[1979] from “The Old Patagonian Express” by Paul Theroux

“Buenos Aires is at first glance, and for days afterwards, a most civilized ant-hill. It has all the elegance of the old world in its buildings and streets, and in its people all the vulgarity and frank good health of the new world. All the news-stands and book shops – what a literate place, one thinks; what wealth, what good looks. The women in Buenos Aires were well-dressed, studiously chic, in a way that has been abandoned in Europe. I had expected a fairly prosperous place, cattle and gauchos, and a merciless dictatorship; I had not counted on its being charming, on the seductions of its architecture, or the vigour of its appeal. It was a wonderful city for walking...”