From a distance, Charly Chaplin says, life is a comedy, up close it is a tragedy.
He's right.
But do travellers ever get the chance to see behind the façade? Do they even want to? To where it hurts?
I doubt it. People prefer the glossy version. The beautiful and the magnificent. The things that rank first in the souvenir photos.
Not the ugly. The pathetic. The lives of the people struggling daily for their existence. That's not why we travel. We prefer to go where the beautiful life is pretended. Where nothing makes you think.
Buenos Aires has it all. The high gloss facade in Recoleta with the steel flower, the museum, the library. And as we will see in Palermo with the hip restaurants, the expensive boutiques, the street cafés.
Life is not a comedy
But there is also La Boca. The ugly side of town. The hidden poverty. The people who live on the streets. But have I really gotten any closer to the tragedy? Barely.
Like most others, I am a prisoner of my imagination. Basically, I don't want to be confronted with the tragedy at all. It would disturb my calm, shake my expectations.
So I'm looking for comedy again today. In Palermo. Where nothing disturbs my peace.
Or at most a little.
Palermo
Palermo? In Buenos Aires?
Sounds more like Sicily. The naming is controversial. What is certain is that the name Palermo attributed in some way to the Sicilian immigrants.
However, there are alternative interpretations, such as that the name derives from an abbey named after Benedict of Palermo, or even better, that a guy named Juan Domínguez Palermo is responsible for the naming.
No matter, the district is worth a trip to the 'Plaza Immigrantes de Armenia' (??) or to the 'Plaza Cortazar' in the center of this district. You don't get the impression of having landed in a city on the edge of the abyss.
It could also be Paris or Barcelona or one of the hip neighborhoods in Los Angeles or anywhere else.
Nowhere else you will find so many pimped up, styled restaurants and cafes, most of them colorfully painted, each one different, spread out around beautifully designed squares, along streets and alleys covered with stone slabs.
The tables are full of young people, there is much laughter and even more talking.
What a difference to La Boca, where poverty and a life without perspective gathered.
This is the other side of the city.
And the atmosphere is really special.
I sit down in one of the numerous street cafes and order an oversized Ceasar's Salad a la Argentina, so without the classic sauce with egg, but also without lettuce, but with something green instead. In addition you get an indefinable pastry, which tastes excellent.
It must be an extraordinary day, because I even try the guacamole sauce that I normally hate and, surprisingly, find it not bad at all. That must be due to the special atmosphere.
La Casita de los Viejos
Is Buenos Aires the place to be?
It depends.
If you are looking for the nice, relaxed life like here in Palermo, if you are one of the privileged like most of these young people here, if you have money and a good life, then it might actually be the place to be.
There is everything your heart desires. Many expensive shops and hotels have settled next to the restaurants, they fit into the special atmosphere of the district. But not only that. There are great markets where everything is offered and much more.
House party
The Chillhouse Hotel has organized a house party on the roof that evening, to which I am also invited.
A cautious look at the party guests gives me the impression that I am once again the oldest bone. At least I get in contact with some very interesting people. A typical hipster with bald head and full beard turns out to be a Dutchman and also a navigator on a huge passenger ship, which is packed with about 6000 people (!).
It would be an unimaginable torture for me to spend weeks and months with those people. Some of them are so old that sometimes a few die on the journey and are placed in a cooled room together with the flowers until they are unloaded at the next stop and taken home.
I might listen to this guy for hours, but unfortunately a tattoo on his chest is inflamed and needs treatment and so he leaves early.
In the meantime, the music has reached a volume level that makes any conversation impossible, so I retire to my rooms. In the morning I am told that when the party on the roof ended, a new one started on the street in front of the hotel, which lasted until eight in the morning.
Oh the youth, the beautiful youth ...
Mileage: zero
Matching Song: Anywhere - The all run for the carving knife
And here the journey continues ... in Uruguay
