Buenos Aires Big Apple
Buenos Aires is an interesting mix of imposing but dirty colonial architecture and dirty newer architecture. These are interspersed with bill boards, leafy trees and graffiti (more often than not political in nature). It´s a humid city, the summer is cool and green and the pavements are strewn with puddles made from the drip of air conditioning units several floors above. We stayed just off the Avenida de Mayo in downtown central BA. The Hotel Espana was built and furnished circa 1930 complete with an old fashioned elevator with a gate you draw across and then watch the floor above descend to eye-level and then down. The plumbing was also circa 1930 and I remember wondering why it was the maid was carrying a bit stick with her until later I tried flushing and realised that the stick was probably the best weapon. Our room had a fifth floor balcony and a view over roof terraces and down a narrow street, over Christmas street lights, towards San Telmo.
The city eats late, shops late and sleeps late and so did we. We explored for five days, mostly on foot and by bus, enjoying just being in and experiencing the city. Reading the graffiti (anti-bank, anti-capitalist and anti vegan), seeing things, watching people. We took a stroll from the Centro towards La Ricolletta and Palermo, a more salubrious part of town dotted with Polo shops and polo shops. The light was soft under clouds that promise rain later in the day and the avenues seemed familiar but different, like Harare in December where the Jacarandas have sprouted yellow flowers this year, just as an experiment.
La Ricoleta is the cemetary where BA´s oldest and grandest have their family mausoleums. Despite not being part of BA´s oldest and grandest (indeed, there were a few raised eyebrows and whispered words over it) Eva Peron is entombed here. Like a little city of the dead with roads, avenues and alleyways, the families each have their own crypt. Inside they stack their generations in shelves of rotting wooden coffins draped in browning lace. Eva Peron is down one such alleyway. Her crypt is still adorned with fresh flowers and a crowd of people waited to pay their respects, crowding into the narrow space and standing in hushed reverence with shining eyes.
One afternoon we were roused from an afternoon rest (watching the A-Team dubbed in Spanish) by the noise of a march on Ave de Mayo; various workers unions and the Communist and Socialist Parties calling for (among other things) a tax on stock market transactions and on fixed deposits over a certain amount in order to pay for health care and education for the very poor. We stood by the side of the street and watched the procession of people pass us by, holding banners and beating drums, smiling and waving at cameras. Not hiding their faces. I noticed, suddenly, that even when protesting Argentinians march on the shady side of the street.
Our first impression of BA was that BA is NOT (despite the assurances of the guidebook) a restaurant capital of South America. All restaurants seemed to serve the same thing (pasta and steak and "salads" which are more mayonnaise than lettuce). The steak is excellent, the pasta is tasty, but by day 3 we went in search of some vegetables. Our somewhat eccentric concierge looked at us in incredulation when we asked for direction to vegetarian restaurants, even Chinese. Later, when we resigned ourselves to the Argentinian belief that potatoes are vegatables, we found better fare. We ate llama in San Telmo and fish in a French bistro over lunch. We discovered a street of sushi restaurants, some of them kosher (what exactly is kosher sushi?) in Palermo. In the mornings we ate media lunas ("half moons" - sweet croissants) and drank orange juice while poring over the guidebook.
In the late week we took the train out to Le Tigre and ate paella and shared a bottle of wine in a restaurant overlooking the river, watching boats launch from the Le Tigre sailing club on the opposite bank. After we´d finished the bottle, we found a patch of grass on the bank and settled down to read, disturbed occasionally by the rumblings of passing tug boats, woefully overloaded with logs, chugging their load down towards the coast.
On a too hot Saturday morning with the sounds of the dustbin men in the street outside we caught a cab at 4am to the airport and stood sleepily in line for a plane to Santiago.
The city eats late, shops late and sleeps late and so did we. We explored for five days, mostly on foot and by bus, enjoying just being in and experiencing the city. Reading the graffiti (anti-bank, anti-capitalist and anti vegan), seeing things, watching people. We took a stroll from the Centro towards La Ricolletta and Palermo, a more salubrious part of town dotted with Polo shops and polo shops. The light was soft under clouds that promise rain later in the day and the avenues seemed familiar but different, like Harare in December where the Jacarandas have sprouted yellow flowers this year, just as an experiment.
La Ricoleta is the cemetary where BA´s oldest and grandest have their family mausoleums. Despite not being part of BA´s oldest and grandest (indeed, there were a few raised eyebrows and whispered words over it) Eva Peron is entombed here. Like a little city of the dead with roads, avenues and alleyways, the families each have their own crypt. Inside they stack their generations in shelves of rotting wooden coffins draped in browning lace. Eva Peron is down one such alleyway. Her crypt is still adorned with fresh flowers and a crowd of people waited to pay their respects, crowding into the narrow space and standing in hushed reverence with shining eyes.
One afternoon we were roused from an afternoon rest (watching the A-Team dubbed in Spanish) by the noise of a march on Ave de Mayo; various workers unions and the Communist and Socialist Parties calling for (among other things) a tax on stock market transactions and on fixed deposits over a certain amount in order to pay for health care and education for the very poor. We stood by the side of the street and watched the procession of people pass us by, holding banners and beating drums, smiling and waving at cameras. Not hiding their faces. I noticed, suddenly, that even when protesting Argentinians march on the shady side of the street.
Our first impression of BA was that BA is NOT (despite the assurances of the guidebook) a restaurant capital of South America. All restaurants seemed to serve the same thing (pasta and steak and "salads" which are more mayonnaise than lettuce). The steak is excellent, the pasta is tasty, but by day 3 we went in search of some vegetables. Our somewhat eccentric concierge looked at us in incredulation when we asked for direction to vegetarian restaurants, even Chinese. Later, when we resigned ourselves to the Argentinian belief that potatoes are vegatables, we found better fare. We ate llama in San Telmo and fish in a French bistro over lunch. We discovered a street of sushi restaurants, some of them kosher (what exactly is kosher sushi?) in Palermo. In the mornings we ate media lunas ("half moons" - sweet croissants) and drank orange juice while poring over the guidebook.
In the late week we took the train out to Le Tigre and ate paella and shared a bottle of wine in a restaurant overlooking the river, watching boats launch from the Le Tigre sailing club on the opposite bank. After we´d finished the bottle, we found a patch of grass on the bank and settled down to read, disturbed occasionally by the rumblings of passing tug boats, woefully overloaded with logs, chugging their load down towards the coast.
On a too hot Saturday morning with the sounds of the dustbin men in the street outside we caught a cab at 4am to the airport and stood sleepily in line for a plane to Santiago.
posted by Kait at 9:46 pm
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