Sunday: San Telmo and La Boca

The morning after the night before: Jeff stayed over. This is Buenos Aires where lovers are two a penny, but friendship is a find. I enjoy, with childish glee, sharing a bed with a friend. Pillow talk into the early hours, swapping life stories, a spot of foot massage, endless tickly stroke, (I used to pay for this with my pocket money as a kid,) enjoying the charge, but resisting a change of gear.

Notwithstanding, I still managed to be ready for Caro by 10:00, as she was planning to look up a particular artist and also to browse the art stalls of San Telmo, on Humberto 1˚ around its junction with Defensa. Artists distil the essence of their subjects and if you want to take home a piece of the city, a painting or a photograph is as good a way as any. From the comfort of your home, you can experience Buenos Aires: Caminito, the obelisk, cafés, bandoneons, guitars, men in hats, prostitutes, beggars, romantic love, despair and of course, the tango.

We strolled through the antique market in Plaza Dorrego, pausing here and there to examine objects that caught our eye: artefacts, antiques, jewellery, crafted in metal, enamel, glass, perspex, wood, seeds. We tried on clothes in the trendy boutiques, bought some costume jewellery and sat in Parque Lezama, our ice-cream cones melting in the sunshine, before continuing on to La Boca, to pay homage to the place where tango was born.

This barrio, once the poorest in Buenos Aires, has now been given over almost entirely to tourism. We didn’t go into the conventillos to watch the artists at work – that will have to wait until the next time. We walked about to get a feel of the place, watch the performances of tango and folkloric dance in the streets put on to attract tourists to the numerous cafés and restaurants in the area. We walked down Caminito. We were being tourists and loving it.

We headed back into town on a colectivo and stopped to eat at the Bar Federal in San Telmo, one of the oldest and most famous bars in Buenos Aires, for lomo con papas fritas (filet mignon and chips.)

When I got home, there were emails from my girls wishing me a happy Mother’s Day. I hadn’t realised it was Mother’s Day, (over here, it’s celebrated in spring, which coincides with autumn in England,) but we have body clocks, so maybe we also have body calendars and maybe that is why my body knew to take me out for a most enjoyable, self indulgent day.