First impressions are important. My heart sank a tiny bit, as it also jumped and did a jig. Sank at the slight grunginess – but soared at the height of the ceilings and all the lovely original old features. 

We had just arrived at our next home. We’d live in this old colonial building in San Telmo, for the next three months. I wanted to like it.  

The taxi driver deposited us on the cobblestones, and then promptly broke down. We saw him pacing as Alejandro (our cleaner) opened the first of three doors to let us in. ‘Never leave the second door unlocked, not even for a moment’, we were warned. We are on the ground floor at the foot of a winding staircase. I caught a glimpse of wrought iron railings and a carved wooden handrail as I dragged the suitcase up a couple of steps. Through the front door, a dark sitting room was off to our left. We saw a large window with fileteado work at the top, covered with an antique wooden shutter. We also saw the taxi driver, now talking loudly on his phone. The flat shows signs of age. ‘Don’t raise the shutter above the level of the window, or it’ll stick’, warns a hand-written note hidden in the little recess which houses the cord. The room is dark, even with the shutter pulled as high as it can go, and this is our only window to the outside. My heart sinks a little further. 

The house is long and narrow. A traditional design, we are told, to keep the heat out. The bathroom and bedroom lead off this little corridor and at the end is the small, also dark kitchen. 

What saves the place are the little patios. I fall head over heels in love. The front patio has two red wrought-iron chairs, curvy and sensual, plump red cushions beckoning me to sit. Mirrors set into the walls are surrounded by hand-painted borders. Mustard, and peppermint-green and aquamarine and cute red flowers. There are curls and swirls and plant-pots hanging from heart-shaped holders. A table with a faux-marble top sits between the two chairs, it’s legs as graceful as their arms. A stained-glass window opens onto the entrance hall outside, greens and yellows reflecting onto the terracotta floor tiles. It’s tiny, but perfect. I can’t wait to sit there with a book and a glass of Malbec. 

Beyond the bedroom is the back patio. The same red chairs, but now placed against bright sunshine-yellow walls and a round glass-topped table. Green leaves trail overhead and down the walls, not all of them real, but still, they make me happy. These are internal patios, outside-inside, we can open windows and doors to allow air to circulate, open glass windows and close iron shutters, open levered windows above the doors to let yet more air in – or not. There is an antique ceiling fan in the living room. It’s a fortress against the heat. 

The taxi driver is gone. Alejandra’s explanations are to the point and within moments she too is gone. After a 12 hour flight, I want only to shower and lay down. But there is no hot water. Alejandra comes back. We stumble along in Spanish. Apparently a storm has blown out the pilot light. She calls her son. ‘Is he a mechanic?’ I ask. She looks surprised and says ‘No’. He doesn’t know how, he presses buttons randomly,  but after a while he gets the boiler going. It’s a Saturday afternoon and he’d come from the park to help us. I am stunned by their kindness. ‘De nada’, they say. ‘It’s nothing’. 

The shabbiness of the apartment fades away, first impressions are important, but they aren’t always correct.