Tierra tango

It is a sunny-cloudy morning. It is still warm, but stores are impatient for it to get colder, and indeed a few people don on, gasp, autumn-like clothing. While I, all the tourists, and the vast majority of locals are in lightweight wear. I saw one umbrella yesterday. A day early, and even so, I can't see the forecast for thunderstorms anymore. Aside from the thunder and lightning last week, which still has 30 000 without water or power, it has been soleado.

Buenos Aires is known for its tango and football. It's true. However I am not interested in either of these, so you will not get much out of me on these topics. I will be interested in tango when I am 80, when it will be cool at that stage in my life. Out of the 28 tv channels, at least 5 have football on. Sometimes it's 10, and 3 of them are exactly the same. After that, about 10 are Disney or children's channels, and then the rest is the rest - news (protests, a 280kg cocaine bust, Las Malvinas...), a shopping channel, some flashy shows. For between 6 and 8pm at least.

Tango starts at midnight here and goes through to the morning. It might be the reason why people still have coffee and medialunas here at noon. In my religious pilgrimage of cafes notables in this city, I was in front of one at that very time of day. Far, far too early for lunch. I went halfway across the city to a cemetary, wandered around some underground catacombs, and then went back for lunch.

On Good Friday, I decided, what better thing to do than to visit Tierra Santa. This was literally a 'journey' type of day. I cannot say that I really went anywhere, and it took a god-awful long time to get there and back. The place - a religious themepark - has some fairly scathing and sarcastic reviews online and in my guidebook. They don't actually encourage, or expect anyone to go after reading their review. My guidebook also thoughtfully does not place the location correctly on the map, nor indicate that the best way to get there is by commuter train.

Of course I go.

For place that is so off the map and so difficult to get to, it is amazing to think that anyone is anywhere else. It is like IKEA. The number of people getting into this place, is like the number of people at the IKEA checkouts at the end of Saturday. A fairly muggy afternoon, I felt claustrophobic, despite it being open air. I wandered around but left after 30-60 minutes - I must have been there for a least 30, I cannot admit to being there more than an hour.

Despite it having a religious theme, it is of course different than a church. Let's say that nothing is sacred, but Resurrection happens everyday. Everyday except, as noted on a big sign by the tickets, on Good Friday and not until Saturday at 7:30pm, when presumably the largest crowds of the year congregate.

The theme of bringing the somewhere-else-here is recurrent here in Buenos Aires. Perhaps because at one point, the land prices were less expensive here than that elsewhere. I have yet to figure this all out, but here is my theory. Buenos Aires was the local port from which all the silver from Potosi went to fill the coffers of Spain. After independence, the locals became wealthy from meat export - imagine a Chicago, but on a port. Eat beef, they said, a lot of beef!

These wealthy people buy status via their buildings and architects. Clients did not know exactly what they wanted, and architects never saw their buildings. The end result of this tall and expansive urban cocktail, designed by mail order, is for the public to be impressed, and we are. But despite the density of material, the order of urban and architectural form, and thoughtfulness of ornamentation, their is something lacking in this reality - and perhaps that is what spurred J L Borges and Xul Solar - but maybe I have just not found it yet.