By Day and By Night

By day, Buenos Aires seems to be your typical huge megalopolis, filled with commerce and subways and people scurrying in all directions, narrow sidewalks crowded, buses and cabs making five lanes out of three, mom and pop stores in one district and giant warehouses in another, historical sites up against equally historical buildings where municipal and national government decisions are still being made.

If they do that in Argentina. Talk to anyone who lives here and they'll tell you the only decision that gets made in this country is which bribe to accept today and which one tomorrow.



B.A. is a federal city, like Washington D.C. or Mexico City and lies at one end of a river so wide it is made up of both salt and fresh water channels. The Rio de la Plata looks like an ocean. It has brought everything in and taken everything out of this country for five hundred years and you can't begin to see across to other side, to the nation of Uruguay.

Like Rio and like New York, The Porteños have their own language. Spanish speakers like Plotnik and Ducknik, who have learned their Spanish with a Mexican accent, can get lost trying to figure out new verb forms and pronunciations, but the people just repeat it and repeat it and sooner or later you get it.

Or, they speak English. Never, never, never have Plot and Duck heard worse English. When they were in Chile, the Chileans could at least pronounce enough recognizable English words that if they insisted on speaking English, Plotnik could guess what they meant. This is not possible in Buenos Aires nor anywhere else in Argentina.

People say they learn their English from American TV shows, but these can't be American TV shows -- they must be Albanian TV shows. No American or British speaker of Spanish should ever think that their Spanish is worse than an Argentine's English.



There is little comfort in this knowledge.

Ducknik's Spanish has leapt forward. She can keep up with practically anyone's conversation now, even taxi drivers. Speaking is harder, but that's the way it is for everybody. Plotnik, the mimic as always, has picked up the Porteño accent and is now dropping his s's and Zsa Zsa Gaboreando his consonants like a native. Well, maybe a native Albanian. But he and Duck understand each other perfectly.

At night the buses and trucks turn into tango. Yes, JJ-aka-PP, it is the national pastime.

Yesterday, Plot and Duck had one of their best days yet. First of all came a cooking class at the hostel, where Ana took Plot and Duck to the market to buy ingredients, then came home and made empanadas (with cheese, ham and corn) and milanesa (breaded steak). It was all accompanied by tango music of course and there was as much laughing as eating.





Afterwards, the Plotniks took the subte (subway) down to the San Telmo Street Fair, which is a two mile stretch of a combination of antiques and Carnival.



It was every bit as much fun as the grand Sunday market in Chichicastenango, which Plotnik thought at the time could not be topped, and probably can't be -- but this fair comes in a very strong second. And the music is better. Plot and Duck bought out the place, so everyone can now relax: their presents are in the suitcase.



By the time night had fallen, Plot and Duck had walked to the end of the fair, in Dorrego Plaza in San Telmo, where local people had set up an impromptu milonga. A bunch of guitar players and singers stood at one side, playing and singing tango songs while local people filled the plaza dancing. It was one of the loveliest things ever -- grandpas dancing with granddaughters, old barrel chested men dancing with young girls, beautifully made up older women dancing with their friends, and young people too -- teenagers with backpacks who just happened by and had to dance.




Plot and Duck sat on the cobblestones and Plot shot a Flip Video of everything. He asked Duck to dance. She said no thanks. Which is to say, the first time ever that Plotnik asked someone to tango, she shot him down.

But it was a little un-nerving -- not that these were all great dancers, but they all seemed to know what they were doing. The older the man, the less he moved and the more the women just danced in a circle around him. It was something to see.

Weather: perfect. Balmy, warm but not too warm. Smells of food cooking. Vendors everywhere. Then out to Cafe San Juan for a great dinner. And Plotnik has to admit that now that there are only a few days left in their trip, he has no desire whatsoever to come home. He could use another week or two in Buenos Aires. They'll have to pack it all in to two and a half days now.