The notorious nightlife of Buenos Aires

Plus naughty bits! 🙊

It’s 2:04am and I’ve had a couple of RedBulls. I’m in a vast warehouse style club in downtown Buenos Aires. To say it’s unique is a euphemism. It is completely unlike any club I’ve been to anywhere in the world. And I’ve been to the Berghain.

The club has been open for less than an hour, and it’s just now starting to get busy and buzzy. People here are just starting their nights; they’re just now getting going. Many will have been to a ‘pregame’ - drinks and snacks at someone’s house - before coming here.

At the front of the warehouse is a stage with a DJ box. Affixed to it are six big disco balls. Behind it, a hundred multi coloured balloons, and more disco balls. A neon light on the DJ box reads: Furia Fest. A huge AV screen behind shows a celestial starry night backdrop with the words FURIA FEST. 

On the huge dancefloor, reggaeton plays: it’s a form of hip-hop, dancehall and rap in Spanish. It’s interspersed with some dance and pop numbers. When the DJ plays Shakira’s Spanish lyrics version of ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ and ‘SheWolf’ (‘Loba’), various delicious emasculating shrieks of delight can be heard. People break into some merengue. 

But none of this is particularly unusual. It’s what’s happening on the corners of the dancefloor that catch my eye, then leave my mouth agape.

In one corner people queue for a ride on a bucking broncho - not, in this case, a euphemism. In another, they stand in line for a turn on a fairground ride - the Waltzers. They’re a bit off-chops so I can only imagine the euphoria, which seems clear from their delighted faces, squinted as tight as cat’s bum. 

Then there’s an inflatable bungee football pitch - I shit you not - and I immediately head over as this is so far up my alley, it’s penetrating me. I win one game, lose another, then get dragged away by my exasperated friends for a dance. Part of me will always be the kid that blacked out from excitement at seeing the Gladiators live.

There’s even a remote working tattoo artist ready to ink you on the spot should you spontaneously decide to get one somewhere after a few drinks!

Plus one legend came to the nightclub dressed as an inflatable dinosaur 🦖 even though it was unrelated to any theme

Clubs here are different. They open super late. Upon a recent visit, my friend Paul and I waited for aaages for Club69 (less overtly sexual than the name suggests) to open, then finally arrived at 12:40am. Only for the doorman to tell us they wouldn’t open for another 20 minutes! We had to walk around the block a couple of times. Clubs don’t really get going till 2am. It’s a massive adjustment to get used to a city so extremely nocturnal. But when in Rome! The whole point of travel is the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable. I’m enjoying of rising to the challenge of it, so I can drink it all in for your reading pleasure

As I recently wrote in my first piece for Trip Advisor - Buenos Aires is the city that truly never sleeps. I’ve heard New Yorkers and Londoners suggest that the wealth of options here even beat their own well publicised big gay scenes. Especially as London haemorrhages gay bars - The Glory recently closed and, as of yesterday, the future of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern looks somewhat uncertain. 

Buenos Aires loves a techno party - to the point where I’ve sometimes felt like I was in Berlin when I was in visiting gay nights DURX or FA.GOT. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of das techno musik but can get into anything once I get going.

This is the kind of city where you can go to Feliza Jolie, a Wednesday gay club night, and for it not only to be rammed, but for a hired minibus rock up outside at 7am Thursday morning to transport you to the afterparty. I don’t even know anywhere in London like that (obvs doesn’t exist in sleepier midweek Sydney). There are a whole bunch of gay nights and bars I haven’t even been to seven months in. I’m still discovering. It’s glorious. 

Argentinians have also reinvented the nightclub show. Club69’s sometimes gets compared to a school play - harsh! - but has weekly theme in which dancers gloriously culturally appropriate with Hawaiian grass skirts or native Indian headdresses. Maybe not to everyone’s taste but personally it’s nice to watch something fun and themed that doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

Clubs like popfest Fiesta Plop innovate in their dance show. Rather than a 20 minute show which demands your passive attention, the dancers - a troupe of different gender expressions, body shapes and vibes - spend hours on stage creating a ‘story’, infused with humour, choreography and some improvisation. Rather than dancing for you, they’re dancing with you and telling a narrative as they do it. It’s often dedicated to one pop diva. This week it’s Madonna with the theme “if Madonna won’t go to the mountain, we’ll bring the mountain to Madonna.’

It’s so refreshing to the usual gay club’s inane, humourless muscle boys dancers who think they look sexy if they never smile. 

Then there are the **naughtier** things that happen on Buenos Aires’s gay scene. But to read them, you’ll have to upgrade to paid for this post, here:

(you’ll discover what really goes on in the biggest gay club in Buenos Aires, Amerika, some X-rated NSFW moments, the kind I’d send you in a WhatsApp voicenote you wouldn’t dare play at work / a family gathering / in front of anyone you respect, and more of our secrets we don’t really want everyone knowing! Infused with hilarious humour, not tautology in this case. Click below to read… 🙈🙊😈).