Farewell to Buenos Aires

By now I have a backcatalogue of blags and articles longer than Chile so all semblance of chronology can go BYE BYE!
Enjoy the lamentations of a gringo enamored with Argentina folks.

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It´s almost impossible to get a decent meal in Buenos Aires between 3.30 and 7. I walked for an hour before I found somewhere. As I walked I plotted my fame as the leader of a new journalistic movement. A little beat, a little gonzo but new. And as I walked I plotted the meal I would have. It would be junk. Food to comfort me in my final hour in my city. The starter would have to be something crisp, fried to perfection. And there would be steak. And whisky. It´s hard to get a decent whisky in the southern hemisphere too. I don´t drink much these days (which may be a problem in my later career when my alcohol fuelled antics would give my book sales a second wind and made my name tattoo worthy) but I like a good whisky. And i mean a good whisky*. None of that blended crap.

I found somewhere eventually. With one good whisky and steak. I'd passed it before but passed it up. I hadn't much Spanish to my name at the time. Didn't know what an empanada was. Nowadays it looks like a paradise.

I picked an outside table. A challenge to the rain. Real rain, something I'd almost forgotten about aside from that night in the Peña, fell today. Strange it fell today, my final day in a city that felt more like home than home. Wherever I go normally sees record rainfall. Egypt, Turkey, most of the Med, everywhere my parents took me when I was little. It all lead to me feeling we were rather victimised.

I ordered whisky and water and something I thought was a steak, but they'd cooked the soul out of that poor hunk of meat and added a little pyramid made from shitake and what looked and tasted like tater tots.

It'd been a strange last week. Everyone I'd known here seemed to be in Chile or Thailand or Patagonia or Brazil. Tranquil was one word. Lonely might've been another. I'm not sure. But I{d spent the week doing silly things I knew they wouldn't have been interested in. Went to the zoo and had my heart wrenched by a sorry looking polar bear, got excited about petting baby llamas and was briefly stalked by a beaver-looking critter. And I'd spent an afternoon hanging out in a punk record store condemning men and drinking matê and talking music with the girls who worked there. I went to China town and I fully embraced the siesta. I visited a marxist newspaper and called my grandma simply because I could.

Part of me doesn't want to go to Peru tomorrow, I was at home here. And I still knew enough people to have lunch in good company everyday and to find a beer with on a Saturday night. I know the people and the lay of the land, where not to go with more than a couple of pesos, where the political tourist in me can catch a good protest. And I know Graciela, my land lady, and her dogs and cats and uncontrollable rooftop garden.

I'd only come here to get a bit of Spanish before I hit Peru and...

I finished my whisky and steak and headed back to the flat. I'd told everyone left who knew me I didn't want to go out tonight. No one left to say goodbye to now.

Thousands of miles away I felt exactly as I had sitting just through customs back in the tiny Humberside airport. No goodbyes left. Just waiting to vanish.






*at didn't know at this point but the one good whisky I can find would become my traditional latin american farewell tipple. Bye bye Susan, Meike, minor Canadian celebrity, Cusco and all you wonderful people, Uruguay, Bolivia, and probably hasta Pronto to Argentina again in a few days.