thursday 6/28 ...12:30AM - Buenos Aires
(fade in from black)
After an amazing steak and home fries meal typical of the Rio de la Plata region during a breathtaking tango and folklore musical dinner show, a weary group of 17 high schoolers, plus Nate, Liv and Eduardo, and our rockin' local liaisons/staff/moral support Gustavo and Marivi stumble into the hotel on Avenida Esmeraldas in the very "microcentro" of BsAs, in other words, the center of downtown (three blocks from the obelisk that was only recently sheathed in a 100-ft condom for AIDS awareness day. Genius.) The kids are seen off to their rooms, as is the program director. The dialog that follows is approximately:
G: "Vamos al boliche (bar)."
N: "I don't want to go to the bar. I am exhausted."
M: "Si, vamos a bailar. Es un bar brasileno y conocemos al dueno."
N: "Honestly, thanks for the hospitality, and it's great that the owner is Gustavo's cousin, but I gotta crash." (It's now 1:15AM)
G: "En cinco minutos me voy. ("I'm leaving in five minutes.")
N: "I'll get my shoes."
Transition to the three of us in a cab, arriving shortly thereafter to a bar that would ultimately see us dance for the next two hours, wiggling to Brazilian beats and strobe lights, half dreaming it all and running on my fifth wind of the day, only to get back for five hours of sleep before today's romp out in the country at an "estancia", or ranch, themed around the Argentine "gaucho" cowboy lifestyle and traditional dances of the country.
Today was great, complete with a little horseback ride (I think my horse was named "Maradona", just like every little boy born in this soccer-crazed country after 1986). We had steak again, aways delicious but becoming relatively repetitive, and watched a top-notch folk dance show, and enjoyed time in the countryside an hour outside of the capital, where the 'yerba mate' tea (drunk through a metal filtered straw from a hollowed gourd) flows like water (gas stations have hot water specifically for filling thermoses on the highways), and where it's so natural that hawks flew around us as if they were sparrows, and the cowboy skills demonstration that included the takedown of a wooden ostrich with a "boleadora" (i think) was speedy and intimidating.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY:
- blood sausage (morcilla) for lunch
- running into people on the sidewalks like it's going out of style
- beautiful, blue sky weather in the high 60s for the third day in a row
- not losing a single kid
- The arrival of Liv and Emily at 9:30AM after reconnecting out of D.C. (and ME not having to be the one to go get them while in a delusional state of so few hours of sleep.)
- getting taunted ruthlessly by my Argentine colleagues after the futbol trouncing (as to be expected. the trouncing AND the treatment.)
This evening, after pizza with the mob, we returned to the hotel to catch the stomping of the U.S. soccer team by Argentina (4-1). Now, as is par for the course, it's 1:15AM and I still have to pack for tomorrow's departure (read: 13-hour bus ride to Cordoba). We're up at 8AM, quick breakfast, off to a nature preserve (El Tigre river) for the day, then on the bus at 10PM tomorrow for the overnight.
Here's a little eye candy, some tango pics form last night, some gaucho and bus pics from todays excursion. So far everyone healthy, in good spirits, learning a lot of Spanish, feeling our way through this bustling capital of 13 million, and just glad to be five thousand miles from home.
buenas noches,
Nate
P.S. Tango.
Ebony and ivory suck the color from the sky,
the melody of the keys, the pulsing thunder
that awaits the soldiers as they leap from their
trenches; the accordion is frantic, passionate,
and it returns fire on the twitching violins
whose own fate is surrendered not to the weather,
not to the truth in their aim, but to the wisdom
of two souls far from the battlefield but here, and casting
the shadow of the sixth and final step.
The trenches are empty now, the dancers are sweating.
The audience is sweating. Under fire. Seeking to be
held just like those two on stage. Rat tat tat.
Drinking yerba mate on the bus.
Folk percussion- not sure from which region.
Watching the gauchos race, a way for them to decide upon land ownership more than a couple of centuries ago...
Gustavo and Marivi...
