Leaving Buenos Aires

Leaving Buenos Aires but not nor long. No real reason. Just feels time for a change. I'll be stayinf in Rosario for a week or two before heading back. I really think I need to have more than phrasebook spanish te get the beast out of that cirty. I´ve never spent to long in a city so big (13 million second biggest on the continent behind Sao Paolo. in Brazil). The size and the language barrier are enough to overwhelm me. Not badly and not much but a little. It is an incredible place. Very very beautiful. Surely it is one of the worlds great city´s. Not that I have seen many but it has everything a great city should. Repeated warnings of its danger. Cobbled streets and gorgeous coloured houses in La Boca. The suburb itself is neslted around the base of La Boca stadium, one of the most famous football clubs on the continent. It has a few streets which a big tourist area´s, people put on hats and pose for tango photos and get hustled to eat in certain resteraunts. Some of the artwork for sale for tourists are lovely. In another suburb called Recolletta is an amazing cemetary. No grass and no headstones. Just crypts. Must be 40 000 bodies in 15 thousand little bodies. Its incredible that so much money can be spent on dead people. Its unnusual being able to see coffins as well. Gorgeous carved timber. Stained glass windows face inwards and cant be seen. Around it is there are classy boutiques and expensive ice cream stores. The area reminds my french companion Brice of paris. He is a pleasant person to spend a day with. A softly spoken guitarist who loves dire straits and genesis. He is intelligent and curious. The graffiti in the city is plentiful and at times inspired. Barely is there any space on any wall which isnt covered with terrible scrawl political stencils or minor artistic creations. And there are murals everywhere. The best is a six eyed yellow crocodile vomiting up a happy purple blob monster. But everywhere everywhere there is graffiti for cristina, Fuerza cristina 2011. and other things. I find out that she is the incumbent leftist president riding a wave of popularity after taking over from a neo-liberal government blamed for some of the countries economic problems. That and the death of her husband, a very popular former president himself only 3 months out from the election makes me beleive she will get her second 4 year term. I hope she can do good work. I hear she bought some industries for the state in her last term. There are many homeless people asleep in the streets of Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires

Traffic always in busy Buenos Aires. At night there are trucks bringing in produce and busses taking good looking workers home. Taxi's and cars flood in for dinner and drinking (dinner starts at 9 30 and drikning at midnight). In the wee small hours there is less volume but its much more loud. One rubbish truck makes the noise of a hundred taxi´s and travels much slower. Stopping at every block to lift the sifted through rubbish and take it away. The city´s poor work hard and dirty for a fiarly poor existence. The dawn chorus is the busses rushing to the end of thier lines, preparing to move so many people so many places. The street cleaners are at work and the shop keepers join in. sweeping and hosing the greet eachother in practiced and ritualised ways. Familiarity it turns out truly breeds affection. Then they arrive, by busloads in cars on motorbikes and walking walking walking. It´s like every building is finally breathing out after holding onto fears dreams loves and lives al night. And what buildings too. So ornate. Colonial Opulence. Low and long and tall and narrow. Pillars and white marble. Carvings and small veranda´s. And newer buildings too, taller, less pretty. Some look comfortable and warm, covered in ivy on tree lined streets. The people they house are attractive and imperious. Polite, and snooty. Never have a smiled at so many and got so little back. Nor seen so many breast implants, and rarely so many naturally stunning people. I stared into warm brown eyes and felt breathless.

Bali

Bali is nice. The end.

The previous sentences tell you absolutely everything you need to know about Bali. Everywhere there are the most beautiful rice paddies so green and luscious, with the friendliest people farming them, and none of whom refuse a smile if given to them. Its busy and noisy like anywhere there are lots of people, and there are lots of people almost anywhere. The line between city, village and wilderness doesn´t really exist there. Most of my time was spent in Ubud and was spent wondering at the artisanal skills of the people there. Stunning scenes or intricate patters are carved into just about everything you see.

The rest of the island impressed me as well. The people who live there must find it easy to be content.

Hope you´re well at home friends

Declan