Rosebud

So after the rain from the weekend, we portenos awoke to what I would consider a beautiful fall day - sunny and warm but not hot and with a nice breeze. If you have been following along, I mentioned a few days
back on the bus tour about returning to two barrios - San Telmo and La Boca.

I took a taxi to San Telmo first and arrived at a small plaza that was filled with cafe tables. It was a similiar set up to some cafes in Dusseldorf in that the food is actuallly run acrosss the street from the actual restaurant. San Telmo is known for two things - antique shopping and tango. The tango started almost immediately in the center of the square. Perhaps not quite as polished as the show from Sunday but entertaining. And finishing my coffee and trying not to be completely overrun by ravenous pigeons I set out to visit the shops and the cool old buildings. Like so many argentine buildings, there is a center courtyard where animals were kept to protect during the fever outbreaks. Many of these mansions have since been converted to antique malls and the courtyards are filled to the brim. It is very reminicient of the final scene from Citizen Kane - a grand old home filled more treasure than could ever be appreciated.

I then started my walk to the old port of La Boca. La Boca is a very strange little tourist village in the midst of some of the worst poverty imaginable. Their claim to fame is that this is where the newly arriving immigrants settled and built houses out of bits of scrap and then painted them with whatever paint colors they could
scavange - blue, green, red - you get the idea. This is also a big venue for tango - at every cafe they have a free show. It is all a bit Disney for my taste.

So after some very good pizza on the deck last evening - it was such a gorgeous night. I am on my way to Salta in the northwest today for four nights. This is a region settled by decendants of the indigenous Incas and is famous it's incredible colored rock formations. The only problem I forsee at the moment is the forcast of rain.