Jan-2014
Traveling, hanging out with your friends and painting
The first time you meet someone you always think something about that person, positive or negative, and it is very difficult to change that feeling you have after the first time you’ve met. I have the same with countries. The first impression is very important. My first meeting with an Argentino is the driver who brings me to town from the airport and if he sets the standard then everyone must be really friendly. He asks me all kinds of things like: where are you from? Where are your parents? How did your mum pass away? What do you do for a living? He wanted to get to know me within half an hour and of course he explained me a lot about himself too. He is separated, has a daughter of four years old and he loves working the night shifts driving around Buenos Aires because of the more peaceful traffic.
El Subte
Is the beast or the Chinese face the dominant character of this painting? Street art by Ever
I need to make my way to the Botanical gardens for the graffiti tour. We are going to see the best street art of Buenos Aires by bike!
The metro or as they call it in B.A. “el Subte” seems to be a fast way to get to the gardens. I have to take two Subte rides, but when I want to change lines I discover that today it’s Sunday and the Subte line D is not working because of some maintenance over the weekend. A Brazilian girl has the same problem and we decide to be friends for the time being and look together for the best alternative of transport. A bus connection seems to be the best economical solution. We communicate in Brazilian Portuguese which is good for me, because now I can practice my Portuguese for when I travel to Brazil. The bus ride took us about 30 minutes and from there of we had to go our own ways again.
Exploring Street art by bike
A group of blue bikes is parked next to the gates of the gardens and three people of the tour are waiting for the tourists to arrive. There is a guide of Graffitimundo, who is specialized in explaining about the street art, and there are two Biking Buenos Aires guides, who are there for the safety during the tour, the directions and the traditional yerba mate! Not “mate” as in a friend, but maté as in a drink I mean. It’s an indigenous tea the Argentinian people always share with friends and the person preparing the drink is called the “cebador”. Everytime the cebador refills the calabash gourd and passes it to the next person who then has to return the drink again to the cebador. If you don’t return it first to the cebador it’s bad luck!
Street art by Jaz
Street art by Zumi
You won’t miss the drawings eyes
We cycle along the cycling paths of Buenos Aires, but sometimes we have to go against traffic as well. At the most spectacular artworks we park our bikes and the guide explains about the artist and its creations. There are several walls painted by more then one artist and those collaborations provide some really awesome art.
Street art by Ever, Poeta and Jaz
The street artist Ever seems to never draw the eyes in his artwork. Our guide explains that this is because if there would be an expression in the eyes the viewer would not notice the perfection of the mouth and the nose. Ever always draws something coming out of the eyes, such as thinking clouds or rainbows. Looks pretty cool.
Love the panda of street artist Zumi!
Our guide “Cerca” explains all there is to know about the street art works
A street artist from France explains about his fantastic job as a street artist
Work in progress
We cycle to a bus park where some street artist are busy with their new painting. A French artist is not to shy to explain us a bit about his work and to me it all comes down to traveling, hanging out with his friends and painting. What a life!
Art gallery Bar
Are you interested in buying some artwork on canvas? There is a bar named “Post” which has offered some of their space to the street artists for them to exhibit their pieces and sell a couple of things. While you browse around you can enjoy a local beer of perhaps some water. I enjoyed sitting outside the bar while the Reggae music played through the open windows of the bar. The colors of the artwork make it a very cozy place and I sure felt inspired to maybe draw something myself too!
After my cycling tour through Buenos Aires with Graffitimundo I needed to go to a local market to buy some clothes, as my luggage had still not arrived. I found a dress for tonight, two T-shirts of which one for sleeping and one for tomorrow and two pieces of underwear. Unfortunately I could not find any sandals or flip-flops, but I hope that by tomorrow I’ll have my backpack back again. After having bought the clothes I went back to the hostel with a cab, because I could not find a bus stop. It cost me 60 pesos to get back to the hostel, which is about 7 euros. That’s doable right? When I arrive at the hostel the Brasileñas which whom I share the dorm have prepared Caipirinhas and Spaghetti, lucky me!
About Renate Rigters
Ever since I left my home country I felt at home at any other place I went to. I enjoy getting to know more cultures by talking to strangers and hearing their philosophy about life. Speaking with gestures when you can not find a shared language, finding places only the locals go to and learn about their customs and values. Hanging out with local people makes me happy. The experience of every new place is a step out of your comfort zone where I like to wander around until it feels like a second home.
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