Postcards from Argentina

Argentina is the sexy steps and sultry stares of the tango, born in the early streets of Buenos Aires, brought to life by a tangle of dock workers from Europe and Africa ...

Argentina is the gaucho (horseman) who knows his sheep better than his family, who wears two giant knives in the back of his belt, baggy culottes tucked into knee-high boots and and an oversized woollen beret.

Argentina is the giant ice fields of Patagonia and their glaciers that form high in the Andes, with ancient ice cubes the size of houses calving from their faces and melting into turquoise lakes.

Argentina is the steaming rainforest around the Iguazu Falls, where the greatest volume of fresh water in the world plunges over steps of waterfalls with breathtaking power, while black vultures circle above the jungle and jaguars stalk capuchin monkeys and racoon-like coatis beneath the canopy.

Argentina is the two people you’ll meet on any street – one who loves Eva Perón and wants her declared a saint, the other who cynically sniggers about the former first lady’s mastery of manipulation.

Argentina is the Recoleta Cemetery, where the who’s who of Buenos Aires lie buried in avenues of elaborate tombs, adorned with stone angels, lions and intricate busts of those they commemorate, laid out in a remarkable display of immortal one-upmanship.

Argentina is the golden pull of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral, where Jorge Mario Bergoglio served as an archbishop before being inaugurated as Pope Francis in 2013. The opulence from ceiling to floor is in stark contrast to this humble man, who was once a janitor.

Argentina is the guanaco, one in more than a million, that gives a lonely car passing through the country’s steppes a bemused stare, then hops gracefully over the fence and canters away.

Argentina is the 5 000-piece puzzle of an estancia (ranch) with a red roof, set beside a turquoise lake beneath the 7 000km-long Andes mountains.

Argentina is a brave striped blue-and-white flag with a sun smiling in the middle, fluttering in the wind, slightly frayed and worn at the edges.