By the grace of god there was a guy selling big cups of milky coffee in the still bustlingly busy bus terminus, farewells bade, drivers shouting cheerful olas, packages picked up and deposited, kids well wrapped, Grannies kissed on cheeks, tears dabbed with hankies, frantic waving from windows once on board, so I bought a large dose of caffeine con leche and went to watch the downpour and the hullabaloo and an elderly lady laden down with plastic bags full to the brim which she was forever putting down to smack vigourously, pick up, walk off, put down, smack, repeat every five metres, under a deluge now beating a rhythm of its own on the roof.
The rain did in fact take breaks and so during one such I went walk-about and found these two, above, enjoying a tango on the forecourt. Somehow it didn't surprise me.
Taxi drivers idled outside all night long, chatting or sitting in their vehicles listening to gentle music while the tango couple danced on.
About 04.30, when the rain abruptly stopped again, I roamed the neighbourhood in a most welcome cool breeze, and sitting to smoke on a bollard my mind also roamed, back to Porto Alegre and a city which for some reason I'd really taken to. Not an event or a sight or a woman and certainly not the weather ... merely the experience of having been there.
As dawn broke, more and more people arrived and I got a ticket from two large amiable small-town guys packed into a tiny booth and who were greatly entertained by the opportunity to speak English and listen to my attempts in Spanish; war going entirely unmentioned.
When our bus to Salto left at 07.10, under sky blue, I pondered on a very mellow night spent there, wide awake, tango filling the air ... Gracias Concordia.
Nb. My brief experience was nothing compared to this bloke who invites himself round to people's houses.