Portenos are, in Spanish, people who are from or who live in a port city. The residents of Argentina’s capital city, Buenos Aires have been calling themselves portenos since the end of the 19th Century. It is often said that these portenos are arrogant, and abrasive; distinguishing themselves from everybody else as they live ‘in the best city in the world’.
We arrived by bus in the evening of 22nd July to Buenos Aires, and were warned by the couchsurfer host we would be staying with to avoid spending too much time in the bus station, Retiro, as it was extremely dangerous. This did not sound like a ringing endorsement of a city that labels itself as the best in the world. On arrival, we gathered our bags from the bus, and made our way, fairly quickly, to the taxi rank. On first inspection Retiro did not seem so bad. I think a lot of people do get mugged here, but we stuck to the main hallways and escalators, where other people from the bus had gathered (including some Orthodox Jews, one of which hilariously lot his hat and could not find it – I found it on the floor and gave it back to him). The taxi whisked us away from any unperceived dangers, and within 20 minutes we had arrived at Diego’s place, in the North of the city, in Nunez.
Diego welcomed us to his place with a whirlwind of information, and he made us feel at home instantly. He is an experienced couchsurfer who hosts, surfs and attends couchsurfer events. We relaxed that night, and the next day we caught up on making a plan for Buenos Aires. Neither of us had really done enough research yet, so we spent the day checking reviews, and making a plan so we would not miss anything we wanted to see.
On the 24th we got up and decided to take a bus into the center, and go on a free walking tour. The tour was run by an English guy called Jonathan, who had lived in Buenos Aires for years, and was a wealth of information about the city, it’s inhabitants and goings on, past and present. We had found the tour on tripadvisor – it was called balocaltours, and started in one of the big plazas called Plaza Italia in the North of the Palermo district. The tour promised to be an all encompassing experience, mixing history with the practicalities of how to navigate around the city.
Arriving a little early, we waited for the tour to start, still unsure as to how Buenos Aires felt; was it safe? Still, it did not feel anything like as dark and dingy as Northern Brazil, so we just stuck to being careful and low key.
Soon, we noticed the guide sitting a little away from us, and we made our way over. After introductions, and waiting a little while for anyone else to show up, we all realized that it was only going to be us three on the tour.
Our first orientation was to realize where we were. Buenos Aires is a port on the Rio de la Plata (silver river, or river plate), the world’s widest river at 220km at the mouth (although I still think it is an estuary and not a river at this point). We were in Plaza Italia which is located right next to the city zoo, which, Jonathan told us, was not really worth a visit. The French gardens that surrounded the plaza were created in 1890 by Italian architects, as was most of the surrounding area, hence the name dedicated to the Italian immigrants.
A statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi on horseback was our main meeting point. Garibaldi is considered a ‘hero of the two worlds’, referring to his military campaigns in Italy (the Old World), and in Uruguay (the New World). Although he fought in Uruguay, it seems his most amazing works were back in Italy decades later when he was one of the first politicians to call for democracy, women’s suffrage and the abolition of all ecclesiastical property.
We also learnt that there are about 3 million people in Buenos Aires proper, and around 13 million in the metropolitan area around it. A large number of these people are descended from the large number of Spanish and Italian immigrants that flooded the region in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It is those Italian immigrants who are honored in the name of this plaza.
We then jumped on a bus with Jonathan and headed to Abasto; a thriving community that is part of the larger neighborhood Balvanera. This area became a huge Jewish community in the 1920’s, and in fact Buenos Aires holds the 4th largest Jewish population after Israel, New York and Paris.
This is also the area of Carlos Gardel – the most famous tango singer in history. I thought tango was just a dance but there is a whole lot more. It is a whole music, an ethos and a way of life for some people. Carlos Gardel’s house was our next visit, and we learnt about his life and tragic early death – which Francesca will cover when she writes about our visit to the house (which is now a museum).
The houses around Abasto, particularly near the Gardel museum are covered in fileteado artwork. Used for decorating almost anything from houses to cars, fileteado is usually a brightly colored painting, with symmetry, slogans, depth, a painted frame, symbolism and, more often that not, the Argentine flag.
Jonathan then also pointed out something Francesca had already told me about. By the side of the road was a little red box, with a statue in it. This is Gaucho Gil, a legendary man who people now prey to. Antonio Gil Mamerto Gil was born in the 1840s and died in 1878. After fighting in the army, legend has it, he deserted and became a Robin Hood figure. Once caught, he was hung by his feet fro a tree by the police. He told the police office who was going to execute him that his (the officer’s) son was ill and would die unless Gil was allowed to go free. The policeman cut Gil’s throat, and he died. When the officer got home he discovered his son was indeed ill! He preyed to Gil and his son got better and lived. The cop built a shrine to Gil and he entered into legend as a Gaucho saint.
There is now a move to canonize Gaucho Gil by many Argentinians, but, for now it seems, the Catholic church are not too happy about a saint who grants prayers both good, and bad. There is still a festival held for Gaucho Gil on January 8th (the day he supposedly died), and many people tie red ribbons to their vehicles in his honor too.
We next took a walk over to the Abasto de Buenos Aires. Built in 1893 as a fruit and vegetable wholesale market, the original building went through a redesign by Slovenian art deco architects in the 30s. This central market was relocated in 1984 (still confusingly called Mercado Central even though it is now located outside the city), and the building was left derelict. Eventually, someone had the bright idea to make this a mall, and in 1999 it was reopened as such. With the Jewish population largely intact in the area, the mall houses the only Kosher McDonalds outside Israel.
After stopping for some lunch and coffee we then took the subway to Congresso, which as it’s name suggests is the seat of government in Argentina. The Congressional Palace was built in 1906 by Vittorio Meano in Greco-Roman style. There is a 3000 ton dome on top styled after the Washington DC Capitol building, in weathered-green bronze. The main entrance, or Entrada de Honor, is now only used for ceremonial occasions. The building is mostly made of white marble and is greatly in need of a clean. Like the Congress in Montevideo though, they cannot afford to get this done.
This was another building that Francesca visited later on an internal tour, so she will write about that later. In the meantime we started walking up the main street of Avenida de Mayo, but before we got there we saw a Coke Life van giving out free samples. I had not heard of this before, but apparently it is Coke with no caffeine – anyone else heard of this? They had run out of chilled samples though so we did not get one. Boo!
We then went to see the Monumento de los dos Congresos, which is in front of the Congress building. This monument, designed by a Belgian architect, is a bronze monument to the centenary of Argentine independence. The main statue represents the Republic, while there are huge birds around it, like the lions of Trafalgar Square, which are huge condors. It looks really cool, but unfortunately, when it was opened people started sleeping on it, putting graffiti on it and even washing and bathing in the fountain, so now it is surrounded by a metal fence.
The next few things we saw in the Plaza de los Dos Congressos (Plaza of two congresses), were a bronze cast of Rodin’s The Thinker (which was vandalized in 2011 – painted pink, with green hair and a shoulder tattoo!), another Ombu tree, this one 140 years old (those things are really everywhere!), and the Zero Point. This is a marker to indicate the 0km for all other Argentine road markers. Made from stone it is a few meters high with a map of Argentine on it.
Jonathan then showed us a very interesting building called Palacio Borolo which was built to hold Dante’s remains. We did not enter the building but we did manage to get on a tour a few days later.
We finally walked the mile and a half to the Plaza de Mayo at the end of the long Avenida de Mayo. This plaza is the main focal point of tourism and also holds the Government House, the casa rosada (the pink house), due to the old practice of using bull’s blood mixed with white paint to protect against humidity. Nowadays it is just maintained that color. The guide told us that this plaza is a huge focal point for Argentine history. It was the scene of the 25th May 1810 revolution that led to independence, the 1945 demonstrations against the imprisonment of Juan Peron who went on to become President, the subsequent bombing intended to overthrow Peron in 1955, the military coup d’etat against Peron that led to the dictatorship rule from 1976, and the more recent rioting against the government's economic strategies and sanctions.
We stopped outside the casa rosada and Jonathan told us a little of it’s history. It is asymmetrical because part of the building on the right side was knocked down to make way for the street (Buenos Aires is planned in a grid fashion, much like New York). It was the original site of the fort that protected the city back in 1594, and has evolved into the building it is today. In the late 19th Century, so as not to be outshone by the new post office headquarters that had been built, the final part of the fort was replaced with the casa rosada as it is today, complete with the long sweeping balcony. This balcony was where Jonathan told us Maradonna celebrated from, in front of huge crowds, when Argentina won the 1984 World Cup, and also where Eva Peron (Evita) famously addressed her adoring crowds. We would go on a tour of the house a few days later.
The last thing Francesca and I noticed were the fences and around the square with all of the demonstration banners and encampments. Much like the Parliament Square protests in London, the ones in Buenos Aires are also perpetually present. There are the banners against legal abortion, the economic mismanagement and, as elections are drawing close, against the governing party. The veterans encampment, where soldiers (many of whom were not even deployed) who were enlisted during the Falklands conflict are seeking compensation for the psychological trauma of losing the war. Lastly, there are strange drawings on the floor all around the Piramide de Mayo that represent headscarves. These headscarves themselves represent a group calling themselves the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who began protesting here in 1977 after people (their children and grandchildren) began disappearing during the Dirty War when the dictatorship would execute those who they found a threat.
Since the dictatorship ended, the military itself named the period ‘the Dirty War’, as they showed no contrition over what they had done; rather labeling their actions as necessary to protect the country. It is said around 30,000 of ‘the disappeared’ were drugged and then flown out to the Rio de la Plata and thrown, alive, out of the planes to their deaths. Since the handover back to a civilian government in the 1980s, many bodies have been found and DNA tested, and many of the men responsible for the junta have been imprisoned.
Perhaps the worst part of this tragedy is that many of the pregnant women who were forced to disappear were forced to give birth before being executed, and as a final insult, their children were raised by friends of the junta. Many children born in the 1980s have undergone secret DNA testing to find out if their parents are who they say they are, with some children finding out the horrible truths that their adoptive parents were complicit in killing their birth parents. A truly screwed up situation, in which more people have been bought to justice.
Jonathan left us then, after a whirlwind tour, and as it was mid afternoon, we decided to fit in some more. We headed around the back of the casa rosada to the Museo del Bicentenario, which is a government museum telling the history of Argentina. Everything was in Spanish in this museum at the time we visited so it has limited touristic appeal. It does have some good objects from Argentina’s history though, and also, randomly, it contains an exhibition which consists of a whole basement that they excavated and rebuilt, within the museum, to preserve the artwork inside. The art is viewed by lying down, and it looks like dozens of naked women are looking at you from the water as you are in a glass bubble. They asked us all if we could spot the only man in the mural, and I saw it first! We were not allowed to take pictures, but I got one of the web, below.
We had heard that the museum viewed the history of Argentina, especially recent history, with rose-tinted glasses, which might be why it is only in Spanish. The intended audience is Argentine children who come to learn about the country’s history and find out that their current Kirchner government is amazing! The President, Cristina Kirchner never appears without a picture of Evita near her, and parties of all political stripes claim the Peronista badge for themselves. We decided to find out more about the Perons as they are still so larger than life in current Argentina as they were when they were in power together in the 1950s.
We decided to get on the subway (Buenos Aires’ subway is pretty good, and it is subsidized in true Peronista fashion – the government pay half of all the journeys everyone makes), and we made our way to the Museu Evita, a museum dedicated to all things Eva Peron.
Francesca and I knew very little about Eva Peron up to this point. We knew she was now almost a mythical figure of love for many Argentine’s, and also considered a harlot by her detractors. We found out she was born outside of Buenos Aires as an illegitimate child to a poor family; a beginning that would haunt and drive her for her whole life. Eva, or Evita as she was known, found herself in a relationship with a visiting tango singer. They both eloped to Buenos Aires, and so started Eva’s ascent, through the various men she slept with, up through the world’s of film and radio celebrity.
After years of successes, Eva Duarte as she was known (her maiden name) met Secretary of Labor, Juan Peron. Peron was considered the leading force behind the government, and it was his efforts to aid workers and, notably, earthquake victims (he met Eva through these efforts), that he gained more and more power, until the president ordered his arrest in 1945.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched against the president at the casa rosada demanding Peron’s release. Eva, his mistress at the time, is now credited in organizing these rallies, but this is almost certainly false. Many Argentinian stories are just that, stories, but it did not take Peron long to decide to wed Eva after he was released, which at the time caused a huge scandal. For a man like Peron to wed his illegitimate mistress was unthinkable, and many people, including those in the military would never forgive either of them.
Peron won his first term as president in 1946 and his terms became known for record social spending. In three short years the economy started to run out of control with all the spending, and Peron started showing signs of classic dictatorship, throwing everyone and anyone into jail who opposed him. Whole university faculties fled the country to Mexico or the US, closing the schools, in some cases, for years. Peron was a noted fascist, throwing his supports behind Mussolini during the war, and providing safe haven for many Nazis in the years after the war (including Mengele and Eichmann in 1947).
Keeping the people on track however was Eva. Her speeches and social justice programs promised the world to the select poor, and they got it. Some poor families won the Evita lottery and were given new houses, and bags of money, all in the presence of the news crews of course. Many others were totally left behind.
Another legacy that secured Evita’s fame amongst her loyal supporters was her support for women’s suffrage. This was secured in 1947, and during their time in the casa rosada, Eva also threw open the decrepit and disused buildings of the Plaza de Mayo and used them as soup kitchens. Her detractors call all of these maneuvers as political at best, and plain corrupt at worst. So much of the nation’s money moved through Evita’s charities unchecked and undocumented, no-one will ever know how much money was skimmed off the top.
By 1951 the Peron’s seemed like an unstoppable force, but the military, still sore from their loss of face when Peron had to be released, stopped a Peron-Evita ticket by trying to stage a military coup. It failed, but Evita was sidelined. When Peron swept back into power Evita appeared in public to support him for the last time. She died of ovarian cancer in July 1952.
During her political life, Evita had championed the poor, made her fortune from her charities, had been elevated to the status of vice-president candidate by popular demand, and had gotten revenge on all the people who slighted her on her rise to power. She had gotten dozens of her fellow actors and actresses blacklisted for real or perceived insults, and stood by while her husband became a bullying dictator. Her acting skills really helped her get to the top, and Francesca wondered aloud that if JFK had been single, maybe Marilyn would have been another Evita. Both women died tragically young, Marilyn from drugs and Evita from an easily treatable disease, possibly manifested from an STD she caught when sleeping her way to power, possibly caught from her husband (he was sterile, and his previous wife died of the same thing).
It is sacrilege to consider such things for some Argentinians though, and we were left wondering this when the museum began to close. We left and made our way to another museum we had on our list which we knew was open late that night.
We arrived at MALBA, or the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, to a massive one hour queue of people at 6pm on Wednesday night. It took much debate but we decided to wait and see if we could get in. Outside there were some cool looking trees wrapped in red material with white spots. Also there was an art installation which was essentially a massive noise register. The louder you scream the higher the lights go on the 5 meter high block outside the entrance.
We just made it in with a about half hour to get around the whole thing, which for seasoned museum goers like Francesca and me is pretty easy, especially when dealing with most modern art! Once inside we realized that most of the people had come to see a famous Japanese artist called Yayoi Kusama who works using various media, including paint, sculpture and even performance art.
We visited the top floor where Kusama had her exhibits first, which mostly consisted of repetitive patterns of colored dots. These came in many shapes and sizes, including a stack of stickers that visitors could stick all over the gallery, anywhere they liked! My favorite room was one where the colored dots were now lights that changed color: little LEDs dangling from the ceiling in an otherwise darkened room.
We were all herded out of MALBA just after 8pm, and Francesca and I walked back to find a taxi to get back to our couchsurfing apartment.
The next day, the 25th July was another big day planned. With two walking tours planned. These ones were with the bafreetour, but our research and the itinerary of the tour were not so good, and we unfortunately covered most of what we had covered the day before. We did learn a few extra things though. When we walked up the Avenida de Mayo between Congress and the casa rosada, we stopped at Café Tortoni, which is a famous café designed after the 19th Century Parisian cafes.
We learnt that many famous people used to frequent this café, and that it was voted in the top ten of the best cafes in the world. They serve a submarine here, which is essentially a warm toddy of milk with a chocolate bar that you drop into the milk turning it into milk chocolate! Nice!
After crossing the second widest Avenue in the world (Brazil’s Monumental Axis is the widest), we headed back to the Plaza de Mayo, and we saw the same buildings we saw with Jonathan the previous day. Our guide told us that during the dictatorship, the room in the casa rosada which was Evita’s room was changed from pink to grey. After the civilian government were restored the room was again painted pink. A grim suppressive reality.
Our guide also pointed out the cabildo building, a huge colonial church-like building which acted as the colonial Spanish government town house. It was originally built in 1610 but soon fell into disrepair. They began to reconstruct it in 1725, and after the 1810 revolution, it was finally finished in 1880. It was the main focus of the May Revolution in 1810. Nowadays it holds a restaurant and museum which we would go into later.
The last thing we saw in the square was the Falkland War protest. This time I got some pictures.
Francesca and I decided to ditch the walking tour at this point, and we headed on ourselves. We walked past the obelisk, a huge Washington Monument-alike on the main Avenida 9 de Julio. Located in the Plaza de Republica, the Obelisco de Buenos Aires commemorates the location where the first Argentine flag was raised and the fourth centenary of the building of the city.
Francesca and I walked on down the Avenue and found a place to buy our SUBE card. Like an Oyster card in London, it allows you to use the subway and buses (for a discount), without having to use coins on the buses all the time. We topped it up in a kiosk (the place where you buy the card is different from where you can top it up!). At least we would not have to find coins for the bus constantly anymore. We headed to the Teatro Colon, which is the main opera house and theatre in BA. The present theatre was opened in 1908 to Verdi's Aida.
We looked in the tour guide office, but the tickets for foreigners were US$14 each just for a 50 minute tour! For that price I would expect to see a show too, so we wet looking for ticket prices. Everything was sold out for the whole week ahead so we gave up on the theatre and decided to go elsewhere.
The square behind the theatre is called Plaza Lavalle, and here, in the sunshine, we found some great trees. I think they are Jujuy trees, and they have massive sweeping branches that were o big and so heavy they had to have supports to hold them up!
There are some amazing buildings around this area of town. We saw the Synagogue of the Congregation Israelita Argentina (the first synagogue of Buenos Aires), the Teatro Nacional Cervantes and after a bit of a walk, the Palacio de Aguas Corrientes (palace of flowing waters). It was the latter we decided to visit as it was the most architecturally interesting.
Inside the Palacio de Aguas Corrientes are several water companies, and so we saw many people queuing and walking about, paying bills, etc. We went to the upper floors where they have the Heritage Museum. This museum is probably not worth a visit unless you are interested in old sanitary appliances!
Francesca had heard about another mural painted by the same artist who had painted the basement in the museum we went to earlier. David Alfaro Siqueiros had also painted the mural on the ceiling of shopping mall Galerias Pacificos so we went to take a look. He sure likes his naked people!
Our timing had been pretty impeccable at this point as we had about 5 minutes to spare to get to our next walking tour down the road. We were a little worried as it was with the same company who we had ditched on earlier. We needed have worried though, as it was a different tour guide who we met for the evening Recoleta tour. This tour started in the Retiro area and would go through the nicer more expensive areas of the city. We were disappointed to hear that we would not be going into the Recoleta cemetery though.
We met at the statue of San Martin, in San Martin plaza. Jose San Martin is credited as the father of Argentina and the leader of the revolution against the Spanish. His military campaigns included Europe, Chile, Peru and Argentina.
As you can see from the picture, the statue’s horse has only two legs on the ground indicating San Martin died in battle. This is another Argentinian ‘story’: San Martin died an old man at 72.
The group then walked further into the Plaza San Martin where we could see the 250 foot Palladian style clock tower erected by British residents of Buenos Aires to commemorate the centenary of the revolution in 1910. During the 1982 Falklands War they changed the name of the plaza from Plaza Britanica, and the name of the the tower from Torre de los Ingleses (English Tower) to Torre Monumental (Monument Tower).
We then saw four soldiers walking down the hill towards the Argentine flag to take it down, which they do every day. We watched as they marched the final distance to the flag pole, then laughed as they struggled with the ancient mechanism to remove the flag. There was not much ceremony involved, with the flag touching the floor, and then, rather than it being folded up nicely, it was scrunched almost into a ball. After this comic performance the soldiers took photos of themselves at the nearby El Monumento a los caídos en Malvinas (Monument to the fallen in the Falklands). This monument has 25 black plates engraved with the names of the Argentinians who died. They also have the 23 different provincial shields on the monument for each state in Argentina, including, of course, the Falklands. There is supposed to be an eternal flame for the dead, but it was not burning when we visited it. I could not help but think that a country that could not keep an eternal flame lit had no business starting war in the first place. There is a saying here that the Guerra de las Malvinas lasted 2 months 1 week and 5 days because it took the British 2 months and 1 week to get to the Falklands.
The walking tour then made its way down through a very nice and rich neighborhood of the city called Recoleta. This area reminded me of St. Johns Wood in London, even down to the large Jewish presence in the area. Here we saw the Israeli Embassy, which, in 1992 was bombed by the Islamic Jihad Organization. A large suicide bomber exploded a truck here killing mostly Argentine children at a nearby school. There is a small plaza which memorializes the dead, and you can still see holes in the wall where shrapnel entered.
Our guide also told us of another attack in 1994 which was the deadliest bombing attack in Buenos Aires. The Argentine Israelite Mutual Association was bombed and 85 people died and hundreds were injured. The investigation was far reaching. Members of the local police were indicted, and stories of incompetence and cover-ups filled the newspapers. Recently it was reported that two men believed to be responsible for the attacks were in the running for the Iranian Presidency.
We next moved on to Plaza Cataluña which had a small water fountain and a wall at one en with huge windows that were painted on!
We ended our tour outside the Recoleta cemetery where our guide told us a little about its inhabitants! We did a tour inside later though, so Francesca will talk more about that. After an exhausting day, we tried to get back to Diego’s apartment. It took a while to hail a cab so late at night, and I would not recommend walking to far from the city around Retiro and the parks. However, we made it out safely, and went back pretty exhausted.
Until next time.
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