huevon

Through its hypocrisies and inequities, through all the stench, I developed a love for this city of Buenos Aires, and for all the people that I met - Antonio our taxi driver, the jogger crossing the road, the girl in Palermo with the portfolio, the old guy outside the pharmacy selling coffee, our first waiter, our friends in San Miguel, the owner of che lulu, the kids playing football in la boca, everybody else we met except a prick in a bike shop in san telmo that tried to rent us bikes for 600 pesos a week, this guy was a prick. After two weeks here, we found ourselves very comfortable. In fact we hadn’t planned to stay that long, but it happened that Fabian Aristizabal came back from Colombia a week later than expected and we were to stay with him. My old friend who I hadn’t seen in over ten years had us over to his place; he was arriving back from Bogotá when we were sailing back from Colonia. We called into his apartment before he got back. Gabriela (another friend from Bogotà) had a brother (Manolito) staying there while Fabian was away, and we talked for ages and ages but it got so late that we went to go, I didn’t want to but ewa thought it best to let them have a quiet return and we would come back and see them in the morning. We headed downstairs but I knew, I knew we would see them. I knew it insofar as I believed it, and it came to pass. At 1.30 in the morning when we made it down to the street to grab a taxi, just as we were heading onto the main avenue, I saw the shape of Ura who I had only seen in photographs. Wait, I said, wait, and yeah, it was them! Fabian smiley and hairy, wearing a short-sleeved shirt that went down to just above his knees and had two little pockets down low to the front – thigh pockets. He was carrying a huge box that was falling to bits, no doubt from being opened and closed a thousand times by customs. They left stuff back in their apartment, had a bit of a wash and said hi to the cat. He hadn’t changed a bit; he still looked like a caricature of himself. Hugs and kisses and then we went out for drinks, to a Polish bar no less, complete with a mammoth Pole behind the bar, predictably enough called Tadeusz. He was the owner and let ewa put on whatever music she wanted. We sat and talked until 6 in the morning and took a taxi home.

The next day, Saturday, we called back to Fabian. It is funny to see the guy married, but this is the way it goes. Ura is lovely and serious in equal measure. They have a really great apartment, a nice balcony garden and they’ve done some not so bad renovations on the place. When we got there they were baked, Manuel included. They were unloading the box of stuff Fabian brought back from Colombia, full of sauces, coffee, spices, and a big box of kids chocolate bars, like animal bars, but inside you got a little sticker of an animal. And not just a cow, a snake, a bear, but specific species, each with their taxonomy. There were about 500 bars in the box but that number was decreasing. Ura had a sticker book out, the one that went with the chocolate bars if you were a serious collector (the Argentineans are great collectors); she was delighted because she had just got the tropical capybara to complete the Animals from the Pantanal section. We smoked a quick one and went in search of the rare and elusive arctic fox to finish the Tundra Predators set, but we gave up 10 bars in. I called home to say hi to the folks, and we headed out to Chinatown to eat something and walk around. Chinatown is weird in Buenos Aires, weird in its normalcy; the Chinese here are the same as anywhere else, with a bit of an Argentinean accent when they talk to you in Spanish. We ate for a bit, stuff on sticks, strange rolls and balls, and some beer. We took a bus back to San Telmo and got sorted out for a barbeque a friend of Fabi was having on the roof of his apartment. He is married to a German girl who seems to have planned the whole thing. Roberto, the guy, was sound, and lived in Dublin 10 years ago and knows Rory Murphy. More interestingly he is related to Frankey Rey, the man who discovered la ciudad perdida in 1972, the same guy who took me on a tour of the place in 1999. There was good craic, the chef was a Uruguayan lunatic who never shut up about women (a woman is like a harp, and a harp is like a dolphin, and a dolphin is like a rake, and a rake is like a chimney, and a chimney is like a woman, this kind of shit), and there was a Chilean couple and loads of porteños, and loads of Colombians. There was a musical duo that played boring stuff on a saxophone and piano but then everybody sat around the pool and drank aguardiente and smoked and had the craic. There was a pissed up madman there from Bogotá called Pablo who talked to everyone with su merced and was basically a deranged drunk. He wanted to go home with everyone who was leaving, and then when we were going to take him home he wanted to stay, and then he wanted to come with us. He made me nearly piss myself, he was so funny (si se va su merced a san telmo pues yo me voy con su merced huevon); ewa and I headed off with Ura and Fabian ended up driving round with him for ages in a cab trying to get him to remember where he lived but he couldn’t, so Fabian just left him back with Roberto and came home.

The next day was brilliant too, through markets and parks and bars, to the edge of the city, and later to an Armenian restaurant which was the best meal I have ever had, I can’t describe the flavours. It was great, and a nice last meal with the guys. When we got back we sorted out bags and I left my Nietzsche book with Fabian. The next morning we said our goodbyes, to our friends and to Buenos Aires, and we flew to the one of the last towns before the Antarctic Circle.