The Paris of the South

The first thing that struck me about Buenos Aires was when I looked out of the plane window at roughly 5:00am and saw the sea of flickering red lights which at 10,000 feet or more (considering we were descending)and I could not actually see and end to them. It's not like London where there is a finite limit to the light pollution whereby you normally can define the end of a city, more or less, the city literally rolls on for an incomprehensible space.

As we pulled away from the airport we entered one of the most impoverished Barrios, where you can expect to see the poor constructing their homes from whatever they can get their hands on. A kind of inner city shanty town. In fact, across Buenos Aires there is a kind of form of recycling in existence. During/after the siestas (which last most of the afternoon, all year round) usable rubbish is simply left out in piles on the streets, and come nightfall, the poor will go around the city dragging massive carts that a horse would find difficult to carry collecting up this rubbish to use in making their houses, the sleep in, to clothe themselves with or less often, to sell. Another thing that is quite evident across Buenos Aires, particularly in the slightly less affluent areas is the abundance of ever so slightly aggressive political statements spray painted in large letter across the buildings of certain areas. Milder slogans such as 'Hasta los personnas, no los corporacionnes ' are fairly common. However considering it has only been rougly thirty years since the country came out of a military rule, democracy is still a baby here, and understandably with this new freedom of expression, generally and politically, combined with the immigrant basis of the population, it has created a passionate environment in terms of politics.

Like the U.S.A, Argentina is an immigrant country. Aside from the native peoples whose presence is still in the country today there is are large Italian and Spanish presences. There is almost a dichotomy in respect to demographics, particularly in metropolis-like environments in the limited regions I have seen, such as Buenos Aires. This dichotomy, in my opinion, lies in the ethnics of the people, from Latino to European. This, in all senses of the phrase is not a black and white description, the population is equally ( well...sort of) as diverse as other cities worldwide. This immigrant influence is not only present in demographics. It is more immediately striking in the cities' architecture. This, I am told by Mark, the fountain of knowledge.....as it would seem, is the reason why Buenos Aires is referred to as the Paris of the South. I can easily see why to be quite honest. For me the city was immensely like an amalgamation of London, Paris and New York, yet with an unmistakable South American quality which was omnipresent. The city won me over instantaneously with its somewhat chaotic nature and confused charm.

Also, having, as aforementioned in previous posts, had a fairly sheltered and comfortable existence, South America was at first a bit of a culture shock as little as I like to admit it. I find it extremely pleasurable to be surrounded by a completely new people and the eccentricities of their culture, and I must admit, little, slightly nerdy things fascinate me. I am told that the bus, as we know it was invented in Argentina, despite being the supposed pioneers of the thing we call 'bus', they appear to have stuck with a type of bus that can only be described as 'retro'. I'm not talking good old Dorset where the council have spent all their funds of cider and Wurzel's cd's and then remembered that they have to buy buses so they bulk buy the cheapest modern alternative, furnish it brown and get some homeless bloke to sleep in it for a week so it smell like an old foot mixed with burrito, but genuinely old, 60's/70's buses. They also have developed a mechanism which I believe is unique to the county whereby a tool is attached instead of a hubcap which via movement of the tire, perpetuates the tyre pressure..thereby minimising cost. or something. But I thought it looked quite alien. So when the traffic was at a standstill..I ran out, whacked out the old camera and squatted down and took the odd snap of the bus tyres. I recieved odd looks. Also, Argentinians cannot function with a wheel to hunch behind and a horn to beep. Nor can the pedestrians survive a day without cat-like reflexes, a sixth sense and scant regard for giving the finger and various abuse! Also, to deal with the sheer millions of people that depend on buses for daily use, they have to travel in packs of three...something oddly animalistic about that. Fucking hell, all this bantering on about buses, I feel like Boris!!

Another thing that shocked me aside from the people, the architecture, the traffic and the public services, was the perpetual tsunami of dogs, ferrel and domestic. Argentinians love their dogs, even the strays are more well fed than that bastard of a Labrador that messes up my home back home. Dog walkers walk about 25 at a time. Sheer madness!

Having arrived at the apartment where we would be staying for 2 nights, just off Santa Fe and Beruti, we made good use of the Supermercado and buy some good, cheap, local beer. Seriously, you pay more for the bottle than you do for its contents. Anyway, at Mark's suggestion we stuck into it, and after my first steak dinner (of many) we went back to the apartments and Ritchie and I went down to a girl called Jess' room who was also on the course. We managed to bugger up her lights, blowing all the fuses, breaking the heater and seemingly stopping all hot water in one go. Admittedly this was after Beer, schnapps and vodka in what could not be described as modest quantities, this was, as you can imagine a poor time for us to go and call on the landlady. Fortunately she spoke no English whatsoever. I say fortunately because this became obvious to Ritchie, who in his drunken state, and through his impenetrable Scottish accent decided to just point at all the things that were broken and shout "HOLA...BALLBAG, COCKNOSE, ADIOS...BALLBAG..ARSEHOLE..BALLBAG...QUE?...BALLBAG!" which she, thank god did not understand. However, I cannot say the same for 'Clitoris' and 'Anal' which he also decided to say, a lot. These words are exactly the same in Spanish. Despite the initial shock she was as in as much hysterics as we were. So, I think I can safely say crisis avoided.

So after we had saved ourselves from eviction on multiple levels, we retreated, with God awful jet-lag, and finally hit the hay, to awaken to a fresh (or not) day to explore the diverse behemoth that is Buenos Aires.