City of Angels

Some call Buenos Aires the 'City of Angels' because of the sheer quantity of carved angels in the Cementario De La Recoleta. One of BA's primo tourist attractions, in one of the cities spendiest neighbourhoods, sits this Cementario necropolis (not a cement factory), a walled mini-city for the dead. Everyone who either minted or of significant Argentinean importance has a hugely expensive, ornate sarcophagi here.

After stomping a good few K round 20ft high walls looking for the entrada, I passed under a grand Romanesque pillared entrance into streets of lofty marble-fronted grave-houses. Ornately hewn in various exotic marbles and stone, these houses highlight local persons historic or financial status in life, before their clogs got popped.

Mainly designed in fanciful art nouveaux, there are clean art deco enclaves and minimalist contemporary graves. But Angels are the theme. The more the better. Watching over the deed, possibly for protection or to lend directions to heaven. The other theme here is 'my grave's better than your grave'. Some are 50 feet high, with big ol' domes and spires and ting. It's kind of an old-school version of 'Pimp my Catacomb'. When the posh die here, they go to town.

The weird thing is that these death sheds have room inside for several musty family coffins, which generally sit in full view behind dusty windows, gathering cobwebs while the body inside is reduced to dust. Back home in Blightly buried bodies become food for worms, out of sight and underground. The person beneath becomes abstracted into a headstone. You can't exactly visit a coffin a decade later. So I personally found it conceptually odd, leaving granny and great granddad on a shelf. But there we are.

The other reason Buena Aires is a City of Angels is cos I met one. Martin was his name - a fine name for an Angel. Technically I met him in Brazil, but he's from BA. If you remember, I idiotically came travelling laden with lashings of camera equipment and sans charger. While I'd stretched my three batteries up the Brazilian coast, they died in Salvador. 'Boo' thought B. A photographic 'business trip' without a working camera might be frowned upon by the upstanding folk at Inland Revenue.

So back in Salvador, dancing up a Pelourinho Carnaval street I spotted a gent with the same camera as me, so I jumped him. It turned out he was staying at our friends hostel. A fine coincidence. He became my battery charger and friend in need. After accompanying our gang for a few days he laid down his email address and said to look him up in BA. So I did.

Coincidence numero dos: My main camera lens decided on day one at the Igassu falls, of all places, to pack in. So I had restricted usage until BA, where I hoped to get it mended. Once I'd emailed Senor Martin he informed me that the following day he was going to collect a lens he'd had repaired in town. How jolly convenient! So we met at the Subte station, dropped in my lens (With M on hand to translate the diagnosis) & then he showed me about town. Like a pair of tourists we checked out the pink palace where Juan Peron stood & Evita sang, saw the oldest building in town and took hot chocolate and churros at the Cadillac of BA cafe's, Café Tortoni.

Martin is a legend, and we talk Argentinean history, what it's like to live here and about man stuff. Martin got to practice his English and laugh at (and make attempts at improving) my pathetic Espanol. I believe he thinks it's a wonder I got so far with so little, and without having been ripped off or robbed. Sometimes I wonder the same. When we met he hadn't been back long from his own travels, and was sporting an impressive beard. He says his head's still running on 110v, not the Argey 220V. A nice way to describe a feeling I've known before.

Later, after putting away Mojitos, Cuba Libres and girly yellow daiquiris with BA's after work city crowd at a funky hidden away Cuban Bar, we stumble to the old Tango quarter, San Telmo, for a midnight dinner. Things are done late in BA. People get in from work, have a nap and get ready for dinner at 23:30, then hit the clubs at 2am. We enjoyed a large Picada platter (containing cold meats, olives, country bread, home-made crisps and other fun picky grub - including tongue, but sadly they were out of sliced horse) and washed down the best gooey chorizo tortilla I've ever tasted with a bottle of frio Torrontes. All for under a fiver. Though later, all this late drinking & dining delivered an impressively painful calf cramp several hours into a mid-summer night's dream.

That weekend Martin invited me to an Asado BBQ with his mates and another night we went out for fat bife steaks, bovine spit glands (great with a squeeze of lemon) and warm oaky Cab Sav. As my man Zesh'd say, '...it's all about getting involved' - in this case with Buenos Aires and an Argey angel. I've not come this far to get pissed with Brits at some generic hostel bar. I wanna get pissed with (preferably English-speaking) locals! Martin was a star, even taking a cd of my digital photos to upload to my site. After dinner we hit Gibraltar, an Irishy San Telmo bar for good craic and good chat and some dubious local spirit called Fernet. Avoid it, it is rather foul.

I dunno if angels exist, or if people are conveniently positioned by a higher power. I like the idea of coincidence, and actively digging it out, but I don't believe in fate. I am happiest thinking I'm the architect of my destiny (though it can seem otherwise when leaving the organisation of travel tickets in the hands of Argentineans). Martin didn't seem to think he was an angel, but he probably didn't want to blow his cover. I'd like to think Martin has disappeared now, back to heaven to get his next assignment, but email contact has suggest otherwise. Perhaps he's emailing from atop a cloud somewhere, back in the wings and halo getup.

Barns