Baila Argentina

Today, I am off to a slightly slower start than normal after an unexpectedly full night. It began at a delicious parrilla in Palermo with new friends Courtney N. and Mabel. We savored the sabores of thyme-covered lomo de bife and french fries with about 8 different sauces to choose from, and washed down the succulent red meat with a couple healthy glasses of velvet-red malbec.

Dinner was followed by a quick jarra de Quilmes at a nearby bar, then a short taxi ride to a drumming club in Abasto where we met up with my cousin Hernan (a drummer/musician himself), and his friends. The next few hours became a happy blur of smoke, saxophones, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, a few unidentifiable instruments, drums, smiles, Spanish, and crazy haircuts (Argentines often rock haircuts such as: the mullet, the rat-tail, the dread-locks, the buzz-cut-with-pony-tail, the long-hair-with-random-chunk-shaved-off, or the curly of-European-descent ‘fro. My personal favorite is the one that mixes three or more of these styles together on one head — probably the most common!).

It was one of those nights that only comes when you travel. We didn’t even plan to go out, and a couple text messages later, we were surrounded by a happy, bopping crowd of Argentines loving every second of the funky band, which was followed by a very intense Senegalese drummer and his  drumming troupe. It was fascinating to watch him control the stage, with his long arms outstretched to the audience like he was psyching us up for battle, an intense look in his eyes, his short dreads spread out from his face like a deep, dark lion king…

It’s hard to describe what it’s like to listen to good drumming. It’s a feeling. For some reason, I LOVE IT. More than you’d assume. I feel so connected to drumming, like it’s creeping through the floor into my body when someone plays. All you can do is just let it move you; let it bounce around in your hips, try and catch it with your feet, let it thump around you, and enjoy. So that’s what we did, until the wee hours of last night.

Unfortunately, I have no photographs to capture the experience. But I do have this shot from a couple days ago…  Here, I offer you a new Mystery Snapshot. (How dare I write an entire post last time with NO photograph?!)

I took this Mystery Snapshot the other day. Tell me which Buenos Aires neighborhood this might be, what you know about it, and whatever you can tell me about what’s going on in the photo…

Mystery Dance

I love this shot 🙂 Am I allowed to say that?