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April 26, 2005

Cultural Awareness 101 and elementary manners

Useful tips while travelling in Argentina, learned the hard way:

- When asked if you'd like to have dinner and watch tango never reply: "I couldn't possibly endure two hours of tango!"

- Never smile back at macho immigration officers who give you back your passport with a lusty grin and a wink while saying "you can go through"

- Don't block the other tourist's view of Evita Peron's resting place while trying to take a photo of a much more beautiful mausoleum just across from hers

- Don't ask for "only a caprese salad" at a grill restaurant where everyone is eating steaks of gargantuan proportions; argentines are very proud of their meat, no pun intended

- NEVER ask a cabby, whose car's dashboard is covered with River Plate stickers, to take you to La Bombonera - the Boca Junior's Football Stadium (and eternal rival)

Maradona wine is the sort of classy souvenir one can buy at "Todo Boca", a Boca Juniors souvenir shop just across the street from the stadium

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April 20, 2005

Xul Solar

"A man well versed in all disciplines, curious about each and every mystery, father of alphabets, languages, utopias and mythologies, host of paradises and infernos, author, pan-chess player, and perfect astrologer in indulgent irony and generous friendship, Xul Solar is one of the most peculiar events of our times" - Jorge Luis Borges

Xul Solar was one of my great "finds" from this last trip to Argentina. I loved his paintings and enjoyed his fabulous creativity through his imaginative inventions which range from
* Languages - Pan Criollo, a mix of spanish and portuguese, and Pan Lingua - "a system to communicate and link mathematics, music, astrology and the visual arts in unexpected combinations with untold creative potential"
* Religions and divinatory methods - firm believer in Astrology, Tarot, I Ching, Buddhism and reincarnation
* Games - Pan chess or non-chess, "whose indeterminate rules were simultaneously a group of musical notes, a dictionary for the creation of new languages"

I particularly liked this modified piano, where the original keys were substituted by colorfoul ones, "to accompany the music of his paintings".

More about Xul Solar on the Wikipedia, Words without Borders and Museo Xul Solar in Buenos Aires

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April 15, 2005

Mi Buenos Aires querido

Apart from being ridiculously cheap these days - even though I hope the argentine economy is recovering - Buenos Aires is that kind of city that has a flare to it which I personally can't see on the photos I took. Maybe except for these pics of bookworm paradise: El Ateneo - the most beautiful bookshop in the world. I'm not a big fan of big bookshops (I prefer the cozy little ones selling rare and non-mainstream books) but this one I must admit is a reader's paradise. It is housed on an antique theater on Santa Fe Avenue.

I also got to know the work of a lot of argentine painters previously unkonwn to me... Xul Solar being the most astonishing revelation of all.

And Palermo Viejo is a place I could easily live in...

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April 11, 2005

Peru Photos

The photo album is here!

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April 06, 2005

Favourite

Favourite photo from the whole trip...

Baby carried on mother's back, peeping out! Pisaq, Peru

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