Buenos Aires Part Two

The tango – the art of body language.

Buenos Aires is the home of the passionate tango and knowing this I wanted to drown myself in all that was tango. So I went to tango lessons, watched a show, listened to live tango music players in the market and danced on the streets. Every minute was priceless.

The tango is a really beautiful dance of passion, love and sensuality and it was awesome to watch and take part in, however, I saw a side of tango that I really never expected. I’ve heard people say jazz is heavy with heart and tango is light with lust, I don’t totally disagree with this except to say that the sadness and heaviness I expect from jazz, was something I saw and heard in the tango.

The movements and the sounds were of love and sensuality, yes, but even more about loneliness and longing. In the dance, the woman has all these sexy and feather-light moves, the man firm and steady. To me she is saying, ‘look at me, I am desirable, I am yours, desire me, want me, please’ and he is saying ‘ Look at me, I’m strong, I can hold you, I can keep you safe and I can let you fly, desire me, need me, want me, please.’

In this dance I saw people longing to be needed, wanting to be wanted, screaming to be accepted, begging to be desired, to be loved, to not be alone. A dance of beauty, of sadness, of love, of lust, of desire, of longing. The story of life. The story of intimacy. The story of love.


Talking about the shopping. I noticed that the fashion sense wasn’t extravagant and refreshingly so. People were somewhat comfortably dressed, even the so-called trendy ones. Hardly saw people dressed top to bottom in big status brands. It was always a good mixture of original personality and individual expression. There weren’t any fads or people wearing the same or similar type trends. Their looks got me very excited to go find my own form of fashion expression. When I shop for clothing I like to find items that’ll either scream the essence of that city or can’t be found anywhere else. Sometimes a simple T can be dressed in a way that is exclusive to you. Big brands and mass production department stores aren’t usually my thing, individuality is key.

The food is Buenos was pretty good, somewhat similar to what I like having at home. One surprise was finding tongue on a restaurant menu. I don’t know a lot of people that love it as much as I do and was glad to see it.
Wait a minute, there were two disappointments!
It was very difficult to find take away food, or light meals on the go. Not a train smash, but I like eating on the go.

The other disappointment is an on going argument with my fellow travelling buddies, none of them agree with me, yet I stand firm on this.
As you may or may not know, Buenos Aires is revered for its steak. Yes, the portions are served large, smell absolutely delicious, look so juicy and taste so wrong.
All four times I tried to have steak it was never exactly as I wanted, medium to well is not bleeding and definitely not hard, dry and close to burnt. Great looking steak isn’t the point, it has to taste just as good.

Well, I walked the city and tried as many things as possible without any regrets except my lack of Spanish. Buenos Aires will always be in my heart.