Back home, reluctantly, from Buenos Aires

Editor's note: Terry Tazioli, The Seattle Times' Travel editor, is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a week. When he's not eating huge steaks, wandering the streets or dancing the tango until dawn, he'll be here, filling you in on his South American adventure. See his dispatches below (latest at top).

I'm back in Seattle -- sorry for the lag in postings. I got a little busy near the end of my Buenos Aires trip, but also had moments where I just wanted to sit, watch life go by and wonder at it all. . And not write a thing. (Maybe not the greatest mood to be in for the type of job I have.) This was one trip I really didn't want to have end. Buenos Aires is enormous in so many ways -- in its history, people, mix of cultures and, obviously, its size. I could have spent weeks wandering the city. I didn't get that chance -- not this time. During this trip it struck me all over again how travel can shake you to your shoes. I mean that. Sadly, lots of folks who take off from home don't see it that way. They see the sights through their own prism and judge behavior, dress, customs by their own. Nothing new gets inside. Maybe my luck in being able to travel a lot has helped change that for me. It poured rain -- and I mean poured rain -- a couple of nights before I left Buenos Aires. Wild thunder and lightning. The streets literally were flooded in minutes. I watched it all happen from a little balcony and all I wanted to do was what everybody else who got caught in the storm seemed to be doing -- taking off their shoes and shirts and just walking in the downpour. In the last couple of days, I managed to eat more meat, more ice cream, more empanadas, drink more wine, and walk and walk and walk -- in a frenzy, as if I was never going to be able to get enough. On the way to the airport, the driver told me I had a great accent -- even though I had no clue what I was saying. So, note to self: Next time I go to South America, I will know much more Spanish and I will take off my shoes and my shirt and walk in the rain. (P.S. -- Thanks again to all of you who wrote while I was in Buenos Aires. I appreciated your tips and comments a lot. Our plan is to have more coverage of Argentina soon in print in Sunday Travel in The Seattle Times. We may be able to use some of your comments, so send them along if you have them to ttazioli@seattletimes.com. We'll be in touch. Thanks for reading.)

Happily awash in Tango music

I have purchased way too many tango CDs.

Latest came from a group playing at a huge street fair in San Telmo, yet another neighborhood in this city that I think has something like 50 barrios or neighborhoods. Besides gawking at everything for sale, I couldn't get away from the music and didn't want to. If you're a strings nut, you'd love these guys — Orquesta Tipica with four violins, squeeze boxes, bass fiddle, piano and a singer.

Fantastic.

Er, excuse me. I need to listen to a bit more.

Take the "A" train in Buenos Aires

You have to take the "A" train here, the old-fashioned A line of Buenos Aires' subte, or subway.

The city's subway is, I'm told, the oldest in the Southern Hemisphere and the oldest in the Spanish-speaking world: the A line opened in 1913.

The A trains gracefully wear their age. The subway cars are small and wood-lined. Tiny tulip-glass lights hang from the center aisles. There are white metal rings dangling from canvas straps for passengers to hold onto.

It is such a throwback, such a movie-set moment. I know it would have made my friends nuts but I could have ridden on the cars all day. It was painful not to pull out my camera and take photos of the cars and the riders. But it seemed like a church moment — and I didn't want to disrupt it or be that rude.

A plaza of protests

I walked into Catedral Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, the imposing national cathedral. There was a ceremony taking place in front of a niche containing a glass-enclosed statue of the Virgin Mary. I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't want to barge in to ask.

Turns out the group was at the church before beginning a slow protest march around the Plaza de Mayo out front. It was one of many demonstrations — for civil rights, for new laws, for political purposes — that seem to take place constantly in the square.

The plaza has quite a history. It is home to Casa Rosada, the executive branch of the government. It has been a city focal point for nearly 200 years.

It is where a naval faction bombed civilians in 1955, killing hundreds of people, the only time the city has been attacked from the air. President Juan Perón was later deposed in a military uprising.

You might remember this better — a military coup in the mid 1970s that later came to be called "The Dirty War." During the years of the military junta, upward of 30,000 people were killed — kidnapped and never seen again.

Their mothers marched at the plaza, for years, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, silently carrying photographs of their missing children.

I can't even imagine.

Someone here told me the military drugged those they kidnapped, put them in planes and dumped them into the ocean.

For protesting, for being different.

I can't imagine that, either.

Walking among the tombs of the rich and famous

Walk into El Cementerio de la Recoleta. This cemetery is like a long-abandoned city or the ruins of Pompeii. Long streets of tightly packed, tiny single-story buildings — the above-ground family tombs. There aren't many living people here; the few tourists strolling this moody, historic place seem to stop every few feet and simply stare.

It is a massive cemetery, mostly home to the rich and famous of this city. Everybody's here. And a friend of mine says you see the names of nearly every street in the capital. He's right.

The mausoleums — which number between 4,000 and 5,000 — are intricate and elaborate stone mini-buildings. Most are in excellent condition; a few are crumbling or have broken windows and look to serve more as repositories of cleaning and repair items than coffins. Nearly every mausoleum has an interior stairway going down into the earth, where more coffins are stacked. These are family resting places.

Follow the visitors and you'll find the tomb of Eva (Evita) Perón, the powerful and charismatic first lady of Argentina who died in 1952. Actually Eva Duarte — she's buried with her family of origin.

Bring on the Fernet

Tried a new drink — well, new to me. Fernet and Coke. Ice, Coke and a shot, more or less, of a liqueur which is made from an enormous mixture of herbs soaked in alcohol. I'm sure I've had something like it in Italy. In Washington, you probably have to order it from a state liquor store. At their first sip, watch your friends wrinkle their noses. That will soon change. Not least because it helps with digestion. Really.

Pardon me, I'm off to have another.

A musical brings uneasy echoes of the past

Saw Cabaret last night. Yes, the musical.

It's being performed at Teatro Astral, which is a hub of theater productions here in Buenos Aires.

It's the third time I've seen Cabaret onstage, but the first time I've seen it out of the country and in Spanish. Great experience and incredibly thought-provoking. Of course, the musical on its own is thought-provoking, portraying life in Berlin as the Nazis rise to power. But as Cabaret neared its end, I began to think more about the country where I was seeing it. Argentina, like the United States, had a massive influx of immigrants from Europe at the turn of the last century and another big wave of immigration around World War II — including Jews, Germans and, we are told, Nazis who fled here later.

Argentina has its own, very recent history with suppression, to say the least — a period in the 1970s of political repression and military dictatorship when thousands of citizens were killed. Human rights groups estimate 30,000 people were abducted, taken to government detention centers and "disappeared" — secretly killed. . They were people who, for the most part, just didn't take to the way things were. People who were different. People to be disposed of.

There were people in that audience who must have lived through that period.

I couldn't stop thinking about them afterward — what must be going through their minds.

I didn't sleep very well.

At a Buenos Aires café, strangers become friends

Met Luciana Collela at a café the other day. She's visiting Buenos Aires from Brazil; her home is in Sao Paolo.

She's here without her boyfriend, a civil engineer. He was too busy to make the trip, so she came on her own. The two of us ended up strolling a few blocks together, and chatting. She speaks Portuguese, Spanish and a little English. I speak English, Italian (to a point) and that's about it. OK, I've memorized a few Spanish words.

We spoke in a mix of just about everything we knew and it worked. Amazes me every time, especially with Latin-based languages. The roots are the same, it's the endings we all seem to get muddled in.

I've added her to my collection of people's names and e-mails from all over the world. Love of life finds, a way, you know?

Try it sometime.

Beyond meat

Had a salad for lunch today and a salad yesterday. God bless vegetables. No, I do not eschew meat. There is a lot of meat here — and it's inexpensive and incredibly tasty. But often I just crave something lighter. You know, I just can't take that slab staring back at me from a plate day after day.

Ah, but think before you order. You may want to share many of the meat dishes. Portions can be big.

And what you see listed on the menu is simply what you get.

For instance, if you choose a celery salad, most of the time you get just that — chopped celery. Same for a tomato salad or an arugula salad. I happen to love those things, but mixed. So ask for mixed or look for a menu item with more than just one ingredient.

My favorite so far was today's salad of beets, rice and shredded carrots with some olive oil and balsamic, nice. That was seven pesos, by the way, maybe a couple of bucks.

It's tango time — at least on stage

When's he going to get to the tango?

Now.

Saw "Tango-A-Tierra" at Centro Cultural Borges, with a 20-member cast of dancers, band members and a singer. It serves as a good introduction, if you haven't seen or haven't tried the dance.

The show was half on tango's origins and half about its evolution into something more athletic and even more stylized.

It was begun, they say, as a dance Italian men did together as they waited for a prostitute to be freed up. No, the historical perspective of this performance skimmed over that part of its history.

I loved it all. I kept thinking should I give it a try although I'd risk throwing out my back, knees and hips within the first few measures. You know, I think it's worth the risk!

Happily lost in Buenos Aires

I have no clue where I am most of the time in Buenos Aires. This city is immense. I have yet to see its end — reminds me of New York, where you can stand in a street, stare down its length and see little else but the perspective of buildings shrinking into the horizon. That, or the bus speeding directly at you.

Traffic essentially has the right of way here. Pay attention.

Or try crossing the 9 de Julio Avenue. It's nearly 500 feet across, 20 lanes of traffic, a couple of rest stops for those who can't see the crossing signs that far away. That would be me.

Really, I'm more a subway kinda guy. It costs about 30 cents a ride and is great.

The architecture is an amazing mix of French, Italian and Spanish. It's hard not to look up, everywhere.

Going with the dogs

The residents of the city have gigantic dogs. And they all seem to walk with dog walkers — 6, 8, 10 at a time. Not the walkers, the dogs.

I fear for the life of small dogs, not my favorite size of canine anyway, but I do fear for them here. These four-legged ladies and gentlemen are big suckers — labs, retrievers, shepherds.

And they do leave it on the sidewalk.

Note to all of you who haven't been here. Look down. A lot.

No sour grapes here

Taking a break. Sitting on the balcony of the apartment in the early evening and watching street life. Oh, and having a Pisco Sour. Pisco is Peruvian liquor made from grapes.

Did I say that Buenos Aires is six hours ahead of Seattle? Did I say that daylight savings time means that at something like 8 p.m. there is still lots of daylight?

I hope you're all enjoying the cold and the dark.

Oh, I'd like another Pisco Sour, please.

Gracias.

Don't cry for Argentina: It's doing great

It's about 1 p.m. and we wander off to Café Evita, an indoor/outdoor restaurant connected to Museo Evita. "My life, my mission, my destiny." It says that right there on the museum brochure.

It's summer down here in Argentina. We sit outside in a lovely courtyard. Wine, and lunch: we're talking chicken, seafood, salad with mango, dessert — un panqueque (it's my new favorite word that translates to pancake) filled with dulce de leche and drizzled with chocolate. All of that was about $9 per person.

Remember, too, that we are not talking about a country that is suffering the ravages of a damaged peso that it did a few years ago. No longer. Today there was a story in a local newspaper about the strength of Argentina's economy.

After lunch we walked through Museo Evita, which is housed in Temporary Home No. 2, what was once a home for unwed mothers founded and financed by the Evita Perón's Social Aid Foundation. I like that Perón (a former First Lady and political force in Argentina who died in 1952) stuck the home in the midst of what was once quite a rich and fashionable neighborhood. I wonder how NIMBY translates in Spanish? Maybe it's just an American thing.

Anyway, I can't describe the building, but let me relate, word for word — its description in the brochure:

"In the first decade of the 20th century, the Carabassa family build a petit hotel of ground floor and two storeys, following French arquitectonic trends of the end of the century. In 1923, arq. Estanislao Pirovano, makes an important recycling intervention and new work in the so called nationalistic restoration, having plateresque elements, from the Spanish and Italian Renaissance in a development of three levels and a tower."

I love the translation. I have no idea what it means, but it's a nice building. See it, along with some of Peron's shoes, dresses, hats and photographs.

What a good way to start

So the plane lands, we're through passport control, have our bags and are done with customs in about 15 minutes. Yes, that would be a total of 15 minutes. Take a lesson, homeland. There do seem to be efficient, polite and secure ways to move people.

Three of us share a cab — 79 pesos to the center of the city, maybe a 35- to 40-minute ride to our friends' apartment. That would be about $9 U.S. per person. Fast, convenient, efficient. There do seem to be efficient, polite and secure ways to move people.

OK — chalk all that up to a Travel editor who's grumbled as much as the rest of you at the sheer act of traveling.

This was nice!

Happy daze in Buenos Aires, Argentina's nonstop capital city

Blah blah blah ...

I didn't write that. A friend of mine did. He was trying to get me to sit down and write something by starting these dispatches for me.

I've been in Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital city, for more than a day, done enough to feel as if I've been here a week, am facing a night of tango and meat — Argentinians love meat — and I just want to keep going. You would, too. It's summer here. It's about 75 degrees. There are neighborhoods galore, about 11 million people in the area, a dollar exchange rate that you don't have to use a multiplier for — and so much to do!

Why would anyone want to sit and write at a computer? Don't ask.

I was told I was going to love this place. I do.