Day 16 - Buenos Aires, 'Recoleta' Free Walking Tour, Bellas Artes Art Gallery, & Tango!

Our third day in Buenos Aires and we begin to get a good feel for the city. Local restaurants, cafes, and shops become familiar as we wander the streets with savoir faire. Today we join another walking tour, exploring the other ‘down town’ areas of BA. Fernando is our tour guide, a lawyer, who provides a more light-hearted, jovial tour than the previous night (which was very historical and rather morose). Both were excellent tours providing insights on to different facets of this beautiful city. Fernando, much like Martin, points out architectural oddities, the juxtaposition of western and eastern influences, famous statues, and unique districts along the way. Interestingly, Buenos Aires has the 4^th largest community of Jewish peoples in the world, the second religion of the city behind Christianity.

We wander through lush parks, learning of this historical person or that – often with a theme surrounding the shaping of Argentina. Famous throughout Argentina (Chile, Bolivia, and Peru as well) is the figure of San Martin – a military leader who helped defeat the Spanish and grant autonomy to Argentina. Often depicted on horseback, pointing to the West – toward the Andes – mimicking his valiant crossing of the Andes with 5,000 men - in only 16 days, defeating the Spanish overlords from these 4 respective countries. In anyone one of these countries (and each city within) you will undoubtedly find a road San martin, a plaza San Martin, a San Martin shopping centre etc…

Our tour ends in the famous Recoleta Cemetery, which is renowned for it’s large, opulent mausoleums of the aristocracy from Argentina – all built in jagged streets, imitating a small unique city of the dead. Saying goodbye to Fernando, we headed to the National Art Museum – which housed numerous painting from many of the greats – Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Pollock… A true pleasure to visit.

After a quick dinner with a bottle of local vino – we head to our evening Tango show. Located in the famous Café Tortoni – we’re seated in a dusky subterranean, brick theatre – imitating the streets of yester-Buenos Aires. Sipping on champagne – we’re enthralled by the rhythmic gyrating bodies entwined on stage, dancing to slow-then fast-then slow tango songs. A lone performer took the stage – swinging long ropes with wooden balls on the ends. The dancer spun and smacked the instruments on the ground – choreographing a song and tap dance to his fast paced twirling. The show ended with a lone singer on stage – belting out some powerful melody that was completely lost on us verbally – but was none the less a beautiful performance. We highly enjoyed our show – and walked back to our hotel thoroughly satisfied in today’s adventures.

Day 15 - Buenos Aires, Evening Free Walking Tour

What is with cities in South America? Our room, on the 5^th floor, felt very secluded and quiet. That was until cars entered and/or exited the parking garage across from the hotel – triggering a flashing light (luckily we couldn’t see it) and a loud siren – presumably to warn other cars and passengers about the emerging vehicle. A good theory, in principle, however, this garage (and seemingly all of them throughout the city) was constantly busy – meaning that darn siren was going off every 10 minutes every hour of the day and night. Eventually your mind drowns it out, getting used to the shrill cry – however, the first night we weren’t sure whether to evacuate the building or what to do, as it sounded exactly like a fire alarm.

Anyway. 

We awake to a small continental breakfast – with terrible, burnt coffee – and make our way to the meeting point for our walking tour. The tour, Buenos Aires Free Walking Tours, was led by a well-informed, well-spoken sociologist named Martin. The tour began at the Congresso Nacional and meandered through the city – highlighting key elements from Buenos Aires’s rise and fall from grace. A very beautiful city, Buenos Aires is an eclectic conglomeration of European architecture – a result of the aristocracy trying to mimic the grand cities of Europe – Paris, Florence, etc… Buenos Aires has many parks, statues, and importantly to portenos' (locals), wide avenues. We toured around parks, observing and learning the importance of many of them – including one of the (16?) Rodin’s Thinker statues. We observed many sights including a high rise inspired by Dante, a giant homage to Eva Peron, as well as the central obelisk – commemorating the independence of Argentina from the Spanish.

As we walked through the city, Martin describes in detail the rise of Argentina – with wealth overflowing among the aristocracy, each trying to outdo one another by building the next grandest building. Buenos Aires was the most important port-  as such the wealthy became immensely wealthier. However, the stability of the economy in Argentina was never very solid – leading to many recessions throughout the decades, slowly reducing the influence of its finest city, Buenos Aires.

Many dictatorships occurred throughout the 20^th century – including one military coup, which resulted in the, reportedly, 30,000 disappearances of dissidents within Argentina. Argentina has never recovered from corrupt governments, leading to its current economic crisis – with around 35% inflation – reducing the buying power of the locals’ currency immensely.

We finished our tour at the Pink Building, or the office of the politicians. In Plaza de Mayo – the building is surrounded by iron gates and a constant police presence – often including a riot water cannon. Buenos Aires has seen many protests (rightly so), and these measures surrounding the presidential office are a constant reminder to the people – do not disobey.

The Plaza de Mayo, excluding the militant feel, is very beautiful – with many historical buildings brilliantly lit at night. The cathedral – fashioned in Roman style – faces one of the only remaining colonial buildings (the Argentinians destroyed most of them to erase their Spanish past), which is a Museum of Colonial history.

With our informative tour now over, we wandered through the lively streets of Buenos Aires – enjoying the animated atmosphere – before grabbing a pizza and calling it a night.