I wanted to spend a little time hanging out with Pugliese, Troilo, Gardel, Caro, Di Sarli and D’Arienzo. Admittedly they’re all getting on a bit, and none of them are very talkative these days, but it would seem rude to be in Buenos Aires without visiting them.

Cementerio de la Chacarita is huge! Recoleta Cemetery, which had seemed pretty large when we visited it, would fit inside this one eighteen times. Terry had sent me a couple of links with approximate locations for each tomb, and finding most of them was straightforward (guide to follow), though D’Arienzo was a little harder to track down …

Several of the tango greats are found together in an area known as Rincón de los Notables. Pugliese, Troilo, Caro, Di Sarli and Goyeneche can all be found here. The latter was not on my radar when I planned the visit, but I left a red rose for each of the others.

Video clips of the tombs will follow.

It was at Gardel’s tomb that things got … strange after I left the rose.

A woman walked up to the door of the tomb, pulled out a key, unlocked it, opened the door and went inside!

Next, one of the other guys there introduced himself as a local YouTuber, Walter Aniston. He pulled out a microphone and wanted to interview me, but fairly quickly gave up on El Hombre de Muy Poco Español …

I walked over to the open door, and just peeked inside. The non-YouTuber guy there then said I could go in. He said something about photos, and I assumed he was telling me it was forbidden to take photos inside, but no: he was asking me to wait while he took a photo, then I could go in – and was welcome to take photos or video!

Afterwards, I solved most of the mystery. The other man and woman were from the Carlos Gardel Foundation. They were there to unlock the tomb for Walter to film inside. Apparently I wasn’t quite as privileged as I thought: they do attend from time to time, and while they are there, they will allow visitors inside.

All the same, I simply cannot imagine anyone in the UK opening up the tomb of one of the country’s most prominent nationals, and letting random foreigners wander in at all, let alone unaccompanied! Only in Buenos Aires.