After a first kind of relaxed day in
Buenos Aires we start the second day of the week relaxing ourselves and do
some sightseeing in
the capital. It is Thursday 22 September. Each Thursday the "foolish"
mothers still walk their circles around the pyramid on the Plaza the Mayo, close
the hostel where we stay. This pyramid is a monument as a reminder of the
revolution of 25 May 1810, then a junta decreased the power of the Spanish
"second" king (king less important than the king himself). The obelisk
represents the independence of Argentina.
Youth celebrating La Dia de Primavera
Stone for Evita
people with
billboards
Since 1977 the "foolish" mothers
(called by most of the people on this world more respectable
the mothers of/Madres/the Mothers
of Plaza the Mayo ) have come
to this square to demonstrate against the "disappearances" of a lot of people
(almost 30.000 people in total) and for
clarification about the destiny of the disappeared at times of the cruel
military junta from 1974 to 1983. We have just seen the movie
"Imagining Argentina" (with Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson, also a book), concerning a man who
searches for his disappeared wife, who was a journalist. The man also helps
other people who have missing beloved ones, because he is a kind of paragnost.
In our opinion it is a good and shocking movie which gives a picture of
the cruelties with which the Argentinian people were then faced.
30.000 disappearences
Mothers of
La Plaza de Mayo
Park
The next day we went to the
district La Boca. This district of which the name refers to Riachuelo,
the delta (boca) of the river. The social district (quartier) of Buenos Aires must be cradle
/ basis of
the tango and home of the Boca juniors, thanks to Diego Maradona,
perhaps the most popular football club of Argentina. In this district the
European immigrants arrived in the 19th century, who live their wooden homes with
metal covers in lively bright colours painted.
Shop in La Boca
La
Boca
Peron, Evita and
Diego Maradona
It seemed nice to us to have a fun afternoon by walking through this rather large district.
After we stepped out of the bus and walked into a random street, within
five minutes we were told clearly by 3 different people that it would not be
wise to pass
through that area. The neighbourhood where we were would be too
dangerous for Western tourists carrying a full wallet and a nice photo camera. After three of such
clear warnings it seemed better to us to listen and turn to the direction of the
stadion of the Boca juniors and the barrio Caminito, the highlights of this part
of the town. There was not too much to see of the stadion, so we passed through
kind of fast in the direction of Caminito, a few small car-free streets that
is the heart of a kind of open air museum where the tourist should get an idea
of how it must have been in the past. Everywhere you find artists (mainly painters with their
paintings of the streets of la Boca and Tango dancers) and people
who dance the tango in the restaurants and outside in front of bars and
cafe's. It looks indeed all splendid and coloured, it is
however clear that nobody dances for his pleasure, but mainly for the
money. For an open air museum of course that is not strange, but therefore also not really
attractive (to us). We decided to find a small street where according to several travel
guides you can still see something of the past. These guides are obviously not yet entirely current, because
we experienced that the
warnings here are even more extreme. Within a few minutes this time
no less than 6 people explained in a way with moves and in Spanish (for which you
do not need to understand Spanish well) that we better make it right-reversed.
There was no police over there, they said. For a game of the Boca juniors we
might return again, but probably not for fun.
On Saturday it is consideraby more
quiet than in a weekday when it is extremely busy in the centre of
Buenos Aires.
We have already gone to the something more quiet and peaceful district Palermo,
which is a big difference with La Boca. Everywhere the terrace's are full. Palermo is a district with
beautiful old houses, many trees, large parks and nice shops, restaurants and
squares. Palermo has rapidly grown since it has founded in the 19th century, the
rich portenos
(inhabitants of Buenos Aires) moved here because of epidemics to the south side of the city.
It is remarkable that on Saturday for example in the busy shopping street "Florida" many shops are
closed. In the Netherlands on Saturday the shopping streets are crowded, because
then they have time to go shopping.
The next day it is even more
quiet in the street and gives the centre almost a desolated impression. We walk to the lain district San Telmo
that is near to our hostal. The heart of this more quiete
district is around the Dorrego square and has been made car-free. It has changed into
a kind of Mont Martre like neighbourhood with fleamarkets, a lot of street artists and
antique shops. they are used to visitors of big quantities.
Church in San Telmo
Puerto Madero
Tango in San Telmo
After we walked around a little, we continue our walk to Puerto Madero.
This is an ultramodern district, which is a bit similar to a very big Java island
in Amsterdam. It is the old port which in the beginning of 1900 was demolished
and is very close to the centre of Buenos Aires. In the beginning of the
nineties one has
started with demolishing and cultivating the old port building and make room for
expensive apartments, a lot of restaurants and offices. Also big parks and
products have been protected to a nature conservation area. With some ten
thousands of Portenos who had the same idea of going to Puerte Madero on this first (beautiful)
Sunday Spring day, where was among other things a big salsa
festival. There was a show and a competition. In spite of the enormous quantity people it is
just sociably
busy, but not too busy because there is enough space for everyone.
Monday and Tuesday we did our
first Spanish and tango lessons on the rooftop of our hostal and payed some visits
to other parts of Buenos Aires, Montserrat and
Recoleta.
Our impression of Buenos Aires is
that it is, in spite of the upheaval, a very pleasant city with a lot of
beautiful (some could use some restauration) buildings, pleasant squares and parks. The
portenos (inhabitants of Buenos Aires) are generally very nice, good mannered and pleasant.
Most of them hardly speak a word English, but when they talk Spanish slowly
and use some gestures in general we understand.
Some remarkable things:
- Many noisy buses which drive with very high speed (also
through the
narrow one way streets) through the city. It surprises us, that we have not seen
accidents yet
- but the portenos are careful and wait politely at crossings
- at bus stops the people wait in long queu's (during peak hours). The public
transport is very good and can handle the crowd easily. It is very cheap
(for 20 eurocents by ride you drive the complete city by)
- looks are very important in the centre of Buenos Aires. You see a lot of thin
/ slim women, almost no fat people (for exceptions see picture). They go to the gym a lot. In the shops you find
diet products. Concerning this phenomenon see also
the guest book it has been recently written
by Chris.
- the menu in the major part of the many hundreds if not thousands of
restaurants in Buenos Aires (according to the last estimate now with more than
14 millions inhabitants, 2,400 by km2) meat, meat, meat and meat,
sometimes with pasta and pizza has been varied. Restaurants with a foreign menu
are scarce. We have found a good indian restaurant with the name of Katmandu
fortunately to vary this menu once with delicious curries and naan.
- there is a lot of police force on the street, many police men carry bullet
resisting jackets. Particularly on Plaza the Mayo you see lots of police force.
- everything is big: the buildings, the parks, the squares, the meals we eat (a
portion of meat of 25 at 15 cm is no exception and against a liter beer for
1 and a half euro we will not refuse), the broad
continuing ways in the centre are sometimes, about, 20 traffic lanes broad.
- people have dinner very late. In most of the restaurants it becomes crowded just at 22.00, but a lot of come still considerable later. Dining from 23.30 till 02.00 is
no exception. This gives us the opportunity to do our work for BeOnTop between 17.00
hours (when the sun low state and it what fresher starts become) and 21.00 hours
and enjoy Buenos Aires in the day.
- people who make their money in a for us special way, for example by letting
out
dogs, 15 at the same time or act like living big billboards showing in front of
cars on the highway waiting for the traffic lights.
- in the centre a lot of (old and large) buildings are empty. And we saw a very
big department of Harrod's on Florida street being closed since there summer
2004 collection.
Friday 30 September we leave for
Mendoza. This quite and clean city, known for the excellent wines, lies on the foot of
Andes mountains. Here we will stay approximately 2 weeks and make some trips. On
16 October we want to be back in Buenos Aires. We will stay a couple
weeks then and probably among other things watch the foot-beam-homer and derby
River Plate - Boca
Juniors. Possibly we make a trip to Tigre in the surroundings of Buenos
Aires and to Montevideo in Uruguay.
ot of thin
/ slim women, almost no fat people (for exceptions see picture). They go to the gym a lot. In the shops you find
diet products. Concerning this phenomenon see also
