An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
Another lovely night in this lovely palace. Milton went for a ride on the virtual reality stationary bike in the exercise room here — pretty cool experience, but could use a bit more technological advancement. Still, got to race snowmobiles then play a game of Aztec soccer, all with neat sound effects and some turning and leaning of the bike seat and handle bars.
Cleaned up and rushed up to maximize our time at the buffet of plenty. Thus sated, we set off for El Tren de la Costa, departing from the Maipu station. It was a cute, little two-car green train that runs through some of the northern suburbs for about 25 minutes before terminating at the delta of the Parana river. At that point there is also a large amusement park with rides that made us nauseated just to look at them. Instead, we boarded a boat and took a 45 minute ride up the river, seeing lots of small old houses along the banks, as well as some impressive new places with beautiful landscaping, like the Buenos Aires rowing club.
We then got back on the train and rode to San Isidro, which is basically a miniature South Street Seaport. We perused some of the shops, spending some quality time in their version of Circuit City grooving to some Argentine Pop/Rock at their listening stations then buying the new one from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and the greatest hits disc from Los Abuelos de la Nada. Then it was back on the cute little train to Maipu and a taxi to the Museo of Decorative Arts. These two or three room museums are sure cozy and quick! This one was housed in a beautiful turn-of-the-century French style mansion and had some of the antique works of art collected by the leading Argentine families over the years.
We walked along Avenue del Libertador with its large parks (all of which here seem to have large statues) on both sides of the 10-lane street, arriving after 5 blocks or so at their Fine Arts museum. The top floor was mainly Argentine artists, and though some were interesting and encompassed a wide variety of styles, it was amazingly hot and humid, so we stuck with the downstairs. They had a tremendous collection of Rodins, including a large marble “kiss”, as well as some great impressionist works (a Monet Seine scene, a Renoir portrait with a lustrous green hat and collar, and a Degas charcoal study of a ballerina that was remarkable for its nuance of light and shadow), and a wonderful 16th century huge tapestry commemorating the wedding of Louis XIV that we admired for a while.
We ambled back toward our final cultural target, the Cultural Center of the Recoleta, trying to walk in the shade of the copious trees. We walked around the Center, but it was too hyper-modern (though in some great old and colorful buildings!) for our taste. While walking out, we saw two Americans coming in whom we recognized from the Fine Arts museum. We chatted with them for a while — Kelly, a Buddhist vegetarian, and Bob, a microelectronics whiz. She’d been in environmental consulting and spoke Spanish, French, and Chinese (as well as English) having lived all over, and he had just quit his job in the semi-conductor biz. They were in S. America for a month or so. We then went back to El Sanjuanita for more delicious empanadas, tamales and a perfectly done piece of grilled chicken.
We relaxed in the suite until 9, when it was time for the van to pick us up and take us to the tango show at El Viejo Almacen. We were seated toward the back of a medium-sized restaurant with a stage in the front. The show (which was all in Spanish) began after a while, with five musicians on stage (violinist/piano/accordian/2 guitars), and a blonde woman mc who had that polished insincere sincerity.
The first performer was a stereotypical lounge singer who emoted with the audience in between belting out renditions of old Argentine ballads. (we did recognize and sing along with “The Frito Bandito” song, though they appear to have different words down here) Then a few tangos, which were damn impressive with all their tightly executed kicks and jumps and twirls. The dancers also were costumed exquisitely, the women in fishnet stockings and fly-away skirts (but wearing black leotards underneath) and changed their outfits before each dance. Then another lounge lizard (in black tux and black tux shirt) who was even more emotional, sort of Maurice Chevalier-like in his lilting and chatting rather than singing. This was followed by an older woman (75 we later learned) who was evidently renowned and revered here, or had been a long while ago. She camped around like it was her farewell performance and drew it out accordingly. As it was a bit stuffy in there, we were already dozing a bit, but didn’t want to leave and miss any more tangoing. At last some more, and better, dancers appeared and did their thing. Then an elderly gentleman, in a powder blue tux jacket, (who looked like, and was welcomed as though, he had invented either the tango or the accordian or both) came out and played the accordian with more technique and feeling than we knew was possible (or desirable). Finally, the show ended and we rode the van back to the Palace and continued our sleep.