Welcome to a world of fashion, tango and psychiatrists. For every 800 “Portenos” (that’s how people in BA are called) there is 1 psychiatrist! That’s world-record!
However, they seem to do a good job. On my whole trip I have not seen such proud and self-assured people as in Buenos Aires. Woman dress extravagantly – and not according to the latest H&M fashion. Colourful, sexy and stylish! And they know how to move – unfortunately they move a lot in the late night.
That’s bad for me being an average Swissman. You will see why.
Night one: Being well prepared by fellow travellers’ statements and the Lonely Planet guide book we knew that nobody is going out before midnight. So Jessica, a fun English lad staying in the same hostel as me, and me waited faithfully sipping our wine before we set of at midnight. Our plan was to attend a private party I had learnt about from a couchsurfer. We walked instead of taking a taxi – this in order to further delay our arrival and to be “late&cool” and one porteno told me.
When we arrive the doors were still closed and a mate carrying beer told us to come back in two hours or so. We did. At 2AM the doors were open and we were – can you believe it? – the very first guests. Heaven! The party started to be fun at 3:30AM and at 4AM when the fiesta was at its best, I had to strike my flat. My eyes were in “shut-down-modus”.
Night two: It has been a fun day. I had lunch with Leticia. She looks exactly as  an exotic tango dancer is expect to look: Long black hair, very dark eyes, perfect body and a super upright back when sitting at the table. I was so charmed that I had to drink two glasses wine for lunch in order to calm down a bit. This made me sleepy early in the evening, and when going out with some folks from the hostel I could not make it longer than 3AM. Exactly the time when queues start to form in front of the clubs and discos.
Night three: After I had read an Argentinean newspaper (this being a major undertaking and consuming some 4 hours) I found out something interesting: the Falkland-War is not forgotten! Here they call it the battle of the Malvinas – and even though this war has happened some 25 years ago, the Argentines talk about as much about their defeat by the English expedition army as the Americans should talk about theirs in Irak. Secondly, I counted exactly four articles dealing with Nazi-Germany. And there was no special occasion to talk about. But again, this seems to be a far more actual topic here than even in Germany. After so much information I had to lay down for a siesta and at 9PM I went for dinner with some nice but vegetarian couchsurfers from all over South-America. My stomach revolted due to all that healthy and meatless food and I went home early at 2AM.
Night four: Great news: The car is safely stuffed in a container and on its way to Singapore! The agency did great work for less money than I had calculated: if you ship your car from Buenos Aires the next time take “Argentina Cargo” (karinapintos(at)argentina-cargo.com.ar). Time to celebrate! And celebrate I did with charming and cute Daniela, a film student I had met at the party in my first night. Now she invited me over to her place, where she and her friend Paulina had just opened some fine Argentinean wine. Daniela is super-energetic – unfortunately I fell asleep at 3AM after some two bottles of wine while she was making arrangements for our night out.
Night five: Daniela had not yet given up on me: This time we met EARLY at 11pm for theatre – unfortunately I could not understand a word of the stand-up comedian’s show and went for an early dinner (midnight) with some blokes from the hostel. Later we met with Daniela and Paulina again and this time we made it till 6:30AM. I was very happy with myself. I remembered my student days and decided that I was not yet all that old, after all! Oh, one thing was quite special in that night: We have passed loads of completely naked women when we rushed through nightly Buenos Aires in our taxi. One more beautiful than the other, all in high-heel boots and with “a lot of wood in front of the hut” as we like to say in Switzerland. I think everybody right in his or her mind would qualify this as somewhat exceptional – but here is one thing which adds to this craziness: the temperature hardly reaches 5 degrees in wintertime Buenos Aires. Both Giacomo, my hostel mate, and me were impressed: had we just found a land of wild amazons? Daniela laughed when she saw our excitement and destroyed our dreams: we had just passed the strip of the transvestite sex workers. I could not believe it. We asked our driver who seemed to enjoy the view quiet a lot to slow down and drove up to these ladies with extra equipment. And in fact: when Daniela opened the window and started to talk with some of the Amazons, their voices were rather low and their hands quite big. Interesting side-fact: they are all called “Veronica”.
Night six: By now I was sort of adapted to this city. Waking up at 2PM, having dinner at 11PM, going to a pub at midnight and heading for a club by 3AM. However, this night was special: We went to the “Blue Man Group” concert. Have you heard of them? Three men with blue skin; they don’t speak and do amazing stuff with strange instruments… But more than everything they transfer energy! It was great! After the concert (title: “How to become a Superstar”) we set off for dinner – right at midnight. Then we danced  in yet another club – there are loads of clubs, discos, and bars in Buenos Aires. Once again I made it till 6AM. Nothing special anymore.
Night seven: What a surprise – Leticia, my beautiful tango-friend invited me to her home to have dinner with her family! I should learn about real Argentinian food. After visiting beautiful La Boca with its super colourful houses I arrived at 9PM (early dinner I thought) and was treated with loads of super tasty Empanadas and good wine. I had to speak a lot of Spanish, since Leticia’s mother and father both asked a lot of questions. Soon I was involved in a discussion about the future of Argentina, the war in the Malvinas (don’t use the English expression down here!) and the economics of South America. At 1PM I was very happy and very tired. However, back in the hostel Daniela called and off we were for yet another fiesta!
Night eight: This is today. Wish me luck.
Over and out.