Ingredients to a luring recipe: Two people, Tango and a sprinkle of Spanish Guitars

We are deep in to the holiday season and like many people the thought of travel always pushes to the forefront of my mind. Back in 2003, as a long, hot summer season came to a close in Italy, where we were still basquing on the beach right up until the end of September in 30°c temperatures, in the first week of October I went on a trip to Sweden for a few days break. The temperature change was noteable and struggled to get above 12°c despite the hard blue sky and sun beaming down, but still, it was everything I had hoped it to be; walking around a big city full of nice architecture, cafès and bridges crossing water wherever you go, their attention to detail, and of course beautiful blonde girls.

The one thing that made it all the more beautiful was something I saw on my first day there, in Stockholm. Crossing a bridge and walking in to the heart of the Gamla Stan - the old town and heart of the city - I came across a small crowd of people gathered around movement, the flooding sounds of violins, double bass and an organito making a typical Tango sound filled the cobbled street and drew me in to become part of it. Infact there, encircled by the crowd, were an attractive, dark-haired couple dancing Tango.

It seemed so bizarre. An early-autumn day with a backdrop façade of Swedish stone architecture, cool temperatures and scarf-bound spectators, were an elegantly Latin style-dressed man and woman bringing a hot, sensual vibe to the streets of the city as it headed down the road towards winter. After being hit with a 20°c temperature drop in a matter of hours, the sound and the movement of the couple dancing brought back the warmth. I stood and watched, almost besotted, for more or less 20 minutes. I mean, I had come to see other things, come to experience Swedish ways and typical Scandanavian life, drink coffee, eat great soups and broet, and take in their minimally elegant and celebrated design everywhere you go. Instead within hours of landing I had found a piece of Argentina.

Ever since then, I have always said that if I was to learn any kind of dance, it would be Tango. I have always been a lover of music, in another life I may have been a musician. With music, part of the equation is rhythm, and where there is rhythm there is movement, there is dance. As much as I like my house music, my Soul 'n' Funk and my R 'n' B, once you are immersed in that organito sound, there isn't much more that can take to a supreme state of horny. I'm sorry, it's gotta be said, doing Tango is a form of foreplay, it is where passion brews and boils and simmers. Even just watching it; all those close body twists and turns, the interlocking and intertwining and stretching of long, stocking legs, the quick and slow, the tease and the sexual aggression of it all. It is almost like a continuous stop-start rhythm, like so many intimate encounters are.

It's strange that whenever I now think of Stockholm, the Tango always springs to mind too. Back in 2003 I turned 30; I thought that maybe these kind of tastes were the ones to be developed in your thirties. Now I think Tango is one that crosses this border, and people of all ages talk about it maybe more than any other dance in history. Maybe after so many years in Italy, some Latin buds have planted themselves deep in me and come out to flower in these intense moments. Tango and Spanish guitars always put me in the mood for sex, but I couldn't really write a post about that now, could I? Or have I already?