Buenos Aires Growing on Me
Usually things just work out for the best. The rain today which fell in bucketloads for twelve hours straight was a good thing. I went to the MALBA museum which has Latin American art. The place was packed with Argentinians and some tourists. They came for the opening of the David Lachapelle exhibition. Who is Mr Lachapelle? I didn’t think I knew, but when I saw his art it all became clear. He is an American photographer who has been doing wild stuff for a few years. You can look him up. He also does music videos I guess as the director and art designer. They had huge prints of his photographs (examples – Pamela Anderson basically nude in a spray on tanning booth and the nozzles are spraying a brown goop on her body and Naomi Campbell totally nude laid out on a table with breakfast fixings) and were playing a half dozen of his videos (Christina Aguilera, Macy Gray, Moby, Elton John, etc.) playing in a small theatre. I laughed heartily at each photo. Most people were taking them very seriously. I flashed back to the Botero museum in Bogota where I was laughing and everyone else was so serious. If you can’t laugh at fun art, you probably should not be there. I know Botero and Lachapelle would want it that way and, no, I don’t know either of them. I ate lunch in the museum’s cafe and enjoyed a delicious, serious meal with a glass of nice and also serious red wine. Maybe the people taking Lachapelle seriously should have had that glass of wine before touring.
I got out of the museum late in the afternoon and it went from downpour to almost sunshine before I reached the first intersection. Things were looking up. I walked through a beautiful section of old stately manors and I was not surprised to find many of them converted into embassies. It’s amazing the digs that even poor countries find for their embassies. I think I want to work in the foreign services for all the perks. I walked by three exceptional looking ice cream stores before I broke down and had some. It was unbelievably good. I went to a mall planning on seeing a movie. I walked around and around admiring all of the fine stores and beautiful women. I am officially moving Argentina women ahead of Colombia and I believe there is a higher percentage of beautiful women here than in Sweden. The stories I started hearing back in Mexico and throughout the rest of Latin America are confirmed – Argentina has the most beautiful women on the continent. Maybe Brazil or Chile will have something to say about that, but I doubt it. And Argentina does not seem to have any obsession with makeup, face lifts or body augmentation. It’s all natural here, baby!
I was lost in just taking it all in when I realized that more then two hours had gone by and I had not found the cinema. So I skipped the movie and walked back to my hostel. I’m staying in a pretty lowly place, but the people are friendly as they are everywhere in this country and city and it is in a nice part of town. I was in a better place last time I was in town, but it was in a loud, pumping section of downtown and I think that kept me from appreciating this place. Palermo where I am staying now is quieter, more residential and has beautiful parks like the botanical garden. I walked by it today and the hundreds of cats were licking themselves trying to dry off from the rain. They were just as fat and happy as I recall from two weeks ago and many of them came up to the metal fence when I called for them. A couple started to follow me home until it became apparent that meant they had to leave the safety of the park. That might be the grandest place to live as a cat on earth.
After a bit of a break in my room, I went for dinner. I was early. It was only 8:30 and things don’t start really going here until 10 PM. This city goes all night long. I went to Katmandu for Indian food and it was the best Indian food I have ever consumed. It wasn’t dumbed down like most of them in the US and it exceeded my previous favorites in England. By time I left the place was starting to get busy. I walked by eight different ice cream shops on the way home. I’d like to say that I skipped all of them or even that I held out until that eighth one, but this would not be true. It was exceptional, too. I also passed many McDonald’s with their McCafes aimed at the Argentinian requirements for coffee and sweets. McCafe – I kid you not. I cannot count the number of bakeries and coffee shops. I also cannot count the number of restaurants who serve asado – barbequed beef.
Quite a different dinner this evening than last. I had some weird pizza last night. Most pizza is weird so that was not so strange. I just wanted a simple pizza and beer. While eating my salad and pizza, a little girl came up to my table and rattled off something in lousy Spanish. I ignored her because I figured she was trying to sell me something. You’ll never get this until you have been approached a hundred times while eating by mostly kids trying to sell you something. They like to put it on your table and walk away and then come back and try to get money for it. I ignore them all. If they push my buttons enough, I snarl. So this girl walked to another table after I had ignored her long enough. Then I noticed she had nothing to sell. Her back was to me when she was at the third table getting turned away. I called her over and asked her in lousy Spanish is she was hungry. She was there begging for food, not selling anything. I told her to take the rest of my pizza and move on. She picked it up and left.
Everyone is easy going and the streets are quite safe. The people picking through the garbage bags do so in an orderly manner and don’t seem to leave any mess behind. Garbage pickup is obviously tonight or tomorrow in this part of town. Why are the cats living in the streets looking so good and plump and there are people picking through the garbage everywhere I see garbage and there are kids needing to go into restaurants to beg for food? There was a man in the street, possibly dead. A crowd stood around him while a couple of people tended to him. His shirt was missing. There was blood on his abdomen. There was a large pool of blood in the street and it was streaming away from him. I stopped and decided I had seen enough and continued to walk on wondering if he had been hit by a bus or a car or if he had been shot. I also wondered why people stood around and watched. Were they there for moral support? Maybe they were just waiting for the next bus and this was the entertainment to get through the dull moments?
The rain started up again just as I got inside the hostel. Nice little arrangement with the rain today. I’m starting to get Buenos Aires and like the place. I think my trip to Uruguay today was rained out for a reason. I have one more day here and I am going to make the best of it. I know I want to get an English book before I leave here or the next two months will be very long. Worst case – I stand at a corner and watch all of the beautiful women stroll by with big smiles and laughs and twinkles in their eyes. Maybe I will go sit in a park and let a cat sit on my lap and purr away…
Tags: argentina, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
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