On the 24th of
February I am supposed to take the plane to London ,
then to Buenos Aires .
Except it doesn’t quite happen like that. I get on the first plane alright, then
we sit for more than an hour in the plane, waiting for who knows what, and when
we finally take off, I am almost certain I will miss the second plane in
London. I do. Luckily, British Airways is a good airline and compensates this
minor delay in my trip by giving me a lot of meal vouchers and allocating me in
a nice hotel with steam bath, but no WIFI. Here, I spend my day eating at the
hotel’s nice buffets with Janet, from Ireland ,
and sleeping, getting ready for Argentina !
At the airport in Buenos Aires , I meet Anja, from Germany , and something just clicks.
Little did I know then that we would spend the next two and a half weeks
chasing each other in Patagonia … Juan welcomes
me at the bus station with detailed instructions on how to get to his apartment
and a giant smile, and he is fluent in German! When will I get to practice my
Spanish with all these German-speaking people around? After a nice shower I
head into town. The bus drives through Palermo ,
leaving me in the Recoleta Barrio (neighborhood) where I want to visit the
famous cemetery where Eva Peron (Evita), among other illustrious personalities,
is buried. The place is magical with huge crypts, rusty locks and spider webs
adding some mystery to it. Who were all these people? What were their lives like?
Why were they buried here? I let my imagination run wild.
On my second day,
the plan is to go to la Boca ,
another famous barrio in Buenos Aires ,
where most of the immigrants first settled; those Italians who used to work in
the meat factories, filling tin boxes for exportation. I pick up Anja from her
hostel in San Telmo, famous for its tango bars (milongas). We spend the whole
day strolling around in la Boca ,
el Caminito, with its colored houses and artists selling their works in the
street. Then we get hungry and decide on a restaurant with a show. Anja wants
to try some tango on the scene of the restaurant. She undergoes a total
transformation. From a girl with backpacker look she changes into the most
elegant tango dancer, en-lacing her partner to the rhythm of the seductive
music. When they finish, everyone cheers, they probably thought she was part of
the show…
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