The best part of Buenos Aires was not the welcoming kindness of strangers, nor was it the trendy boutique hotels, clean modernism mixed with whispers of Italy, or even the incredible meals of chorizo, giant steaks, grilled provolone, and fantastically cheap, delicious wine. It wasn't absorbing the sunshine and contentness within its lush parks or strolling the open antique markets searching out lemon-champagne sorvettos.My favorite was the Milonga.
Milongas are events hosted by all variety of venue on any given night -- prestigious establishments aside make-shift dance halls open their doors, ushering in a colorful cross-section of Argentinian society. The old couples, the young couples, the in between, the artists, the conformists, the bohemists, the dirty-old-men, the tramps, the ugly, the beautiful, the punks, the drunks, the coordinated and less coordinated come together to worship sound and movement until late, late into the night. And so the crowd carefully shifts, choreographed rhythms elegantly elaborated as the band watches. And I watch too, falling in love. I'm in love with the tango.
Pause. together --- Pause. Sway --- together. The humanness and beauty of movement, simultaneous with her counterpart to complete the motion, overwhelms me. I unravel the spectacle slowly -- the dancers changing partners every song; somehow, two people across the room appear and make their way to one another on the dance floor. Did she give him the eye? Its invisible to me, but somehow the dancer and dancer-to-be signal each other wordlessly. (Pheromones.) Then, never having met before, they embrace in a new sensual entanglement, somehow knowing all the steps to glide across the floor as a synchronized pair.
Ah, if only my lovers were this good. I must learn to tango.
Boutique hotel - Palermo Soho
Giant artwork - metallic flower opens by day and closes each night
Loving the park
Trees on a Buenos Aires street
The unicorn room at the audacious Faena Universe hotel (for the gays)
