Of all the stories I have wanted to tell about my trip to Argentina, top of the list is the one about the ten days I spent at Juan and Josefina's. I wrote recently to Juan mentioning a friend currently in Buenos Aires. That correspondence and the fact that in Barcelona I will soon meet Hellen who was one of the house guests brought everything back.
During the trip I planned to stay in three different places all in the area of central Buenos Aires called Balvanera. I chose three places because I knew that if I became committed to one place I did not like for three weeks it would spoil the trip. I was curious, besides, to see different corners of the neighbourhood and to meet different people. I might have booked a place for the first ten days and chosen where to stay next while on the ground, but being alone, in an unfamiliar place very far from home and where I did not really speak the language I was cautious and did not in any case want to spend my time looking for accommodation. I wanted it planned out in advance and to know where I was going.
The house on Chile between Alberti and Matheu was the first place I stayed. In Buenos Aires people often omit the "street" or "avenue" part of a street name. It was walking distance to most of the milongas I had heard about. Janis gave me invaluable advice in this respect as on much else. She said: you need to be close to Entre Rios between Rivadavia and Independencia. So that is where I started looking, and no further west than Avenida Jujuy. I considered hotels, a studio, a tango house - all places people I knew had stayed. I nearly did book a tango house but I have had a lot of success with Airbnb and especially in Buenos Aires wanted to be around people with local knowledge. The first place I really liked turned out to be - though I did not know it then - a block away from Janis. She went to see it and sent photos of the neighbourhood together with much other useful information.
I liked my hosts immediately and soon trusted them. It was one of those instinctual likings that was, if anything, confirmed when Juan cautioned me in his polite, calm, explanatory way about security after I made a mistake with the door lock. After I left, an iron grille was installed on the door. I saw Juan much more than Josefina who works as an English teacher. So Juan had most to do with the house and tenants and came by usually in the late morning or early afternoon on many of those ten days.
The house on Chile between Alberti and Matheu was the first place I stayed. In Buenos Aires people often omit the "street" or "avenue" part of a street name. It was walking distance to most of the milongas I had heard about. Janis gave me invaluable advice in this respect as on much else. She said: you need to be close to Entre Rios between Rivadavia and Independencia. So that is where I started looking, and no further west than Avenida Jujuy. I considered hotels, a studio, a tango house - all places people I knew had stayed. I nearly did book a tango house but I have had a lot of success with Airbnb and especially in Buenos Aires wanted to be around people with local knowledge. The first place I really liked turned out to be - though I did not know it then - a block away from Janis. She went to see it and sent photos of the neighbourhood together with much other useful information.
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| Photo on the right by Janis |
I liked my hosts immediately and soon trusted them. It was one of those instinctual likings that was, if anything, confirmed when Juan cautioned me in his polite, calm, explanatory way about security after I made a mistake with the door lock. After I left, an iron grille was installed on the door. I saw Juan much more than Josefina who works as an English teacher. So Juan had most to do with the house and tenants and came by usually in the late morning or early afternoon on many of those ten days.
I often heard dance tourists say that "security is the same in Buenos Aires as as in any big city”. I did not much believe this before I went and when there could see plainly - and made a point of finding out - that it is not at all the same. Security was a big deal. I trusted three people on that subject: Chris in the UK and in Buenos Aires, Janis and Juan. I am glad they all in their different ways made their points.
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| Juan (right) with house guests Hellen and Bruce |
The same day I arrived, Juan and I were soon deep in a conversation about Buenos Aires, and the history and culture of Argentina/ This continued during my stay and afterwards because I met both him and Josefina after I moved on. I was delighted when Juan hailed me on Belgrano one day and we went for coffee in La Ochava. Josefina I met for coffee in a bar notable near her work in San Telmo and once near the end of my trip I took a friend to meet Juan and discuss property.
I was often offered strong, dark real coffee in the house. Chat with Juan ranged over topics such that it felt a bit like how it is to drink strong, real, unsweetened coffee. The photo above is the only one I had of him and I had none of Josefina until my friend Rianne went to meet them yesterday and took these. As I knew she would Rianne felt the same about the house. She said: I loved the place...those patios, the quietness. Juan was occupied with a guest when she visited but she said: I loved Josephine within a minute...like the ideal mother and so much more.
The house was simply a haven. I have said before that even with Janis' kind guidance, at first I found things in the city and the milongas confusing and disconcerting. It was a matter of being in a very different place with insufficient language skills for good independence and far from my children. But no matter how nervous I felt on the street, nor what happened in the milongas, the house was another world. There I felt relaxed, safe, secure and let the atmosphere there mend my confidence, frequently dented outside.
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| Rianne with Josefina |
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| Juan and Josefina |
The house was simply a haven. I have said before that even with Janis' kind guidance, at first I found things in the city and the milongas confusing and disconcerting. It was a matter of being in a very different place with insufficient language skills for good independence and far from my children. But no matter how nervous I felt on the street, nor what happened in the milongas, the house was another world. There I felt relaxed, safe, secure and let the atmosphere there mend my confidence, frequently dented outside.
During the day I wrote, often in the conservatory, or talked to Juan or other house guests or tentatively I went for shopping or cash or explored the streets or went on walking tours. Some afternoons and every night I went out with, strangely, fewer nerves, walking between the milongas and the elegant, unostentatious golden house that I was always happy to return to, often writing again at the desk in my room in the early hours.
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| Janis in the fruit and vegetable shop; Jose Luis (lower picture) |
The house was well located too. Janis showed me around the neighbourhood. She seemed so well-integrated in the neighbourhood. The street was quiet. Around the corner on Independencia there was a fruit and vegetable shop (also a butchers) run by lovely people, including Jose Luis who is learning English. The fruit and vegetables were excellent and cheap. I never found a shop I liked better for that. After trying the steak, most of the time I, like Janis, stuck to salads and fruit
There is a bakery nearby, and a health food store selling nuts and dry goods run by helpful brothers Martin and Ezekial. There is a well known bar notable, Bar de Cao on Independencia, an asador (for takeaway roast meat) three blocks west of there and the usual kiosks for phone and transport cards, regular supermarkets and Chinese supermarkets.
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| El Español |
There is a neighbourhooNot far away was a restaurant, which was recommended several times called El Español. I went once, near the end of my stay. The lassitude of the heat and many late nights, even for something as simple as preparing food, was stealing over me. I felt uneasy and conspicuous in a place packed with locals but the waiters were pleasant and correct, the food was nice and the portions huge. It was the only proper restaurant I went to for a meal apart from lunch with Janis in the must-see tourist trap of Cafe Tortoni when, out walking, we passed it. For the most part I made a salad once, sometime twice a day or ate empanadas from cafes. Only men I noticed tend to snack in the milongas. With so much novelty around to experience, with fruit and vegetables so good and freed from the requirement to cook for family, food held little interest. Between that, walking dozens of blocks (cuadros), daily and dancing I discovered when I got home and my mother greeted me appalled, that I had lost about a stone effortlessly. I was delighted.
The house was fifteen minutes walk to the milonga venues I seemed to frequent most often: Gricel to the south and west on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Obelisco, south and east on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and walking distance to all the central milongas and milonga venues: El Beso, Plaza Bohemia, Nuevo Chique, Lo de Celia, Los Consagrados, El Arranque, Confiteria Ideal. Of these latter, I liked Milonga de los Consagrados best, on Saturday afternoon and evening in the airy venue Centro Region Leonesa.
The house on Chile was graceful, simply furnished, elegant with the beautiful tiles and the glass and ironwork so characteristic of Buenos Aires. I saw it used for a few hours as a set by a modelling agency.
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| Entrance towards conservatory |
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| Conservatory towards kitchen terrace |
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| Kitchen and terrace outside |
There were several connected terraces down one side of the house, giving on to the rooms. My room was large and airy and gave on to one of these terraces. I had my own large bathroom, a walk-in closet, an iron and ironing board and a large desk. I was initially interested in another room but took this room on Juan's recommendation and was glad I did.
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| My room and terrace |
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| Main living area |
Towels are not normally provided but being used to them provided in Europe I had brought none and they were given me. There was no washing machine available at the time I was there but there is a laundry service on the street nearby. My room had a fan but the house was cool and even in February I used it only occasionally. In the room there was a comprehensive and useful guide, a mix of tourist and practical information that my hosts had made for visitors. Lucy, trusted by the family for many years came to clean the house once a week.
Juan is an architect and he and Josefina, who teaches English and sounds like a gentle version of one of the calmer Radio 4 presenters, raised their family, now grown up, in the house. These days they live in another part of the city and the house on Chile provides rental income. They were and are keen to have tango dancers to stay. Juan’s father had danced, elegantly he said. Their children dance. Sometimes he goes to La Glorieta an outdoor milonga to watch.
It is hard to describe how nice it was to be around Juan and Josefina. Like the house, they are quiet, reserved, unostentatious. They are warm and kind, never overly demonstrative. It was a great antidote in some ways to how surprising the milongas could be to someone fresh from Europe. The men in the milongas in Buenos Aires can be lovely to dance with but trust some of them or give an inch in any sense that is not actually dancing at your peril. This includes what you allow to be discussed between dances, per "What does your husband do?" or even keeping hold of your hands between tracks. I was told by someone who knows him that a milonguero viejo had said the only truly correct subject for chat between dances was music. Sometimes I could see why.
Juan seemed to find particularly distasteful the broader problem of trust generally in Argentinian society and the related issue of corruption in Argentina. I was always aware how I was treated with genuine courtesy and respect by him and noticed how thoughtful he was of Josefina. It was so unlike the means-to-an-end respect one can sometimes sense in a milonguero. Juan listens attentively, is reflective and considered in his replies. Josefina is kind, non-judgemental and understanding. There is a sense of calm and of reliability about them. When George Eliot writes about the virtuous characters in her novels one has a sense of what at that time the contemporary examples of politeness, courtesy and kindness were like. That is how I think of them.
Juan seemed to find particularly distasteful the broader problem of trust generally in Argentinian society and the related issue of corruption in Argentina. I was always aware how I was treated with genuine courtesy and respect by him and noticed how thoughtful he was of Josefina. It was so unlike the means-to-an-end respect one can sometimes sense in a milonguero. Juan listens attentively, is reflective and considered in his replies. Josefina is kind, non-judgemental and understanding. There is a sense of calm and of reliability about them. When George Eliot writes about the virtuous characters in her novels one has a sense of what at that time the contemporary examples of politeness, courtesy and kindness were like. That is how I think of them.
Janis thought I was nuts to be going on anywhere else. Things were ideal. She was right but the other places were already booked and I did not like to cancel.
I also visited a couple of pleasant tango houses and heard about dancers, nice or interesting people, people I saw often in the milongas who had flats to rent or who hosted guests. Even so, I cannot recommend enough the house on Chile as a place to stay, so much more than just a place to stay.
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