Putting the liv into Bolivia

There was a big Bolivian parade yesterday celebrating two hundred years of Argentinian independence with a joyfully noisy show round the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires’s equivalent of Parliament Square.

Those delightfully gaudy Bolivian costumes were much in evidence.

The women looked like they had donned a bowler hat, or sometimes a lampshade, and then covered themselves in glue, and run through a curtain shop.


Some of the chaps, not to be outdone, had magnificent hooped skirt things, which put me in mind of the toilet roll covers my gran used to have.

All did some lively formation-whirling, accompanied by marching bands with very loud timpanists who thumped out a steady two-two spiced up with the odd bar of four-against-three.

At fifteen thousand feet, perhaps crossrhythms are what keeps the circulation going.

You know when you've been tangoed...

So here I am in Buenos Aires, and yes, it’s tango city. Stroll down Florida St, the centre’s favourite pedestrianised shopping boulevard, and the hawkers (present, but not too persistent) try to entice you into this or that Tango Show.

The going rate – for floor show, meal, transport there and back from your hotel – seems to be about 360-odd pesos, or about sixty quid. Put one way, that’s ten bottles of very decent Malbec in a restaurant here. Put another... well, it’s still too much for me.



Still, if you buy into the tango schtick, there are shops for your passion. Some areas – such as Suipacha St near the Obelisk (above right), or the Abasto near the Carlos Gardel statue out along Corrientes (below right) – have plenty catering specifically, for example, for tango shoes and clothes.

And tango lessons are easy to come by: along with free wi-fi and complimentary breakfast rolls, even budget hostels offer such things.

So, if you dream of coming out here to meet a tall dark handsome stranger who will sweep you off your feet in a slow-moving clinch across a dusty dancefloor, then you’ve come to exactly the right place. Because you’ll meet lots of other people who are hoping for exactly the same thing.