El Tango de Mendoza

Viva Mendoza! There are really a lot of things to like about this town: the manageable size, the warm friendly people, the landscape, the great wine, the low prices. Then there are experiences like I had this afternoon.

I found a good spanish school, and signed up for a week´s worth of lessons. My conversational ability has come back the past two weeks, so it´s a good time to get into some formal instruction. The school director showed me their calendar of events, and this afternoon was free tango lessons. I only had an hour to go back to the hostel and clean up and get back, but I decided it was too good to pass up.

I arrived, and learned I was the only student enrolled for the class. The door opened, and the two instructors walked in. Both students at the local university, they are quite possibly the two most beautiful women I have seen in Argentina. Absolutely stunning, both of them. They asked me if I still wanted to take the class, I´d get more personal attention this way. Yes, I decided. I can stick around.

After getting my powers of speech back, the lesson went really well. They both spoke crystal clear spanish, so I got two hours of really good practice speaking and listening. They were very professional and capable teachers too. They told me the whole history of the tango, including the pope outlawing it at one point, from what I gathered were dancers not making enough room between them for the holy ghost, as they say at catholic school dances in the states. After a few early jitters, by the end of the session I was breaking out the moves I´d learned years ago from the argentine teachers back home, to the delight of the profesoras. It was awesome. Such a cool experience. I´m taking another lesson saturday. Can you blame me?

Again I say, Viva Mendoza!