6.22.06: Buenos Aires, Argentina

I’m down here at the invitation of the band La Portuaria. We did a song together some months ago and I guess it was well received (they won the Argentine equivalent of a Grammy) so they invited me to hang out for a week, be in their video and join them on stage at their show this week. I like the band and this town and I was free, so it was an irresistible invitation. Today I went for a bike ride to the Parque Ecological, quite a ways from the hotel, which is here in the Palermo district. I rode there to shake off the jet lag and as an attempt to say hello to the band as they were beginning their video shoot. Cell phone problems — we didn’t meet — but I had a nice long ride through the park, which has paths through wetlands that border one side of the city. It seems the park is also a place for secluded meetings, as there signs advising that the park is not a place for “encuentros” …meaning sex, I guess.

The hotel in Palermo is named after the book Bobos In Paradise, a humorous view of the gentrification of bohemian culture, which is confusing as this area and the hotel are prime examples of that kind of gentrification. As if the Tribeca Grand poked fun at the fact that it’s located in a formerly arty neighborhood. This hotel is located on Guatemala, between Jorge Luis Borges and Thames — the names alone say a lot about the cultural makeup of this town. A mixture of Latin America and Europe — a mixture that produced a writer and culture that are completely unique.

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[October 2004 Buenos Aires tour posts: 10.12.04, 10.13.04, 10.15.04, 10.21.04]