Retiro Station Buenos Aires

After climbing up two vertical steps to board one of the giant red diesel heading to “Retiro”, I can hear a man addressing the people in the adjoining carriage, I not sure what he’s saying, but sense he is pacing the carriage as he speaks. Outside the widow we pass one of the many cathedrals sponsored by Adidas & Coca Cola, which have been built to honour the second God in Argentina, football (Buenos Aires as a city has the largest number of football clubs in the World). The man from the adjoining carriage enters ours and starts to speak, walking as he does so, through the carriage. He places a small clear cellophane bag on the knee of each passenger. The bag is tied at the top and contains two credit card size bars of chocolate, half a centre meter thick. No passenger reacts with malice, instead everyone listens patiently to the pitch, then once completed, the man, with some speed, returns to each person, collecting the package, making the occasional sale as he goes. It’s a pretty tough gig for some people here.

The business district is a far cry from the other parts of the city I have seen and it’s soul seems to have been surgically removed, as generic global brands, logos and advertisements replaces a more independent, self sufficient world that exist just a few blocks away. Almost every capital city in the world has a business district where people can work, safe in the knowledge that they will not see anything they haven’t seen before and their daily routine and diet can continue unaffected by the people beyond. Should they need a gift or present to take back home, there are also plenty of opportunities to buy something soulless they could have brought at home in the first place, but this is not Buenos Aires and this is not Argentina.

Later in the week we head to Palermo, which is a bohemian district full of artists, musicians and colourful 1920’s/30’s European influenced colonials architecture, laid out around plazas and parks, We grabs some bread cheese and cold meat from a super market and have a picnic lunch in one of the parks, shading ourselves from the midday sun under some trees, as we watch a band sound check for a concert later that evening. Families chat, children play, there is a vendor selling bubble machines to children, who fills the air with hundred of tiny bubbles that float across the park and people of all ages, often in the national strip, play football between the trees and planted boarders.

As with all big cities there are the usual problems, but people do seem to be considerate and respectful of one another here, from the eldest to the youngest. On the trains there is an endless procession of people hawking socks, pens, diaries, each time placing the merchandise of the knees of each person in the carriage, then wrapping up any deals before the train pulls in at the next station. From time to time unaccompanied jugglers – often children - or musicians will entertain passengers and at the end of each performance everyone claps and a few people dip into their pockets for some spare change. People seem to have an innate sense of solidarity here, the people on the train at least.

It’s impossible to peal back the layers of a city in a week or two, so you only get a peak at what life is really like for people who live here. We’ve been very luck to be staying with Javier and Sandra who’ve told us a little of life in this sprawling metropolis and just by being with them we’ve pick up a little on how things are, but to really get to know a place I guess you have to stay a little bit longer. My favourite quirk I have discovered since being here is that if you are selling a car, motorbike and so on, to let people know, you place a bottle on the roof, a site you see through city.