Tango Men

For those that don´t know, going to watch Boca Juniors is mental. We spent the morning queuing up in the blazing heat on a derelict park somewhere near the stadium for what we thought might be tickets to the match. We couldn´t be sure because asking would have given away the fact we were tourists. It was increasingly obvious that the others in the line were not about to start tucking in to a round of prawn sandwiches and, when the self-assessed likelihood of being mugged reached 50 percent we decided to leave, placing our chances of getting a ticket in the hands of the taxi driver into whose cab we jumped. He drove us round the ground to a man who sold us marked up tickets through the passenger window.

Places in the ground aren´t allocated to particular tickets, so, upon entering the stand, it´s a simple choice between getting piss thrown on you from above while seeing everything at the front, or staying back with a slightly obscured view and an increased life expectancy. From the very rear row, we managed to catch most of the match, and a lot of the nutcases at the front trying to scale the barbed wire fence. The atmosphere was incredible, but Boca were quite poor, Riquelme looked tired and it finished 1-1. Despite disappointing game, the relief we felt at getting back alive made it all worthwhile.

I´ve had the fortune of hooking up with Rob, a good friend, who has been travelling for 4 months and happened to be in the area. This was lucky, not only because he´s football crazy and so we´ve been able to see some games togther, but also because he looks like an Argentine, so I seem less like a tourist. This fact, confirmed by numerous locals, was also pleasing Rob until we began to hear rumours of the local ladies´ taste for English men.

Since then, he´s spent many a long hour in night clubs convincing the chicas that he really is English and that he´s not just prentending to win them over. An yes, a typical Argentinian man would resort to that sort of tactic. Were Si Hirst to hit the night spots of BA, he would be conspicuous for his subtlety of approach. Penetrating the sphere of cynacism that consequently surrounds the women, especially given my better-never-than-late approach to lunging, has unsurprisingly proved rather tough....

Vanity pervades society here, and locals are proud of their fitness.I´ve lost count of the times ive been asked ´oh you´re english...what do you think of the women here. beatiful, aren´t they´. In fact, I´masked this mostly by women. And if the lasses are beautiful, then themen have no hang-ups about trying to be: the gym is always pretty busy. The other day, I was watching two real beefcake skinhead musclemen in heinous string vests curling ridiculous amounts in front of the mirror, when a third arrived and proceeded to land a total of four sloppy kisses on both cheeks of the other two before loading the smith machine and getting on with his work-out.... that´s normal here.

In a bid to raise the metrosexual stakes, Rob and I went to some Tango classes, in a derelict warehouse decorated with junk from the fifties and sixties. My knowlege of Tango didn´t extend far beyond Cadbury Schweppes, a fact that was to be cruelly exposed. Ten minutes after arriving, what we were told was the beginners lesson was over and the men were required to pick a partner from the twenty or so women that seemed to show up from nowhere once the music started.

This didn´t go well....Rob´s partner told him that she´d been dancing for four years, and mine, although not unattractive when stannding at the other side of the dingy dance floor, turned out the be about sixty and determined to mask it with lashings of make-up and a hideous red-rinse perm. After half an hour or so of treading on her toes, it was plainly obvious that my partner was utterly discusted with me.Following one particularly malcoordinated spinning manoeuvre, shelooked up with a glance that, in any culture, suggested ´I want you dead´, at which point I though it best to retire to the bar area. We watched the rest from a distance, nursing our pride with a litre of Quilmes each.

After this slightly humiliating attempt to broaden our cultural experience, we returned to safer (sporting) ground and an exhibition tennis match between David Nalbandian and Carlos Moya held on the world´s widest road. It was the first time it had been closed for something like forty years, so, while the rest of the city ground to a halt trying to cope with the diverted traffic, El Rey David and his Spanish counterpart proceeded to play a few trick shots and sign some autographs.