Monday - Tango all the way!

The day was planned. But it had to be changed. We woke up early and really excited to go to Uruguay! Yes, another country, but you can easily access it by a one hour boat ride from Buenos Aires. But we got to the harbour too late and there were no seats left on any of the boat for the day. We felt disapointed because Colonia of Sacramento was on the top of our list of things to see and do.

Nerver mind... the day went on just perfectly and now we have a reason to come back to Buenos and visit Uruguay.

These photos are from the harbour area called Puerto Madero, definitely a place worth a visit.

But if you are rushing to get to the BUQUEBUS to get the boat, it's better to get the bus 152, from Plaza Del Mayo to drop you off at the boat terminal.

Ah, it helps if you are NOT pregnant, so you don't have to stop every five minutes to go pee. BTW, I should write about Buenos Aires washrooms, since I feel like I've used most of them!

Here is the bus 152, very useful!

We took it all the way from the harbour area to the famous neighbourhood of La Boca.

La Boca is known mostly for it's stadium (home of Boca Juniors)
and its bohemian style, but over all it's not a nice neighborhood to visit.

It's poor and looks rundown, but we are glad we came to see it.

Here is where the fun is!

I would imagine that this block was one day a hot spot for tango lovers and bohemians, but today, it's an area for tourists to think about tango and a Buenos Aires that might not exist anymore.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: La Boca is a neighborhood, or barrio of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It retains a strong European flavour, with many of its early settlers being from the Italian city of Genoa. In fact the name has a strong assonance with the Genoese neighborhood of Boccadasse (or Bocadaze in Genoese dialect), and some people believe that the Buenos Aires barrio was indeed named after it. The conventional explanation is that the neighborhood sits at the mouth ("boca" in Spanish) of the Riachuelo.

In 1882, after a lengthy general strike, La Boca seceded from Argentina, and the rebels raised the Genoese flag, which was immediately torn down personally by then President Julio Argentino Roca.
It is known among sports fans for La Bombonera the home of Boca Juniors, one of the world's best known football clubs. La Boca is a popular destination for tourists visiting Argentina, with its colourful houses and pedestrian street, the Caminito, where tango artists perform and tango-related memorabilia is sold. Other attractions include the La Ribera theatre, many tango clubs and Italian taverns.
It has also been a centre for radical politics, having elected the first socialist member of the Argentine Congress (Alfredo Palacios in 1935) and was home to many demonstrations during the crisis of 2001.
As one of Buenos Aires's 48 barrios, La Boca is located in the city's south-east near its old port. The barrio of Barracas is to the west; San Telmo and Puerto Madero are to the north. In La Boca many of the residents are of mixed European descent. Mainly Italian, Spanish, German, French, Arab and Basque.

For a few pesos tourists can feel like they are tango dancer and bring home a photo with a hot Argentinean showing them the moves. These street artists are everywhere, like the super heroes at Hollywood Boulevard, in LA.

This was probably the coolest looking bar and restaurant in the area. The owner did a great job keeping the bohemian atmosphere alive. Mike had a beer there (right at the corner when la Boca Starts, in front of the Caminito) and I, of course, tried their washroom.

Anyone can dance tango here!

At least for the cameras.

The Caminito, which now houses souvenier stores, including one of the most famous Alfajore brand: Havanna.

If you go upstairs and buy a souvenier, you can take a photo from a balcony, with Maradonna.

I did it... strangling him.

Some restaurants have tango performers to entertain their costumers... and people just walking on the streets, like us.

I love the colourful old houses, caractheristic of the place.

This fellow is enjoying the tango life!

Mikezinho having a good time.

It was a very hot day.

You just walk around clicking your camera away.

It's a great place to take photos!

Here are the three most famous Aregntineans.

From left to right: soccer player Maradonna, former first lady Eva Peron, and, I think, tango singer Carlos Gardel.

What a beautiful and pleasant place.

In the end, we were almost glad we missed Uruguay.

He is everywhere.

I wouldn't normally post a Maradonna picture on my blog, but this is just to show how he is loved here (not by me!!).

This is La Boca's old market.

A very interesting place, worth a walk.

Me right after our amazing lunch: breaded beef, french fries and salad.

A local man... probably remembering the tango good times.

* * * TANGO NIGHT!!!! * * *

If you go to New Orleans you must see a blues...

Lisbon, a Fado.

In Rio de Janeiro you cannot miss samba.

Here, you must see a tango night!

There are many different theatres and shows offering an authentic tango night, but we choose one of the classics, the Esquina Carlos Gardel.

For 420 pesos, or about CAN $130 a person, you can have a delicious three courses meal and the show in a fancy theater.

The tango couple.

How do you like Mike's new Argentinean shirt, bought especially for the tango night?

FROM WIKIPEDIA: Carlos Gardel (11 December 1887 or 1890 – 24 June 1935) was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. His birthplace is disputed between Uruguay and France. He lived in Argentina from the age of two and acquired Argentine citizenship in 1923. He grew up in the Abasto neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He attended Pio IX Industrial high-school located in the Almagro neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He died in an airplane crash at the height of his career, becoming an archetypal tragic hero mourned throughout Latin America. For many, Gardel embodies the soul of the tango style. He is commonly referred to as "Carlitos", "El Zorzal" (The Song Thrush), "The King of Tango", "El Mago" (The Magician) and "El Mudo" (The Mute).

The show is really beautiful and the music is amazing, all by Carlos Gardel.

The unerring musicality of Gardel's baritone voice and the dramatic phrasing of his lyrics made miniature masterpieces of his hundreds of three-minute tango recordings. Together with lyricist and long-time collaborator Alfredo Le Pera, Gardel wrote several classic tangos, most notably: Mi Buenos Aires querido, Cuesta abajo, Amores de estudiante, Soledad, Volver, Por una cabeza and El día que me quieras.

You just feel like going home and practising some moves.

I guess it would be a bit hard with my new belly.

There are a couple of singers and about seven pairs of dancers, all amazing.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: Tango dance and tango music originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata, and spread to the rest of the world soon after.
Early tango was known as tango criollo, or simply tango. Today, there are many tango dance styles, including Argentine tango, Uruguayan tango, Ballroom tango (American and International styles), Finnish tango, and vintage tangos. What many consider to be the authentic tango is that closest to that originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay, though other types of tango have developed into mature dances in their own right.
In 2009, Argentina and Uruguay suggested the Tango to be inscribed onto the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists, in October of the same year UNESCO approved it.

But for me the most surprising was the orchestra, formed by very young people.

They were incredible!
I am afraid this boy here is under age! :)

It was a remarkable night!

This closes our trip to Buenos Aires in high style!

Sunday - from San Telmo to Recoleta

If you are in Buenos Aires on a Sunday, you must visit San Telmo's market, an open air antique market right at the hippie neighbourhood of San Telmo. It seems that the whole population was there with the tourists, of course. You can find old things, as well as art pieces - photographs and paintings - artcrafts and clothes.

Make sure you wear a good pair of shoes. You will certainly walk a lot. The market main street goes on for about 10 blocks!!!
All the way to the Plaza Del Mayo.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: San Telmo ("Saint Pedro González Telmo") is the oldest barrio (neighborhood) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is a well-preserved area of the Argentine metropolis and is characterized by its colonial buildings. Cafes, tango parlors and antique shops line the cobblestone streets, which are often filled with artists and dancers.
San Telmo's attractions include old churches (e.g. San Pedro Telmo), museums, antique stores and a semi-permanent antique fair (Feria de Antigüedades) in the main public square, Plaza Dorrego. Tango-related activities for both locals and tourists are in the area.

Sombreros= hats!

I love the characters that you find just hanging out there.

It was impressive to see the number of Brazilian tourists. They were speaking Portuguese everywhere, a real difference from 15 years ago when Argentineans used to come to Brazil for vacations. Our turn now!

You can find pretty much everything there!

Me showing off my 4 and half months pregnant belly while enjoying the hot weather at the market.

This lady was dancing tango, right there on the street.

It's a great place to take pictures, but we were warned many times to really be careful with our bags and cameras.

Girls are selling home made empanadas on every corner.

We went in the San Telmo Market (an indoor one). There they sell antiques, clothes, art crafts and food. It's an old and almost ugly place. But because of its picturesque look, it turns into an original and fun little place.

We decided to eat in the market. It's not the cleanest place, but for 20 pesos (about 6 dollars) we had a delicious meal with meat loaf and french fries.

Our waiter
making some meat empanadas.

They also sell fruits and vegetable like any other market.

Here Mike was trying to bargain, but they are tough! He walked away and the lady didn't want to settled at 5 pesos less, or less than 2 dollars.

This main street (Defensa street) is packed with people and hippies selling theit stuff on both side walks.

Sometimes it's hard to move foward.

After hours of walking, we got to the Plaza Del Mayo and headed to another part of the city: the Recoleta neighbourhood.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: Recoleta is a downtown residential neighborhood in the city of Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina; it is an area of great historical and architectural interest, due, particularly to the Recoleta Cemetery located there. It is also an important tourist destination and cultural center of the city.
It is also considered one of the more affluent neighborhoods, and the cost per square meter/foot of real estate is one of the highest in the city.
The Recoleta is accessible by the “D Line” of the Buenos Aires Subway which passes through the neighborhood.

This place was also very busy with local families and tourists enjoying the sunny Sunday.

There are people walking dogs everywhere in the areas that we visited. The sad part is that I don't think people are used to cleaning up after their puppies. There is dog poopo all over the sidewalks. Watch out when you walk around!

We also visited the famous Recoleta Cemetery.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: La Recoleta Cemetery is a famous cemetery located in the exclusive Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It contains the graves of some of the most important Argentines, including Eva Perón, Raúl Alfonsín, and several presidents of Argentina.

The monks of the Order of the Recoletos arrived in this area, then the outskirts of Buenos Aires, in the early eighteenth century. The cemetery is built around their convent and a church, Our Lady of Pilar, built in 1732. The order was disbanded in 1822, and the garden of the convent was converted into the first public cemetery in Buenos Aires. Those responsible for its creation were the then-Governor Martin Rodriguez (buried here) and government minister, Bernardino Rivadavia. The 1822 layout was done by city architect and civil engineer Próspero Catelin, who also designed the current facade of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral.
During the 1870s, following the epidemic of yellow fever which ravaged the city, many upper-class Buenos Aires neighborhoods fled San Telmo and Montserrat and moved to the northern part of the city, Recoleta. By becoming a high class neighborhood, the cemetery became the final resting place of the families of greatest prestige and power of Buenos Aires.
The cemetery was remodeled in 1881, while Torcuato de Alvear was mayor of the city, by the Italian architect Juan Antonio Buschiazzo. The property contains room for about 4800 vaults, all above ground.

The entrance to the cemetery is through neo-classical gates with tall Greek columns. The cemetery contains many elaborate marble mausoleums, decorated with statues, in a wide variety of architectural styles. The entire cemetery is laid out in sections like city blocks, with wide tree-lined main walkways branching into sidewalks filled with mausoleums.
While many of the mausoleums are in fine shape and well-maintained, others have fallen into disrepair. Several can be found with broken glass and littered with rubbish. Among many memorials are works by notable Argentine sculptors. The tomb of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak is of special interest.
Each mausoleum bears the family name etched into the facade; brass or bronze plaques are added to the front for particular family members. La Recoleta is one of those cemeteries where the tradition of engraving a death date but no birth date has been maintained.
The cemetery was featured in the educational film Destinos as the final resting spot of a wife of the main character.

But the most visited tomb is by far the grave of Eva Peron, former first lady of Argentina, who died in 1952.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

María Eva Duarte de Perón ( 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952) was the second wife of President Juan Perón (1895–1974) and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.
She was born out of wedlock in the village of Los Toldos in rural Argentina in 1919, the fourth of five children. In 1934, at the age of 15, she went to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires, where she pursued a career as a stage, radio, and film actress. Eva met Colonel Juan Perón on January 22, 1944, in Buenos Aires during a charity event at the Luna Park Stadium to benefit the victims of an earthquake in San Juan, Argentina. The two were married the following year. In 1946, Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina. Over the course of the next six years, Eva Perón became powerful within the pro-Peronist trade unions, primarily for speaking on behalf of labor rights. She also ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.
In 1951, Eva Perón renounced the Peronist nomination for the office of Vice President of Argentina. In this bid, she received great support from the Peronist political base, low-income and working class Argentines who were referred to as descamisados or "shirtless ones". However, opposition from the nation's military and bourgeoisie, coupled with her declining health, ultimately forced her to withdraw her candidacy. In 1952 shortly before her death from cancer at the age of 33, Eva Perón was given the official title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation" by the Argentine Congress. Eva Perón was given an official state funeral despite the fact that she was not an elected head of state.
Eva Perón has become a part of international popular culture, most famously as the subject of the musical Evita. Cristina Alvarez Rodriguez, Evita's great niece, claims that Evita has never left the collective conscience of Argentines. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the first female elected President of Argentina, claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Eva for "her example of passion and combativeness".

It was a busy and pleasant day. These two places (San Telmo and Recoleta) are places that any tourist should visit in Buenos Aires, for sure.

The day finished close to our hotel in a local restaurant with good food.

It's time to rest because tomorrow will be our last day here.