Unlike our visit to Santiago, our time in Buenos Aires did not entail us leaving the city to see other places. As with our visit to Santiago, we did have the benefit of a city tour. A good tour, though perhaps there was a little much political commentary included. Our fault (well, not mine!) for asking, I guess. And hey, it kept us grounded in an actual local perspective rather than just on a level of what tourists might enjoy.
The first stop on the tour was in the nearby Recoleta neighbourhood. En route there, we passed a park where, at a little after 9 in the morning, stalls were being set up for a market. Artisans and craftspeople, local goods and wares. I had to chuckle when the guide, Romina, told us that if we show up early for the market, there will be nothing there save for vendors asking us to pitch in to set up. Buenos Aires, she said, is not an early morning city. Nor was Santiago, we noticed, judging by what time Starbucks opened. We drove past and parked near the Recoleta Cemetery.
I'm not a cemetery person. Yes, they can be peaceful and lovely, and there is a lot of history contained within them, but I don't find them especially interesting. No, I'm not creeped out, I just don't find them exciting to visit. So I was a little skeptical of visiting the cemetery, especially since the focal point for many is the tomb in which Eva Peron is interred.
And sure enough, there were plenty of tourists around it.
That said, looking at the tombs from the perspective of art and architecture, through the lens of the histories of local communities (we noticed a lot of Armenian names, for example), even as insight into real estate was all quite interesting. Romina did an excellent job of fielding questions, and I came away from that visit happy enough to know a little more of Buenos Aires.
Next up, a quick stop at the opera house. We had driven past, and Natasha - an opera fan - wanted to see it close up. So we did! What was cool was the corridor that had once been the passageway through which carriages passed as they dropped off opera attendees.
We paused for a moment in the cool interior and relished that break from the summer heat.
Onward! The Plaza de Mayo was where we then went to.
Romina pointed out the Casa Rosada to us
(think of the Don't Cry for Me, Argentina balcony - that's the building) and the diapers painted on the plaza tile.
It's here that the Mothers of the Disappeared staged their protests, growing and splintering and never yet forgotten. A dark part of the country's more recent history.
An arguably brighter spot was across the street. The Metropolitan Cathedral was home to the current Pope, Francis. The building doesn't dominate the plaza - from up close, it's not entirely easy to guess that it's a house of worship at all - but inside it's grand and fine.
We caught the changing of the guard at the Mausoleum of General San Martin,
which had a stream of people flowing past the tomb, but some of the smaller pieces in the building also caught my eye.
Of note (and I took no photo) was the space devoted to memorializing Jews lost to the Holocaust.
Next up: a short stop in San Telmo, the oldest neighbourhood of the city, and one with grand old homes that were carved up into tenements and now house apartments, shops, and other businesses.
We poked in a store or two before heading to La Boca. Once in that neighbourhood, we paused for a light bite and some shopping (well, the others shopped), and then wandered along the Caminito.
Natasha commented to me that the colourful street (the buildings were historically painted with a mishmash of leftover ship paints) was the most Latin American we had seen, which struck me as an odd comment. I mean, everything that we saw in South American was essentially Latin American. The Caminito is, frankly, a tourist site. Yes, there are people who live there, but the businesses were all geared toward tourist dollars, and I felt it was authentic to Latin America as Bourbon Street is to New Orleans - offering one perspective but only one and not an every day one. I didn't mind leaving that part of the city behind.
We drove past some fine buildings and sights on our way back to Palermo, and I was sorry we didn't see some more. I was sorrier that the weather was so warm - in milder weather I would have wanted to get on the subway and go to other parts of the city. Just the same, though, we did get to see at least some different neighbourhoods and get out on foot a few times. I wish I had had a similar experience in Santiago.
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