The Return

I'm back from Buenos Aires. I'm back a month early for a job interview. What a strange, interesting, amazing trip. It feels quite weird to be back at the moment. And I've lost some enthusiasm for blogging, so this is all I got right now.

Buenos Aires Photos

I took this photo from the middle of Avenida 9 de Julio, or the 9th of July Ave (the 9th of July is Argentina's Independence Day). All the porteños claim that this is the widest avenue in the world. The other thing they like to point out is that you can't cross it completely in one traffic light cycle, not without running. One night out with some new climber friends, we found ourselves on one side of the avenue on our way to a club. The light had already been red for a while and seeing this, my friend abruptly took off at a full sprint. I watched them for half a second, then realized I had better get my butt going. I barely kept up in my flip-flops, and I made it just before the sea of taxis resumed control of the avenue.

Here's a photo of one of my teachers, Jorge Firpo, giving a demonstration at Escuela Argetine de Tango. I take most of my classes in this studio, from a variety of teachers, male and female. But Firpo is definitely one of the better teachers. He always likes to offer a demonstration of what he taught during class, at the end of class. This time he had an exceptional partner, someone who visited obviously just to dance with him, and they were impressive.

Here's a photo of the other side of the same studio, during another class. It overlooks Calle Florida street, a chaotic, pedestrian street full of street performers and tourist traps.

AAAAHHHHHHH! Watch out for these! This is a Buenos Aires collectivo, or bus. They're everywhere, and probably the best way to get around, cheap as hell, but man can they be lethal. They rip around like NASCAR. If you don't wave for them to stop, they won't (once, late at night and way up on the north end of town, I was waiting for a bus; I bent over to tie my shoe, and when I looked up, my bus flew by at top speed, never slowing down). And all you need to do is put your foot on the first step of the bus, with it's doors still open, and they're off, ready or not. Hang the heck on, buddy.

Milonga!

I recently took a class in Milonga, another partner dance form in the world of tango. Milonga is the brighter side of tango, offering a partner dance that is faster and more overtly rhythmic. It contrasts perfectly to the austerity and self-conscious drama of salon style tango, positively tripping over itself just to keep moving for the sheer pleasure of it. It is what we can call a 'happy dance.' I certainly felt happy after having learned it.

My Milonga teacher's name is Pancho. Like his dance, he lacks the ego and pretension sometimes found in tango salon teachers. His body appears too big and a bit clumsy, but main does he move! (Others later told me that he's considered the best milonga style dancer in BA right now.) He hums, whistles or sings along with all the songs. He's just seems happy to share a dance with us that so obviously makes him happy. I've had two classes with him thus far, and the first was kind of eye-opening, as I picked up the basic dance quickly and was marching around the room with a grin on my face and a partner in my arms.

A milonga is very much like a march, and, minimally, one is always, always, always alternating weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, unceasingly. You are connected to your partner in a close tango embrace, chest to chest, cheek to cheek (or forehead to chin, depending on the height difference). Essentially, you just march around the room, but there are of course a myriad of steps to learn, and, even better--and this is why I think it could never get boring--the possibilities for alternating, double-timing and pausing within this milonga march are infinite.

The music hums along at a happy clip. The rhythm dictates constant movement. Before you know it, you're sailing around the room with a partner, four legs crossing, reversing, stepping and alternating. It's quite fun, to say the least.

Taxis

Buenos Aires has a glut of a taxis. Though they share the same yellow and black color scheme as their New York counterparts, they're a bit smaller than a full sized Ford Motors Crown-Victoria, the NYC standard. The Buenos Aires version is a bit more humble, but no less effective. They're usually a small, compact and "well aged" Peugeot, flying under the colors of the dominate taxi company here, Radiotaxi.

Riding in one of these Radiotaxis can be, depending on your disposition, pleasurably exhilarating (like a roller coaster) or absolutely terrifying (like a car driving off a cliff). Taking full advantage of the world's widest streets (truly!), these taxis just love to thrill you with beautiful, arcing maneuvers across 8 one-way lanes of avenue. Similarly, they employ the brakes only out of absolute necessity, never out of care or courtesy, and they are just as pragmatic about bringing the vehicle to a halt. Why slow down now when we can stop later? Stop if we must, fine, but only in that very fine window that exists exactly prior to slamming into the back of bus at 50 mph. This experience is truly sensational every time--wwweeeeeeeeee!!--and I find myself laughing out loud (to release nervous tension, to show that I am pleased to be alive) every time. Still, for about 6 bucks, you can ride from the very bottom of "down town" to the very top of "up town." They're indispensable!

Tonight my disposition must have been right because I had a great ride. I left San Telmo, my home neighborhood, in a taxi destined for Palermo, a neighborhood at the opposite northern end of town. The avenues were fairly empty, just a few cars and buses thrown out there for a little bobbing and weaving. My driver took full liberties, which is to say he drove quite normally. It was a great drive. The windows were down, the evening was cool and the buenos aires were flowing. We zipped past the Presidential Palace, a few packed buses, huge sculptures of Spainish generals on horses, the cops in their equally small cars, and that giant flower sculpture, Escultura Floralis Generica, which closes up at night like a real flower. It was a full tour of Buenos Aires' East side, all at an average of something like 40 or 50 mph.

A Home Away From Home

After staying in an adequate, but less-than private hostel for my first week in Buenos Aires, I've found a shared apartment and moved in. The place is called La Casa de Marina, and it's run by a very generous and amicable lady named Marina. She's artsy and young at heart, which makes for relaxed and colorful household full of unique second hand furniture, exotic travel souvenirs, classic literature, and, of course, young travelers from all over. Currently there's me, a guy from Austrailia, a guy from the US, and a gal from Sweden. A young couple from Spain arrive in two weeks, my buddy Chris from the US will be here in February, and who knows what else the cat will drag in?

As it's in San Telmo, a historic part of Buenos Aires, the apartment is old and rough around the edges, but in in a cleaned up, hip, NY loft sort of way. Like all the other old dwellings in the city, the ceilings are really high, like 12 or 15 feet, so the whole apartment feels quite spacious (I think the high ceilings are for letting the oppressive heat and humidity rise just a little higher, maybe even where a breeze coming in through the balcony might carry them away). There's a big living room with two little balconies at one end of the apartment; in the middle are three rooms, a bathroom and a very long hallway; at the other end is the kitchen and another open air room. It's about four floors above the cobblestone street, so you ride a tiny little elevator up through the winding stairs to our door. If it's night time, the stairwell is completely dark and the only light is from a single bulb in the tiny cage that is the elevator. It's a bit eery, as if you're rising up through a mine shaft to go to bed.

Around the corner are tons of street cafes, little grocers and, of course, the ubiquitous Internet cafe, which, in Buenos Aires, you can't walk 100 feet without passing one. On Saturdays, as I found out this morning, a bunch of food vendors gather on our little Balcarce street to sell fresh vegetables, fish, bread, pastries, meats and eggs. I shopped there today, buying four tomatoes, a bushel of bananas, two onions, a head of lettuce and one peach, all for 5 peso. That's $1.70 in dollars! Ridiculous, isn't it?

Tango

Hello folks. I 've been in Buenos Aires now for a week and a few days. I came here to learn how to tango in the authentic Argentine style. At this point, it's a goal that certainly seems possible, but it won't be easy.

I have about a little more than four months here, which I think should be enough to master the basics. I hope to leave here with good technical habits and a foundation of skill on which to build for as long as I like. Of course, the point is the pleasure of dancing and moving, so I hope to acquire the technique, then make it disappear!

Buenos Aires is a city rife with tango opportunities--full productions, street shows, milongas (a milonga is a social dance event, the traditional place people go to dance tango in an informal, social context; it is also one style of tango, with it's own technique), and, of course, classes and schools, which are everywhere. Local dancers have quickly realized the economic value of teaching their unique dance. There is unquestionably a high demand for it, and people of all backgrounds and ages come from all corners of the world to learn the dance whose home is Buenos Aires. In any of the classes I have taken thus far, at least four or five countries are represented, if not more. While practicing steps in class with a partner, I find that when I switch partners, I very often switch countries--from Germany, to Japan, then Italy and Brazil, then back to another German. Of course, not all of these languages are spoken and if folks do not understand the instructor's Spanish, then, unsurprisingly, English is spoken.

I take classes at Escuela Argentina de Tango (EAT), which has a rather small studio in the Borges Cultural Center, and another slightly larger one elsewhere in the city at a theatre. It is probably the largest tango school around in terms of the number of classes and instructors it offers. This also makes it one of the best, because you simply can't experience the broad range of teachers and styles they offer at another place. Such offereings make for a busy schedule, with classes going in two studios everyday of the week from 11 in the morning to 10 at night. This is good for me though, and I've been taking two classes per day (three hourse of class) from EAT, and I want to keep that as my minimum from here on out. I would like to take class from other studios and teachers in the city sometime soon.

Tango is hard! It is especially hard if you are the man or the leader, because you're essentially totally responsible for the dance. The man alone initiates it and the man alone chooses the path it will take. The woman only follows; she never leads. She does not have a choice about what steps, combinations and techniques will be employed. She responds to them, and this I think is how she contributes to the dance. She expresses herself in the way she follows the male lead.

All this makes learning to lead the tango harder than learning how to follow it. I find that the instructors, as well as the more sympathetic female students, share this opinion. And I can't tell you the number of times in class the male instructor has used a random female beginner to show us some combination and almost effortlessly turned her into an expert. With a good lead, they give the illusion that she knows what she's doing, that she knows how to follow. Yet as soon as I try the same movement with the same woman, she is stumbling and tripping over her own feet, because I cannot lead her.

In the end though, the dance is nothing without two people! And there's no need to say what it takes two tango, is there? I mean, everyone knows that one.

My Brother

The whole inspiration for this blog was my brother. He started up a blog months ago, when he began travels in Peru. So check his blog out: bigwaternate.blogspot.com. You'll find reflective stories of living and studying in Cusco, as well as plenty of tales of hairy kayaking adventures. Currently, my bro is roaming Peru crushing the steep creeks and notching up first descents.

Here's Nate, bringing the service and goodwill. What a great brother!