fitting suit, a barrier that barely constrains the passion between the couple in a dance that began, allegedly, as one between the city’s prostitutes and visiting sailors – a prelude to, or a parody of the inevitable transaction between the two.
Tango souvenirs on sale in La Boca
“Your face should be expressionless,” says Nahuel, as we slide across the dance floor in the Mansion Dandi Royal, a hotel-cum-tango academy in San Telmo. We drag our feet in a deliberately slovenly waltz. “It’s your body that’s talking,” Nahuel adds. To illustrate, he moves a hair’s width closer, to a proximity that would usually be attained only after at least three dates and a dinner invitation, and leads me through the mournfully sexy dance.
Did I happen to mention that Argentineans and, in particular, the natives of Buenos Aires – or porteños, as they’re known – rank among the world’s most beautiful people? They should give thanks to their forefathers, generations of incoming Italians and Spanish. Even their South American Spanish, is overlaid with a singsong Italian accent.
For a few decades, tango became decidedly unhip, practiced only by the old guard in late-night milongas. These tango dances were held in shabby, smoky dance halls, explains my Buenos Aires-based friend Silvia, who, at 70-something, has seen it all before, and still cuts it on the dance floor.
Locals shooting the breeze in La Boca
The sultriest dance is back with a vengeance, and even the most chic hotels, such as the Philippe Starck-designed Faena Hotel Universe in the rejuvenated docklands district of Puerto Madero, has its own cabaret or can steer you in the direction of a good night’s watching or dancing.
The dance is all-pervasive: this city reeks of tango. To get to Puerto Madero, you might cross the modern six-million-US-dollar Puente de la Mujer or ‘woman's bridge’ – a footbridge designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who was inspired by the drawn-out leg of the woman in the classic, supplicant tango pose. You’ll hear the music pouring from cafés across the city: rich, dramatic accordions accompanied by weeping violins, playing a set of standard tunes, scandalously reworked by singer-composer Carlos Gardel in the 1920s and today, reinterpreted anew by the likes of the part-Argentinean trio Gotan Project.
Even in Buenos Aires’ chic Recoleta district, home to weekly handcraft markets, tango couples draw ice-cream eating crowds as they busk by the city’s beautiful 19th-century fountains, while the hectic, touristy Sunday open-air flea markets in San Telmo’s Plaza Dorrego are full of tango records and sheet music, as well as everything from flimsy, beaded necklaces and old trumpets to statement-making chandeliers.
A tomb at the cemetery of Recoleta
With a stroke of luck and good management (Silvia’s pulled rank as a grande dame), we’ve scored a seat at the Bar Plaza Dorrego and are sipping a cortado, a shot of espresso. As we watch the crowd of tourists and their pickpocket shadows, she tries to explain the cult-like reverence and adoration in which the country’s best dancers are bathed. Tango is not just a dance, she informs me, waggling a heavily bejewelled finger. It’s an expression of the national psyche and also a fashion statement.
It’s no wonder the city is in thrall to the personal trainer, whose ranks rivals those of psychiatrists – no mean feat, considering Buenos Aires, allegedly, has the highest number of psychiatrists per capita in the world – as you’ll gather from the students handing out promotional leaflets for a quick spot of psychotherapy on the street.
Once they’re trim and terrific from working out with their trainers du jour, the shopping-obsessed porteños throw themselves bodily into the city’s fashion fray, from the high-end Patio Bullrich in Retiro and tiny artisans’ boutiques of Palermo to the main drag of downtown Florida Street, popular with more budget-oriented fashionistas (though the city’s best tango shops also find their homes here).
With a few pointers from Silvia, I stop in at the friendly Tango Brujo, where the Latino obsession with beautiful footwear – in particular, nine-centimetre heels – is indulged to the point of fanaticism. There’s a dance school upstairs and tango dresses, training shoes and men’s dance trousers on the racks. Yes, I sign up for email updates.
The brightly coloured corrugated iron houses of La Boca
After just a few days, I’m realising that worshipping the foot is of paramount importance in Buenos Aires – and when the local population isn’t dancing or promenading, it’s playing football. Argentina owns the ultimate rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-respectability sports story, carved out by football deity Diego Maradona, and the beautiful game reaches fever pitch in Argentina. For the ultimate fanaticism, Maradona has announced he will open a US$15 million, football-themed hotel in his neighbourhood, La Boca, next year. Goal nets for bedheads, anyone?
On a walk past the La Bombonera football stadium on a non-football day, the wind whistles down the poor streets. Girls shoot the breeze, sitting on the street’s steps or hanging over balconies, while boys shoot goals, teams of them ganging up to battle it out on makeshift pitches. On match days, these streets are heaving with the notoriously passionate Buenos Aires fans, imbued with the sort of fervour usually associated with religion or world domination.
The streets are lined with once-grand mansions now split into tenements, and the city’s trademark colourful cantinas and cafés, where dancers work among outdoor tables. While historically, it has been a poor district, close to Buenos Aires’ working docks, the streets of La Boca, its rows of corrugated iron houses, set between mansions laced with satellite dishes and crazed wiring, are painted in a rich palette of sunny oranges, eggy yellows and sky blues.
Street performers dance the tango in La Boca
It’s like a grown-up version of Sesame Street, with its bright colours, cacophony of tango music and energy on the street. It sets your heart racing and your feet tapping and suddenly, without warning, you’re dancing.
Photography by Belinda Jackson
Travel Facts
Getting there
- LAN Airlines has daily services from Australia to Argentina via Santiago. Phone 1800 221 572 or go to www.lan.com
- Aerolineas Argentinas flies Sydney to Buenos Aires via Auckland, with a new non-stop service twice-weekly, commencing 12 November 2009. Phone 02 9234 9000 or visit www.aerolineas.com.au
Getting around
- Adventure Associates, phone 1800 222 141 or visit www.adventureassociates.com
- BFirst Travel, phone 1300 763 338 or visit www.bfirsttravel.com
- Connoisseur Tours, phone 1800 507 777 or visit www.connoisseurtours.com
- Contours, phone 03 9328 8488 or visit www.contourstravel.com.au
- GAP Adventures, phone 1300 796 618 or visit www.gapadventures.com/v&t
- Intrepid Travel, phone 1300 364 512 or visit www.intrepidtravel.com
- Kumuka Worldwide, phone 1300 667 277, text 0412 586 852 or visit www.kumuka.com
- Tempo Holidays, phone 1300 558 987, www.tempoholidays.com
- Qantas Holidays, phone 13 1415 or visit www.qantas.com.au/holidays
Where to stay
- 248 Finisterre is a 10-room hotel in the up-and-coming suburb of Las Cañitas. Phone +54 11 4773 0901 or visit www.248finisterra.com
- Mansion Dandi Royal & Tango Academy in San Telmo offers a rate that includes daily tango lessons and weekly milongas (tango evenings). Phone +54 11 4307 7623 or visit www.mansiondandiroyal.com
Tips
- At the time of writing, AU$1 = 2.72 Argentinean pesos (ARS).
- Many travellers visit Buenos Aires as a city addition to an Antarctica cruise.
Further information
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