Tangling with tango and the pedigree pooches

In Brazil, especially in Salvador, we felt we had one foot in Africa and one in South America. Brazilian culture is synonymous with African rythms, food and faces. Just a short hop to Buenos Aires and the landscape changes - that foot is wrenched firmly away from Africa and planted daintily in Europe. The wide, leafy streets and exquisitely ornate buildings have a Parisian flavour, the art galleries are packed to the gills with Rodin, Picasso and Degas, the effortlessly stylish and snooty ladies who lunch with their pedigree poodle poms-poms trotting beside them would be right at home in Milan or Madrid.

You could, for a moment, be fooled into thinking you were in Europe, but for the unmistakable sound of a Latin heart pumping beneath a thin veneer. Under the sophisticated surface you find sultry, melancholic tango on street corners, political grafitti etched onto every available wall, decaying buildings and dilapidated pavements symbolic of a turbulent economy and a lack of public funds. But, for us, this only adds to the allure and intrigue.

We rented a little apartment in the Palermo area and were supposed to stay for a week, but we have extended for a second. The city has seduced us. We have spent the mornings studying Spanish and the afternoons wandering in the sun through art galleries, leafy streets lined with crumbling villas, cute little boutiques with original and creative homewear, clothes and accessories and parks full of stray cats.

We have spent two consecutive Sunday afternoons in San Telmo wandering through flea markets and antique stores and stopping to listen to street performers - one band had the whole street hopping and everyone dancing in the late afternoon sun. We met up with the friends we spent new year with and went to some trendy Palermo bars for drinks and then on to (at 2.30am as the club don´t even open until 2am!) a rather surreal Brazilian club where people were line-dancing to an odd mix of samba and rock in front of a large projected image of hot-pant-clad cow-girls gyrating around a guy in tight, white, lycra trousers with unfortunate VPL. We visited La Boca, a poor docks area where all the houses are painted bright colours with left-over ship paint, and did a tour of the Boca Juniors stadium where the infamous Diego Maradona cut his teeth. We braved a tango class and stayed for the milonga afterwards, watching accomplished locals glide around the dancefloor with their heads stuck together and their eyes closed.

There are just two small things that we don´t like about the city, both unfortunately conspire against Mike. As we stroll along, his architect´s eyes are drawn ever upwards towards the dazzling fenestration. Every now and again I realise I am walking alone and turn to find Mike a block back either sprawled on the pavement after falling into one of the many pot holes, or wiping his havaianas on the curb with that unmistakable look of disgust that only a close encounter with a dog turd can elicit.

The havaianas may never recover, but for Mike and me these small things cannot detract from such an amazing city.