The Paris of South America, Part II

Porteños are nighthawks. Around midnight, people cart away scrap metal and paper recovered from building trash bins. A young family walks in the middle of the street, the man with his head and torso vertical to the cart he's pushing and the woman pushing a baby in a stroller over the cobblestone streets. Later in the night, women totter in high heels over the messy trail left behind by what the city government calls the "urban recoverers." A line forms in the middle of the sidewalk, where a woman sells bottles of beer through an iron-grated window after the Carrefour has closed. Music pours out of open doors and windows, tango, the breathy notes of an accordion. Los chinos, the nickname for a grocery stores operated by Asians, the only place to buy junk food and bottles of beer at this hour, is packed. The electronics-repair guy who listens to English tapes all day moonlights selling ice cream in an heladería with a For Rent sign hanging on the window. "Have to work," he says with a resigned smile. Walking one way, it's easy to bump into acquaintances and be persuaded to walk the other. So much of life in this city is lived at night and into the very early morning, when the darkness retreats. Then the cafes and markets are abuzz as though the previous night were a dream.