ENDEX(1): Last Tango in Buenos Aires, before leaving South America

Starbucks, George St, Edinburgh

After a 13 hour flight from Buenos Aires to Paris, a 15 minute gap to get my connecting flight to Heathrow, which involved doing a convincing impression of Ussain Bolt down the long walkways of Charles de Gaulle, and a night out in London, I then made it up to my current location of Edinburgh for a 30-40 degree temperature drop.  Brrrrrr.

Last Saturday, the 1^st of December, I’d checked into the hostel in BA in time to watch the England All Blacks game at Twickenham, which I’d been cautiously optimistic about.  I’d thought that England’s determined, focused young lads might surprise the smug, complacent AB’s.  I hadn’t expected them to run the AB’s ragged and put nearly 20 points on them- which definitely put a smile on my face as I went out to establish my first impressions of the Argentine capital.

Typical central BA street.

 

BA at last light

Argentine congress building

It was the last city I visited on my 2 month South American trip and definitely the most spectacular.  It reminded me of Paris, with the wide boulevards, and the fact that the Argie population generally look French as a result of the mixture of predominantly Spanish, Italian and German immigration.  Others said it reminded them of Barcelona, as well, although that is one place I’ve never been.  On the Saturday, after the rugby I spent several hours walking on my own around the city, just soaking up the ‘atmos’ and enjoying the warm climate.  I was pointed in the direction of the military museum and headed off to investigate, however I’d been given ‘duff int’ and the only museum I could find was the Argentine museum of Fine Art, which I’m sure is wonderful if you’re into that sort of thing- cheers.

Argentine Museum of Fine Art

 

However, much as I appreciate looking at new cities, or anywhere, on my own, as I notice far more detail, there is a point when I get bored, so I headed back to the famous/ notorious Mill House hostel to find out “Donde esta la fiesta!” (Where’s the party?).  Like the rest of Argentina, the social life involves drinking until 5AM, so when in Rome…  One thing that amazed me is that, just like when you’re in the local pub of an English village at 11PM and they stop serving, all you want is another beer, and similarly, at 5AM in Buenos Aires, all you want is “una mas cervaza!”

In terms of the other tourists in Buenos Aires, there were ironically more British people there than anywhere else I’ve encountered- no doubt attracted to the place we’re disliked the most!  Generally on my travels over the past couple of years whenever I hear an English/ British accent I keep my mouth shut as they will invariably be either cringe-inducing Fulham ‘Rahs’ desperately pretending to be more ‘posh’ than they are, or else chavs who want to talk about football and to fight (no, I don’t identify with either category!).  However, the impression of the ones I met in Argentina was that they were generally graduate professionals such as trainee solicitors (lawyers, for the yanks), who were by and large good company.  There may be something in the fact that prices in BA are about the same as London, so the chavs are priced out.

On one of the days I went for a trip with some of the Irish and Aussie contingent to the ‘Evita’ Eva Peron museum, which I had a quick glance at, though I can’t pretend that the whole worker’s rights, women’s rights theme particularly rocked my world.  On the way back we went and had a look at the ‘Pink Palace’ from where Evita had addressed the crowds, and where their current clown of a President, Senora Fernandez-Kirchner lives.  The few Argies who I've heard speaking about her have not been fans at all, and have said she should focus on sorting out the economy rather than annoying Britain.  However, it’s obviously a careful path to tread in conversation.  Ever since I saw a Brit (he was RAF, obviously) in Iraq confidently telling an American soldier that all British people hate George W. Bush, oblivious to the awkward fact that he was actually democratically elected by the United States population, twice, I’ve felt that talking about other nation’s politicians is like talking about other people’s families- if they want to slate them, that’s fine, but don’t join in.

The Pink Palace- Mrs Kirchner's 'casa'

 

After seeing the Pink Palace we then went for a walk down the road to see the Argie defence building, which actually reminded me slightly of a bigger version of the Ministry of Defence main building in London.  It also occurred to me that if we, like the Americans, had had a Tomahawk Cruise Missile capability back in 1982, it might just have been turned into a hole in the Buenos Aires pavement.  In the grounds of the building there was a mini museum showing both recent Argentine military contributions to UN peace keeping missions, as well as, obviously, a memorial to the Falklands War.

Argentine Defence Ministry, with memorial in foreground.

 

Memorial showing Argentine soldier standing in the Falklands,

Once back at the hostel I was quietly having a pint with some of the others who were kicking about and someone asked me if I was doing the Tango classes- “Er, are you p*ssed??”  Shortly afterwards the tables were all being cleared away, and people began forming up for the lesson- and I dived out of the way!  Sadly, though they were a ‘man down’, so I got dragged in to make up the numbers, despite warning about my own levels of grace and co-ordination!  The thing with tango it is incredibly ‘close contact’, and I imagine if you had any inhibitions you might struggle, however neither I nor the Welsh bird I was paired up with were particularly shy, so we were fine and it was quite a good laugh.  I still maintain though, that anybody watching me would probably have thought I was attempting Krav Maga!

Another couple throwing some Tango moves in the hostel.
 

 

'One Direction' waiting to take their Tango partners...

The following day I eventually found out where the actual Argentine military museum to the Falklands War was located, and I headed up there with Michael, who was an Israeli lawyer.  Generally the Israelis you meet are all about 21 and have just finished their mandatory 3 years in the IDF.  He however was older having done his military service in the Israeli Parachute Regiment, then completed his studies and was now having a couple of months break before starting work for a top law firm in Tel Aviv.  During his military service he had not only visited my ‘favourite’ Palestinian town of Nablus, and winced when I told him my own experience there last year (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/one-reason-to-visit-west-bank.html), he had also been in Lebanon during the 2006 war.  During this he’d said they’d landed at a Heli Landing Site, jumped out of their helicopter and then as it had lifted off it had been shot down by Hizbollah, killing all the crew.

Israeli Defence Force soldiers in Lebanon, 2006.

                          

He was also an admirer of the British Parachute Regiment, who distinguished themselves in the Falklands, so was a good sidekick for a trip to that museum.  Unfortunately, though, when we got to the museum, which we found easily enough, we discovered it was actually only viewable via invitation, like the Metropolitan Police’s ‘Black Museum’ at Scotland Yard, so we gave up and headed back via a lunch stop.  At some point on the way, though, he had his pocket ‘picked’ with several hundred $US and his credit card, which was an unfortunate reminder that it can happen anywhere.  If either of us had caught the little sh*t, they could have expected an extremely unpleasant time, so fair play to them for having a go and getting away with it. 

Once back at the hostel I’d been invited by a very nice English lawyer girl (I know, I should learn…) to join her and some friends of hers as they did a walking tour of BA, which apparently went into some of the ‘politics’, and I was quite keen to hear the local views.  We trekked off across the city to find the meeting point and to meet the rest of our 40-strong group.  Our guide was a very confident and knowledgeable 34 year old Argentinian girl, and the first thing she did was to get us to introduce ourselves to each other.  I think this was ‘oblique questioning’ so she could work out how many British tourists she had, so how freely she could speak.  I reckon we made up about a quarter.

The tour started at the statue of San Martin who had initially guided Argentina to independence from Spanish rule at the start of the 19^th century.  They eventually set themselves up as a united country under their first elected president Bartolome Mitre in 1862. 

San Martin, the original Argentine independence leader.

 

From there we did a trip around various points of interest in the city, including the prestigious hotels, the clock tower that was donated by the UK Government some time ago and is known as ‘Little Big Ben’ and finishing at Evita’s grave, which I had unwittingly actually walked past a couple of days earlier.  We also passed the site of the old Israeli embassy which had been flattened by a vehicle bomb, most likely from the Lebanese based, Iranian proxy Hizobollah.

 

'Little Big Ben' clock tower which was a gift from a previous British Government to Argentina.

 

 

Site of former Israeli Embassy, blown up by Hizbollah.

 

 

Church close to where Evita is buried.  If you get to this point, you can find her grave by following the crowd!

 

However the centrepiece for both me and the guide was the memorial to the Falklands War- the map of which, significantly, the Brits standing closest to me needed to have identified for them.  I think that said everything that needed to be said about how emotionally significant they are to us- not at all.

Low-key memorial to Argentine dead- tactfully placed opposite 'Little Big Ben'

 

The guide gave the impression that the Argentines regard them as some mystical place, which they learn about as children.  The reality is that they are more like the cold, wet, wind-blasted Brecon area of Wales than anywhere else, which is ironic given that that is where the Infantry Battle School is (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/living-brecon-dream.html) , because if you can operate in Brecon, you can operate anywhere.  On one of my own heart-warming, tear-jerking trips to Brecon I said I’d rather be doing a Jungle Warfare course (as it would be warmer) and one of the instructors was saying that the jungle is the harshest place to work, and it was horrific, and the hardest thing he’d done.  I asked him if it was worse than Brecon in February:  “Um…. Er….” 

The guide on our BA tour was quite funny in saying about the Argentine perspective that “As a kid you learn about this mythical place Las Malvinas… and then when you are about 13 you realise they’re called the Falklands and they don’t even belong to Argentina!”

Being the same age as me, she would also have been about 3 years old during the Falklands War, and she said she could remember the mass of celebration when they’d taken the islands was “Bigger than when we won the World Cup”, which I had read before.  I also read that once the Task Force had set sail from the UK to take back the Falklands, the Argentine national mood changed to “Oh sh*t”.

Jubilant argentinians celebrating...

 

My own memory of the Falklands is my father, who did a subsequent tour there, teaching me, responsibly, to say to his friends that “Argentinians are bad buggers”.  I do also remember from the time that one of his friends had a close call on the ship the Sir Galahad when it was sunk by the Argentine Air Force.  However I will give a more detailed history of the Falklands/ Malvinas issue in my next Blog, as I feel it needs to be explained properly...  
  

"Que pasa? What have I just trodden on..."  Picture of HMS Hermes heading to the Falklands, with headline that said it all.