Don’t cry for me, Argentina

The truth is, I never left you

All through my wild days, my mad existence

I kept my promise

Don’t keep your distance

~~Don’t Cry for Me Argentina. Songwriters: Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice

On an afternoon, sometime close to the first days of December, we sat in our living room in New York City and looked out at a dreary drizzle fall on our patio. Our passports lay on the coffee table.

“You know that we will blink twice and we’ll be right back here in the City and wondering,” I said to Mariam.

“Wondering what?” she responded.

“Wondering where the time went. How it all flew by in a flash.”

“That’s life,” she said, with sympathy.

“I know. That’s the problem.”

Here we are, putting the last bits of our travel items into our luggage. Our passports are out. We have until Friday afternoon to get to the airport and catch the red-eye to JFK. Should be fun. Twelve hours in the air and touching down at 5:00 AM!

Should be fun. And it did all go by in a blink of an eye. Just like I said it would.

What, you might well ask, dear reader, did you get out of such an undertaking…except to finally get below the equator? Oh, that’s the easy part. Telling you about what I liked, loved even, about this amazing city.

Sitting in the back seat of an Uber and seeing all the statuary in all the parks (there are so many parks), I see colonial architecture, grand and beautiful buildings, tree-lined avenues and a seemingly endless city. I look down the side streets. They go on and on, until they fade in the distance. It’s a vast and varied place. Yet it’s smaller that NYC which is 469 sq. mi. in area. BA is a mere 78.3. (2020 data).

The population of NYC is 8.25 million (2023). BA is 3.12 million.

But it’s all quite deceiving. It simply looks much larger.

I am in awe by the number of public parks. A Sunday afternoon will find people enjoying the air and sun in dozens of tree covered spaces.

I discovered the pleasures of an empanada or two for lunch and an Americano with a tad of milk. The people are all friendly, at least the individuals we came in contact with. We made friends in just a matter of days. One young woman in particular. More about her toward the end.

You have read nine previous blog posts about the experiences we’ve had. Places we’ve been and items we bought at hot flea markets and museum gift shops. In most of the cafes we visited, I tried to find interesting people to chat with or to photograph. Here is a gallery of the Faces of Buenos Aires (and Montevideo). I did not get the names, just their permission:

[A server in a cafe. Photo is mine]

[Hostess at the Cafe Tortoni. Photo is mine]

[She sang and danced the tango the afternoon that Mariam danced the tango. Photo is mine]

[Coffee drinker. Photo is mine]

[Woman in traditional dress at the bus station in Montevideo, Uruguay. Photo is mine]

[Marcella. Photo is mine]

[In costume and ready to march in the parade at the Carnival in Montevideo. Photo is mine]

Another hour has passed. We have one more event to attend. Tonight our landlady is taking us to a gay tango show. Now that should be fun.

Now, back to a dear young friend. She is probably the first person we talked to after our arrival. Her name is Marcella. She is the barista at Gusto’s Cafe about three blocks from our apartment. She is from Venezuela and has been here since 2017. She is smart and creative and fluent in English. Our standing order of an Americano and a slice of nut-bread was practically waiting for us even before we decided we were going to stop at Gusto’s. About ten days ago, as we felt the end of our trip creeping up (too fast) on us, I asked her if she would say good-bye.

And she agreed:

[Marcella says good-bye. Video is mine]

Thank you Marcella. We will miss you too. And, thank you to that aura of South America that I found unique, full of spirit and a certain creative energy that I needed…in those chill days of December.

And that’s how I spent January.