Afternoon in Almagro

My favorite barrio, Almagro. "Almagro de mi vida... barrio de me sueños", goes the old tango.

Most expats don't know it. Tango people know it pretty well. If you've been on the bares and cafés safari you may have made your way up out of the subte to visit Las Violetas which is growing a soul again after being closed and gutted for many years (ya know, once they lose their chairs and tables...) The neighborhood at least used to be the center for boxing in Buenos Aires. (Maybe the words of The Poet are whispering to me, "It used to be a writer's town, it's always been a fighter's town."

I can't explain why I always feel so good, so full of peace... so much at home when I'm strolling through those callecitos between Rivadavia y Belgrano. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. Living in ordinary homes going to ordinary jobs under the trees that line the ordinary sidewalks... it seems unchanging to me. I'm comforted and I don't know how to put it other than I feel a love for every person on the sidewalks, at the bus stops, poking their heads into little kioscos.

I had to put the old coche in the shop for a check-up. That meant stopping into my mecánico's storefront taller in the middle of the residential street of Quito. Always a pleasure (Imagine that! Always a pleasure to visit your mechanic! Such is the magic of Almagro.)

My mechanic being a problem-solver by nature, likes to hear me speak castellano. Listening to me speak his native tongue is probably like finding the source of a leak, the origin of a strange tapping, the mysterious location of a short. It's fun for him and he always finds it. My being an amateur motor-head makes it even more fun for him (after I told him that I once owned a '73 Coupe de Ville with a 501 cu. in. engine... the largest production engine ever made... I was permanently promoted to honored guest.)

He welcomed me into his little office at the back of what could be a large suburban US residential garage, except that its about twice as deep and we shared mate with another friend/customer. We chatted and chewed the fat about Buenos Aires, cows in the province, comparative crime-rates in other countries, food, all in the most relaxed and friendly and... dare I say it... civilized manner. Three people, sucking a bombilla and smoking cigarettes and taking a moment. A moment to live, a moment to be human, a moment not to be happy about what the world gives you... but, rather, to be happy about the things that the world does not take from you.

Leaving the ol' boat with him overnight required me to hoof it back toward the nearest mass-transit. What perfect weather was today! "Un día peronista!", they say because it smiles down upon rich and poor alike. I looked around a bit for a familiar bus line but decided in the end to make my way to one of the old wooden subway cars and transfer at Lima.

Almagro, being almost dead-center in the city, can be hot as summer approaches. Today the air was magic. I felt I was swaddled in silk or in some sort of perfect liquid as I made my way in the late afternoon along the veredas with everyone else. On Castro Barros, I decided to avail myself of the fine facilities at Tuñin and fortify by sitting outside for an ice cold beer and a slice of napolitana. It was out of this world with it's perfectly crunchy crust, great cheese, a big green olive, tomato slices... and a bunch of freshly minced garlic and other spices. (Whadda pizza town this is!) Just a few minutes, to read the house Clarín, munch, slurp and smoke... in a kind of peacefulness, on a sidewalk, in the midst of a burgeoning rush-hour. Maybe my memory is fading me but I can't remember a similar experience in the old country.

I hope you had a wonderful day too,
Mike