Big, beautiful, bustling, baroque. Very European in flavour, but faded, jaded. Avenues of trees everywhere, hints of Paris. Huge monuments and wide boulevards dedicated to past glories, many a vagrant sleeping in their shadows, washing themselves and their clothes in the fountains. Grand statues are weathered and graffitied with defiant slogans and bird droppings.
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| Bathtime in the boulevard |
I pound the pavement, my head full of Lonely Planet directions, trying very hard not to look like a tourist (duh - I really do blend in here!)...but an hour on foot leaves me really feeling comfortable in this city.
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| Casa Rosada |
Casa Rosada, and the famous balcony of Eva Peron's speech
the bustling Av Florida, full of shoppers, businessmen, tourists and tinkers, buskers and beggars
the Catedral, so Spanish, so OTT, but frequented by many, (mostly men, often young) "paying a visit" and crossing themselves on their way to work
the beautiful Teatro Colon, long past hey day of theatre....
and the Galeria Pacifico, a shopping mall with Sistine Chapel like ceilings, same shops you find worldwide, but arguably the world's most beautiful Xmas tree.
For a self-confessed fundamentalist Xmas tree aficionado, it was really out there; 10m tall and covered only in 50mm Swarowski crystals and fairy lights. The bar is now set very high; at least the tree wasn't real!
My midday, armed with my Spanish phrase book, decided to tackle the subway or subte. It's smelly and stuffy - no aircon, but easy enough to navigate. There's no English much spoken here, and I soon learn that 2 vaijes means 2 trips and not a 2 day pass.... thought it was a bargain!
Headed out to the upmarket Palermo, it's acres of parkland with beautiful French and Andalucian gardens, rose garden maze and winding lake portico, built at the turn of the last century, when Argentina was in its golden era.
Feeling very brave by now, I decided to go to a dinner and a tango show in the evening, on my own........
Buenos Aires at night comes alive; it exists by day, but lives and breathes and almost seethes at night. Come 8.30, got to the door and did a volte-face, walked a block the other way, talked to myself (using names like chicken and coward), took a deep breath and went back..... and survived!
Alas, no photos, but it was a very entertaining evening. A dear old thing of indeterminate age, garish makeup and too much plastic surgery was sitting alone a couple of tables away, and smiled at me (on no, was it with sympathy, empathy??), and the tango was just, well, the tango.... plaintive music and song while a guy in full dress suit with tails danced and strutted with a very lithe and near naked woman.... The locals are right in to it, lots of "bravos" and great applause. All quite voyeuristic really.....
New day -
off to yuppy Recoleta (full of baby shops and yummy mummies and people walking around in surgical scrubs - lots of private hospitals)
and the famous Cimetario where Eva Peron is buried. What a crazy place - a necropolis with pine lined avenues and huge family crypts, with stairs down to vaults, and altars... Not sure if it's about respecting the dead as much as displaying wealth and power and keeping up with the Jones'. The more recent mausoleums are all militia
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| Eva Duarte Peron family vault |
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| Cimetario |
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| Eva Peron's family grave |
trendy bars and boutiques, the streets are cobbled, the old European buildings getting a new lease of life;
the leafy Plaza Dorrego where I indulged in a tortilla patatas and a cerveza for old times sake and was treated to some more "free" tango"
So now its bye bye Buenos Aires and off to Ushuaia tomorrow, the cruise on the 9th.
BA is a great city, a strange mix of religion, sensuality and a darker side - melancholy or bitterness; just depends which side of the fence you were/are on.
Notes to self:
come to Buenos Aires on the weekend, to take in a soccer match, see the real tango, and the big antique market at San Telmo.
visit La Boca, the hippy arty area
take tango lessons!!
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