It almost feel like being in the worst Vancouver winter, but instead of land slides after heavy rains (and thunderstorms, and storm surges) the area around Buenos Aires is hit with floods. The country of the Pampas is as flat as the prairies, but there are no containment walls or protective dams to keep the rising floods at bay. Illegal canals on farmlands make things worse, and the plains as well as towns and cities face devastating floods. Evacuations everywhere, power out, no water, garbage floating through the streets...
 |
| Rio de La Plata has rising and coastal areas of Buenos Aires as well as the town of Tigre in the estuary are affected. Rio de la Plata has built a storm surge of more than 2 meters as winds of 100 km per hour push the river up stream, where it just piles up and spreads out |
 |
| He is not wearing wellington boots... |
 |
| |Confiteria Ideal, the downstairs café and location of tango shows. As upstairs was flooded out, management re arranged tables and chairs to open the centre of the room as a dance floor, and the usual heavy Friday afternoon tango crowd danced the day away - in Buenos Aires, nothing holds back tango! |
 |
| Confiteria Ideal, which is the most well known spot for Buenos Aires Milongas, had to close the upstairs dance hall, as the large stained glass ceiling acted like a window to the elements....flooded out, and no funds to repair it. |
 |
San Antonio de Areco, where the annual Dia del Tradicion is held on the first weekend of November. I am planning to attend, however, it does not look as if any parades or Argentinian Rodeos or other competitions will take place. The river has flooded on only the town itself, but the festival grounds. Well, last year's try to see the festival was unsuccessful as well, as rain threatened (but never arrived) and the gauchos and their horses stayed home on their haciendas.
|
 |
| At Los Cardones, the pub/restaurant in my block, weekend Folkloric Performances carry on regardless. Here is Raul Palma, recipient of many prizes for his contribution to arts and culture as a singer in Argentina and usually only singing in large venues, performed a few songs with the featured band - a great surprise. Even bigger surprise - the roof did not leak. |
 |
| Rain or Shine, the aficionados turn up. As it was a milonga themed for the colour of tango: RED, here are some of the ladies who braved the downpour to dance tango. The photo was taken in a way, that rain catching buckets and various puddles are invisible. |
 |
We keep on Tangoing, of course, albeit some of the venues are either uninhabitable or offering diminished floor space.
In Club Gricel, it rained almost as much inside as outside. Strategically placed buckets occupied the dance floor and various tables and chairs had their feet in water. Of course an ill-timed voleo kicked one of the buckets over, and staff did a quick dry up job...Flattened cardboard cartons did not soak the spreading water up, but the pieces just started to float around. Here is Julia Pugliese, the organizer of this dance, testing the floor at the beginning of a Milonga (dance). To top things off after adding more and more buckets throughout the evening, half the lights shut off due to an electrical short cut. One had to be careful not to step into water a) as not to ruin ones dance shoes and b) not to be hit by an unsuspected electrical charge.
Weather forecast calls for more rain today, then back to normal sunny days - one hopes.
|
