Argentina: Buenos Aires among rhythm, notes and words

When talking about Argentina, it come to mind the bright colors of the houses in the Boca Caminito, tastes of Angus, the pace of Evaristo Carriego tango, but also Mafalda strips designed by Quino or lines of Jorge Louis Borges. If you are going to excite your emotions and pamper your senses, Argentina is, undoubtedly, a destination to consider.

When talking about Argentina, it come to mind the bright colors of the houses in the Boca Caminito, tastes of Angus, the pace of Evaristo Carriego tango, but also Mafalda strips designed by Quino or lines of Jorge Louis Borges. If you are going to excite your emotions and pamper your senses, Argentina is, undoubtedly, a destination to consider.

Buenos Aires was founded twice, in 1536 and 1580. In the name of Our Lady of Bonaria. Many have to sing all of Borges, Cortazar and then Puig and Carriego. It is therefore the city of literary and it is also of the world's largest metropolis.

Buenos Aires is cosmopolitan. It looks and tastes Europe - stylish cafes, beautiful architecture, and about one hundred museums, but its heart beats a Latino rhythm. The city celebrated by Borges is gone by now, but its legend resists (as that of the poet) in its narrow streets in Milongas in the homes of older neighborhoods. As in the Caminito at the Boca. This little road today is a true open-air museum, filled with restaurants, shops and the typical "conventillos" made of Onduline (corrugated) and wood houses  hand painted in bright colors by the artist Benito Quinquela Martin. La Boca is a barrio (neighborhood) on the banks of the Riachuelo River, which divides the territory of the capital from the province of Buenos Aires. It gets its name because is located at the  mouth (boca) of the confluence of the Riachuelo River into the Rio de La Plata, perhaps as a reminder of the old quarter of Genoa called Boca d'Aze, since the first settlement began with the Genovesi sailors , which then migrated en masse here in the nineteenth century.

At the time of the settlers La Boca was an area of huge barraks for slaves but in the late nineteenth century it began to be filled with Genoese immigrants who gave the present appearance that, somehow, is still perceptible. Its inhabitants still call themselves "xeneizes" deformation of the term "Genovese" in the vernacular dialect “Zeneize” (Liguria) in a jargon argentinian-castellano, in the plural, means Genoese, the language originally spoken by the people of Boca. Boca's popularity is also due to the fact that the head office of the sports club Boca Juniors - which owes its fame mainly to its football section, founded in 1905 - is located here.

Not to mention of course the mythological origins of the tango, that are unanimously set in this neighborhood of Buenos Aires by the end of '800. Borges' famous words in his "Historia de Tango": "It seems that without the twilight and nights in Buenos Aires a tango cannot be born, and that for us Argentines the Platonic idea of the tango, its universal form (the form just mentioned in La Tablada and El Choclo), is waiting for us in heaven and that this lucky species, however humble will find, his place in the universe. "

The tango was born in this barrio, between 1890 and 1920, in an emotional jumble of thousands of immigrants arrived here during that period: the Spanish, Italians, Germans who could not communicate in a language unknown and were dancing in the most economical immediate and collective entertainment. In other ingredients of tango history, however, we can find the explanation for its sensual root: the "ritmo nuevo" (new rhythm) as it was called, was born and lived in the  environment of the brothels and dance floors, where whores and maids were the only women present. The prostitutes then, giving "body and soul" to their occasional companions, danced in a very provocative and sensual way. But the sensual component of the tango was also reflected in the words of the songs, and sometimes obscene with titles that left little to the imagination: "El Choclo" means "mais" but in "Lunfardo" (a Spanish dialect spoken in Buenos Aires and Montevideo), it is used to refer to the penis, or "die Dejalo morir adentro" meaning "Let him die in" moral connotation not "accepted" by the community out of the barrio and that later disappeared when the ball went out from the suburbs and brothels began to be known in other cities, especially in Paris.

The tango rhythm of the city and of “porteña” life (literally by the port in relation to a port city) are so noticeable in the air of Buenos Aires. However, if you will visit the Argentine city, you can not help but admire a mural painted in 2001 on Avenida de Mayo, at the corner of 9 de Julio Avenue, in the avenue of power: that links the Casa Rosada, the president's office with at the Palace of Congress. The mural is a tribute to Astor Piazzolla and his "Bandoneon", that particularly persuasive and special accordion, a fundamental instrument of Argentine tango orchestras. "There are journeys that we choose, and that there are others from which we are chosen" (Bruce Feiler): one in Argentina certainly belongs to the second type.

If this time we touched the strings of your hearing, the next time we will fascinate your taste buds with a unique travel experience in the kitchen in Argentina.

Junio Tumbarello

Discharge the App. sull'Argentina:

Argentina Travel Guide

Argentinean Wines 2011