Slanted, But Not Enchanted: The Sidewalks of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is a big city - thirteen million people big. They say it is the fourth noisiest city in the world (pero, quien sabe?). There are a ton of cars and trucks jamming the streets, a million taxis, hordes of buses. All the wheeled traffic notwithstanding, most portenos spend a good deal of their time walking. Since we are now cast as portenos, we too spend a lot of time walking - from our four-mile speedwalk through Recoleta every morning, to my daily peregrinations around our neighborhood, to Jen's negotiation of the narrow passages of Microcentro where she has her office. Entonces, it's high time that I address the condition of the sidewalks here in BA. They are, in a word, deplorable.

The sidewalks in this city, from the nicest neighborhoods to the humblest, from city center to far suburban barrio, are totally thrashed. Broken, battered, shattered, scattered, crumbling, stumbling, unstable, uneven, undermined, missing entirely - to walk in Buenos Aires is to run a never-ending obstacle course. The slightest inattention can cost you dearly. We have learned to cope. Jen has already mentioned my pavement-scanning method:
1) always look down
2) keep your eyes on the pavement out to about 15 feet
3) avoid all piles, mounds, chunks, logs, and smears
4) be suspicious of pieces of wood or carpet where there should be sidewalk
5) call out all hazards to your partner
[At this time I hereby inform the reader that I will NOT, in this entry, directly address the issue of dog waste, the "800 lb. gorilla" of BA sidewalk controversies. I am currently writing a BOOK on BA's dogsh*t problem.]
This method keeps us pretty trouble-free. It also helps that we are fairly athletic when we need to be. Some people aren't so lucky.

We've been here less than four months and between the two of us have witnessed a half-dozen sidewalk mishaps, from semi-comical to downright gruesome, usually involving some poor little old lady pitching headfirst onto the filthy pavement. After living here their whole lives, they still can't avoid being victimized by wobbly tiles, missing pavers, random tree roots, and ankle-snapping holes in the middle of the sidewalk. Dear City Fathers of Buenos Aires: get it together, hombres! This is a wonderful city - and those sweet little old ladies deserve much better.