Buenos Aires barrios

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One perfect Sunday

April 6, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information | 8 comments

Good enough to eat Somewhere, buried in a whirlwind fortnight of fruitless trips to Migraciones, buggered laptop hard drives and testing nicotine withdrawals, was a perfect Sunday: Me and C. keen to hit the streets; beautiful late summer Buenos Aires; the recommendations of a friend who at that point, I hadn’t actually met. Other people’s favourite places are always music to my ears, and especially when they converge with budding ideas or desires of my own. Sometimes I’ve been meaning to do something or go somewhere for ages (let’s call it X) and then finally a mate saying, Hey have you tried X yet? pushes me the last inch and I get walking.

I’ve ridden past Parque (Park) Lezama loads of times on the way to and from one of my favourite viewpoints in Buenos Aires: the La Boca rooftop of Museo de Bellas Artes de La Boca Benito Quinquela Martín – just as an aside, if you visit La Boca, this art gallery and the views from its sculpture terraces are an absolute must. Anyway if you take the 64 or the 152 to get there, you will skirt around the bottom of the Parque as you turn in or out of the ‘gateway’ to La Boca, which is marked by a border of faded corrugated metal facades, fake windows and charicature-manikins  mimicking the houses of Caminito. When you see that landmark, and the foot of a hill like park opposite, get off the bus. If it’s the weekend there’ll be a straggle of market stalls winding their way around and disappearing up under the trees: an extra bonus if you like bargain hunting, as I do.

As it turns out this park offers a few treats. For starters the gorgeous Art Nouveau cookie factory in the photo can be seen across the street: the biscuit colour of the walls made me hungry. Next, the park’s design offers tree covered strolls; glimpses of Roman style statues, urns and follies; a gentle climb towards the terracotta and white house which sits at the top of the hill, and which is home to the free to enter National History Museum (worth a look for the building’s interior and some well selected exhibits, plus it will be expanding soon to include a café). On our wander uphill we managed to encounter a huge slice of homemade pizza with a delicious crust ($4pesos a piece and one was big enough for two), buy a military button for the jeans a dear friend gifted me recently – perfect fit but missing a fastener, and splash out on a second hand hippy chic shirt… oh gosh, like I said I can’t resist local markets!

By the time we made  it to the top of the park and the corner of Defensa and Brasil, I realised that I was almost in Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo, on a Sunday, and thus just a couple of blocks from the crowds. The peace of Parque Lezama however, gave no hint of that crush just up the road, and brought home to me how few tourists ever walk even a few blocks off the most beaten tracks. I was glad that on the border of La Boca and San Telmo, I finally had.

‘En la esquina de Defensa y Brasil’, Bar Britanico (well I had to pop in there didn’t I?) served us great coffee in traditional  surroundings for a surprisingly low price. As we sipped our ‘dos cortados en jarrito’, it dawned on us we’d already been in there once before, on a winter’s dawn many moons ago, after spilling out of Parakultural at Peru 571 one Saturday – this is a cool 24/7 café that never closes its doors. Way back in those mists of my early days in Buenos Aires, as we waited for the bus after a 5am breakfast, it seemed to me that we stood in the middle of absolutely nowhere and definitely in a dodgy district. This time I knew where I was, noticed the stunning Italian style balcony next to the Art Deco apartment block opposite, spotted Torcato Tasso a stone’s throw away, couldn’t believe I hadn’t shared this particular corner of the city with my parents – next time for sure.

We checked our map, and I calculated that we were probably only half an hour’s walk from Barracas and the artistic haven that is Calle Lanín. So, fired up with enthusiasm for demonstrating my expert knowledge of Buenos Aires attractions, I dragged C. off up Avenida Caseros towards the tiny street Lanín. There he enthused about the ceramic art in a way that perhaps only plumbers who have seen the inside of far too many badly tiled bathrooms can, and promised me that he’d be knocking up something Calle Lanín style on our balcony pronto. I meanwhile, marvelled at the stillness of the place, and found myself wondering how many visitors to Buenos Aires just don’t bother or don’t know to make it to Barracas and this stunning pint-sized street with soul. Please promise me you’ll try.

We finished our afternoon and ourselves off by marching through back streets to Constitución Station (probably only wise in broad daylight, with a degree of purpose in your stride), where I snapped a few pics of the vast arches that remind me of the glory days of British Rail. Got to say that flashing big cameras (mine’s teeny tiny) might not be too smart in Constitución… just be aware and be discreet eh?

As we wound our way home towards Palermo on the Blue Subte Line C, and the Green Subte Line D my feet were throbbing, but I was chattering like a child about the treasures that had made up our perfect day. Whatever gave you the idea and the energy to do all that? said C. I didn’t even know you’d heard of Parque Lezama!

Well, I began, I confess I can’t take all the credit… and out of my bag I pulled the printed pages of the e-book I’d downloaded from the internet just a few days before:

image

Really, this neat little e-book by Jeff Barry at SoroDesign is exactly my kind of thing because it actually does enable you to create your own perfect days or half days in Buenos Aires: Jeff sends you off to an area of the city and then helps you discover it as you walk… architecture, landmarks, museums, cafés, parks, galleries. To create our perfect Sunday I picked just one of the book’s San Telmo starting points: Parque Lezama, made sure I found and tried all Jeff’s tips for the locality, and went home with a big smile on my face. OK, I admit I’ve got a bit of local knowledge and so I was able to add in Calle Lanín, but in the day I’ve described to you, straight out of Jeff’s e-book came Parque Lezama, the cookie factory, The National Museum, Bar Britanico, and Avenida Caseros. Not bad for a couple of small paragraphs of a guide book in my opinion. Plus, another section tipped me off to check out the architecture of Constitución Station. I’m glad I did.

The title might mention four perfect days, but actually there’s probably enough treats in its well organised and illustrated pages to keep you busy in Buenos Aires for a whole lot longer.

Having tried it out for myself, I think the book offers a good selection of the more well known and the less discovered. Yes, Jeff leaves out a few of my personal favourites, but instead he includes places that I have yet to explore, and for me that is a RESULT! What use is a guide book that only tells me what I already know? Even after two years here, I can learn from Jeff’s super suggestions. If you’ve never been to Buenos Aires, then I think he will get you off to a great start. I think the e-book’s got a cool price tag too: at only USD$8.95, it probably isn’t going to break your bank.

Best part for me is that if you buy the e-book, and you do it via Sallycat’s Adventures, then Jeff has agreed to give me a little bonus, out of his profits, for the sale. Thus over time we can all win: you can follow in my footsteps and enjoy your own perfect days in Buenos Aires, I can treat myself to a few licuados, and Jeff sells his book: win, win, win! Perfecto.

So how can you get your hands on this little gem? Well, just click any of the photo links on my blog (more will appear soon) including the one above in this post. Or, use this link instead:

Click here to visit the SoroDesign Buenos Aires website and buy Jeff’s e-book!

Meanwhile, if you’re wishing you’d been with Me and C. on our perfect Sunday, why not head over to my One Perfect Sunday Flickr Photo Set where you can slideshow the gorgeous photos we took as we explored.

Sometimes, however well we think we know a place, it can be the fresh perspective of another soul that adds the possibility of new layers of discovery. If, on the other hand, we’re a first time visitor, aren’t we always after the inside track? If you like what you see in my photos, why not give Jeff’s ideas a try and treat yourself to the prospect of  ‘4 (or more) Perfect Days in Buenos Aires.’

Here’s to exploring and adventuring with a little help from our friends. Enjoy!

 

After the fact, one of you sent me the link to this all the way from Milan, and because I love the BBC and David Bowie’s voice and the brilliant use of this tune in Trainspotting I’m adding it to this post. Here’s to every day being a perfect one. We have it in our power to make it so!

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Synchronicity

January 15, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams | 6 comments

Me and Carlos! Picture this.

You’re hanging around in the hallway of  El Museo Casa Carlos Gardel in Abasto, waiting for your parents to catch up so you can leave. You’re thinking about where you might go for a coffee, and you’re wondering whether your folks will be remotely interested in the slightly naff statue of Gardel himself, on offer a few blocks away. As you stand there hoping to come up with something better to show them than the ‘historic on the outside at least’ Abasto Shopping Mall, a strange man in a smartish suit leaves a small group congregating in the front salon, approaches you, and says in Castellano,

“Excuse me. I don’t know if you would be interested but we’re about to leave on an art tour. We have a minibus and the tour will take about two hours. It’s free. Would you like to come?”

What do you do?

A. Say no immediately: he’s obviously a crook who wants to get you into an Abasto back street and steal your credit cards;

B. Say yes right away: you were praying for an answer as to how to kill an afternoon, and he showed up on cue;

C. Ask him one question to check his credentials and decide you can deal with the inevitable sales pitches.

I’d love to say I was an instant B. but however much I like to think I go with the flow, I’m British and therefore slightly suspicious of any strange foreign men in suits who mention the words tour, art and free in the same breath. I picked my one question, and asked him who he was. Well, Argentines are usually to the point aren’t they? They just say it like it is. And so do I in situations like that: you ain’t messin’ with me boy, type thing (probably the hours of ‘chica fria’ practice I’ve put in turning down dubious looking guys who approach my milonga table helps).  Anyway, by the time he’d told me we’d be joining a Government Minister of Culture, the manager of one of the most prestigious hotels in Buenos Aires, and the owner of a new tango show, I was hooked. Of course the sales pitches would come, but hell, I could handle them, right?

Before that day I’d never heard of Fernando Martínez, who incredibly uses the fine leads of nothing larger than pencils to create detailed works of over a metre in diameter, in part inspired by the world of tango. By five o’clock that afternoon I’d been introduced to him by the man in the suit, and he’d shown me his latest drawing in progress on the easel, his neat row of sharpened pencils laid out on the tiny stand to the left, and the tango shoes that inform his intricate and sensual collages. As he spoke to me, he chuckled and smiled: a master of his art, and a delightful man. He gave me a round postcard style example of one of his works. I couldn’t stop staring at the finished erotic giants leaning against every wall: they were wrapped and waiting to leave for the next exhibition, but I was getting a privileged glimpse of them all. I might not have heard of him before, but bloody hell, it became rather obvious to me that most Argentine art lovers probably have.

There were no sales pitches. None. Not one. Just four artists in their homes and studios, all different, all brilliant, all generous with their time. At the end there were drinks and snacks and questions about what we’d thought of the tour. Did we think it of value to meet living artists, see their work spaces, talk to them about their art? I tried to give my best possible little speech in Castellano and I hope I managed to convey, how honoured we were to have had the chance:  “Me emocione,” I ended. They seemed delighted that we thought it was worthwhile. Worthwhile? I was standing there with my parents who are themselves both artists, in the full knowledge that if I had spent hundreds of dollars and planned months in advance, I probably couldn’t have pulled off an afternoon quite as perfectly matched to their wildest dreams.

“Thank you so much for coming!” enthused the girls who were the extremely well-informed  art guides from Arte Tres Peces and the man in the suit, as if we were the most important people in the room. They insisted on giving us a lift back to the museum we’d started out from. To be honest we were left on the street corner in a bit of a daze.

“Do things like that really happen?” asked my Mum.

“In Buenos Aires they do,” I said, “But only if you say yes.”

Neither the guides or the man in the suit, all of whom spoke some English, asked me to recommend their tour, but how can I not? If you are in town and want to get on the inside of Argentine art, well I can’t think of a much better place to start.

Alas you guys will have to pay. Unless that is, you decide to pitch your tent in the hallway of the Carlos Gardel House Museum on the highly improbable off chance that a strange man in a suit will approach you and offer you a free magical mystery tour from art heaven. If he does, make sure you’re a straight B. eh?

Inside Art

I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.

Dalai Lama

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Beauty in Barracas?

August 10, 2008 in Buenos Aires Information | 3 comments

Under the autopista, Barracas I am the sort of girl who sees beauty in the lines of concrete columns supporting a motorway, rubbish being blown about on a dusty pavement, derelict buildings… but as I searched for a different kind of beauty in Barracas, I honestly did find myself wondering if I could possibly be in the right place.

Carlos has been replacing the entire gas system of a house on the far border of this barrio for the last two weeks, and yesterday the lovely couple who live in the house invited me to visit for lunch. We ate homemade ham and cheese tart, talked of the brave Italian immigrants who travelled so far by boat to settle in Argentina, like their parents, like Carlos’ grandmother. We froze in a cool internal room designed for the heat of the summer rather than a winter with the gas cut off, drank rich coffee enterprisingly brewed on a glowing ancient electric contraption, and I asked them how to find the Calle Lanin. Carlos had work to do and I wanted to explore.

I got the impression that both Carlos and my hosts were slightly nervous about me walking out alone, but they let me go with instructions to get a taxi if ‘you see anything that bothers you’ and to ‘call Carlos if anything happens’. They got me to memorise my route so that I wouldn’t have to stand around on a street corner with a map. After that I confess I felt a bit anxious heading under the ‘autopista’. And I do not think I would have walked there in the dark. It is just not my normal experience to look down a Buenos Aires street in daylight and have the impression of ‘emptiness’, but on a Saturday afternoon here the back streets are silent, shop fronts are shuttered and there are few people. Calle Lanin is well hidden. It is therefore also the most wonderful surprise. Just as I was thinking I must have made a mistake, I arrived.

I read the sign on the wall. It began, ‘We are among those who believe that the city has soul…’

a street with soul At first I was alone there. Completely and utterly alone.

There were no cafés that I could see. The only ’shop’ was three children outside their house selling a few plastic-bead bracelets they had made themselves. This made me smile as I thought of La Boca’s Caminito just some fifteen blocks away,  and imagined the possible scene a few years from now…

Right on cue, a pristine white bus parked at one end of the street. Maybe 20 people got out. The bus drove on. The people walked, rather too fast for my liking. They took a few pictures but talked to each other constantly and I wondered if they even noticed the sign I had just read. Before I could say, ‘ceramic’, they had boarded their bus at the other end of the street and I was alone once more. A few folks cycled by, around the corner a small film crew filmed, some locals wandered through with their dogs. I took my time, walked the street twice, tried to capture the colours on my own little camera, but more importantly tried to absorb the spirit of the place into mine.

As I walked back under the ‘autopista’ I realised that Calle Lanin had changed me. I did not feel nervous any more. I walked slowly, I stopped and looked. I tried to feel the soul in the pavements, in the architecture, in the eyes of the people I passed. My phone rang and it was Carlos, ‘I was worried about you. You didn’t call me,’ he said. ‘Two blocks and I’m with you,’ I replied. ‘Don’t worry. I am fine. I found everything,’ I said. And I had.

Find out why Calle Lanin is special and how to find it, in photographs

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Shopping for dreams

August 8, 2008 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams | 8 comments

Winter walkingI was on a mission this sunny Buenos Aires winter’s morning: to shop for the first ingredients of my latest little dream. I am a girl of action: from dream seed to first steps within 5 days, not bad eh?

I made it out of the flat by noon and my favourite Subte line D whisked me off to Facultad de Medicina where I sat in a cosy concrete chair in the Plaza Bernardo Houssay to gather my strength. In this newly remodelled public space there are concrete loungers too, and I rather fancied lounging in one of those, but they were all taken. Next time. I made myself be still for fifteen minutes and watch the world of Argentines: playing, reading, sunning, singing, selling, shouting, crying, snogging. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

I dragged myself away from the pigeons, crossed Cordoba and found Uriburu, which heads up through barrio Once: in Once very street has its own particular type of shop, selling its street speciality ‘por mayor’ (wholesale) and possibly ‘por menor’ (to the likes of you and me who only want one). This is very convenient for the shopper because if you want fabric, then you go to the dozens of shops in ‘fabric street’ for example. In Uriburu they are selling a bizarre mix of wedding cake paraphernalia, ’souvenirs’ (read ‘a lot of tat’), tiny plastic lucky ‘duendes’ (gnomes), ribbons, glitzy strings, beads of every imaginable variety, a dazzling of semi-precious stones, and the thing that I was after… macramé threads.

From a baffling range of prospects, I chose the store with DIY hand painted signage, smooth-as-glass polished flat stones in the window and nothing too ‘bling’. I am the discerning natural-artesan-type you understand.

Inside I scanned the walls, and finding only bags of beads, I approached the counter. To my left a woman was selecting maybe fifty of the polished stones that had got me in through the door. I said in my best castellano to the nice young man, ‘I want to learn how to make macramé bracelets and I need…’ He smiled and completed for me with ‘…hilo’, string. He showed me the rainbow of thread reels behind him on the shelf and invited me to choose from two different qualities at $12pesos or $8pesos (I might send Carlos in there next time as this seemed a bit expensive). I wanted all the colours. At one point I had three in my hands, BUT I remembered all the times in my life when I have enthusiastically bought out entire knitting shops, never to finish the first sleeve. I said to myself,

‘Sal you’re doing things differently now remember, you just buy one and see how it goes.’

So, I left behind on the shelf the ocean blue, the heather purple, the summer-swimming-pool aqua and I bought one reel, a smoky neutral grey. I left the stones in the shop too. I thought of the necklaces I own that never see the light of day but live under the bathroom sink. They have some beads in them and some stones, and I can cut them up and they will do. $12 pesos and I had everything I needed: that is to say, apart from the faintest idea about how to tie a single macramé knot…

IMGP0283 I sat in the sun on the corner of Lavalle and Uriburu and let my precious waterproof thread pass through my fingers, and as I did so I remembered that they have book shops in Buenos Aires. So I walked to Santa Fé and found El Ateneo.

I would question whether there is a more stunning bookshop in the world that El Ateneo. It was a theatre some eighty years ago, and it is now a perfectly restored theatre that is home to thousands and thousands of books. You can sit and drink coffee in the café on the original stage, where Carlos Gardel once performed. You can sit in chairs on the balconies and read. No-one hassles you. No-one questions why you are wandering round and round and round searching optimistically for the surely large and informative macramé section.

IMGP0290In El Ateneo I found out that macramé skills in Argentina must really be passed down from the ‘abuelos’  (grandparents):  the macramé section was, I discovered after a very long wander, made up of one single $24peso book, and I bought it, so now there is no macramé section. But I was delighted with my thin tome of wisdom and its first few pages with their huge childish diagrams of the basic knots. I will give it a go, while I search out my very own ‘abuelo’.

My day was made when walking to the subway, I found a different slim volume of wisdom, the magazine BAINSDER , for sale at a stall on the corner of Santa Fé and Pueyrredón: $6pesos. I have been looking for the latest issue for weeks. This is a really great little mag in English for the likes of me: a foreigner living in Buenos Aires. It fits in my bag. It’s packed with useful information. I was so excited, that I had to stop for a ‘licuado de banane con leche’ to celebrate. And at $12pesos (I am sure a year ago these used to be $6) it made the thread seem a good deal. Another reason to celebrate.

So mission accomplished, plus the bonus of extra Buenos Aires treats for the eyes and the tummy, all inside of five hours. Now all I have to do is work out how to tie the knots that will turn my dream into reality. That’s tomorrow’s little challenge.

See pictures of our Buenos Aires winter days

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Mi barrio

September 5, 2007 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires | 10 comments

IMGP7610 My apartment has been painted, the floor sanded and treated, the sofa bed and fridge have arrived and tonight I am spending my first night within my own four walls. I have at last got electricity and gas. It will be two weeks before the telephone line is installed and probably two weeks more for the broadband, so for now I am camping out between here and Carlos’ place, but I am writing this in my very own new bed in my very own little home in Buenos Aires. I have just drunk a delicious coffee on the balcony, counted the stars I could see in the sky, listened to the sounds of the city below. I am at peace.

In the last few days I have been getting to know my ’barrio chico’ – Las Canitas. I have walked the ten blocks between my flat and Carlos’ home countless times, and every time I try to walk in different streets. Las Canitas is a tiny barrio sandwiched between Palermo and Belgrano. It is home to the polo fields, many restaurants, cafes and small shops of character. Two blocks from me is the boutique hotel ‘Casa Las Canitas’ and four blocks away is the telo ‘La Fusta’ (the riding crop!) – yet to be sampled. Today the weather was beautiful with the temperature in the mid twenties and I started the morning with coffee and medialunas outside in the sun. I took the number 15 ‘colectivo’ (bus) to my tango class in Villa Crespo, danced milonga for an hour with Ariel and tonight began to move my belongings into the new apartment. My new life begins…

In the interests of understanding how the Argentines in my neighbourhood spend their nights, I have tried a couple of more local Milongas during the past week. I loved them. How different they seem to the tourist hot spots such as Canning and La Viruta. On Wednesday night we headed to ‘Estilo’ in Palermo. This is a Milonga in a restaurant and I have been there once before with Carlos in our early days together. It was good to return. I suspect I was the only non-Argentine there. I love the dance floor in this venue – tiled and perfect for pivots. The music was a lovely selection with all my favourites: Pedro Laurenz, Miguel Calo and D’Arienzo, and later in the night there was plenty of space to dance. As I was with my man I was not practicing the ‘cabaceo’, however this would be a place to do so. There were areas for singles to be seated as well as for couples or groups, and I watched the tangueros changing partners all night long.

On Sunday night Carlos took me to ‘Club Ciudad’ in Nunez, beyond Belgrano, in Avenida Libertador. Arriving in the taxi I found myself outside a grand entrance to the grounds of a large sports club. We walked in the dark through iron gates and up the drive towards the tango music. This too was a very argentine venue, and much larger than ‘Soho Cabrera’. Once again I could have been the only ‘tourist’ on the dance floor. I spotted a few famous milongueros relaxing with their friends in the grand salon. The food available looked great. The atmosphere was romantic with small potted trees hung with fairy lights, and white leather sofas lining the walls behind the tables. We danced until the final tango, as always ‘La Cumparsita’, announced the end of the night. This Milonga starts at 9pm and so by 1.30 it was thinning out and by 2.30 there was only Carlos and I on the dance floor with one of the waiters, still wearing his long apron, and his chosen partner. After some of my recent experiences on crowded ‘pistas’ it was a dream to have a bit of space to ourselves.

These two Milongas were very definitely ‘porteno’ and on both occasions Carlos tactfully suggested that I wear something less ’sporty’. I was glad that I listened to him. I don’t want to stand out in places like this. I want to blend in with the local people, respect their lifestyle and thus understand better how they enjoy their tango. I did not feel it appropriate to take photographs either. These are Argentines enjoying the privacy of their regular Milongas and I am their guest. I see how Carlos loves to take me to these venues. He is more comfortable here than in the chaos of the more famous and more centrally located salons. To my surprise I feel more comfortable in them too. The initial excitement of the more public tango experience is wearing off. I was wowed by the crowds in the beginning, but now it is the more private argentine experience that makes my heart beat faster. I am seeing a different face of tango now, and I like it. Also I know I am lucky to see it. With my Argentine at my side I can slip in unnoticed. And I am not sure that I would have tried these venues alone. Should you? Well, yes I think so. The welcome is always warm. Tread quietly and respectfully and the reward of a greater insight into how the Argentines enjoy their tango will be yours.

See pictures of my barrio in September

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A new country, a new dream

August 17, 2007 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 2 comments

IMGP6949 I never thought that buying a home in Argentina would be easy. I was right. The past weeks have tested my commitment and drive to achieve this new part of my dream, to the limit. Maybe one day some of you will want to follow in my footsteps and own a tiny piece of Buenos Aires. If you do perhaps my story will help you to have the smoothest possible ride.

Here is the first installment:

Part 1. Finding the perfect pad

This part involved a lot of walking.

I chose several barrios that I thought I might like to live in. My criteria were: affordable, all the useful amenities within a few blocks, safe, close to good transport links (Subway line D or Subway line B and buses), relatively close to Ariel’s classes. Initially I considered Villa Crespo, Abasto and Almagro (cheaper and closer to Subway line B), and Barrio Norte, Las Canitas, and Belgrano going out to the end of the Subway line D at Congreso de Tucuman (more expensive, though cheaper the farther out you get). In case you are wondering, I simply couldn’t afford Recoleta where I live now or many parts of Palermo.

I started with the Clarin newspaper and website: www.clarin.com.ar to find apartments that I could afford (up to US$60000). I wanted new because I hope that it will require less maintenance than an older place. This hiked the price, and narrowed the search. Yes, there is a huge amount of building happening in BA right now, but I discovered that many places will not be completed until summer 2008 and this is too late for me. I want to start saving rent now. I made a list of all the possibilities and marked their locations on my trusty tango map. Then I started walking.

At first the experience was depressing. I had to cross off the subway line B barrios. Basically I found that I didn’t like the locations of the available apartments. Often too, I discovered the apartments were in a very early stage of build and would never be ready in the stated time frame. I decided I couldn’t buy something I couldn’t actually see completed. I wanted to know what the finish would be like, touch the view with my own eyes, feel the space. One day I walked in Villa Crespo to view the location of a gorgeous looking finished studio apartment at the attractive price of US$47500. I thought it was a bit too good to be true. It was one new ‘designer’ building in amongst streets and streets of car workshops. All I could hear was grinding and all I could smell were petrol fumes and rubber. There wasn’t a single cafe or ‘panaderia’ in sight, and it was a VERY long walk from the centre of Villa Crespo. Exploratory walks like this took hours, and left me too tired to tango. But I always learned something, even if it was that I wouldn’t be going back.

Then things started to look up. I noticed that if I went to look at a particular address, my walk often took me past many other ’For Sale’ boards and many apartment blocks that I didn’t know about. I started taking photographs of every one I saw that I liked. When I got home I enlarged the photo to read the agent’s name, and searched for the agent on the internet to see if I could afford the place and if it was available.

I started exploring the barrios on the subway line D. Barrio Norte – too expensive. Congreso de Tucuman – affordable new apartment builds, plenty available now, quiet streets but maybe too quiet, and maybe a bit far out. Central Belgrano – anything new, out of my price range. Las Canitas – ah Las Canitas, well this is where I started smiling. I went to visit a new build in Las Canitas, that I had found on the internet. Apparently it would be attended for viewings between 2 and 5pm. At 3.30pm when I arrived there was nobody in attendance. The door was locked. But I am not one to waste a journey. I walked the area. I liked it. I took a few photos other apartment blocks. When I got home and researched on the web, I found details of one possible: a studio on the fourth floor, US$54000. An email or two later I had an appointment to view on the coming Saturday.

I took Carlos with me. He works in the building trade so has a useful eye, asks the right questions and of course he speaks all the castellano that I don’t. Essential. The only studio left by the day I got there was on a higher floor (better) and was priced at US$60000 (worse), but I LOVED it. It had an amazing view over the city. When I walked in all I noticed was light flooding in and the sky beyond the big glass doors onto the balcony. I imagined waking up to that sky every day and my heart was set. It was that easy. Then we looked in more detail: good kitchen, quality bathroom – with a bath/shower (gotta take a bath before dancing), great water pressure, gas powered heating, gorgeous wooden floor – perfect for the occasional tango. The sun terrace and small swimming pool on the roof, both with fantastic views, were a bonus… A possible price of US$57000 was discussed with the agent accompanying us and I agreed to call the next day with my decision.

Then we walked around the corner to the block of apartments I hadn’t managed to get in to before. They were attended this time. We viewed for comparison. OK they were bigger, but still only studios. Carlos didn’t like the heating system which was basically a big air conditioning unit that could blow hot or cold. The views were into the noisy street, or into other apartments. And worst of all, the prices were between US$75000 and US$85000 – totally unaffordable. As we walked back to the subway we bumped into the agent who we had left earlier – fate.

Thirty minutes later on 8th July, for better or for worse, I had reserved the apartment with an agreement to pay the US$500 deposit on the Monday. I had walked enough, seen enough, thought enough. I am the same with whatever I decide to buy: tango shoes, pink shoe laces, an apartment. I see it. I know if I like it in seconds. And I liked this place very much. All I had to do was make the whole thing happen…

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