The door was wide open when we woke.
The cold realisation that we had been rifled as we lay sleeping, crept upon us like an icy hand. Oh God - passports, money, camera. If I hadn’t had the foresight to chain our self-respect to the sink, they would surely have taken that as well!
I raced out of bed and started a panicked inventory. Slowly it dawned on me that the open invitation to rob us while we slept had been declined by the overly committed criminal fraternity of BA’s hotel-land. We had been spared the ignominy of a visit, cap in hand to the British Embassy for a new passport and then a mad-cap dash across the pampus to catch up with the long since departed truck. It would not wait for idiots who had lost their passports not once but twice in two weeks of travel!
The streets were cold and windy when we ventured out after breakfast. We trawled the shops for warm weather gear having packed disastrously inappropriately on the strength of weather reports clearly prepared by a man with a grudge.
For a cold city in winter BA has a much under-reported warm clothing shortage. We scoured the highways and bye-ways and unearthed a single pair of comedy elephant boxer-shorts and a pair of gloves made from cured guano. Thawing out at the at ‘Casa My House’ over Cafe Con Leche and Croque Monsieur, we regrouped and resolved to drop the random scatter gun approach and try a more strategic one. Happening upon the bright idea of actually asking someone, we had thermals and padded jackets before tea time, just as the notoriously unpredictable BA weather warmed from Arctic to Sahara in the time it took to say “Holy crap! My eyes are melting!!”
Walking back from the main shopping arcades on Florida Avenue, the police were moving on the street traders whose wares cluttered up the wide pedestrian boulevards. Short men in tatty great coats whistled from doorways and called ‘cambio’ for money exchange every few seconds, with relentless repetition that must have driven them mad if not hoarse. The rich, earthy smell of leather goods emanated from every third shop as Argentina struggles valiantly against the accumulating leather mountain that is the by-product of its world famous beef trade.
The Falklands are still a sore point here. There was a historic friendship between the UK and Argentina dating back to the mid-18th century, based on trade, which although dwindling after the Second World War, was marked by countless monuments and architectural features erected in tribute to it. Air Force square was formerly Britanicos and its imposing clock tower was a monument to friendship, built by British architects with materials shipped from the UK. At one stage 15% of the population was made up of British expatriates who built and ran the railways and many of the national industries. Sadly, the friendship is still in jeopardy as each election year resurrects the politically expedient demands for the return of Las Malvenas.
After queuing for an hour at HSBC to withdraw cash, only to learn that the cash desk had closed three hours before it opened, we and 100 other disgruntled customers expressed our dissatisfaction at the ‘World’s Local Bank’ by leaving obediently and promising to come back three days later when the banks re-opened. Argentina is no stranger to extended bank closures. Every seven years, the economy crash lands and it takes three weeks for the economists to hammer the mangled framework back into some semblance of order.
During this time the banks are shut and the economy ceases to function on a cash basis. The Argentinian beef steak usually becomes the currency of choice and is quickly pegged against the American Hotdog and the French Steak Frites, to avoid inflationary pressures. It seems to work as Argentina is an asset rich country that can always rely on commodity exports to dig its way out of problems.
During this time the banks are shut and the economy ceases to function on a cash basis. The Argentinian beef steak usually becomes the currency of choice and is quickly pegged against the American Hotdog and the French Steak Frites, to avoid inflationary pressures. It seems to work as Argentina is an asset rich country that can always rely on commodity exports to dig its way out of problems.
The only trouble is the tendency for Argentinians to barbeque their currency in times of economic instability.
Cashless, but tendering a fistful of sirloin, we spent the evening at a Tango show. Filing through the fin de siècle glamour of Restaurant Café Tortoni, we descended to the subterranean auditorium and were treated to a sensuous display of tango mixed with slap-stick machismo and gouts of dry ice that periodically obscured the ensemble cast of dancers and musicians.
In between dances, two men performed the most incredible feats of rhythm and coordination using only a pair of bolas, which they swung like skipping ropes, hitting the stage at rapid intervals that the ear could not keep up with, let alone the eye.
Our fear of robbery was well placed.
The bill saw to that.
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