the world according to taxi drivers

In addition to all the wonders of Buenos aires I have already mentioned, I have to contribute a special entry to the city’s taxi drivers. Since my father is not so good walking great distances and gets tired, we have taken a fair amount of cabs. We don’t normally do this, but the taxis here are VERY cheap (a 25 minute drive across town is about 4 pounds), you get to see the city a you drive, and the taxi drivers are the most opinionated on the planet. Everyone seems to want to enlighten and update us on the state of things in the city. Today, for example, we took three taxis. The first featured a lecture on the accomplishments and shortcomings of evita, contrasted against the current government of cristina Fernandez. The driver informed us that the current government are not REAL peronists, but just filled with peronist sounding hot air. (the taxi driver was a real peronist, and nostalgic for the good old days, which were apparently about the time he was born). The lecture included a 10 minute explanation on the peronist doctrine, as it should be.
Lecture two started with a discussion of ethnicity as the driver discussed his Italian versus his Spanish grandparents. From that point he migrated on to the beauties of lunfardo, the odd mix of Spanish and Italian spoken by people in Buenos aires. This led to a hilarious imitation of how Mexicans speak, and from there on to literature (as we were heading to a bookshop).
Lecture three was on the rich and how they got to be that way. This was inspired by our passing some very nice flats in recoleta on our way to Palermo Viejo. We established that these luxurious pads were not owned by foreigners, as my father had enquired, but by wealthy argentines with major inheritances of “landed money.” Somehow, this all led back to evita, as seems to happen regularly here.
If I had more time here I think I would be tempted to write a book: the history of argentina, as told by its taxi drivers. It is a truly insightful experience.