Up the Delta and onwards to San Antonio

From Carmelo we took the Deltacat along the Parana river to Tigre.  Just about everything in South America is huge, and the delta is no exception.   The muddy brown river is very wide, and in the full glare of the sun we both started to feel very sleepy on the crossing. We just about managed to open our eyes long enough to appreciate the wide expanse of water with its reed beds, and to note the little secluded houses built on stilts at the edge of the river.

As we pulled into Tigre, I was enthusiastic to see roller coasters and other rides but Nic, who doesn't like such things at all, assured me that we didn't have time to stop and sample them.  In fairness he was telling the truth, but I think he would have tried that anyway even had we had hours to spare.  So it was straight off the boat, through customs back into Argentina, and onto the bus to Buenos Aires. The bus was slow to arrive in the city so we jumped in a cab to Retiro bus terminal, quickly bought our tickets and rushed to the right bay for our scheduled departure, just about making it on time.

And then waited an hour for the bus because it was late.  When it did arrive, we were caught up in protests blockading the roads, so we got to San Antonio de Areco in the dark and a few hours later than expected. We found our hostel, having to interrupt the owner's family dinner in the process, but they were very welcoming and suggested a some places where we might go for a meal.  We considered a few but were won over by a place called Tokio Viejo on the corner of the main square that was already busy and gearing up for some live music.  We got the last table in the place and settled down to good food and a couple of guys playing tangos.

One of the great things about places like this is that all the locals get up and dance.  The dance floor was less crowded than the milonga that we had been to, but still busy at times and we were impressed as the couples managed to dance around each other.

With a bit more space available, there was a bit more of the leg flicking going on too; it amuses me to see Nic flinch almost every time they do it, as he worries that a slight miscalculation of the woman's part could leave her partner in some pain.  I get the feeling he would never be comfortable participating in that particular move himself.

Towards the end of the evening, we got chatting to a few of the people on the table next to us.  People here always seem to be very interested in our travels and we were quizzed at length.  In a mix of our Spanish and Areceli and Martin's  English, we managed to paint a good enough picture that Areceli asked if she could come with us.

She was also the first Argentine person to bring up the subject of the Falklands with us.  She laughed as she simply said that Las Malvinas are Argentine, and was clearly expecting me to say no.  There was no question that this was not an issue for her and she was simply having a laugh.  We agreed to disagree!

As the evening and the dancing continued, they started playing a few other dances as well as the tango, and that is when one of the other couples decided we should join in.  Before we had time to try to get out of it, he had dragged me up onto the floor, and she had caught Nic and we were all 'dancing'.

Thankfully everyone there realised we wouldn't have the faintest idea what we were doing, and they all seemed to be quite happy with our efforts to follow our leads. We were the last group to leave at around 2am, and three different people offered us a lift back to our hostel.  Not that we needed a lift as it as it was only a short walk.  Overall it was a great evening, made all the better for getting some proper interaction with a few of the local people.

Tango

Salon tango

It is tango time in Buenos Aires, and over the last week we saw two very different types .  There is a tango festival on and part of the festival is the tango world cup.  So on Tuesday we went along to the exhibition centre where they were holding one of the competitions.  It was the first round of the Salon competition.  The Salon dancing is where about eleven couples dance at the same time, much as happens in the milonga salons, but they have a bit more space.  I say that, but the floor is still quite crowded and we witnessed a number of near misses as two couples almost collided.

I’m not sure how you get to be in the competition, but it seemed a bit like anyone could put their name down.  We were there for about five and a half hours and saw 22 rounds which was about 240 couples, but there were about 500 couples in total.  The standards varied immensely.  There were some couples who even to my untrained eye were clearly very good.  The proximity of the other dancers means that they use the close hold and there isn’t much room for showy moves, but still they danced with real flair, adding in the fancy footwork and leg flicks where they could.  And they were certainly dressed for the occasion.

Some others though were less polished.  They didn’t have fancy outfits, and their dancing was still perfectly respectable, but the moves were more basic and they lacked the finesse and style that the others showed.

Hopefully not drunk!

There were a few much older couples too and whilst some of them obviously had some skill, you could see that their movements didn’t have the same fluidity as the others.

There was one couple who actually looked like they might be drunk - although they managed the full dance without crashing anyone so I assume they weren't!

As we only stayed for half of the first round we don’t know who got through, but we certainly picked out some that we thought should, including couples from Italy, Russia and Japan, as well as the Argentinians.

the locals have a go too

As we left, we saw that there was a separate dance floor at the back of the hall, where anyone could get up and strut their stuff.  We considered having a go just so that we could say we had danced at the tango world cup, but as we would probably have bumped into everyone we decided that it was best not to.

Tango spectacular at Cafe Tortoni

The second event was a tango show at Cafe Tortoni, the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires, on Friday night with the Dragoman group.  This was completely different as it was show tango, where they have a lot more room to dance and so use a more open hold and do a lot of big moves.  The show dancing is much faster paced and they pack in the lifts and the leg flicks.  It is impressive, and fun to watch, but the ‘spectacular’ takes away from the intensity of the dance.  For me, the slower paced dance that we saw at the competition was more appealing.  It had a more dramatic and passionate feel to it that I found more powerful.

 

But the show at Tortoni wasn’t just about the dance.  In tango, the music is important too and the show had a number of classic tango songs interspersed.  But the highlight of the show for me was a routine done with balls on the end of a bit of string. The guys were doing the traditional dance, possibly the zapateada, that involves a lot of fast paced foot tapping and stamping, but at the same time twirling these strings around so that the balls clacked on the floor too.  The timing of the moves to the music was incredible, especially when there were two of them dancing at the same time and they were synchronised perfectly.

Overall, two good events, but the Salon tango gets my vote.

Milonga

On Friday night we had our first taste of milonga. Well I say Friday night, but as we didn't arrive until 11pm and left at about 4.30am, I guess Saturday morning would be more accurate!

Milonga is where people of all ages go to dance the tango and the milonga (similar steps but a bit faster). There is an important etiquette to finding a partner. Women who want to dance stay seated but look interested, while the men walk the room. The man will try to catch the eye of the woman he wants to dance with and gesture to her. If she is not interested then she will avoid eye contact and look away, but if she wants to she will nod and then they will both make their way to meet at the dance floor. Much of this is very subtle, so if you are a none dancer like me you have to be careful not to look anyone in the eye if you want to avoid an embarrassing encounter! Generally you will dance with many different partners throughout the evening irrespective of whether you are there with someone. The dances are in sets of four and you keep the partner for the whole set. You don't speak during the dance but there is time for have a brief chat in between and you do see the odd couple having a very awkward silence while waiting for the right point of the music to start dancing again.  It amused us that  when the music ends the dancers stop abruptly and freeze for a moment before releasing - it reminded us of a game of musical statues!

We went because one of our Spanish teachers , Cecilia, was kind enough to invite us to go with her and her friends. They are regular milongistas so frequently took to the floor whilst we just watched, but it was still good fun. It was intriguing to watch the invitation and acceptance to dance and fascinating to see the way they all negotiated their way around the packed dance floor with very few collisions.  At about 2am two experts, in this case the teacher of one person in our group, did three very impressive show dances.

There is a tradition at milonga that if one of the regulars has a birthday then they get the floor to themselves and various of their friends cut in to dance with them.  We happened to be there for a special occasion as it was the birthday of the oldest regular.  He is about 89 and works as a chauffeur during the day and then goes to milonga every night.  He is still pretty decent on his feet and everyone is always happy to dance with him so there was quite a queue for his birthday tango.

And as we were now firmly into Saturday, we had hit 9 July, which is the anniversary of Argentina getting independence from Spain, so after the birthday dance they played the national anthem.  We had heard a fairly lousy rendition of it before the football, with most people having no idea of most of the words, but the milonga crowd did an excellent job of it, knowing all the words and singing in time and in tune.  Typically, as probably the only non-Argentine people in the room, we had to be sat right in front of the piano that they played it on and that everybody looked to as they stood and sang.  So we did stand, but felt fairly conspicuous being practically the only people not singing.

As the night carried on the better dancers hit the floor and even to us the improvement in standard was noticeable, though there was still no room for the kicks and flourishes.  Cecilia and Sol left at about 4am to go to another milonga and then have breakfast, before getting to bed at about 7am.  We stuck around to about 4.30am as the dancing was drawing to a close and got to bed comparatively early at about 5am.  Just as well as we were supposed to be meeting Cecilia and Sol again at midday.  But that is for another posting.