The gaucho is an important symbol for Argentines. Equally revered and feared, the gaucho is the paragon of the stoicism required through a life of hardship – an admired virtue in this country. A life on the pampas; lonely; always in danger; quietly pushing forward the rickety wheels of Argentinian industry.
New Zealand’s Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc – a wine described as a “bungee jump into a gooseberry bush”, celebrates its 25th birthday this year. The country’s most iconic wine managed to kick-start the great Kiwi invasion of the wine shelves and in doing so helped launch a whole new generation of intense, grassy, nettle-scented Sauvignons.
Yet for all its popularity, it is just one style of this mouth-watering wine. For those who have grown tired of nettles and gooseberries, or who simply want to explore what else this versatile grape can offer, a trip to Argentina could well be an eye-opener.
Whether you plan to stay for a couple weeks or a few months, many travelers opt to rent a Buenos Aires apartment instead of staying in a hotel. Yet, without help finding a nice place and dealing with all of the Argentine idiosyncrasies, it can be a bit daunting.
Now, it is true that when I am not moonlighting as “The American Girl in Buenos Aires” I am running my own real estate business here, but I speak from experience on the subject of finding a Buenos Aires apartment…
Porteños need little encouragement to deem a day a holiday, set off fireworks or… drink champagne. Any excuse for a party, right? Well, in Buenos Aires you can quaff Chandon, dramatically exclaim ¡qué frío! (very local) and people-watch – all under the umbrella of ‘high-brow’ – by throwing in an art fix. This year is the 10th Anniversary of Gallery Nights – late night openings which fall on the last Friday of every month until November, organized by art magazine Arte al Dia, adn Cultura (La Nacion newspaper), and the Ministry of Culture of Buenos Aires.
Just after midnight, one drizzly Friday morning in the poor Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Abasto, I wandered through a rusty door. Inside the cavernous Club Atlético Fernandez Fierro, The Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ echoed, anti-globalist art was lit up under a roving mirror ball and students knocked back the cheap Italian liqueur fernet mixed with cola. It was clear this wasn’t the average stuffy tango hall
Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of only three men to survive Robert Scott’s ill-fated 1910–12 expedition to the South Pole, penned the definitive book about Antarctica and called it “The Worst Journey in the World”. “Polar exploration,” he wrote, “is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.” Since then, we’ve devised new and more terrifying ways of having ‘a bad time in isolation’ while making travel to Antarctica safe, sociable and fun – as I found out last year when I travelled to the ice continent aboard the Antarctic Dream, a Chilean cruise ship…
‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.’ So they say. Although here’s betting that ‘they’ aren’t Argentinian. In Argentina, breakfast is a thoroughly simple affair. The options rarely, if ever, move beyond the two key staples: tosadas (toast) or media lunas. They’ll be served with coffee and orange juice. Anywhere serving anything extravagant – including yogurt or fruit – or any form of cooked eggs is catering to tourists…
“When I first heard about Santi, I thought he was like all the other kids that play polo – rich, privileged and born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” says Nathaniel McCullogh, the English director of the recently released documentary film ‘The Polo Kid‘.
The film follows Santi as he tries to climb the ladder towards the pinnacle of a 10-goal handicap. It moves from Florida to Mexico and then to Argentina, the game’s spiritual home and birthplace of Santi’s polo-playing father to whom the film is dedicated. Miguel Torres was a professional player who emigrated to America in the 1980s and who died during filming…