Faena Forever


The Faeana Hotel & Universe.

Sigh.

Warning: it’s going to be hard not to sound fawning, but it’s such a phenomenal universe that we’ve had a hard time tearing ourselves away from the mirrored pool bar, the gentleman’s club-style “library bar” and the Versailles-meets-modernity red and white resto.

For all the arrogance supposed to be exuded by “portenos” (residents of Buenos Aires), the staff could not be nicer. The pool-side service has tended be a bit laid-back-Latino-whenever-wherever but the waitrons are so divine, it’s hard to get hit up about it. They’ve got things so right that as the temperature starts dropping from afternoon to evening, the pool temperature begins to rise slowly, slowly… Mmmmm.

And my personal fave: Dear Guests: Naturally Cocktails May Be Consumed In The Pool. Naturally. (They’re served in plastic cups that look exactly like the real glass deal, for when the co-ords are a teensy bit shaky). On the downside, guests may be accompanied by their offspring. Having said that, this does not seem to be the general trend so being roused from your margarita-induced slumber by a chorus of “Marco Polos” is fairly rare. Not counting kiddies, the average age is exactly what you’d want it to be if you were between 20 and 45 and single. This dawned on me on my first evening in the pool when I overhead a conversation between two Californian playboys:

“Yeah, if ya stay at the Four Seasons, everyone there is like, OLD, man.”

Looking around, I realised he was so right. Maybe for this was one of the reasons why we bumped into an SA acquaintance and his two, single, thirty-something mates at the pool on our first night. The guy was so tanned I didn’t recognise him at first. “Argentinian women are so incredibly beautiful,” he was saying. (Can’t argue with you on that one, Bru.) “But I think the Argentine men are greasy”.

Er, ja. Keep telling yourself that, mate.