Andrea, our guide from the airport met us at the hotel at 9am and took us on a quick tour of selected parts of the city. First up was this amazing sculpture. I was sceptical about the attraction when looking at the tourist brochures. But it was quite spectacular. Made of the same material as aircraft (Lockheed Martin got a shout-out on one of the plaques) it was in a great location and looked great against the blue sky.
From there we drove through Palermo where lots of the foreign embassies are located. Beautiful buildings and gardens but as Andrea pointed out, no shops. We stopped outside a small, relative to the other houses, white building. A big bronze statue of an old man playing with a child beside it; a change from soldiers on horseback. This was the residence of San Martin the liberator of Latin America from the Spaniards. He was responsible for freeing Argentina, Chile and Peru from the colonial yoke and is venerated here. When shortly after their liberation these countries started fighting each other he left them to it and spent the rest of his life, and died, in France. His body was brought back and lies in military state in a sepulchre in the city’s cathedral, smaller but reminiscent of Napolean’s, overseen by military guards. The statue was of him and his grandchild.
We saw his tomb later, including the changing of the guard which was quite spectacular. Lots of stamping and clicking of heels midst throngs of tourists.
Before going there, we stopped off at the Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron was finally buried, after much movement of her remains. The cemetery is a big tourist attraction. Enormous, ornate family mausoleums. A fully functioning public cemetery but obviously only available to the very rich. I didn’t like it much. The only interest for me, of cemeteries is if they contain monuments to interesting people. Although here some of the sculptures looked impressive against the blue sky.
The ship in that photo is from a memorial to an Irishman of note here in Argentina, a William Brown. I liked his memorial which had a silver sailing ship atop a green pillar. Adorning it was a bas relief made from his ship’s canon. We later saw his house. I’m going to look him up.
We later waited in a queue to see the grave of Eva Peron. There’s always a wait for this, said Andrea, who was a big fan. Due to her support for women and workers. I’ll have to brush up on my knowledge. The story of what happened to her body after she died (so young at 33) is a bit gruelling; embalmed, buried the one place, dug up and moved to another, secret location and then finally here. In her family (Duarte) mausoleum. Lots of flowers adorning the gate. Numerous plaques from different organisation; trade unions, women’s groups. She remains a controversial figure. Later in the tour we see an unfinshed monument to her. A strange looking statue of a woman seemingly fleeing from something. It was going to be Eva surrounded by adoring workers and women, but the President who commissioned it (for electoral advantage) lost! Two images of her also overlook the main road here, July9. One has her smiling beatifically and in the other she is in full rhetorical flight.
At the Plaza de Mayo we visited the Cathedral Metropolitana which is the strangest looking Catholic Cathedral I’ve ever seen. It looks more like a roman temple from the outside, something to do with the length of time it took to build. Inside it has a normal, and reasonably resplendent nave and side chapels. It was of course the home parish of the current Pope and pictures of him adorn the vestibule.
It’s on one side of the Plaza where demonstrations are held regularly, the most recent being a women’s March a couple of days ago. Graffiti calling for legal abortions adorned the temporary fence which is put in place to protect the Government offices which take up the whole street at one end of the square. In a pink building which was formerly the Presidential Palace. There is a current continuing protest by soldiers involved in the Falklands war who are demanding pension rights, currently denied them. And the Grandmothers of the missing still turn up every Thursday. Their symbol is a headscarf and these are painted on the ground all around the central monument (currently being repaired) around which they walk. Quite moving. The Plaza was much smaller than we we expected.
From there we were taken to La Boca; a seedy part of town (Don’t come here at night said Andrea). Is a fixture on the tourist trail because it was from here that the famous tango originated. Dancers in costumes roamed around seeking tourists who could be inveigled into paying for photographs with them in various tango dance poses. All very tawdry. There were stalls selling paintings and knickknack. We strolled through and had coffee. The flimsy housing is painted different colours because poverty because those living there could only use left-over paint scrounged from elsewhere. There were also painted murals look me this one.
From the Plaza we drove down to the river. It has an enormous estuary and that’s what we drove alongside, seeing ships, industrial sites and an area Andrea described as slums, with mostly people coming Buenos Aires from other Latin American countries that were worse off the conomically than Argentina. She was very informative about lots of things which made our tour interesting, but also exhausting! We emerged into a newly developed section of the city. Similar to Melbourne’s Docklands. All very modern office towers and riverside restaurants. Then back into familiar boulevards and parks and to our Hotel. Just over four hours in all. It gave us a good feel for the city.
There are enormous roads – up to sixteen lanes across, six or eight in each direction, divided by green corridors in which people walk dogs, jog or just walk. Lots of trees. Jacarandas from Australia – enormous and beautiful but sadly we missed them flowering. Lovely pink flowering trees that are in fact producing cotton. Some very lovely buildings, reminiscent of Paris. Buenos Aires was known as the Paris of the South and you can see why. Also similar triangular street design. In between the big boulevards the smaller streets are divided by small parks and gardens where people gather.
This is a big dog city. There are lots. People hire dog walkers and you see people with lots of dogs walking along the street. This is because they live in apartments so the dog walkers exercise them. Otherwise you see the dog owners after work – at 8,9,10 pm – out walking their pets. And the are incredibly well groomed. Also of all sizes, enormous and small. Gives a great, homely feel to the city. We saw all this at street level when we had a long walk later in the afternoon.
We wanted to experience a real Argentine dinner at about 9pm. So we had a pre dinner drink in an old established coffee spot formerly frequented by Argentina’s mos successful Formula1 driver and by its biggest literary lion, Borges. There are macabre casts of both in situ. When we were there one of two men drinking at the bar was getting his shoes shone! Once again we were impressed by the jamon and once again we over ordered. This turned out to be okay as we were unsuccessful in finding a place to eat – well, we found a place but weren’t fed. It’s taking us a while to adjust to the tempo of living in this place.
Pauline says
Looks fabulous. Have to confess my knowledge of Buenos Aires is limited…need to do some research. Love the sculpture