BUENOS AIRES & POLITICS

TUESDAY, JULY 24
Visitors to Buenos Aires are confused by the smart clothes and broad avenues of splendid nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings. Buy a newspaper, sit at a café, sip coffee and you enjoy the illusion of being in a major European capital. Read the paper and reality seeps through. Striking fishermen have blockaded the main fishing port and torched the processing plants. Pickets have closed all but one bridge into Uruguay. Pickets block highways. Why? Because direct action is as Argentine as beefsteak (see the smashing of computers by passengers at the airport for internal flights). And, perhaps because a Presidential election approaches. The main candidates are followers of Peron – Peronistas. The official Peronista candidate is the present President’s wife. There is an opposition Peronista candidate and there are dissident Peronista candidates. All this is incomprehensible to an outsider. Those of us with memories and an interest in foreign affairs recall Peron as something of a buffoon, a lesser Mussolini, wrecker of the seventh largest economy in the world. Our children know only the stage or film version of EVITA.
Past President Menen supports one of the canditates. A foreigner would presume Menen’s support to be the kiss of death.And, yes, the economy is once again heading for disaster. The Government has been falsifying the inflation figures. And a Minister has resigned because of the illicit money discovered hidden in her bathroom.

RELATIVES IN DISTANT LANDS

MONDAY, JULY 23
Discovering relatives in a foreign land is a great delight – particularly when travelling the vast expanses of Argentina. Cousins at four generations’ distance have invited me to lunch at their apartment. Tony was a great polo player in his youth. He brought a string of ponies to England each year and sold them off at the end of the polo season. My elder brother bought one of the ponies, Rubia. There is the connection. We are five at table in a panelled dinning room: Tony, a younger brother and their wives.
I feel very scruffy in my cargo trousers.

MEAT

Facades on Avenida de Mayo

THURSDAY, JULY 19
My first night in BA and I eat at my favourite workman´s cafe half a block off Av. de Mayo. The place isn´t much - ten or so bar stools at each of three narrow tables. Late, it is good for people watching, joining conversations and learning a little of peoples´lives. I order meat and salad. The salad fills a deep plastic bowl. The meat is half the size of a brick. It comes roast and tender. What cut? God knows. Meat is meat. Add a big bottle of larger and the bill is $2.50.
Fat and full, I head for bed and dreams of what Aerolineas Argentinas and Air Comet have done with my bike box.

GRAN HOTEL ESPANA

THURSDAY, JULY 19
The Gran Hotel Espana at Tacuari 80 (centre of picture) is a small fine fin de secle building - good stained glass and lots of marble. I have a quiet room at the back on the fifth floor. The radiator is hot, so is the water. The ceiling fan is for summer.
Tiled floors in bathroom and bedroom are a danger to old men.
I take a shower and walk with great care on wet feet.

The rate is US$20 at 3 pesos to the dollar.

Of the managers, one studied law. He is a both a cynic and sceptic.
The other manager is insulting. He has seen the photograph on the BLOG in which I am dressed in Alpinestars black thermals and which Bernadette thought very James Bond. Gustavo sees a strong resemblance to a garden gnome.

SHRIMP

I am seventy-four and feared that I can no longer cope.
When I was young (back in the 1950s), I dreamt of organizing the world. Now, in my seventies, I accept reality: under Bernadette’s direction, organizing myself is marginally possible.
Bernadette is committed to a surprise birthday party in Rotterdam this weekend and leaves tomorrow.
I fly out of the UK to Buenos Aires on the 18^th.
Buenos Aires has had snow for the first time in 100 years.
Tierra del Fuego will be a frozen hell.
I have forty thousand kilometers to ride.
In younger days I might have encouraged myself with visions of golden breasts and buttocks.
Now I shelter in meditation. Ohm was the fashion in my youth.
Ohm doesn’t work for me.
I have my own magic key to oneness with the universe. I close my eyes : in near trance, I imagine the beaches of HispanicAmerica. I imagine small beachside restaurants. No need for menu. Only one excuse exists for this insane journey: shrimp.
Shrimp ceviche, devilled shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, shrimp.
Culture? Tomorrow…Maybe.