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The energy on my dancing feet – Buenos Aires tango shoes 2010

December 6, 2010 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires | 11 comments

Silvia Alanis at workTell me what you’re looking for and how much cash you want to spend, I say, Then I can decide on our route.

My friend is a tango-shoe virgin — so far she’s been dancing in footwear that resembles ankle boots and, I imagine, must deliver very sweaty results on 35-degree, early-summer days. I say this based solely on knowledge of my own feet which, alas, do not stay muy dry after three hours of dancing, even in winter. We’re standing on the corner of Montevideo and Avenida Santa Fe in Buenos Aires, at 11 o’clock in the morning on the first Saturday in December. I’m remembering my own first tango ‘danced’ in leather-soled cowboy boots from Mongolia, and the pair of shoes that followed those boots: ugly black closed-toe affairs bought in a dance shop in Basingstoke in 2006.

I’m looking for a pair today, too, I tell my friend, I might treat myself… if I find the perfect shoe.

It’s almost eighteen months since I bought my 2×4alpie favourites, and I’ve neither bought nor worn anything else since. I’ve been waiting for the new models of 2×4s for women to be ready, but they’re not due till next year. So, I need a fresh-smelling pair of tango shoes that will feel comfortable from the moment I step into them and that can cope with a pretty intense workout on dance floors of stone (common here in BsAs) as well as of wood. I don’t really expect to find anything that fit the bill, to be honest, but introducing a girlfriend to some of the tango shoe stores in Buenos Aires is a great opportunity to see what’s on the market as we approach 2011.

In Recoleta we visit Taconeando (on Arenales), GretaFlora (the new store on Uruguay) and Comme il Faut (just off Arenales in its slightly-tricky-to find-if-you-don’t-know-it’s-down-an-alley-and-up-some-stairs location).

Taconeando has prices as low (and therefore as relatively affordable) as around $300pesos, a red and black pair that my friend loves, but not in her size, and nothing to tempt me, because I already know their styles (though I like the youthful, trendy look of some) don’t work on my feet. The shop assistant leaves us to it, but tells us the shoes available are only those on display — no other sizes — which seems a bit odd, and I can’t help wondering about the economic climate, the rampant inflation in Buenos Aires and how tango-shoe businesses are being affected by the combination of the two. The brand retains its original designs, but the shop itself does not have the up energy that it had the first time I went in there in 2008. We move on.

We are the only customers in the new GretaFlora store. The store has a classy, designed-for-Recoleta feel, but I’m a bit disappointed to realise we’re in a store selling mainly street shoes for around $700-plus pesos a pair; the tango shoes — which do have a beautifully-crafted look — are from $580pesos (I think the assistant says that) and I’m afraid I decide on the spot that I’d probably save that sort of cash for a shoe with an interchangeable sole, in other words the new models of 2×4s due in 2011. While admiring the stunning leather and stone-cluster clip-on flowers behind the counter (a relative bargain at $90pesos a pair), we learn from the friendly and kind assistant that it’s the Palermo GretaFlora store that has the full range of tango shoes… this new store is really for weddings, parties, luxury footwear for off the dance floor. No-one else comes in while we are there. We thank her and move on.

I already know I won’t be buying anything in Comme il Faut as I just don’t find their shoes flexible enough or cushioned enough for my slightly damaged left big-toe joint (I’ve got 4 pairs of CiFs in my kitchen cupboard that I never wear). However, once my bum is on that velvet couch of theirs, I can’t resist trying a pair in black patent leather … but no, I was right, the toe bar is way too hard for that left foot, so I hand them back fast. My friend, on the other hand, predictably falls in love, with a delicate design in red and black that conjures words like France and sex and goddess and daring romance. She spontaneously starts doing adornos on the carpet in front of the mirror and clapping her hands, and I see the SOLD sign reflected in the shop assistant’s eyes. But, it seems, my friend is not the impulse buyer that I myself can be. She leaves her heart’s desires in a box with her name on it and promises to call before 3 o’clock if she wants them. We’re told they’re $440pesos for cash (surprisingly similar to the 2009 price) including $10pesos to get cromo (a coarse suede suitable for the average dance floor) sole put over the standard leather (slippery on wooden floors). As we leave, two female customers come into the store to take our place. I think I count four assistants ready to serve them. A quiet Saturday or the norm these days? I seem to remember the sofas overflowing with eager punters in the past. We leave Recoleta behind and make for the scruffier Microcentro.

We walk a roundabout route up Esmeralda to take in TangoBrujo (I was once tempted by the comfort and trendy denim of a pair of shoes in there), but instead of the buzzing shop and high-energy tango school I was expecting to find, I’m confronted with the sad face of a dusty, locked building that offers only a feeble memory of tango, trapped in a few remnants of window signage. Perhaps only the ‘go’ in tango is left there, stuck in time on the glass, and we do indeed move on, with me muttering, I knew there was something up when they closed for renovations last year… hell, I’ll have to cover it again on the Happy Tango updates blog. My energy drops a notch at the loss of a place that so many of my younger friends enjoyed over the years, but I remind myself that sometimes things have to fade so that new things can grow in their space. I march my friend on.

How many more shops can we fit in before they close (3pm or even 2pm on a Saturday)? The six clustered on Suipacha? I’m thinking this, when into my mind pops the image of a metallic lime green toe-bar with an embroidered swirl — an Alanis shoe I saw in the window of Diagonal Norte 936 in 2009. I remember the shop and realise that I am almost standing outside it. The door of the tiny store is open. And inside, a smiley woman is dancing, kind of bopping actually, to tango music, as she organises the window display. Her vibrant energy reaches me before I get to the threshold. Let’s just do this one first, I say to my friend. And we go in.

Hey! How lovely to see you dancing so happily, I say aloud to the woman, in my heavily British-accented Spanish. I can’t help myself… the words tumble out to greet her.

I’m Silvia Alanis! She almost sings it, And these are my shoes. I design them!

She enthuses to us about the old models, the new models, the details that she is most proud of. She darts around the shop, touching this shoe and that. I notice the stitched signatures, the pink heart in the Alanis logo, the Alanis strapline You can fly! and the fresh leather smell of the new models for the summer season being unpacked on the floor.  Silvia Alanis proceeds to help me find exactly the style that will feel secure and strong on my feet, and as she does so, we talk about the addictive nature of tango, about the milongas, about the men in the milongas. We laugh a lot. I sense that her business is alive and kicking and, I hope, growing. I know I want to wear her energy when I dance. It shouts CREATIVITY AND PASSION! I buy two pairs of her shoes at $430 pesos each. I show her Happy Tango, and the Alanis entry in it under 10 Tango Shoe Stores, tell her how the lime-green toe bar and embroidered swirl stayed in my mind and led me back to the shop one year on.

I reckon we are with her about an hour, though we do pop round the corner to the stores on Suipacha (still there but with one or two small changes not really worth mentioning), where my friend buys a Titania-worthy pair of deep-green shoes in a packed-with-customers Flabella for less than $300pesos, while Silvia Alanis makes final adjustments to my own new shoes down the road. On our return she puts the shoes on my feet and measures exactly where the holes in the straps should go. I leave the store beaming and confident that I won’t sit in the milonga later wishing that I had a hole punch in my kit bag.

By the time we’ve trekked back to Comme il Faut for the red-and-blacks, it’s 2.55pm. Comme is about to close, but now it’s heaving with customers (so perhaps GretaFlora and Taconeando are too) and I realise that the many tango visitors who frequent the night-time milongas (and the tango shoe stores) are probably not out shopping at 11am in the morning. Unlike me who wakes at 6am to have breakfast with C. before he heads off to work, even on a Saturday, and who dances in the early-evening milongas as a result. I can choose to dance three hours at a Traditional-style** milonga and still be in bed by midnight, thank God.

My friend and I laugh our goodbyes with excited voices wishing each other well for the night’s dancing and for the new shoe try outs. I can’t wait to step into a pair of mine at Los Consagrados where I’m headed later.

But, I’m a little nervous. How will it be to be led on to the pista with an unknown quantity on my feet — brand new shoes carrying only the energy of Alanis and whoever else has touched the leather? My 2×4s may be well worn and in need of fresh air and retirement, but how many miles have they danced with my soul? They are packed with a sense of security and familiarity, memories of my tango footwork, imprints of every piece of music that has resonated through them. They’re the first dance shoes that have felt as a perfectly moulded extension of me. Can I ever get that feeling again? Should I really have trusted my heart in deciding to take Silvia Alanis into the embraces of ‘the milongueros I love the most’? Or should I have kept scrubbing the 2×4s with CIF cleaning creme for a little longer?

The night ahead holds the answers, and as I turn from waving my friend chau, I can’t help noticing the slight slink and swagger in my walk, as I stride down Corrientes towards the moment when I will take my new shoes onto the dance floor to lose their virginity…

Dammit. Who says tango isn’t about sex?

For pics of my old and new tango shoes, in all their December 2010 glory, click here.

There is a good interview with the founder of Taconeando, Marlene Heyman, in the November edition of the Cambalache magazine, which appears to be a new and topical ‘tango magazine’ first published in April 2010; the website is very informative with details of concerts and other events posted. Enjoy.

**For my definition of a Traditional-style Buenos Aires milonga, you’ll have to read a copy of Happy Tango — my book.

Buy Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires, and start flying towards your own tango adventure in Buenos Aires, today!

Join the book’s Facebook page for all the Happy Tango updates from Buenos Aires; click here and then click ‘Like’.

If you’ve enjoyed reading Happy Tango, please recommend it to someone else who would enjoy it too. Thank you!

Click a link to buy Happy Tango from:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
amazon.ca
amazon.fr
barnesandnoble.com
BookDepository.co.uk
BookDepository.com (the Book Depository offers free shipping to many countries). If you prefer to buy from your bookstore, then you should be able to get them to order you a copy, wherever you are in the world. Ask for:

ISBN: 9780956530608
Author: Sally Blake
Published by: Pirotta Press Ltd
Publication date: 30 June 2010

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Forget tango shoes, bring wellies

February 20, 2010 in Buenos Aires Information | 28 comments

Meet me on the corner of Godoy Cruz and Santa Fe, says C. on the other end of the phone. I agree, of course. It’s always a little adventure to hook up when the ends of our respective days coincide and we can walk home together. This time, though, I know he suggests it because he’s worried.  I’m on the number 12 bus somewhere off its normal route, it’s been pouring with rain for over an hour, and a few nights before, in similar weather conditions, the streets around our place flooded. He wants to make sure I get home safely.

We hang up on our conversation and as if on cue, the driver of the number 12 announces he’ll be calling it a day in Plaza Italia, several stops before the end of the line. Avenida Santa Fe is impassable, apparently. Bugger, I think. I’ve already walked about twenty blocks in the deluge, to find even this single moving bus. I am soaked through, and my cushioned (new and backless) sandals are squelching with every step. However, I hop off into the wet with everyone else,  look up Santa Fe, and this is what I see.

And Carlos, waiting at the corner of Godoy Cruz, is on the other side of it, and my house is beyond him.

Without really thinking (it’s quite scary how I just do things minus thought, in risky situations), I start walking the few blocks to meet C. I keep my shoes on. Other people don’t, but I hate to think what could be on the pavement under the murk, and it’s not long before I can’t see the paving stones at all. Before I know it, I’m in up to my thighs, clinging on to the walls as I go, and staying in the wake of others, because I want to watch where they tread, so I can avoid falling into any drain holes. Occasionally I stop and take a photo (slightly crazy behaviour, when you’re up to your arse in water in the middle of a freshly created city river, but I know no-one will believe me if I don’t have evidence, so I risk losing the camera in the current and snap away). Moving off the pavements into the road is the worst part, because I don’t know where the step down is, plus, the current keeps trying to drag my sandals off my feet, and ‘things’ keep brushing against my legs under the water. Yuk!

I have never been so glad to see Carlos in my life. I notice him because he calls me again. Look towards McDonald’s, he says. And I do.

We hold hands and keep walking up Santa Fe. The middle of the road is higher ground, and we make good progress for a couple of blocks, until we reach the corner of Juan B. Justo (underneath which, I am told, a river normally runs). Here, the emergency services have thoughtfully erected posts with a rope strung between, so we can feel our way along and not get sucked off into streets like Godoy Cruz, which honestly look like choppy seas. Kind men in orange vests resembling airline life jackets, hold out their hands to help us, and to my utter amazement I find myself being bundled into an inflatable police dingy. Yep, a boat is going to ferry us up Avenida Santa Fe. One of the men in orange says to me, as he lifts me in, No te preocupas Señora, hablo ingles, yo. I try not to laugh hysterically, as to be honest I can’t get my head around the fact that a few minutes before I was on a number 12 bus and now I am in a rubber dingy, in one of the flashest shopping streets of Buenos Aires, with a sweet Argentine man in a lifejacket telling me not to worry because he speaks English.

The boat rescue on tap all seems very efficient at first (as I imagine, for a second or two, that it is actually going to use its motor and take us home), but the boat escorts us only from the middle to the edge of the avenue, and deposits us in water up to our waists. What? We were better off in the centre of the street… wet knees only there. Perhaps it was for the benefit of the C5N cameras, we chuckle with the people stranded on the steps of a nearby bank. Now we find ourselves in a chain of (very friendly and supportive) folk, feeling the outer walls of  pharmacies and bakeries (all flooded), as we edge forwards in the direction of the shore on the corner of Bonpland. It’s getting dark.

Santa Fe heads upwards as it turns into Cabildo and so we squelch towards home, laughing with relief that our adventure is over and at the completely ineffective activities of the boat, and celebrating our gratitude that we are together. We talk about what it must be like to lose touch with your family in a far more serious disaster, about the strange state of the world’s weather, and we joke (half-heartedly) about the likelihood of a 2012 (did you see that appalling film?) scenario. Somehow, when you’ve almost swum up your own street, waves that can top mountains don’t seem quite as ridiculous as they did when you were in the comfy seats of the Palermo multiplex.

As it turns out, our adventure isn’t quite over. Luis Maria Campos is underwater too. Thank God our building threshold is a metre or two higher than this…

I don’t even want to think about the effect of all this water on my block’s  foundations. But, although we lose our cable connection for a while, we do keep light and drinking water indoors, unlike many people in Buenos Aires. We are the very fortunate ones.

I know it’s mad to have been taking pics out there. But I’m glad I did, because this morning, the streets are dry and it all feels like a bit of an implausible dream. On the other hand, it is the second time in one week that this has happened, and not only in Palermo, as these pics from La Nacion show.

Coming to Buenos Aires to dance tango in the next few weeks? You might want to leave your  tango shoes at home, and put some wellies in your shoe bag instead.

Want to see a few more pictures? Here’s the full set.

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Turning it around

February 2, 2010 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams | 10 comments

Me and C. decide on this Sunday’s adventure. Rented bikes around the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur. I’m delighted that the clouds are hiding el sol because I’m peeling from last week’s trip to the beach and I don’t want even a single ray of UV to touch my skin. As I leave the apartment I grab one of C’s long-sleeved shirts, in case the sun does decide to show its face, and as it turns out it’s a good job I do. I should be careful what I wish for because by the time we’ve trained it to Retiro and taxied it to the southern entrance of the Costanera, it’s absolutely pouring with rain, I’ve got the shirt on for wind protection and the anticipated bikes-for-rent vans have vanished taking with them any last remnants of our little plan.

We shelter in a mediocre takeaway food place (the only one in sight, with an indoors) and I pick at blessedly-hot french fries while wishing the iced Coke infront of me was a steaming coffee, shivering and trying to keep a smile on my face. The rain sheets down, and Carlos sees the stressed child in me: cold, disappointed that my little escapist dream of bikes and nature has been shattered, and wanting to be teleported back to Palermo prontisimo. Come here, he says, and gives me a huge hug. How about when the rain eases, we walk down to the northern entrance to get warm? We both know there’s no choice about it. We don’t have a car. There are no taxis. We’re at least twenty blocks from the city side of Puerto Madero. Great idea, I say. And we start walking.

To my amusement C. strips off his T-shirt (the second week in a row he’s done that for me) and makes me put it on over my shirt. When you’ve warmed up I’ll have it back. People stare at us: me, a dishevelled woman in an odd collection of mens’ clothing, and him, a half naked man, both laughing, both with raindrops dripping off our noses.

Half way down the Costanera Sur, there’s a big pergola where you can look out over the reserve and we stop there for a while, taking photos of each other (I give back the T-shirt, to spare C’s blushes), complaining about the horrible collection of rubbish that people have tipped over the edge into the water and wondering who is going to live in the massive tower blocks (so far from any vegetable shops) going up on the other side of the road.

We walk on. Between the pergola and the northern entrance to the park is the quietest section of the promenade. Down here there are fewer food stalls, less people (on a drizzly day anyway) and definitely less rubbish checked over into the green. As we pass one of the parrilla stands down here, C. stops me. Now, this is where I wish I’d eaten my choripán, he announces, Look at those freshly made salads. For a moment we pause and stare at the obviously-much-loved mobile kitchen: strings of lights in the trees overhead, young men constantly wiping the surfaces around the bowls of delicious-looking sauces, even toilet cabins alongside, neatly labelled with the name of the place: Mi Sueño (My dream). Why don’t you eat another chori? I say, and I feel C.’s energy start to move towards the counter before his body shifts an inch.

While he orders, I see a man piling salad onto a slice of steak, and I am hooked too. Lomito? I ask. The owner spots I’m not from these parts (as usual my clumsy, but I’m told, appealing) accent gives me away, and before I know it I’ve been invited into the kitchen to cook my very own steak on the parrilla. Wow! It’s hot over those glowing coals, and I’m all warmed up by the smiles of the staff who put tongs in my hands so that I can turn the perfect slices of meat, and I pose for pictures as C. snaps away. Afterwards we chat with the owner as we eat, and tell him that the passion so obviously poured into his business drew us in with its up-energy. He understands.

Eventually, tummies full to bursting, we pull ourselves away and continue our walk towards the Avenida Cordoba end of the Costanera Sur. Still no bikes for rent. But folk near the entrance to the park tell us it’s just the rain. Normally on Saturdays and Sundays you can just roll up and pay for a couple of hours cycling. Another day, we resolve. Truth is, we’ve kind of forgotten about our original plan. Instead, we are brimming over with the effect on us of the Mi Sueño we discovered en camino, just because we happened to be stranded at one end of the Costanera in the rain, and walked to the other end. It’s got to be a sign, says C. We thought it was all a mini-disaster, but you know what Sal? Sometimes, it’s best not to think at all.

This week I’m working on keeping my mind quiet and still. I’m waiting on information. Doing what I can to progress things in the meantime. But worrying? Or conjuring up mini-disasters? Well, every time one pops into my head today, I’ll be replacing it with a memory of the most cared for and welcoming parrilla stand on the Costanera Sur. Mi Sueño: a perfectly-timed (and no coincidence there I am sure) reminder that just when you think all is lost, the best is usually just around the corner, waiting to make dreams you never even knew you had, come true.

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Sun seeker

January 27, 2010 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams | 11 comments

If you’re in Buenos Aires and it’s nearing forty degrees on Avenida Corrientes and you wish you were on the beach instead, well… you can be (sort of). For the price of a bus ride ($1.25pesos from the centre of town to Vicente Lopez on the number 29) and a bit of a walk, you can have your own private parasol shading a couple of canary-yellow low-slung seats, and a river (that almost looks like a sea) view. You can even have one of these little sun-bathing stations on sand if you want, because there’s a big rectangle of it specially created further up the ‘beach’ to give you the true Mar del Plata feeling, but, as yet anyway, even on a Sunday in mid-summer, you can enjoy it without the crowds (as they have, in fact, all buggered off to Mar del Plata, where I see from the endess TV coverage, they are crammed (see this brilliant photo by Pablo Cabado to get an idea) onto the real beaches with barely space between them for a single grain of sand).

It was C.’s idea to go to the Buenos Aires Playa. He’d heard about it on the radio, along with its jolly jingle (just check out the cute official website and wait to hear it), and he probably thought the sunshine-yellow brollies couldn’t fail to lift my spirits out of the slight doldrums I’ve been wading through (though not wallowing in, I promise) of late. When the man I love suggests a day out to me, offers me the chance to be a tourist, wants to show me something of Buenos Aires that I’ve never seen… Barbie wakes up, looks forward to candy floss, reminds me to take my camera so I can write about it afterwards. Alas, the mistake she made on Sunday was getting me so excited that I forgot to put my sun block, or indeed any kind of sun protection cream at all in my bag.

I am a shade seeker as a rule. I stopped lying outdoors grilling myself when I was about thirty years old (before that the world hadn’t really heard of Slip, Slap, Slop – it was cooking oil and the lowest sun protection factor possible, in those days). The last time I got sunburnt was in Wales this British summer, but it was only my feet, that had slipped from the cover of my trousers while I slept on the Pembrokeshire pebbles. Now I’ve got a delightful 

whiteskincolouredhalternecktoponredbackground

scenario going on, and I’ve been kicking myself all week for my own stupidity.

Thing was, we didn’t get the 29 bus to Vincente Lopez, we took the 15 from our place, and so, got off before it turned onto the General Paz motorway (with the 29 you can get off the stop after, outside the Carrefour megastore), and ended up having to walk for at least half an hour along what really was the car access route – zero shade. I should have worn a shirt, but it was only 10am, there was a luverley breeze, and I had that ‘off to the beach feeling’ where all good things seem possible and I know I am invincible. By the time we’d been installed in our yellow plastic loungers (in shade) for a couple of hours and I noticed that when I pressed my arm it turned white for a moment then bounced back red – you know the routine, it was far too late. And we had to sit there longer, because I couldn’t face the walk back in the midday sun… in the end, we did set off, but poor Carlos had to strip off his shirt and give it to me, soaked in water (from the free showers), and so he (galant soul that he is), now looks like a tomato too.

We did, in spite of almost toasting ourselves to a crisp, have a super time. The grass was pristine (no dogs, littering or alcohol allowed), the kiosko sold the tastiest potato chips I’ve ever eaten in Argentina (smoky bacon flavour), and we sat and stared lovingly at each other for an hour or two, while I forgot some of the other ‘life-decision’ type stuff going on for us at the moment. It was a splash-of-sunshine break in space and time, and I was grateful for it. And, I’m not letting a spot of sunburn spoil that sentiment. No, no, no.

And that’s the trick you see, isn’t it? No matter what happens, don’t let the unexpected sunburn make you forget the blue sky, the fluttering canvas of the parasollies (made up Sallycat word), the birds who strut their stuff on the grass inches from your feet, or the love in the eyes of the man who runs off for ice-creams, drinks, smoky bacon snacks, and who takes his shirt off to protect you from the sun’s killer ray-gun. Learn something, yes. Don’t leave your sun cream at home next time. Use what you now know to make your next plan even better. Get the 29 not the 15 and get off closer to the beach, where there’s a tree shaded walk all the way. Be excited, but not so excited that it makes you lose your common sense altogether… that’s me all over you see. And perhaps it’s the part of me I love the most. The part that says, Just do it Sal. You can worry about the consequences later. The Barbie part.

Today I’m facing a few consequences it’s true, and sunburn is the least of them. But, the sunburn is fading already, and so eventually will the confusing and painful part of the other stuff (which is nothing life-threatening, just new aspects of life, and the VOD factor that can rise in me when any kind of ‘new aspect of life’ raises its head). In the past weeks I have received many many messages of support from around the world. I haven’t even mentioned the detail of my circumstance, but you’ve generously wished me good things. The up-energy  in all of that, plus the small actions that I do every day to keep myself on the level: the relaxation iPod Touch downloads in the night, the yoga CDs on waking, my morning pages, my chats with the people who know me best of all and good professional advice on the topics that need some planning for the future. All are getting me from A to B, where B, I am sure, will be a beautiful beach in my life that I haven’t even dreamed of yet, and as I go, I’m just reminded to enjoy the journey and make it the best it can possibly be. The dangerous aspects of the sun’s rays will always be there, but I can deal with them, once I know their power: I’ll be visiting the Buenos Aires Playa again soon, but this time I’ll be taking the 29 bus, and the Factor 30 is already in my bag. Meanwhile, I’m still working out what colectivo I need to catch for my travels through 2010, and what I need to put in my kit bag. But I’ll get there. And when I do, and the big picture starts shaping up, I’ll let you know.

If you’ve tried to get in touch with me in any way at all and I haven’t replied yet, I’m sorry. It’s just that I sometimes can’t bear to go through it all yet one more time and it is a bit complicado. It’s not that I’m not grateful. I am, more than you know. But, I’m working on attracting the solution, and at times I feel that explaining my challenges over and over again is going to make them bigger, not smaller – know what I mean? So for now, let’s stick with the sunnier stuff. Those bright yellow parasols for a start. Gorgeous aren’t they? If you’re in Buenos Aires this summer, why not go and give them a try? And if you’re freezing in your own country right now, I hope that simply seeing these will make you feel warmer. Now, where did I put that enormous pot of Aloe Vera?

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The Christmas post

December 21, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Expat in Buenos Aires | 17 comments

Santa CarlosChristmas already? I shrieked to my mum in the Debenhams department store of the Bullring Shopping Centre, Birmingham, England. It was the first week in September 2009. I made Carlos line up with the Santas for a laugh and to capture absolute proof that, in the country of my birth, the commercial powers that be seem to want our lives to be nothing more than chapters of shopping (and, dare I say it, looking ever forward to some future event): early September to December 24th – Christmas paraphanalia in the shops; from December 25th to end January – ads on the TV for summer holidays, monthly magazines (encouraging us to take up knitting, painting plates or collecting china), and cut-price leather sofas; February to Easter Sunday – chocolate eggs on supermarket shelves; from the first sign of sun, even though it might still be barely below freezing – BBQs, BBQ coals and garden furniture on service station forecourts; from the moment the schools break up in July for the summer break – Back to School clothes in shop windows; and that takes us neatly back to bumping into Father Christmas in Debenhams all over again. Plus of course we’re encouraged to give plenty of cards, costing a packet and a few trees, for all manner of random occasions. Bah humbug! And, yes, I guess I am. As my years have advanced I confess I’ve edged towards being anti the celebrating of events (even the ones I believe in) with things. It wasn’t always that way though. I mean, I do remember the first Christmas I spent with my ex-husband, back in the early 1990s, when I sulked for hours (or was it days) because he hadn’t got me a Christmas card. Blimey, was that really me? Sorry Mike.

Last night, just a few days before Christmas Eve (which is the big date in Argentina), I crossed the city on the 29 bus from Palermo to San Telmo on my way to and from dancing with my love at the relaxed and warm-vibed La Milonga del Indio in Plaza Dorrego. OK, Avenida Santa Fe was chocca, especially around the Alto Palermo Shopping Mall, and I saw a big Christmas tree with lights on it near the Obelisco, where a very non-Christmassy car event (according to a taxi driver I spoke to later) was taking place. In Argentina, I have noticed, Chrimbo passes in thirty minutes of fireworks at midnight on the 24th, rather than in months of carol singing – or indeed, in any rendition of my old favourites, like Once in Royal David’s City, at all.

So, in the absence of the Queen’s speech to look forward to, what shape can Christmas take for a British tango dancer in Buenos Aires? Well, if you want to dance you can. Tango doesn’t stop here, even for the birthday of Jesus. This year, after the big steak-in-mushroom-sauce feast cooked by C., I could be trying Salon Canning, open from 1am to 6am for the Milonga de Jazmines en el Pelo y algún brillo en la ropa… (Jasmine in your hair and something shiny in your clothes…), organised by Julia and Pedro so that ‘No-one has to be alone over these holidays’ (a sentiment I like, a lot). Transport might be a bit of a problem, as everything stops (yes, even in Buenos Aires) for a few hours around midnight as the 24th becomes the 25th and the fireworks shock every living creature awake, but lucky for me, I can walk to Canning if I want. And, by the time I emerge into the dawn of Christmas morning, the buses and taxis will be back in action. And if I do dance all night, I’ll probably sleep through most of the hot sunshine on Christmas Day, and won’t even notice that my family aren’t with me, that there’s no turkey with cranberry sauce or crackers crammed with paper hats at lunch, and that La Reina Elizabeth isn’t on the telly at 3 o’clock. I’ll still miss them all, though. Perhaps more than I care to admit.

Meanwhile, anoche, Me and C. stepped out on to the temporary Plaza Dorrego dance floor, rolled out beneath strings of coloured lights, and whirled our way through the warm air, creating our own blissful breeze with a few valses, tangos and milongas… we giggled as our feet caught in the taped joins, we recognised familiar faces in the crowd, we celebrated the fact that the people of San Telmo have something similar to our beloved La Glorieta (in Belgrano), and we joined them dancing in it. Swirling a vals together under a cloudless sky, the stars and the slim moon in late December? Not a bad Chrimbo present, I reckon. It might not have been wrapped in Christmas paper nor left under a huge real tree. It might not have been printed on card nor delivered by the postman. It might only have cost a few pesos thrown into a passed-around gorro (hat). But, it sure as hell said, Happy Christmas, loud and clear, to me. And, let’s face it, it’s not just any present is it? It’s my present, my life, chosen for me, by myself. If I don’t embrace it and love it, then I’ve only got myself to blame.

I hope you guys enjoy your presents too. I’m sorry you couldn’t give Happy Tango (my book, Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires) as a Christmas gift this year, but despite me working round the clock for months, it just wasn’t ready. And maybe it won’t quite make the January sales either. But, printed in time for Easter? A definite possibility. Reading a bit of Sallycat while munching on a huge Galaxy Easter egg? Sounds the perfect combination to me. Something delightful to look forward to in that normally-rather-dull ‘world shopping calendar’ I mentioned. Though, now I’m falling into the trap of getting ahead of myself in the world of things too. Instead, let me just stick with the here and now, Navidad 2009…

Happy Christmas, one and all, wherever you are in the world – from me,

Sallycat, in Buenos Aires

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The edge

November 29, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 9 comments

Yesterday, on the path of going with the flow, I discovered a not-to-be-missed stunner of a place in Buenos Aires. Remember how the last little instalment of Sallycat’s Adventures saw me touching the Virgin of Luján? Well, the next thing I knew, one of my best friends here was telling me that a friend of hers, Lilian Laura Ivachow, was screening her new film-short, PABLO Y VIRGINIA…VIAJAN A LUJÁN, at the Biblioteca Nacional.

Do you fancy it? said my friend. Oh yes, said I.

The film turned out to be quite brilliant. I loved it. It’s the story of two people who meet while making the annual pilgrimage walk to Luján and it’s a moving study of human relationships (with others, with ourselves, with the things we believe in). The setting of the Luján pilgrimage is intriguing, and the subtitles do not cheat you out of connecting with the characters, who are great actors, and who improvise their interactions, around some topics given to them by the director (she told us that afterwards). I say, see it, if you ever get the chance.

And it was not just the setting within the film that intrigued me. Entering the vast concrete space that’s created by the Biblioteca Nacional, I could not believe that I had never found it before. It is a powerful (and some might say, ugly) place: towering shapes that loom overhead; ramps, walkways, and terraces that coax you to step on to them; a mix of deep shadows and bright light (on a sunny day) that begs you to take out your camera. I started saying Wow! to myself as I wandered up Aguero from Avenida Las Heras. Sallycat, you’ve been past this turn a thousand times on the bus. How could you not have explored a little further? How could you not have seen what was there, just around the corner? How could you not have wanted to know? You might have missed it altogether.

I had a coffee with my friend before the film. The terrace of the first floor café appears to hang over the walkways below. We sat there, suspended for a moment above the rush and crush of the city, on chairs of rather wacky design. We talked about what it feels like to live your life on the edge. Or at least, I poured out my heart on the subject. To my relief, I discovered that she understood me: she understands because she is pushing the boundaries of her world, too.

Once upon a time, my life was a little bit like a nice comfy sofa: lots of lovely things around me, like proper and very expensive beds, Nespresso coffee machines and ready-made pods of coffee efficiently delivered in the post, conversations all in English, a husband with a well-paid job and great prospects, a pretty cottage-style house with a gorgeous garden, endless writing courses, craft courses, gardening courses, holidays all around the globe… a kind of secure feeling inside, a safe feeling. Unfortunately there was also a slightly dead feeling, a sense that I could be more, do more, become more. No matter that I could always have more: a new sports car, a big flat screen TV, a new loft conversion; having more did not solve the dead feeling. Yes, to be sure, it was a nice comfy sofa, but it was so nice and comfy that I was falling asleep on it, and my soul was dying.

Now the cushioned sofa is no more. In a twist of fate, my sofa these days, also happens to be my bed. And, the very fact that I have to fold it from bed to sofa and back every day to create the room where I want to spend the next twelve hours, means action. If I want to share it with Carlos, I have to get up and turn the sofa into a bed. If I want a house that feels like a workspace, or a sitting room, or a space to entertain friends in, I have to put the bed away… it feels symbolic to me. Even my sofa won’t let me doze off for too long. Thank God. But being wide awake and walking hand in hand with my soul is not always easy for me, and perched above the streets of Buenos Aires yesterday, I felt able to speak my current truth.

I’m scared, I said to my friend. When I’ve finished this book, what will I do? Who will I be? What will my life become? Will people like it, hate it, want to know me, not want to know me? What will I do with the thousands of hours I’ve poured into it? Where will I direct my energy next? How will it feel to send the book out there, let it find its own way, let it go, actually finish something of my own for the first time in my whole life?

It all came out in a rush. The fear.

It’s okay, she said. Normal. Normal to be scared. Especially normal to be scared when you live your life on the edge.

Yeah, I said. The edge. The edge of pushing your boundaries in the effort to discover who you really can be. The edge that means the utter joy of realising that you can experience everything your heart desires, if you want to. The edge that means the dark terror of feeling that every step is a step into the unknown. We who push our boundaries every day… we who don’t just dream, but who hound our dreams until they become our realities, have to find out the consequences of those dreams… and here I am, scared of the consequences of mine.

And yet, if I could, would I change my life, and go back to the comfy sofa? Let’s face it, I do have a choice. I could just bin the book manuscript right now, and never even hand it to my little band of Buenos Aires Beta Readers in the next couple of weeks. Yeah right… I could bin the book. But I won’t. The test readers will be reading it. Then you’ll be reading it. And then there’ll be the critiques and the comments and the silence and the good parts and the bad parts and the out of date parts and the next edition and the next edition after that and if it all gets too much I can run off to Brazil, or the Falklands or something! Ha! Oh, who knows what will happen?

Yesterday I went with the Luján flow, left the same old 59 bus route behind, and ended up in a completely unexpected but amazing and inspiring space; I had the conversation I needed; and I came home knowing what I would write about today on this blog. I think the Virgin of Luján had a message for me, and it was this: Walk boldly into the new places hidden just around the corner of your life, because only then can you see the next space, the next action, and so become who you are really meant to be.

Yes, I might sometimes feel that I am living on the very edge of my capabilities, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m about to fall. Rather, if I keep moving my edge forwards, I can continue to build my very own rather beautiful and unique road. I’ve just got to keep believing that I can. And somewhere, deep down, under all the fear, I do. I do. And I will.

Meanwhile, if you’re visiting Buenos Aires and would like to be inspired by the power of the Biblioteca Nacional, here are some photographs of what you can expect, and in case you need it, you can find the address and a map here.

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Touched

November 17, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams | 14 comments

I have touched the Virgin of Luján. I didn’t expect to, and I didn’t think I’d want to (I’m probably the least religious person I know), but you only have to see the magic moving in this photo that C. took of me this weekend, to be certain that there’s potent energy in the little town of Luján, just 75 minutes northwest of Buenos Aires. And, by 5pm on Sunday afternoon, I wanted to say thanks for the chance to feel its restorative powers for myself. So, like hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have done before me, I stood in the queue inside the Basilica until I could look the tiny terracotta Virgin in the eye, placed the palm of my hand on the blue and gold fabric of her gown, and mouthed one word, Gracias. She smiled at me. And I smiled back.

The story goes that this 38cm high image of the Virgin Mary has been in Luján since 1630, when the cart, transporting her from Brazil to Buenos Aires, stopped, in what then was presumably a field in the middle of nowhere, and refused to move. If the image was lifted from the cart, the cart moved on. If the image was returned to the cart, the cart wouldn’t budge. The Virgin wants to stay here, said the people, It’s a miracle (milagro in Castellano)! And thus, she is there to this very day, safe inside her protective cone of a robe and her very own giant, freshly (the restoration is ongoing in 2009) sandblasted Basilica. What a glorious casa, is it not? And she’s never going to be lonely: even when God chucked down torrential rain for hours on Sunday morning, it seemed to me that half of Buenos Aires came to pay their respects, regardless. Whatever the miraculous capabilities of the little figurine of the Virgin actually are, I figure that the endless influx of believers alone must shoot the energy of the town sky-high, put strength on to its streets, and elevate its standing in the pyramid of the world’s sacred places. Until I set foot in the Plaza I didn’t know that for sure. Now I do.

Luján played games with Me and C. We tried to snap a daylight pic of the two of us with the Basilica in the background; we took about thirty shots on three separate occasions over two days; our best attempt resulted in one and a bit peaks poking out of our heads (as seen here on the left). How can we keep missing something that big? said a bemused C, over and over again. My night-time photos came out with an extra, beautiful and unexplained light between the two towers. And the ones I took of the little market stall, where some of the friendliest ladies on the planet turned me into a princess by adding trensas (colourful lengths of macrame and beads) to my hair, had a beautiful violet arc added to them – courtesy of who exactly? Of course I’m sure there are reasonable explanations for all these little mysteries. I’d rather not hear them thanks: it’s fun to believe that powers greater than myself like to play too.

They even led us to a decent hotel. The one we’d booked in advance turned out not to be quite our cup of tea (never reserve a hotel online if you can’t see the bedrooms), so we politely declined it once we’d seen the room (not easy, but we did it nicely), and the lovely man rang another place for us: we got the very last double (there’d been a cancellation); there was a heated swimming pool (heaven); and it was dead opposite the trensa stall, which we definitely wouldn’t have found otherwise. Our roundabout, but rather surely-meant-to-be route to the smart, clean, friendly and probably the best hotel in town – the Hoxon – was absolutely, all by itself, enough reason to touch the Virgin’s dress and say, Thanks.

What was I doing in Luján? Well, I confess that Buenos Aires has felt too full of late; I’ve felt emptier than I’d like; and it’s entirely my own fault. At times, despite my best efforts to create the life I want, I allow myself to drift towards a life I don’t actually want: too many commitments, too many people, and too little time for me, for writing, for finishing my book. This weekend was my attempt to step outside it all, be with the only soul in the world who can calm me (the man I love), and give myself a bit of space to work out what I really want to do tomorrow. Luján reassured me that whenever I need to, on any day or in any hour, I can stop, and decide against the suck back into rush. I don’t have to be in Luján to do it, but I had to go to Luján to be reminded of it.

So, in the quest to be true to myself, did it help me to touch the robe of the terracotta Virgin who once refused to be carried away from the space her heart desired? I think it did. Sometimes it’s the things I can’t explain that inspire me most of all.

If you’d like to see more of the little Virgin, and the Luján she created in Argentina, here are the pics on Flickr. If you want to go and visit her yourself, you can take the 57 Express bus from Plaza Once (Avenida Rivadavia, corner with Puerreydón) to Luján for $10.50pesos and you’ll be there in 75 minutes; you can stay in the Hoxon for $208pesos a night for a double room; and as a bonus after you’ve said, Hi to the Virgin, you can walk down to the smaller town-centre Plaza and see something else pretty inspiring – one of the most beautiful collections of trees and shrubs around. Could you do it in a day trip from Buenos Aires? Yes, although I’d avoid Sundays, unless you thrive on crowds: pick a weekday instead, and maybe get the Virgin to yourself.

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Urug- whhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy?

July 10, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within | 12 comments

IMGP4326 When you’ve got a fortnight to go until your flight to London takes off from Argentina (6 weeks in Blighty fast approaching), you don’t feel too delighted that your Argentine tourist visa is about to expire.

To stay legal (important to me) for your final two weeks you either have to spend God only knows how long and $300pesos to renew the visa in Migraciones in Avenida Antartida, or you have to leave the country pronto. Since I recently promised myself that I would never again sit across the Migraciones counters from the lovely folk who turned down my temporary residency visa renewal (just doing their jobs I know), I considered the option of a $150peso day trip to Uruguay. Course I’ve already had the pleasure of overnighters on similar missions with C. but this time I was going it alone. Ah well, I mused, gives me the chance to road test a Buquebus City Tour of Colonia for the section Time off tango in my forthcoming book Happy Tango in Buenos Aires, for this blog, and for anyone who might ask me about it in the future. Always a bright side right?

Monday was the day.  I hoped for blue skies and warmth to accompany my three hour each way boat ride and camera happy wanderings around cobbled Uruguayan streets.

Sunday in Buenos Aires we had weather like this…

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and that was just after the worst which looked like this…

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and by Monday morning at 7.30am when I was walking the half a kilometre from the 152 bus stop to the boat terminal in Puerto Madero, ice had turned to water and God was tipping buckets of it on my head. As I faced the immigration officer checking my passport for a current tourist visa ($300pesos fine if he didn’t find one), my feet were squelching in my socks, my hair was plastered to my head, and my puffa coat of fluffed up feathers had turned into a wet blanket.

The blanket got wetter: 500 teenagers on the boat; 1000 parents meeting them in a covered Buquebus terminal porch about as big as an average sized British front room; me fighting my way through the hugging and kissing bodies (note swine flu warnings being completely and utterly ignored) a total of five times due to a string of misunderstandings about where I was to find the bus on which I was to take my City Tour… I’m afraid that by about 1pm I was spitting the F-word under my breath far too often, and desperately wanting to scream, Urug – whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? like a hyena. Or murder someone.

Thing is it wasn’t the weather, or the kids, or the Buquebus staff. It was me. Starting to feel a bit stressy about leaving Argentina and making the trip to the UK, even though I long to hug my family; finding an unexpected (writing books is far harder than I ever imagined it would be) third redraft of my book heavy going, even though I know it’s an essential and transformational draft, and putting pressure on myself to get it done before I fly to England; feeling that the trip to Uruguay was wasting my precious writing time, even though it allowed me six hours of redrafting on the boat and so didn’t really impact my schedule at all… oh gosh, and a few other equally rather ridiculous things besides.

Will I ever feel relaxed before a journey around the world from one of my home lands to the other?

This time, for the first time, I don’t have a physical home in Britain; I’ll be staying with friends and family. This time I don’t have my own car; I’ll be borrowing now and again. This time I’ll be spending most of my time in a part of the country where I’ve not lived since I was 17. Newness, change, the unknown… exciting, scary, exciting, scary…

Barbie: Hey Sallycat! Isn’t it gonna be AMAZING to swim in the Pembrokeshire sea and sing Debbie Harry songs on the Karaoke computer game with your little sisters?

VOD: Start panicking Sal. You’ll miss Buenos Aires sooooo much. How will you feel when you can’t sleep at 4am and there are no cafès or tango salons open in the whole of England, or the part of England you’ll be in anyway? And I know you don’t wander out into the Buenos Aires night in search of coffee, but you could if you wanted to right? Well, in England you won’t be able to, EVER!

Barbie: We’re gonna dance tango in London, and Bramshaw, and Burley and Shrewsbury! Dance, dance, dance little Sallycat, wherever you go!

VOD: Britain will put travel restrictions on people coming from Argentina because the swine flu is getting out of hand, and you won’t even get into the country, na na na naaaaaaa na!

Barbie: UK. OK? UK! OK! UKOKUKOKUKOK… YOU IN THE UK!!! 24th JULY! OK?

God, sometimes it feels like World War bloody Three between my ears.

Anyone else know what I mean?

Actually, seeing it written down reminds me that I know what I mean. I felt like it last time too, but far worse, and I survived. Seeing it written down is making me laugh aloud too. Recently I was talking to someone about how when we recognise a pattern of our own behaviour that we don’t like, we can stop it and change just by stopping it and changing it. There’s nothing hard about it. We just have to stop doing what we’ve always done. And behave a different way instead. Today VOD was trying to convince me that because I’ve got so much to do on the book draft, and so much to do to get ready for the trip, I’ve got no time to write a blog post. Well I’ve just proved him wrong, and that’s a great start. One step in the right direction is all I need to move out of panicked paralysis. And as I sign off here, I’ve already taken it.

I’m afraid this is clearly not one of those well thought out posts. It’s one of those ‘start somewhere and end where you’re meant to’ posts.  You know, the ones where I sometimes say, Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening my friends,

from Sallycat, Barbie and VOD.

PS. And here’s the why in Urug-why, because like I said, there’s always a bright side. I got a brand spanking new tourist visa and after the sun came out on a most interesting City Tour, I took some super pics with my Pentax. Here they are in a lovely Flickr photoset called Day Trip to Uruguay.

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Heaven

June 27, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams | 24 comments

IMGP4145 Heaven can be found in Buenos Aires at Avenida de Mayo 1370.

And here I am, with my talented costume designer mate who is currently visiting from An ever fixed mark in Boston, sampling it.

Believe me guys, if you are in this city on a Monday or Thursday afternoon you would be completely mad not to pay $20pesos each and take the fascinating 40 minute (on the hour from 2pm – but phone to reserve a place) guided tour (in English and Spanish) of Palacio Barolo. If there is a more stunning open air 360 degree view of Buenos Aires on offer, I have not found it.

Plus there is much more: the outside of  Palacio Barolo made me think of giant wedding cakes dripping in creative genius; the Dante-esque story told by the building and the charming tour guide Miqueas Thärigen had me ooohing and aaahing with the joy of discovery; the experience of perching my arse on a foot wide glass shelf inside the glass walled lighthouse 100m above hell (represented by the architecture of the ground floor) left me panting with adrenalin and feeling that I might be rather closer to meeting God (represented by the light) than I would like… what year was safety glass invented?

I needed a glimpse of heaven this week.

Blog posts disappearing and appearing and disappearing again, along with so many of your comments (alas – it turned out – a ghost in my host); a big water leak from the apartment above me; cable TV cut off but replacement delayed for the forseeable, and with it the ability to watch Wimbledon; legal paperwork drag, drag, dragging and the knock on postponement of happy plans; the realisation that if you want something (your first book) to be the absolute best it can be, you might have more work to do and it might take more time than you originally thought…

Right on cue Palacio Barolo reminded me that when the stairs to heaven appear to get steeper, and your Obeliscos seem further away for a while, you just have to keep the direction in mind and keep climbing.  If you do, they will come into view again – though you might have to use the power of mind zoom in the form of intention to bring them back into sharp focus.

From the balconies of Palacio Barolo, I saw the Obelisco and it looked like this:

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See it?

If not, try this one:

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Better? And I bet you can spot it in the other one now too.

Ah the power of zoom.

And here’s a question for you?

Can you imagine how thrilling and exciting it was to stand on one of the tiny Palacio Barolo balconies in the sun, as high as a bird, sharing my beloved home city with a new friend, and seeing this exact view? Do you think I’d have exchanged that for standing in the midst of busy traffic in Avenida 9 de Julio, and touching the Obelisk – however beautiful I believe the Obelisk to be? Actually no. On that particular day, in that particular second I wouldn’t have. The Obelisk looked even more enticing from up there too: more intriguing in the context of the city around it; perfectly connected with the vast blue sky and with the whole Buenos Aires; standing, waiting, in its rightful place.

Yes I want to keep my dreams in my sights, but to see them and the delays to them in the context of everything else is to know that the journey matters more than the end game: learning for the first time how to move from writing to professionally published writing; meeting wonderful helpers and supporters who want me to succeed; discovering talented and creative people who are excited enough by my projects to want to work with me; a love who will be at my my side regardless of plans or delays to plans; happy nights out in Los Consagrados, Cachirulo, El Beso and Sueño Porteño and at the super friendly El Amague milonguero-style tango school with friends from this country and beyond… (Blimey I did all that dancing in ONE week!).

Just having and believing in a dream enough to move towards it in the first place has put that little lot into my life. I stare at the Obelisk in the centre of this photo and I see that. Clearly.

Sometimes it takes a trip to heaven to realise that you are already there.

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Ah, couldn’t resist.

Pizza (first prize in the Los Consagrados raffle), Sallycat in new red-tipped specs, Saturday night with great mates (all hiding behind the camera – promise), Buenos Aires milongueros on tap… heaven.

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And the first ever Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie Award (ABBBA) goes to…

June 4, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, Uncategorized | 7 comments

IMGP4028 It happened because I offered to buy a few pairs of men’s tango shoes for friends in Britain. It happened because I finally decided to consider a tango shoe for myself, that I’d previously ruled out because it didn’t look like the CiFs I was used to. It happened because my Spanish is now at a level where I am not so fixated on my own inadequacies that I miss noticing the soul who is speaking to me.  This week my absolutely bloody brilliant Barbie spotted another absolutely bloody brilliant Barbie and the…

images Barbie images Barbie

Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie Award

was born.

I saw the Barbie too. I saw it in the eyes of the shoe designer who sat in front of me, as he told me that he never stops thinking about how he can make the best tango shoe in the world. I saw it in the inspired and unique interchangeable sole of the 2×4alpie shoe he held in his hand. I heard it in his slightly breathless voice as he told me why, regardless of the horrendous inflation in Argentina and the effect it has on the price of his shoes, he will never compromise on quality.

Afterwards, Me and my Barbie stood shivering in the freezing cold at ‘the quinze’ bus stop in Scalabrini Ortiz, but our excitement kept us warm.

Sallycat, we have to party! trilled Barbie, and she continued in a rush, I mean Sallycat, in the battle against the VODs, you just gotta talk Barbies, and not just your Barbie. You gotta shout about the other Barbies in the world too. Make beautiful Barbie noise, and drown out the VODs! Don’t you think, Sallycat? Oh don’t you? Don’t you? Oh please say you do!

Oh I do. I do.

So I will. With this award. Which I shall give freely, whenever my Barbie wants.

I remember back in 2007 when 2×4alpie was just starting to sell shoes. There was no shop in those days. Chacho was a mate of Ariel’s and he used to bring the shoes to Club Gricel on Saturday nights and we all used to marvel at the interchangeable soles. I was a bit dubious: Would I really want to change the soles? Would the ingenious velcro system actually be strong enough to hold the new sole in place? Wouldn’t the sole catch on uneven floors?

IMGP4037 I did love how the ladies practice shoes were about as far away from the usual clunky trainer style as you could get, made me feel like a princess (I hadn’t discovered Barbie at that point), and came in gold with holes in the upper to let the air flow cool over hot feet. Carlos fell for the wine coloured shoes in the softest leather I had ever touched. There were no ladies tango heels back then and anyway I was buying CiFs. Me and C. couldn’t resist though, and we started our family of 2×4s.

IMGP3955 Ariel often danced in Chacho’s shoes too and he went for the totally cool man designs in black and white or brown and white. Style-wise, I’ve never seen anything to compare anywhere else, to be honest. Maybe it’s the shoe shape, maybe it’s the specific pattern of the one leather laid on the other, maybe it’s in the softness of the leathers themselves… I don’t know, but when I see a man in these shoes, I see class, I see trendy, cutting edge… I see a tango dancer who knows what’s what. C. says that when he puts his 2×4s on he is transformed, becomes a bit of a ‘lad’ apparently, a dancer with attitude. In other words, his own dancing Barbie likes the shoes too.

Last year at the BsAs Tango Festival in Harrods I did try on a pair of the women’s tango shoes. I wanted them because they were the most comfortable I had ever put on my dancing feet, but I was still umming and ahhing about whether I liked the thicker than CiF heels. A male British mate of mine, let’s call him Greg, was with me that day, and he did splash out in the men’s department. He took his first ever pair of black suede 2×4s back to tango Britain. Was he the first Brit tourist to buy? Not sure, but I came away happy that Chacho’s gorgeous shoes would see the south of Inglaterra at least.

IMGP3969 Now I’m headed back to Britain in July, and Greg has asked for two more pairs of 2×4s: the proof of the pudding as they say… and so I make my visit to the shop this week, because yes, there is now a 2×4 shop. This time I try on the women’s tango shoes again. I’ve come along way on my tango journey in the ten months since the trip to Harrods last August. I no longer care about the width of the heel or the lack of glitter or lace… all I’m interested in is whether I can dance my heart out in this shoe. From the second my foot slips into the black and white pair, I have my answer – this time there is no hesitation.

IMGP4016 Chacho and Me sit in his shop for a bit with some choccie biccies and he shows me the old ladies tango shoe, once the property of a very famous tango dancer, that he took apart when he was working out how to make his shoes. He tells me how the famous lady tango dancer said to him, Make this shoe, but make it better. He shows me the stuff we wearers of tango shoes normally never see: the cardboard inside the shoe base, which eventually cracks and splits with serious dancing; the synthetic upper that looks convincingly like leather but isn’t, the lack of elastic at the buckle or the elastic that has torn with stress. He shows me how a 2×4 shoe is made… no cardboard in sight… just leather, leather and more leather.

IMGP3964 He reveals that it took eight months to develop the rubber/suede/leather interchangeable sole system. I tell him that I will definitely be using it: between the sweaty baldosa floor of La Milonguita, the glass like surface of La Ideal, the slippery wood in Centro Regiòn Leonesa, I know I am going to test it to its limit. No problem, he says.

While Chacho talks I notice something in him that I recognise. I see the same thing that’s in me when I talk about how I want my ebook (now in its second draft, honest) to help first timers on the road to happy Buenos Aires tango memories, when I talk about wanting to inspire people to follow their hearts, when I talk about wanting to help people to set their own Barbie’s free. I see passion. I hear it too,

I’m always thinking about how I can make them better. Always… he says.

His eyes shine, and my beautiful Barbie sees his Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie. I see it too.

Maybe I should call this Barbie, Ken? After all it does live inside a guy, and God only knows how Chacho would feel about me talking about his Inner Artist this way… but, oh sod it, no, I won’t. I like the idea of an army of Barbie’s mixing creative magic in the world, be they living inside men or women.

So, Chacho Rosenkrantz of 2×4alpie, you unique and special human being you… for mixing tango shoe magic from passion and creativity right here in Buenos Aires, I’m giving you the very first

Barbie IMGP4028 images

Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie Award

whether you like it or not. End of.

And folks around the globe, if you want to see more marvellous photos of 2×4s nestling among the tango shoes I have known, do check out my new and rather super Flickr photoset of that name, for the full celebratory picture book of  Sallycat’s Buenos Aires tango shoe family.

If you actually want to see the 2×4alpie interchangeable sole being changed, check out this little 2×4 video, which gives you a glimpse of just how bloody brilliant it is.

You can find 2×4alpie at Scalabrini Ortiz 1753 Apartment 3, Buenos Aires from 3pm to 7pm Monday to Saturday. If you want to be sure and meet Chacho, then phone before you go 1550112000 to make sure he’s in not out. In June 2009 all 2×4alpie shoes cost $470pesos a pair (when bought direct in Buenos Aires) and come with the full set of 2×4 sole change accessories and the sturdy, practical and super stylish 2×4alpie shoe bag.

And finally, if you own a pair of 2×4s, please feel free to celebrate them here!

The lovely trophy image above was originally on the web at dealbreaker.com.

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