Colourful buildings in La Boca. Photo / Winston Aldworth
Colourful buildings in La Boca. Photo / Winston Aldworth
In the Argentinian capital, Winston Aldworth finds that meat and mating are on the brain.
In the toilet of every restaurant in Buenos Aires is a condom machine. And on the tables of every restaurant in Buenos Aires is a steak. A massive steak, the bigger ones are the size of a fairly big bloke's forearm. The smaller ones, merely bigger than pretty much any steak you'd be served in Auckland.
So, here we are in Buenos Aires, eating more steak in one sitting than you'd ever test your colon with at home. At every table, giant hunks of dead cow are walloped on to place settings. Near the doorway of Floreria Atlantico, two attractive young women share a T-bone that wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of The Flintstones.
Over a lunchtime cross-cut rib at the excellent La Cabrera, a middle-aged couple snog like teenagers in the back row of the movie theatre. I can understand their enthusiasm; the cross-cut rib is sensational. (We saw a lot of PDA snogging in Buenos Aires - from airport queues to cafe tables, everywhere. More than I can recall in any other city.)
A week-long gastronomic tour of Buenos Aires would be akin to burying yourself in a cow and eating your way out - only through the best cuts, naturally.
Of all the world's eateries, a steak restaurant with intestines on the menu is the most redolent of death. And, after all that, when you go to the toilet, you're confronted with a condom machine.
I've just eaten half a cow, and they think I'm going to have sex?
At lunch in a friendly local bistro, we spot an "Erotique salad" on the menu, tucked in alongside delicious, beef-filled empanadas - it's really just a Waldorf with maraschino cherries, but c'mon, can't you people go five minutes without thinking about sex?
A steak and blood sausage in Buenos Aires. Photo / Winston Aldworth
At a tango lesson, Gerard Roche - an Irishman, of all things, who has taught tango in Buenos Aires for seven years with his partner, Lucia Seva - tells us the native dance of the city requires "dynamic tension" between the partners.
Tango is also a very intuitive affair, he says. "The best dancers don't know the next step."
Which is handy, because no matter how politely and clearly Gerard explains things, I also have no idea what the next step is. In fact, most of the time I'm not particularly sure what the last step was either.
"In Argentina," says Gerard, pointing to my left foot with a charming grin, "the left foot is this side."
We head to a milonga (a tango club) called Bendita Maldita, to see it done properly. A brilliant band plays and the locals dance. Some of the dancers are fantastic - we're not, but we give it a go all the same.
The crowd are regular, local folk, mixed in ages from their 20s through to their 50s. Some dance with people they know, others pick up new partners as the night goes on. A couple smooches at one of the tables. The tango can be a very intimate dance; one or two of the men are brutish in appearance and style.
"Now that the women at this milonga know how he dances," says Gerald, pointing out a guy who looks - and dances - like a bouncer from a particularly rough bar, "they won't dance with him again."
So it pays to bring your A-Game. Be smooth. Look good. Maybe go easy on the steak.
Dancing tango in La Boca. Photo / Winston Aldworth
The Argentines like their politicians to be smooth and good looking.
With elections coming in October, there are political billboards all over town. Some are hard to tell from ads for retail products.
A right-wing guy called Sergio Massa looks like he's selling sportswear. Another billboard featuring a middle-aged man and woman could be for erectile-dysfunction tablets or life insurance.
The Minister for the Economy appears on television with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. A dashing sort, he looks like an escapee from a boy band.
Cristina's endorsement counts for much. At 62, she's the glamorous widow of Nestor, who served as President before her. She was in office when he died in 2010.
She reigns from the Presidential Palace. Which is pink. As with many things in Buenos Aires, there are two versions of history. School kids are told that the pink hue was chosen to symbolise the blending of the colours of the two major political parties of the early-1800s, when the republic was founded. The other version notes that the people of Buenos Aires once smeared their houses in a mixture of calves' fat and clay to cool the corridors in the humid climate. Beef blood ran into the fat.
"So the truth is, we painted our house in blood," says our guide.
They've painted the place in blood during their coups as well.
All Argentina's former presidents are remembered with elegant busts in an entrance hall. Except for the six blokes who filled the office in the space of one week ("For six in one week," says our guide, Fabian, "you don't get remembered.")
The Kirchners moved the statues of the coup leaders to the corners of the annex, redecorating the Presidential Palace to suit their version of history.
The Kirchners are in the Peronist party, all that remains of the original glamour star of Argentinian politics, Eva Peron.
So, where does the Peronist party sit on the left-right axis?
"It depends," says Fabian.
Juan Peron himself secured workers' rights, healthcare for the poor and a state-funded education system. So he's a lefty? Well, it depends. He also helped a bunch of Nazis find hiding places in the 1950s. Choose your version.
Politics here is an emotional business. When news of Eva's cervical cancer went public, one grafitto wrote "Viva el cáncer!" on a Buenos Aires wall. He got his way. In 1952, she was dead at the age of 33.
Three years later, with a military regime in power, her body was stolen, going on a two-decade odyssey through South America and Europe. She was buried under a fake name in Milan, before being returned to Buenos Aires, via Madrid.
Today, her body lies in the beautiful Recoleta Cemetery. Her family's crypt, with fresh flowers delivered daily, is the most visited among the haunting aisles of Recoleta. (Second-most visited: a crypt where a young woman was allegedly buried alive - by accident.)
While Eva's corpse was stolen and travelled the world, that of her widower, Juan, merely had its hands cut off; possibly as a reminder of unpaid financial debts.
His hands were cut off? What a grisly thing to do! Who cuts off a corpse's hands?
"We don't know. Trust me when I say I'm not making this up," says our guide, looking over his shoulder, at the security in the Presidential Palace.
"In fact, I'm not telling some of the really bad parts."
One of the "really bad parts" can be seen every Thursday at 3pm, just outside the Presidential Palace when the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo march around a square. Their children were taken from them - "disappeared" - while the military was in power from 1976-1983. The military says about 9000 people disappeared; campaigners say the actual number is closer to 30,000.
Children born in prison camps to pregnant women who were "disappeared" were adopted out to families supportive of the regime. There were about 500 of these kids and they're still tracking them down today. The disappeared babies are remembered around the city with little paintings of ghostly nappies.
In the square, inevitably, we see another couple pashing, hard out.
Street art near a playground recalls children stolen by the military government. Photo / Winston Aldworth
Buenos Aires' charms are of the faded European variety. Artworks and grand monuments are dotted throughout the city and there's a growing movement of dramatic street art featuring murals painted on residential buildings.
A bronze nude male has been tarnished by decades in the weather. Only his nether regions glisten wilfully, shining from generations of strokes by would-be Casanovas, seeking a lucky touch for some pre-date good fortune.
At Estadio Diego Armando Maradona, we watch Argentinos Juniors play Estudientes. The crowd produces a 90-minute soundtrack of screaming mayhem that would put last Tuesday's Cricket World Cup semifinal at Eden Park to shame.
Away fans are banned, as is alcohol. Foul-mouthed abuse is cheerfully directed at the families of the opposition players, who watch the game from a caged area at one end of the pitch. Much of the abuse comes from our two tour guides - neither of whom actually follows either of the teams involved in the match, they're just getting into the swing of things.
The match, which finishes 2-2, is cracking entertainment. But the lunatic, joyous crowd is the real star of this show.
Towards the end, one of the guides takes a break from questioning the virtue of the Estudiantes goalkeeper's mother for long enough to check a text message on his phone. He tells me that a San Lorenzo fan has died at the end of their big derby match against Huracan, falling 50m to his death after hanging over the side of the stand.
"San Lorenzo won," he tells me brightly. Final score: 3-1.
Getting there:Air New Zealand begins flying three days a week from Auckland to Buenos Aires in December. One-way fares start at $1232, with a special fare of $899 for travel between February 2 and March 9, 2016.
Details:Graffitimundo is a non-profit organisation promoting street art in Buenos Aires and running tours.
