Our Man in Buenos Aires

[trilingual]

I'm pleased to announce the availability of an outstanding, reliable, English-speaking guide to the seductive metropolis on the Rio de la Plata: one of my oldest and best friends on the planet, the inimitable Roberto.

 

If you've been thinking of visiting Buenos Aires, but were hesitant because of the language or the political situation or whatever, now there's a local resource for you, at a price you can definitely afford! Roberto is NOT an escort. He's a retiree from the courts in his home province about 400 miles from Buenos Aires, but has lived in B.A. for many years now. Roberto is a descendant of some of the first families of Argentina who settled the upper reaches of the Paraná basin (remember the film "The Mission"?) in the 1500's, although the family wealth dwindled away several generations ago. Thanks to the latest collapse of the Argentine economy, Roberto needs to supplement his pension. This explains his availability to the gentle readers of this site who would like someone to introduce them to the many sides of Buenos Aires that a typical tourist would be unlikely to find. Roberto is very well-educated and exceedingly well-travelled. His English is excellent, in part because of having done graduate work in the U.S. when he was younger and because of his frequent trips to the U.S. since then. He also speaks some French and German. Roberto is the kind of guy who is interested in everything, but especially in art and architecture, in which he's especially knowledgeable, and in history. He's also funny, with a wicked dry wit.

 

Examples of things Roberto can do for you are to meet with you for an introductory "crash course" to gay Buenos Aires; be an intermediary (if you don't speak Spanish) with escorts from the agencies; help you find the "in" places to dine out; and be an actual guide during the day when you're in Buenos Aires. Not only can he lead you to Evita's architecturally uninteresting burial place, (which is a bit hard to find in Recoleta Cemetery) he can also explain who the occupants of the other sumptuous tombs are. (Recoleta is Argentina's Père Lachaise and anyone who was anybody in Argentina is buried there.) Roberto can guide you to the good local art galleries and museums, show you some of the elegant residential neighborhoods, go antiquing and cruising with you in San Telmo, help you find good shopping deals, assist you in getting tickets to the opera at the not-to-be-missed Teatro Colón, keep you company at dinner, etc. Very important: Roberto also is detail-oriented and (perhaps a product of some German heritage) punctual! If you make an arrangement to meet at a certain time, that's when he'll be there, not two hours later, which many Latin Americans wouldn't consider late at all.

 

Now is definitely a time to go to Buenos Aires, especially if you're going to Brazil. It's easy to combine the two destinations (maybe with a stop at truly breath-taking Iguassu Falls) and B.A. is only a 2-1/2 hour flight from Rio. Despite what you may have heard or seen in the news, the whole city, which is about the size and population of Greater Chicago, is not in riots and flames. Far from it!!! And if you have dollars, it is now ridiculously affordable after having been a very expensive destination for the last decade. The dollar today stands at about A$3.25. Escorts from the agencies who were getting the equivalent of US$100 are still charging the same in pesos, but that means you'd be paying about US$30 with the new exchange rate. And there are more than a few heart-stoppingly gorgeous guys in Argentina! Guys who cruise the streets are way less, of course. Dining out is also cheap; a prix fixe dinner menu at a nice restaurant can be had for about US$3!!! Continental breakfast in a café (and there's one on every corner, some very splendid and atmospheric) is less than US$1. Cab and bus fares, needless to say, are extremely low in dollar terms. IMPORTANT: because of the volatile economic situation and the banking mess, cash may not be easy to come by at ATMs, so bring plenty of cash dollars. (You can also exchange euros, but not quite as easily). Just use a money belt to stash the cash; American shoppers should know that L.L. Bean makes a great one that really IS a standard man's belt with a hidden zipper in which you can tri-fold and hide away quite a lot of money!!! You should be able to order one from their website.

 

You can contact Roberto by e-mail at vdagp@hotmail.com. He's old-fashioned; he doesn't own a computer, so he'll be checking his e-mail at least every couple of days. This will explain why you may not hear from instantly. However, he will get back to you and you can then discuss what you need and his rates and how to get in touch when you arrive in Argentina. In general, figure on about US$20/hr the first hour and $15/hr for hours after that (payable in U.S. currency or euros; nobody in Argentina wants pesos right now). If you want him to go to the strippers with you, which requires staying up until 4:00 a.m., he may want a bit more! Whichever, you'll find it money well-spent. Not only will you be helping a fellow traveller, you'll get an insight and entrée to the city and the country it would be virtually impossible for a casual tourist to experience. Especially if your Spanish skills are limited. So make your reservations for the "Paris of South America," and have an unforgettable experience in the land of the gauchos and the tango!

[trilingual]

To whet your appetites, Roberto sent me the following web addresses in Argentina:

 

http://www.statusmodels.com (an apartment with boys; there are some photos of the place and of some of the guys.)

 

http://www.leonos.com (which also has information about the city)

 

http://www.deeper.com.ar (this is in the nearby city of La Plata, quite complete and good photos)

 

http://www.afullspa.com (popular sauna in B.A.; not with escorts like in Brazil, though)

 

Check these out and get in touch with him as you begin making your travel plans. If you want to stay in a reasonably-priced hotel (as opposed to one of the dollar-denominated international chains) Roberto can give you some leads on decent places that are going for US$15/$20 a night, with breakfast!

[trilingual]

I'm bumping this up because I know many guys are planning trips to South America in the next few months. If you're going in September, October and November, you really should plan on including a few (or many) days in Buenos Aires in your itinerary. These months are spring in the southern hemisphere, and Buenos Aires is at its most glorious: the winter gloom is gone, the trees lining the grand avenues are all in leaf, the parks are lush and green, the temperatures are perfect.

 

Despite what you may read in the papers, all is not doom and despair. Perhaps because of the crisis, there has been a real upsurge in BA's already thriving cultural scene, with lots of new musical and theatrical production. In spite of everything, the Teatro Colón is soldiering on, and a good performance there is always a rewarding experience. There are also interesting museums, including the new MALBA (Museum of Latin American Art). Buenos Aires continues to be one of the grandest cities on the planet (and I know the readers of this site can appreciate "grand"). There's nothing like walking its avenues or sitting in one of its splendid cafes over coffee and pastry watching people go by and drooling over the endless number of incredibly handsome Argentine men! :9

 

The situation has actually stabilized somewhat, with the peso having remained at about 3.60 to the dollar for weeks now, and there are some faintly encouraging economic signs. By their spring, an agreement with the IMF may finally have been signed, and the mood may be improving even more. For travelers with dollars and euros, everything is VERY cheap, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, including lodgings and especially restaurants. Shopping will be a fun thing to do, especially for things like leather goods (the fashion variety, guys!). In fact, I understand from Roberto that one of our fellow travelers recently passed through BA and was so taken with the quality and variety at Casa Lopez (purveyors of exquisite leather accessories for more than a century) that as soon as he left town the owners closed down the shop for a week, sent the staff on paid ski holidays to Bariloche, and took off to Zurich to deposit their proceeds! ;-)

 

For little more than your fare to Brazil, you should be able to fly into Rio/SP and back from BA (or vice-versa) with a one-way hop in between. Alternatively, some excursion fares from the U.S. to BA allow a stop in either direction, so one could be Rio and the other could possibly be Iguassu Falls, one of the wonders of the world that you should make every effort to see at least once in your lifetime. You can also work variations on these themes with your mileage awards, if that's how you're traveling.

 

Of course, if you go, let Roberto ("Our Man In Rio") know so he can ease your way into the mysteries of the Paris of the Plata. Trust Uncle Tri about this: BA is one of the most seductive, fascinating cities you will ever visit. With someone to introduce you to what lies beneath its surface, it will become an unforgettable experience, and a place you will return to again and again, just as you will to Brazil. Argentina and Brazil are like "Night and Day," and can't really be compared, because they are so unlike each other and what makes each of them so attractive is so different. But devastatingly attractive they are, and you'll be cheating yourself if you don't experience both, especially when BA is only a 2-1/2 hour hop from Rio or SP. So go, and enjoy. . .

[trilingual]

Oops, Tri made a slight mistake about those fares. Most of the U.S. to South America excursions DON'T permit stopovers. However, you can combine a roundtrip excursion fare from the U.S. to Brazil with a cheap Brazil to BA excursion fare. These days you can find them for around US$200 - 250. (You may have to buy the Brazil-Argentina ticket in South America, but also check Travelocity, or the websites for Varig, TAM or Aerolineas Argentinas -- on Varig's look for the English page to see if there are any Internet specials.) Those fares often DO permit the stopover in each direction, so you can include Iguassu Falls and somewhere else.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

>In general, figure on about US$20/hr the

>first hour and $15/hr for hours after that (payable in U.S.

>currency or euros; nobody in Argentina wants pesos right

>now). If you want him to go to the strippers with you,

>which requires staying up until 4:00 a.m., he may want a

>bit more.

 

He sounds like a wonderful resource - but - and I don't mean to sound cheap - however, if you hired him for an 8 hour day his fee would be $20 + 7 x $15 = $125. Now if a good dinner can be had for $3.00 and a breakfast for under $1.00 - considering his cost of living, isn't his rate leaning towards the high side?

 

In the US a modest dinner would probably cost you $10. and say breakfast was $4. By doing the conversion $125 a day in BA would be about $450 a day here. I can't see where this is a bargain. Am I missing something?

 

Thunderbuns

[Guest pshaw]

When I was in Rio this summer, where prices are slightly higher than in Buenos Aires, the going rate for a private tour guide was in the range of $25 an hour. Not cheap in comparison to other things, but private guides really are a luxury, and a good knowlegeable guide is worth his weight in gold. Cheaper alternatives are taking group tours, finding a taxi-driver who can speak English or, if you're lucky, finding someone like a university student who wants to earn some extra cash playing guide.

[trilingual]

It's like everything else in life: you get what you pay for. Roberto's rates are very much in line (probably on the low side) for a private English-speaking tour guide just about anywhere. In this case, you're getting someone who is mature, cosmopolitan, and well-traveled; very knowledgeable about art, architecture, and Argentine history and politics; well-connected in case you find yourself needing entrée in certain situations; and a "friend of Dorotea's," who can fill you in on the attractions and idiosyncracies of Buenos Aires life that you WON'T get from just any old guide.

 

To be honest, I rather doubt that you, or anyone else, would be using Roberto for eight straight hours a day. Buenos Aires isn't a difficult city to explore on one's own after some basic orientation, so an introductory get-together to go over basics of the local gay scene and perhaps a subsequent two - three hour introductory walking tour might be all that a visitor finds necessary. However, even if you did engage Roberto for a full day, $125 is far cheaper than what you would spend at home for 50 minutes of sweaty fun with some high-school dropout escort. Considered in that light, I hardly think Roberto's honoraria (or those of other good English-speaking guides) are bad value, any way you look at it!

[trilingual]

>In the US a modest dinner would probably cost you $10. and

>say breakfast was $4.

 

I don't know where you live or travel in the U.S. I live in San Francisco, and most of my domestic travel is to New York and Washington. All three cities are comparable in size, sophistication and lifestyle to Buenos Aires. I can't think of anywhere in those three cities where you can get even a modest dinner for $10. At a minimum you're talking about $20 at any moderately-priced place. With appetizers, desserts, drinks and any other extras, you're talking considerably more.

 

For breakfast, even a bagel and coffee at a Starbucks runs more than $4 these days, (More like $6.) An omelette, with coffee, at my neighborhood greasy spoon runs $8, and at the nicer spots nearby runs closer to $10. Prices for a similar breakfast at my usual coffeeshop in N.Y.'s Chelsea district run about the same price.

 

However, even if restaurant prices in BA are currently very low in dollar terms, without a good guide to help you find the best places in the limited amount of time you'll have there, it hardly matters. It's worth spending a bit to find out the places where you can go that have good food and ambience, that appeal to your tastes, and where you'll enjoy yourself. Sure, if you have unlimited time, you can find this out on your own. But if you're only going to be there for a few days, then why not make the most of your time and be sure you end up doing the things you like most? A competent, knowledgeable guide, like Roberto, can help you do that and save you lots of time and effort. "Penny wise, pound foolish" applies in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America, not just in the first world. . .

[johnnysneakers]

Thanks TRI. I am going back to BA in a month or so.

 

Here is another site worth checking out, http://www.sensualbaires.com, with lots of hot escorts. Check out Fabian and Estobar!!!! Has anyone ever met them. Unfortuately no reviews.

 

Also try http://www.soytuyo.com

[Guest luvbr]

Tri, is there any sauna with boys in BA? My understanding there is none.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

>Also try http://www.soytuyo.com

 

What a GREAT site - thanks for drawing our attention to it!

 

Thunderbuns

[trilingual]

No, there isn't a sauna with boys in B.A. I don't know why, especially given the current economic situation. Sounds like a business project with lots of potential to me! Prostitution isn't illegal in Buenos Aires, so I don't know what the legal impediments would be, but there would certainly be plenty of guys available in a city of 13,000,000 with staggering unemployment. Legal or not, I suppose there are police payoffs to be made, and maybe that's what's kept a place from opening. But things are changing in Argentina; Buenos Aires has a very popular non-hustler sauna, and a very active new sex club, which would have been impossible a few years ago. So maybe a "Lagoa South" could be in the works! Some smart investor should consider it; it'd be a gold mine! ;-)

[Guest SeaGuy]

The answer to your question "Why aren't there more baths and prostitution in Argentina?" is very obvious Tri, and frankly I'm surprised that you have to ask. Argentina has a far higher literacy rate and better educated population than Brazil. It also, culturally speaking, reagards its traditions as more European. Thus it's politics are more middle-class than Brazil's where there of course was a long history of slavery and blatant exploitation of one group by another. A bit like the American north vs. south paradigm. I'm almost shocked that you fail to see this. Ask your friend from the "good" Argentine family why he doesn't take up prostitution to make a little extra cash. His answer would probably be "things, aren't that bad", as his social class, education and upbringing brought him up to believe that he is above such activities. Many Argentines, even if their backgrounds are less illustrious feel the same. Their ideology and world view is far more middle-class and bourgeois. Thus you have more picketing and political activism in Argentina than in Brazil, where fewer people have the luxury of such illusions. Frankly I think the US and IMF probably refused to bail-out Argentina in an effort to humble or humiliate them so as to make it easier to rape and pillage that country.:-(

[trilingual]

Seaguy, you are so totally out to lunch. First of all, I have been to Argentina as much as I have to Brazil, so I think I know the country about as well as any non-Argentine is likely to.

 

The reason there isn't a sauna with boys in B.A. has nothing to do with its "European" background. If that were true, there would be no such establishments in heavily "European" southern Brazil, and they certainly do exist there. For that matter, there wouldn't be any such establishments in totally "European" Europe, so how do you explain the existence of such places in Madrid and Barcelona and Zurich and who knows where else?

 

There is plenty of male prostitution in "European" Buenos Aires, and some of its practitioners are "middle-class" guys. Until now, though, the hustling has only been on the streets, in certain bars, and through the classified ads or the agencies. I'm sure at least some of the guys would welcome a place like the Brazilian saunas, where they don't have to ply their wares in the streets, have rooms on-site and for free (to them) to do their business, and get paid the full amount they charge directly (and not have to split it with the owner of an agency). There certainly have been plenty of "European" guys from Argentina and Uruguay working at the baths in Brazil. Of course, you probably wouldn't have noticed they weren't all Brazilians, as you were too busy pitying their terrible, exploited situation while you led one or two or three of them off to a "cabine."

 

As for Roberto, who's as blue-blooded as they come in Argentina, I'm sure he'll be amused by your suggestion that he escort. I'm sure Roberto wouldn't have the slightest compunctions about doing that. He might have been quite a success at in when he was in his 20s. Unfortunately, the market for mature escorts in their late 50's is quite limited. In fact, virtually non-existent. So Roberto will have to stick with Plan A and supplement his disability retirement check by being a tour guide. :-)

[Guest SeaGuy]

I didn't use the word "European" in reference to race or ethnicity but rather to ideology and outlook. Of course there is prostitution everywhere in the world, it is its oldest profession. What varies is the pool of applicants if you will and the benefits and wages they expect and sometimes demand to receive. This was my point. My Argentine friends, all college educated and many very good-looking, rather than face prostitution in Argentina, would prefer to emigrate and practice professions (whatever those may be) abroad. Many are doing just that, as Eduardo Galeano (Uruguayan writer) recently noted, "making the pilgrimage their ancestors took in the opposite direction".

[trilingual]

Most of the guys selling their wares in BA aren't college educated. They're lower-middle-class or working-class guys from the less-glamorous neighborhoods and suburbs of Greater Buenos Aires. These days, with the situation so desperate, there are probably quite a few better-educated guys willing to escort, too. (So it would seem from postings on Gaydar.co.uk.) It's true that many people are trying to emigrate. Most people won't be able to, especially because the U.S. and Europe have made it much more difficult for Argentines to go there without visas.

 

Young, single men with no money, no job and no strong ties that would likely ensure their return home find it almost impossible to get visas these days. Some also don't want to leave home, anyway. Whatever the case, a perusal of the Internet or the classifieds of the Buenos Aires papers will show more than a few men willing to sell themselves. I don't happen to think that's a bad thing, and not just because of self-interest. I don't consider escorting immoral. It's also not illegal in Argentina. So if someone has the necessary looks, equipment and disposition, and plenty of handsome young Argentines do, they can make a living at escorting, or at least they can make enough to help support their families, when everyone pools their income. That's not something to turn one's nose up at in such terrible economic times. A Brazilian-style sauna would undoubtedly make it a lot easier for many guys who want to earn money this way.

 

And that's enough of this, because this discussion has completely hijacked this thread.

[johnnysneakers]

I have just written to Roberto as i am all booked for another trip to BA in early October.

 

There is one escort who keeps appearing in many of these sites, actually more than one, but the one I have my eye on is Gaston on Leonos, who also goes by other names (Fabian on Sensualbaries), etc. Does anyone know this guy. He looks too good to be true!

 

Any update on Gasoil bar and its strippers? There are other bars with strippers too but I do not know them. Any info appreciated.

[trilingual]

Check the other threads on Buenos Aires in this site. Roberto reports that Gasoil is "suspended" because of the economic situation. The place now (evidently owned by the same people) is Punto G on Anchorena, between Av. Santa Fe and Charcas (officially known as M.T. de Alvear, but known by its former name because there's another Av. Alvear nearby). Punto G is in the same location as the former Manhattan.

[Guest Verde]

a) Gaston of Leonos is a dud. I´d skip him. Will oral only with condom, no frenchie kissing, more the worship type, but willing to bottom (with condom of course). He´s friendly guy though, speaks some English, gym muscled body, macho looking, big u/c. But I aborted our session just the same and gave him half of his asking fee for his trouble coming to my hotel. He apologized and told me I should be more specific when asking an escort in B.A. what they´re willing to do.

 

b) Punto G and Contramano can be recommended. Also Tacla restaurant. Addresses already mentioned in other postings here. Get a copy of a free magazine (can´t remember name) for latest infos. Or buy one called La Hiena.

[Guest rocco]

Roberto: I am italian, living in Sidney. I am interested about your services as a tour conductor during my first visit to Buenos Aires.I wish if you can help me about hotel accomodations,escorts,opera, a visit to Colon Op.House, and airport transfers to the City. I have e-mailed to vdagp@hotmail.com, and unfortunately did'nt receive any answer.Arriving on 21st.October to Buenos Aires via Santiago Lan-Chile Airlines at noon for a week aprox., then to Iguassu Falls and then to Rio. I would like to know if you still have the same e-mail address or your personal ph.nr. if it is possible to be able to contact you assap. Thanks a lot. Rocco

[trilingual]

Rocco, try Roberto's current e-mail at vdagp@yahoo.com.ar

 

He may also e-mail you directly with his home phone number if he sees your posting.