2008 Argentina – Buenos Aires
25th January 2008
After a pleasant two-hour flight, we arrived in Buenos Aires. Our hotel room was next to the main road so there was a lot of traffic noise. We were too early to check in so we dropped off our luggage and went looking for somewhere to eat and were struck by how dirty the streets were. During the day the pavements started filling up with black rubbish sacks and at night, people scavenged through the sacks. When they had taken what they wanted they left the sacks open, turning the whole area into dog and cat heaven. At 4:00 am every morning the streets filled with trucks making a lot of noise while they collected the rubbish sacks and by 8 am the streets were reasonably clean again. The air conditioning unit in our room had two settings, Antarctic or off. The hotel claimed to have internet access which turned out to be one computer in a broom cupboard costing $10 for twenty minutes but there was a good internet café nearby so that wasn’t a problem.
Next morning we had a pleasant shopping spree as everything was so cheap and in the afternoon, a long walk to the Marina area where there were lots of cafes and a few small yachts. My stomach was still not back to normal so I was watching what I ate but I couldn’t resist an ice cream from the famous chain called Freddo. The ice cream was fantastic but it lay on my stomach like a pile of cannonballs. By 10.30 at night I was still not hungry when a man standing at the door of a restaurant talked us into going in and paying for an expensive tango show which included a three-course dinner. I forced myself to eat a fraction of the fifteen-kilo steak and had to leave the rest. The show was fantastic. During my many years as a professional musician, I played tangos on thousands of occasions but this was the first time I had heard them played by an authentic tango band. There were only four in the band which had a weird lineup of piano, double bass, violin, and bandoneon (a type of accordion.) They were excellent musicians and unlike the simple tangos I was accustomed to, they had complex rhythms. The dancers and singers were amazing and it was an excellent night although at £36 a head, quite expensive compared to the general cost of things.
I was surprised that by lunchtime the next day I was still not hungry and ever since eating the ice cream the day before, the thought of food made me feel nauseous. It was not like me at all as after a hearty breakfast I am usually hungry by mid-morning coffee. I was also starting to get some pains in my stomach so I was half expecting another stomach upset. That evening we were on our way to eat (despite me still not being hungry) when I suddenly and unexpectedly did a gigantic fart and after recovering from the shock I discovered I was hungry. So all the discomfort must have been caused by trapped wind, though I found it hard to believe it was caused by ice cream.
Next morning we met up with Federika’s cousin Katia. She and her husband had to emigrate to Buenos Aires from Croatia in the fifties when her husband (a journalist) criticised Tito’s communist government and had to leave in a hurry. It was an emotional meeting as they hadn’t seen each other since Federika was 10 years old. It was also good for me as after a respectable amount of time chatting over coffee I was able to politely take my leave and go back to the hotel for a nap while they went shopping.
That afternoon we went to an area called La Boca. It used to be a very poor part of town with a small dockyard but was now a thriving and colourful tourist area. Many years earlier, there was lots of different coloured paint left over from a ship refurbishment so the dockyard owners gave the paint to the people of the area whose houses were very run down. So the unique character of the area was not so much a result of planning but of whatever coloured paint happened to be available at the time. 
Word soon got around and people came from all over to visit. When the locals noticed an influx of visitors they started opening bars and putting on tango displays in the street until it became one of the liveliest places in Argentina. Nearly every other bar had a couple dancing tango which you could either sit and watch for the price of a beer or watch from the street for a small donation. 
It just goes to show how small decisions we make can sometimes have enormous consequences. A man sitting in an office decided to give some paint away and probably thought no more about it. I hope he lived long enough to see the enormous benefit his small act of kindness gave so many people.
The dockyard was still there but it was very run down and smelly. There was an area with what should have been sea water but looked like a large diesel pit with lots of junk floating around in it. Around the side were derelict cranes looking very sorry for themselves. Permanently moored at the port was a large yacht named Nicolas Michanovich, which belonged to a Croatian entrepreneur who started a shipping line in the mid-1880s. In recent years, the boat had been used as an art and crafts centre but was now a centre for floating rust although I doubted it would float for much longer. It was surprising that with the success of the La Boca and the money going into the area that they should leave the dock area in such a state.
We spent one day walking around the markets. One was a kind of antique market with lots of old interesting stuff at silly prices (silly high, not silly low.) We knew it was horribly touristy but we couldn’t resist having our photo taken wearing very posh clothes of the late 19th century clothes with me wearing a top hat and carrying a cane for whacking any rif-raf that came too close and Federika a beautiful outfit with elaborate umbrella. There were no backs to the outfits so we stepped into them but it was surprising how authentic they looked. 
Then we went to a market with arts, crafts and clothes, which was much more interesting. It was in a large park where youngsters met and pursued their many interests, not touting for money, just purely for the joy of it. There was one group doing tightrope walking with three ropes strung around trees. 
Another group was juggling, another was singing and playing drums, and another was doing some amazing acrobatics. Everyone looked so happy.
The immigration museum was fascinating. It was housed in a huge warehouse where immigrants used to be taken and fed when they first arrived in Argentina and you could almost feel their presence in what was once the dining room. The museum kept a record of every person arriving in Argentina and a man sat at a computer offering to look up names for those researching their family trees. In our case, we were interested in finding out about Federika’s grandfather Kosto and his brother Federiko. In 1850 they left the small island of Šipan near Dubrovnik in Croatia where life was very hard. Like so many immigrants they arrived with just the clothes they were wearing. Kosto stayed in Argentina and Federiko went to Chile. Kosto was a tough, hard-working man who soon saved enough to buy a moderately successful inn and branched out into other businesses which also did well. He married an Argentinian woman called Isabella Brignon who was from a wealthy family and they lived in Buenos Aires. They had three children and a good life but Kosto was homesick so he persuaded Isabel to move to Šipan. It was a massive culture shock to leave one of the most exciting cities in the world to a tiny island with virtually no amenities, so it wasn’t long before she informed him that she was going back to Buenos Aires with the children and he appeared to accept it. Kosto rowed Isabel and the children out to the ship that was taking her home and passed up the first two children but then turned around and rowed back to shore keeping their son, Tomo. Isabel was distraught but the ship’s captain refused to get involved in a family dispute and continued to sail to Argentina. Tomo was Federika’s grandfather and the story gets even more interesting from there but it is one for another day.
We were excited to find out more about Federika’s great-grandfather but many years earlier there had been a big fire which destroyed all the records of that period. There was however a record of Federika’s great-grandmother Isabella, returning to Buenos Aires from Croatia. It was still very interesting walking around the building with its exhibits and photos of the many immigrants who landed to start new lives in a land of such great opportunity. 
2008 South America
