Buenos Aires, Uncategorized

San Telmo: The Sunday Feria.

On Sundays San Telmo goes for broke. For one day a week it’s the place everyone wants to be. 

The feria began in 1970 with just a handful of stalls, an attempt to save the area from re-development. Now the antique market takes over Plaza Dorrego and artisan stalls  the surrounding cobble-stone streets, for several blocks. Bandoneon players, tarot-card readers, simit sellers, orange-juice and sugared-peanut sellers – anything goes. One man sells whistles that imitate bird song. There are floral tea-services, box cameras, coloured glass, old magazines, brass, clothing – vintage, knitted and new, knitted outfits for Barbie dolls, Messi football shirts for babies, jewellery, musical instruments – the list is endless. One of my personal favourites was an old lady with a blue, curly wig who had a whole stall full of nothing but buttons. 

Several stalls simply sell soda-syphons. I  have never seen so many. ‘Where do you find them all’, I asked one seller. ‘Argentina’, he replied, ‘but within five years there won’t be any left. Mine are all antique, from the 50’s – indicating the bottom shelf – to the 20’s on the top shelf. Apparently they used to be delivered to the doorstep here, like milk bottles. Portenos like carbonated water.

Scoring a table at one of the outdoor cafes surrounding the plaza is like hitting the jackpot. A feast of people-watching. ‘Awesome’, I hear an American say, as he picks up a sword and unsheathes it from it’s scabbard. I wonder what he’d do with it. So does he apparently, because it puts it down reluctantly. I watch a woman try on a fur stole and twist and turn in front of the oval mirror of a stall nearby. It too returns to its hanger. Stall-holders sit on deck-chairs, chat, drink mate, and wait. A French bulldog with a characteristically grumpy face peers out from underneath antique lace tablecloths. The buyer must be out there somewhere.

I smell fresh oranges, cooked meat, and incense. I hear those bird whistles and notes of tango music. There are performers inside the cafe and in the plaza. This is a city of music and dance. I can’t see the performers, but I don’t want to give up my chair, so while the streets heave around me, like the stall holders and the French bulldog, I sit and wait and drink it all in.

13 thoughts on “San Telmo: The Sunday Feria.”

  3. Worth going to Buenos Aires just to see the market! Fabulous weather in Spain, fresh in the shade but sky a glorious blue.

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  4. Hello you. Fascinating as always. I went for a final stroll round Bath today, doing what you do. Well… the people watching bit. No-one is sitting outside at cafés on a Sunday in late January in England! Or wearing shorts! But the buskers were out and some of them were very good. And it seemed even busier than on Saturday. I’ve started noticing shop signs – my favourite was ‘Divine Savages ‘. Bet you can’t guess what they sold! All will be revealed in next blog.
    MJ

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  5. Yah, so much fun! It’s an amazing market isn’t it. Thanks for a second stroll through. I guess the elderly tango dancers are no longer there (or you weren’t inspired to photograph them).
    I especially love the woman in a red cheong sam, blue wig, and guitar glasses. I hope I get to be as wild as her when I get old 😂
    Alison

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    1. There were some old dancers at the milonga last week and I straight away thought of your photo, but don’t think it’s the same couple. I checked! I’m sure they will appear in some blog, somewhere. I’m with you, lets grow old disgracefully.

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