Driving out of Beunos Aires, snapping photos in between entertaining children, navigating the labyrinth of motorway exits and avoiding becoming yet another road kill statistic, we managed to snap a couple of shots of the city en route.
Whilst everyone bitches about the traffic, for a city of its size, Buenos Aires must have one of the freest flowing freeways in the world. 9 de Julio, the world's widest road, that runs like a coronary artery through town, must help, and from Martínez in Zona Norte, 15km north of the city, straight through the centre to the open freeways of the South was 45 minutes, at 10am. That's about Brixton to the M1 proper.
Zoo-like voyeurism though it may be, I'm always fascinated by the drive for a glimpse into the world that is Villa 31 ('visha trenta y uno'), taking its name from the km mark 31 on the highay sits Argentina's best villa; what would be known as a favela in Brazil.
The main road takes you straight over the top as you look down on make-shift housing build on, under around and on top of whatever structure exists, including the bridge structure you are driving on. "Look, a castle!" said Leah, with envy, as she saw a "princess" playing on an open roof. Either the sweet innocence of a 2 year old or I'd better sort us out with some decent accomodation.
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| Villa 31 |
On Sunday mornings, on the way to cricket matches in the South, you see what is clearly highly organised 5-a-side football tournaments going on: a pitch with goals marked out down the central calle, teams wearing matching strips determined by I don't know what: once it looked like countries, Brazilian yellows against Paraguayan red and white, but who knows. Unlikely to be Brazilian, as there's little Brazilian presence... who knows? Villa 31 is divided, or has divided itself, in 5 seperate barrios (YPF, as in the petrol station, Güemes, immigrantes, autopista and comunicaciones) : maybe those guys play each other each week...
What I do know is that the games were being watched from every available space. Every street, shop window, rooftop... I would say balcony, but only a Foxton's estate agent would describe an unfinished wall with an open living room leading to a 20ft drop, as a 'balcony, with sunrise facing views'. The stakes? Territory? Winner takes all cash? Bragging rights? No idea, but the atmopshere is phenomenal.
Good chance these guys know, but I'm neither mad nor brave enough to follow in these footsteps. The movie, Pelada, looks exceptional. Extract from their blog, Buenos Aires section:
¨Well the real futbol happens in the villas. But you can´t go into the villas.¨
We go into the villas. It feels like the favelas in Brazil, but this time, we know nobody on the inside. They´re not as organized and there is no non-profit group we can email. We know it´s not an intelligent decision but we want futbol, real futbol. We ride the blue subte out to the last stop and we don´t take much. We ask the banana man where Villa 31 is. ¨Very, very dangerous,¨ he says, while pointing out how to make our way. We walk down the train tracks into the shanty town that sits directly beneath a major highway into the city. It´s a Sunday, and it´s the neighborhood championship, so most of Villa 31 is piled around the sidelines of the villa´s main road that is doubling as a field. There´s the smell of barbeque, a man selling a parrot who is plucking at his buttons, kids playing with stereophone–it feels friendly, we watch futbol and make a friend who tells us we can play with him the following day.
We go back the next day, feeling a bit more confident, like maybe the banana man is an exaggerator.
While we are filming under the watch of Gustavo, a policeman stops us, warns us, and then says, ¨It´s your life, not mine.¨ Another policeman tells us to leave. Gustavo still says it´s safe. A third policeman tells Luke, ¨Last week, channel two came and they stole their cameras and bashed in their heads.¨ This statement carries the most weight. We hope it is just the policeman telling us lies that will scare us enough to leave. But the fact is confirmed an hour later by the sister of one of the guys we played with. Another guy calls out to us, ¨They´re going to rob you.¨ But we´ve made friends with the guys we played with and hope their presence will be enough. We film and then get the hell out of there–heads still in tact.
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| Puerto Madero, urban redevelopment, empty flats, stunning hotels, over priced steak. |
On the other side of the road is Recoleta, the most expensive real estate in the city, therefore the country, where you'll find old money and the foreign Embassy buildings. This is like walking through London's Sloane Square, and across the road there would be a slum the size of Hyde Park with 30,000 people living in various degrees of poverty.
On the drive out, there are a couple of bizarre social housing projects, strangely aesthetic from the road. Again, this is the voyeur's angle: living there with a view of the toll booth, and the speeding highway, isn't necessarily as much fun, but there's a faint Blade Runner, apocalyptic feel about the architecture.
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| Replicant And that's about all for now really. |
