Writings By Location| Flights, Frights, and Tango Nights | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
The minibus met us and proceeded to drive all around town, tauntingly pausing in front of at least two self-service laundromats. We finally arrived at Carlos Gardel's, the restored dance hall where the legendary tango crooner of the same name helped to legitimize the dance in the early 20th century. (Just goes to show how ignorant we were: I didn't even know tangos had words.) The evening started with dinner, and while the selection was impressive in size, the only vegetarian option was pasta, which Erin couldn't bear to have yet again. Unfortunately, since it was a set menu and they were churning dishes out by the minute, they weren't willing to entertain the idea of putting together something special for Erin, so she ended up getting a mediocre salmon. I went for what was described as sliced sirloin, but it was more like a stew, teeming with mushrooms (which wasn't listed among the ingredients, and is too bad, since I really dislike mushrooms). In fact, when it came out, there were only two bite-size pieces of meat on the whole plate — the rest were all mushrooms. I wasn't going to complain, but after "stewing" for a few minutes (and Erin called the waiter anyway), I had to say something. They took my plate and came back with a much better portion of meat, and although I hate to say it, it still wasn't all that good. Everybody I've talked to raved about the meat in Argentina...it certainly couldn't have been from here.
The show, however, was infinitely more impressive than the dinner. After getting past my fascination with the hot figure on the red-headed violinist, I fell under the spell of the tango dancers. The dancers would came out a pair at a time, then perform a dance that caused their legs to move so fast, everything below their waists was just a blur. What we could make it out was definitely sexy — I had no idea that the tango had so many feigned kicks to the partner's crotch. (I sure hope the male dancers wear a cup when they're starting out.) Some dances involved three dancers, or even a whole team of them acting out something straight out of West Side Story. The only drawback to the entire performance — besides the fact that our vantage point put the red-headed violinist just out of eyeshot — was that the "no smoking" section we were apparently in was in theory only. Looking around, I am certain that we were the only people in the entire house not lit up, and that includes the dancers and the trumpet player. The smoke was so thick that the stage looked hazy from just one row of tables back, and it burned my eyes. That, combined with the two or three glasses of wine, made me considerably weary. For as much as I enjoyed the dancing, I kept finding myself secretly hoping it was almost over, and then following that up with feelings of shame at what an old granny I've become.
When the show ended at midnight, we filed back onto our minibus, and returned to our hotel. This had become the latest night we'd had on our whole trip. We had very little time in Buenos Aires, but I think we used it as wisely as we could. We would have preferred to avoid the "stress" some more, but at least we avoided all the tear gas and rioting. And even though we were exhausted and smelly after such a very long day, we climbed into our plush, enormous bed and danced a very wild tango of our own.
-- Keith
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