What's New Buenos Aires?

8 wonderful days in Buenos Aires.  What a city!  It’s incredibly European and I have found myself thinking that I’m actually in Paris or Barcelona.  Our apartment really reminds us of the apartments we’ve stayed in in Paris (but with better pluming!), while the 5-10 storey apartment buildings that are everywhere in this suburb remind us of Barcelona.  They have the same elaborate iron work on the balconies and front gates.    

We take everything back that we’ve said about Argentinian dogs.  They are ever so nice here in BA but just like Paris there is a lot of caca to avoid on the footpaths .  Professional dog walkers take large groups of pooches out walking during the day.  Some will remember the dog walking challenge that was included in The Amazing Race Season that came to Argentina a few years back.

We visited the Casa Rosada and Plaza Mayo to continue our homage to the Perons.  There is some comment in the press here about how the Kirchner’s were fashioning themselves on the Perons.   It also occurred to me that Hugo Chaves has a lot in common with them all as well.  Perhaps the Kirchners are a little more democratic than the Perons or Chavez.

Here are some pictures of the Theatre Colon (Opera House) – Built in the 1^st decade of the 20^th century to rival the best in Europe.  No expense spared.  Truly spectacular.  Did a tour and saw 10 minutes of the dress for the Magic Flute.  Most entertaining when the French Soprano, flying in on a moon, called a halt to the run to complain about the orchestra (en francais naturalement). 

Congress building.  Again a wonderful building although for much of Argentinian history the Presidents and dictators have run roughshod over the representatives and senators.  I don’t think that Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (she is referred to as CFK in the press here) controls Congress.

Shoe shine?  Galleria Pacifico (a shopping mall) in the background.  There are fantastic shopping malls as well of lots of boutiques.  We’ve been very naughty boys and have done a lot of shopping

We continued the Evita Rainbow Tour by visiting the Eva Peron Museum.  Gets middling reviews in the guide books but we loved it.  It was really informative and seemed to get to the heart of what the Perons achieved while acknowledging the arguments of their detractors and not fawning about them.  Good gift shop too.

On Sunday we went down to La Boca to see the coloured houses – largely a tatty artificial tourist trap.  However on the way there we had to walk through the crowd arriving at the Boca Juniors Stadium to watch their match with River Plate.  This was far more interesting.  You could hear the chanting from the stadium even though the match hadn’t started.  There were flares going off and supporters walking around with banners talking to the press, who were everywhere.  People driving to the match were parking in the side streets and the local residents appeared to be organising parking and charging for it.  In one street they had cars double parked and the owners were merrily throwing them keys.

On Monday we had a big day.  We got a ferry across to Colonia in Uruguay.  Colonia was established by the Portuguese as a smuggling port to counter Spain’s power over trade derived from having established Buenos Aires.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site and was beautiful and a great place to while away the day. 

We finished the day by going to a milonga recommended by Manuela , which is a social tango dance evening.   It kicked off at 11pm on a Monday evening and was packed with both locals and foreigners  dancing – and of course quite a few foreigners like us watching.  When we left around 12.30am it was still going strong.

This is all from Argentina.  Where to next time??????

After-lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Buenos Aires provided the happy meeting point between my fixation with Eva Peron and David’s fascination with cemeteries. The Recoleta Cemetery not only provides the eventual resting place for Eva Peron1, but for the majority of Argentina’s Presidents. We spent almost 2 hours walking around the cemetery stopping at the notable politicians and of course Eva. It was also a great opportunity for a spot of photography. The detailing on the mausoleums ranged from overblown or tacky to beautiful.
Here’s a selection of the more interesting photos.

Eva's family mausoleum

Close up on one of the many plaques on Eva’s family mausoleum, this one from the Taxi driver’s union (who still send fresh flowers each week).

And who could imagine nicer companions in one’s final resting place.

Note
1. Eva died in 1952 of cancer at the age of 33 and her husband President Juan Peron was ousted in a coup in 1955 and he fled to Europe. Eva’s body was held for 3 years at the HQ of the labour unions, but in 1955 it was seized by the military regime fearing it might be used to unite the opposition and the body “disappeared”. The body was secretly spirited out of the country and buried under a false name in a cemetery in Milan Italy. Decades of demands for the body to be returned by Eva’s family were finally answered in 1974 when the body was handed to Juan Peron, living in Spain. In 1976 Juan returned to Argentina as President and Eva was finally buried in her family Mausoleum at Recoleta. Her body had been attacked and mutilated in several ways during its period of abduction.

Into The Devil's Throat

We spent two wonderful days visiting the Iguazu Falls.

We arrived in the town of Puerto Iguazu on Saturday night last week and discovered that there was a Bikie convention in town. You couldn’t move in the streets but some of the bikes were whacky and interesting. We stumbled across a little cafe in the market place and had dinner consisting of empanadas and a mixed platter of cheese, olives, ham and salami. We then went off to get ice creams where we had a lovely chat with Roger from Peru who told us that his nephew is studying at Melbourne Uni.

Everyone says that you need to visit both the Argentine side and the Brazilian side so that’s what we did. We decided to go to the Brazilian side first because the weather forecast suggested that it would be sunny on Sunday morning but rainy and cloudy for the remainder of Sunday and Monday. As the view from the Brazilian side is said to be more panoramic the guide books recommend going to that side if it’s sunny. As it turned out it was sunny all day - and what that really means is that you get to see fabulous Rainbows.

Here are some photos from the Brazilian side.

The following day we went to the Argentine side. We decided that we’d do an activity, which included a short drive in a four wheel drive truck down to the river bed and then about 15 minutes in a speed boat that takes you up to and under some of the falls. It was quite expensive and a waste of time for a number of reasons including that it started pelting down rain as soon as we left. Getting wet under the falls was the least of our problems.

Once our activity was over we started looking at the falls themselves and we decided that we preferred the Argentine side because you get up close to many of the falls and there are kilometres and kilometres of walking tracks. The outstanding fall is the gigantic ’devil’s throat’ which you can’t help feeling is going to suck you over the edge at any moment. The sun also came out as the day went on which helped us to dry out.

Being in National Parks, there were of course the obligatory nature shots.

Loping to Regugio Lopez

Blogger had a melt down and this particular post disappeared for a week.  It is now back, but without the accompanying text.  So here is a brief recap.  We did a hike up to Refugio Lopez, which was a very steep climb with stunning views back over the lakes.  The Refugio would normally be closed by now, but an enthusiastic young man has managed to talk the Refugio owner in to letting him operate it over winter for the first time as a place for cross country skiiers to come.  Good luck I say as I don't see much flat land about, and the walk up is hell.  In fact we took the much longer 4x4 track back down as the descent was going to be too taxing in an un-fun way.

Anyway more beautiful autumn colours and stunning lakes and mountains.

Road Trip (Pt 2)

Finally the day arrived to drive the Ruta de los Siete Lagos (Route of the Seven Lakes). After the great hiking opportunites, this was the next most important reason for visiting the Lakes District. The drive is 110 Kms running between Villa La Angostura in the south and San Martin de Los Andes in the north. About 65 kms is on dirt roads - which you get used to in rural Argentina.

We got away by 9 and as usual it was quite cold at between 0 and 5 degrees. There were more pretty 'frosticles' on flowers.

This is a picture of the mosqueta berry which gets made into jam in these parts. I don't mind it although it's more sour than sweet.

These are pictures of a little lake - we'll call it a laguna - that wasn't even one of the feature 7 lakes. It was just beautiful in the cold grey morning light with mist rising off the water and the mountains in the background.

Loved the splash of colour from the tree with the orange leaves, reflecting in the lovely still lake.

More pretty lakes.

Deep coloured river (with parts of a former bridge still standing) running into another lovely lake.

At one point the road ran alongside a river and at the same time the sun came out so we hopped out of the car and spend a wonderful 20 minutes taking lotsss of photos. Amazing editing by Dale to pick out these 2 as the highlights.

Another lovely lake surrounded by trees changing colour with snow capped mountains in the background.

Evidence that we'd been driving on dirt roads. Also more car trivia from Dale: This is an Opel Corsa (B), the sedan version of the Holden Barina sold in Australia between 1994 and 2001, and now 2 generations superceeded in Europe. Quite a cute little car and a pity that GM neglected the potential of sedan versions for RHD markets.

On our final day in Bariloche Dale decided to wash the car but this had its complications because he felt that he couldn't make it look too good in case it made the car hire people suspicious. ie. you cannot possibly keep a hire car pristine with all the dirt roads around Bariloche. He did a good job although the car hire people we were dealing with didn't seem to care much about the state of the car. When Diego checked the car in the dark at Bariloche airport his main concern was to let Dale know that the car hire company wasn't operating anymore and that in the future we should use his new rental company.

The Cascada Vullinanco. We thought it was beautiful. Of course we've since been to the Iguazu Falls.

We drove a few kilometres off the main road to look at a lake and were met by this cat as soon as we got out of the car. He was very vocal and friendly - like almost all the cats we've met in Argentina - and was no doubt looking for food. A cat also visited us at the Bariloche house a number of nights and we obliged by giving him a little food. The dogs on the other hand are feral and disgusting and are everywhere. They are allowed to roam about the streets and do so in packs. We think that the cats are friendly to humans because they are trying to get away from all the disgusting dogs.

After a lovely evening in San Martin de los Andes - more shopping and good food - we drove back via Villa Traful along a very challenging dirt road. This little (almost non existent) town is on the shores on Lake Traful which is stunning but we didn't hang around because it was blowing a gale and was cold.

A photo from the second floor of the house in Bariloche with a dramatic sky over the lake.