We waited, drinking overpriced cortados and listening to a keyed-up American ex-pat outline his plans to take a bus cross-country to his wife and children who had fled the eruption to Buenos Aires but were now en route back home ahead of him.
Eventually, our flight was cancelled and we headed back into the city to spend the night before trying to catch another flight the next morning. We found our apartment full, but the staff rang around until they found us a suitable alternative. While we waited, Matt spoke to one of them, Mauro, about rugby. He gave Matt his number and said if we were around over the weekend to call and he would take us to a game.
At our new hotel the receptionist, Carina, rebooked our flights and recommended a nearby parilla for steak and red wine. We have been stunned by how friendly and helpful everyone is - from the hotel staff to the man on the street. Whenever we showed the slightest hesitation or reached for a map, someone was there, offering directions.
Later, with the sun on our faces, we sat in Plaza Dorrego, somewhat self-congratulatory that we’d found the ash cloud’s silver lining. Parrots picked at the inners of large green pods hanging from a neighbouring tree, silken fluff floating to the ground alongside us. A man appeared selling instructional DVDs on the art of Argentine asado. We declined to buy one, but talked him into joining us for a drink.
Mike lives in Buenos Aires, tests snowboards for Head, and produced the barbecue DVD with some friends as a potential business venture. He told us that to survive in Argentina, you need to be very creative, to use your imagination, and to constantly adapt.
He was conducting a little market research by beating the streets of San Telmo peddling his product. A few hours and many beers later, Mike gave us a DVD – gratis – and his contact details and called it a day. We pondered how his debrief with his partners would go: accosted and held hostage, plied with beers and conversation, and not having made a single sale.
We stopped at a stall in a doorway on Defensa where a woman sells antique silk garments. They are so fine and beautiful in pale pinks and oyster whites. She told me all the girls in California love her delicate finds. I tried on a recently procured embroidered cape. She had bought it from a man who was selling his 90-year-old mother’s belongings. She was “a woman of great taste and style”. It is exquisite but I have no idea when I might wear something so beautiful and how I will avoid tearing it or soiling it with red wine.
Each time I emerged from behind the rail (her makeshift dressing room, augmented by her shielding me with a long dress on a hanger), I spotted some other objet du desir and found myself back behind the rail while she told me that she does not cater for fat girls, but of course, she would never tell a fat girl such a thing.
A charming gentleman appeared from the apartment building with a cup of tea. His people were Croatian, from Budapest. Hungary and Croatia both used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and because his grandfather had been a writer of note, Hungary had claimed him as a son. He has an estancia in Cordoba, and gave us his phone number in case we need anything, and his card, printed simply with his name. The shopkeeper, who had taken the cup of tea and who I think must be his entanglement, gave us her number too and spoke wistfully of showing us her home, of us calling should we need anything, a restaurant recommendation, directions.
Buenos Aires is an enchanting city. With the Cordoba and Mendoza legs of our journey aborted by a bilious volcano, we ended up spending a lot longer there than we’d planned.
The first four days had been spent exploring the city relatively thoroughly and typically, visiting the up-market Rocaleta neighbourhood and its famous cemetery, wondering the streets of Palermo Soho and Hollywood with their astonishing number of excellent bars, restaurants, shops and cafes and eating at many of San Telmo’s parillas where huge slabs of beef and vast quantities of malbec are served up.
Flush with four extra days we visited La Boca, home of the Boca Juniors, a neighbourhood filled with brightly painted buildings, stalls and tango dancers. On Saturday, it was Independence Day and the plaza overflowed with drummers, bands and dancers.
We ambled along Defensa on Sunday, as it swelled and pulsed with antique stalls and throngs of people. I bought a heavy colander with brass handles and feet, which we carried down to Puerto Madero, the new city which is being built on a piece of land between the old docks and the River Plate.
We ate seafood linguine and walked past the smoking churrascarias bordering a reserve filled with reeds and birds, overlooking the river that looks like a still silent sea. We rented ancient creaking bicycles and Matt wore the colander as a helmet, looking like a challenged viking and evoking curiosity from a small girl who asks her mother if he is loco.
Now we’re in the Pampas about an hour out of BA, staying on a small estancia, a lifestyle block owned by a porteno couple – an ex-architect who lost his 100-year-old family leather-goods business in the crash, and an ex-psychiatrist who grew wary of occupying the interior world and beat an escape to a farm in the country and the “world of animals”.
She’s retraining as a sex therapist and dreams of having a radio show. They too, individually, express to us that they have had many phases to their existence in Argentina and that creativity and adaptability are key to one’s survival. They nearly lost the farm, originally a weekend retreat from their city home in the gentile San Isidro suburb, but decided to transform it to cater to paying guests.
The farm is run by Abierto who lives here with his third wife and his ten children, the youngest of which was born two days ago. El Cencerro is more of a lifestyle block than a working farm, with Shetland ponies, horses, geese, turkeys, chickens, and legions of dogs and their puppies. Each room in the house has an open fire, whitewashed walls, stone floors and comfortable furniture.
Abierto’s daughters set a table outside for us, with wooden chairs and a white linen tablecloth. We drink cabernet and eat empanadas, followed by bread, salad and chicken that Abierto has cooked on the asado. We finish with dulce de leche ice-cream and toasted nuts with coffee. Matt stretches out on the grass with the dogs and falls asleep in the sun.
That night, after soaking in the claw-footed cast-iron bath, we sit beside the fire while the multiplying daughters serve up a meal of Eggplant Parmigiana, Veal Milanese, mashed potato with nutmeg, bread, and baby spinach tossed in oil and balsamic. A bottle of malbec disappears and Abierto puts some more logs on the fire.
There’s mist in the morning, which gradually dissipates under the sun’s glow. Abierto’s son, Miguel, leads us through the paddocks on horseback. My horse lags behind, ignores my kicks, slaps with the bridle and cajoles and sets his own pace, cutting every corner to conserve his patently limited energy. I call him Shortcut.
