Buenos Aires

This first blog entry for our South America vacation covers our visit to Buenos Aires. The following entries will report our visit to Patagonia.

Itinerary

One cool thing about visiting the southern hemisphere is encountering upside-down maps (south at top). Not all are like that, so one needs to look for orientation clues before navigating. Even knowing the orientation, I found the required 180° rotation made finding my way more difficult using an upside-down map.

The autonomous Buenos Aires Federal District rests on the south bank of the Rio de la Plata, at over 200km wide a river like no other. It appears to be a bay of the Atlantic, but it is a more complex feature. The eastern part acts like a standard river estuary where it joins the Atlantic. The western part adjacent to Buenos Aires is still fresh water and acts like a river, but with strong tidal influence. The river separates Uruguay and Argentina. Montevideo is a 3 hour ferry ride northeast from Buenos Aires.

The greater metropolis holds 35% of the Argentine population. It is comprised of nearly 50 (overlapping) named neighborhoods, the barrios. Most of our time was spent in the three most central and affluent areas: Centro, Puerto Madero, and Recoleta, with a bus ride to visit La Boca, the old port barrio with an Italian flavor. Below is an upside-down barrio map scraped off the Internet; the Rio de la Plata is at the bottom.

Centro is the main government and business district. At the heart of Centro is the Plaza de Mayo, celebrating the May revolution of 1810. The Plaza is where the people go to engage their government. It has been the main focal point of government speeches, and of popular demonstrations and strikes, in essence the heartbeat of the country. While we were there, a group of veterans of the Malvinas War were protesting. They were called up for service, but never actually joined the battle, and hence have been denied veteran’s benefits.


Also visible are long queues of people; this one we understood was waiting to buy subway passes (perhaps also suggesting that Argentina has still not progressed far from its socialist period).


The National Congress borders the plaza on one side. The presidential residence, Casa Rosada, also overlooks the square. From the upper left balcony, Evita addressed her adoring descamisados.


We were invited to experience the city’s subway. No, we didn't need to stand in the queue. Some very old cars are still in service, and we were privileged to ride in one. Our wonderful tour guide Silvana is shown below, as well as my wonderful Spanish translator Debby (who also was photographer for all the pictures here).


La Boca is home to a very popular football squad, whose colors are blue and yellow. The barrio loudly reflects these colors. It is known as the birthplace of the tango, and there are many tango bars here. The paving tiles from a long-ago era are still in use on central streets.


On the northwestern side of the city is Recoleta and the cemetery where the important people are buried. We spent part of a hot day there, wandering among the crypts. Descendants of the deceased are required to pay taxes on the crypts and also to pay workers to maintain them. Evita is buried in her family’s Duarte crypt, shown with the flowers affixed. Some crypts no longer have anyone to maintain them and they look sadly forlorn. If enough time goes by without anyone to pay tax, the remains are moved and the crypt re-sold.




In the heat, this large tree in an adjacent Recoleta Plaza provides respite. We also took refuge in a mall near the cemetery.

We stopped at the National Museum of Fine Arts, exhibiting noted Argentinian paintings as well as a nice assortment of impressionist period European paintings that appeal to Debby and me. The cherry on this cake for me was one of Henry Moore's abstract reclining figure sculptures on the roof terraza.

We stretched Debby's tolerance for walking by hoofing it back to our hotel. Debby first asked a local kiosk operator where the best gelato could be found and we planned our return to include that location.

In the evening, we visited the tango hall and got private lessons with two gifted instructors, while a young bandoneon player demonstrated authentic tango playing. Tango links the partners primally, at the level of their heartbeats. The dance can convey a range of emotion, from passionate embrace to suspicion of betrayal. Tango has a 4/4 rhythm, ofttimes syncopated with alternating emphasis (like a heartbeat). Tango portrays a stylized walking, in either open or closed embrace, with legs slowly brushing past each other.


True to its European origins, Buenos Aires has its famous Café Tortoni (under the Tango Hall), to rival the other cafés with which I am familiar, Vienna’s Café Mozart and Zurich’s Café Odeon. Such places were frequent haunts of the most famous 20th century intellects. They still maintain their old-world charm in furnishings and dark wood trim, and may still attract some locals, although tourists seem to comprise most of their clientele nowadays.


Tortoni was a haunt of Jorge Luis Borges, one of Argentina’s premier literary figures. At a corner table are currently installed wax figures of Borges and two other notables as they may have appeared there long ago.


Owen gifted me a copy of Borges’ Ficciones, which I enjoy. Our guide distributed a copy of his love poem ‘The Threatened One’, which I also enjoy. Borges' view of America is generous, though perhaps not shared by many Argentinians today.

I found America the friendliest, most forgiving, and most generous nation I had ever visited. We South Americans tend to think of things in terms of convenience, whereas people in the United States approach things ethically. This -- amateur Protestant that I am -- I admired above all. It even helped me overlook skyscrapers, paper bags, television, plastics, and the unholy jungle of gadgets.

We visited the main synagogue in the city, which has an attached museum. Only 250 or so families still belong. The building dates to 1932.



We spent Valentine's day evening strolling the Puerto Madero waterfront and its Puente de la Mujer. Many young couples were romancing in the area. This picture of the bridge is from Wikipedia. It is also known as the Calatrava bridge, after its designer. It is a combination suspension and pivot foot bridge, swinging open about its vertical pylon axis. A large schooner is tied up behind it, open to the public.


No discussion of a city is complete without some commentary about its underbelly. In the case of Buenos Aires, this refers to the surrounding villas (from villa miseria). They are expanding, partly fueled by immigration from Bolivia and Paraquay. The estimated population of the Buenos Aires ‘villas’ is two million. We did not visit a villa, but they are unmistakable and unavoidable here.



It caught us by surprise that Argentinians speak a funky Spanish where ll and y are pronounced as sh. Who knew? My curiosity unveiled that this is Galician Spanish as spoken in the northwest of Spain, a sibling of Portuguese.

Debby was getting good at communicating in Spanish by the time our trip was done, but I have no ear for the spoken language. I might be able to formulate a question, but to what purpose? I would be unable to decipher the answer. Hand gestures don’t get one very far, so I was delighted to have Debby as my personal translator.

Aside: I have posted photos of ~30 new (for me) species of birds from Patagonia in my photo gallery Birds. Use the right arrow key to advance through the slides. (When you come to the peacock, you've gone past the Patagonia birds.)