The Tango, its story and history are as intertwined with Buenos Aires as the dancers are with each other.
We pulled into Buenos Aires yesterday morning.
I am down in my “work” area early today and as I watch; I see some of the crew arriving back on the ship. It is 4AM and they will soon need to report for work. Overnights are relatively rare and having them in 24-hour cities is even rarer.
I’m sure that they will “pay” for it later and I’m also sure that it was probably worth it.
I’m not sure where to begin with this one.
This may be a good example of why it’s so much fun and interesting to travel and at least try and meet the people of the area.
It’s easy to just ride around, see the famous sights, you know how it goes….
been there….. check.
done that……..check.
got the tee shirt?……
hmm… what’s the exchange rate?
We are so fortunate that we try our best to travel in these types of situations with our fav’s, Tours by Locals. I know that I sound like a Paid Spokesperson….. (hmm?) but it is true. Yesterday we were with Paola, yes, she has the same name as Paula, only difference is that she can speak Spanish!
We were lucky because Paola has a degree in World History and of course has made her home country history a specialty. Maybe this is where History and the appreciation of cultures co-mingles, and the result is an understanding of the environs that you are visiting. I know that this seems fundamental, but until one or the other is missing you may not notice the difference. Paola is a fountain of Historical Knowledge and as such will readily deliver this information to anyone that is willing to listen.
We were, and you probably are not, so it is up to me to sift through it all and give you the Reader’s Digest version, just so that to can get a feeling of what that fervor for their past is felt like.
I will say just one thing and it covers every civilization that ever existed……
If you are really interested in the how’s and why’s of a culture, you need to know the what’s and the when’s.
That’s what really illuminates the imagen completa (whole picture!) and Buenos Aires has got quite the picture to be seen…. this one is in crazy, vibrant colors, black and white do no justice to this old (1536) but that only recently (early 1900’s) has started to come to the international forefront. Often referred to as the “Paris of the Americas,” Buenos Aires is considered one of the top twenty-five most influential cities in the world and is a Global City holding an Alpha ranking in this category. I could go on but I’m sure that you get the idea….. Buenos Aires is a big deal!
Going back to that form and function of the how’s, when’s, where’s, and why’s, you can see how Ms. Eva Perón (Evita to her admirers and to the fans of her story set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber) helped shape Buenos Aires as it is today. Her influence, and the results of, can be seen everywhere. Her popularity at the time was used to do ostensibly good things from building hospitals, to giving basic things like mattresses to needy citizens. Love her or hate her, there is no doubting the impact of her tenure in the spotlight. Dovetailing into that is also the fact that even just recently (1970’s-1980’s) Argentina waxed and waned between military junta’s and free elections. As usual, when someone new came to power, they tried their best to erase what they deemed negative from the recent past. When Señor Perón was kicked out in the ‘50’s, his “replacements” tore down some of Evita’s enterprising projects. They turned a goodly amount of them into something else. But even today, a massive building that Evita promoted for the storage of those items deemed important (by her) for the basic needs of the “people” is still remembered by those people as being used for that purpose instead of its official status today as another federal building.
I got the feeling that there is an underpinning of suspense(?) that if things start to go south, that that “Military” option (junta) could arise at any time. But probably not for quite a while! 😊
It seems that the current new president has things under control, mainly the economy. Until just recently their inflation rate was astronomical, and they were ecstatic when it got down to less than 20%! Now it’s down in the single digits, their peso is gaining in strength, and everyone seems to be more comfortable….. for now.
This history of different governments, elected or otherwise, is central to the shaping of Argentina’s personality. There are monuments everywhere to any and all of these different times and tribulations. Back in the ‘70s when Juan Perón (yes, that Juan Perón…. again) died in office, his third wife and vice-president, Isabel, assumed the presidency for two years until she was deposed by a military junta. This “Dirty War” lasted until 1983 and during its reign killed thousands and thousands of people considered to be critics, activists, and leftists. The rub here is that these people just ‘disappeared’ and were never seen again.
This period is remembered especially by the mothers of the one’s who vanished. They started gathering and making speeches in the central square of Buenos Aires and when they were ordered to be silent, they took to wearing white kerchiefs as a sign of their solidarity with each other. This lasted until the newly elected government took over in 1983. This is still a sore spot in regard to the current population as many are still alive who suffered through this time and who had lost a loved one.
Those expressions of discord, discontent, and solidarity can be seen throughout the city, but nowhere more prominent that in La Boca. Fittingly named, La Boca (the mouth) actually refers to one of the distinct sections of Buenos Aires that lies at the mouth of the Matanzas River. La Boca is an amalgamation of art and sport. Here many artists have taken up residence, similar to, let’s say someplace like a Greenwich Village in NYC, and then on top of that it is the home of La Bombonera, an enormous soccer stadium (where the HUGELY popular Boca Juniors play). This stadium is smack dab in the center of things with zero anything around it, no parking, no ancillary businesses, just neighborhoods alive with shops and restaurants. It gives La Boca an incredible atmosphere. Can you imagine having any of our famous stadiums just in the middle of a semi-residential neighborhood where everyone has to walk to the area because there is NO PARKING anywhere?
As you may imagine and probably already know, fútbol (soccer) is practically a religion in Argentina with many of the world’s best players coming from here. Diego Maradona has risen to almost saint-like prominence since he went to that Big Stadium in the Sky four years ago. His jersey’s sell as many as Lionel Messi, the current player rising to legend-in-his-own-time status.
Paola brought us into the heart of La Boca. We roamed the streets and gawked at the sights. That’s really the only way to describe our behavior as I am sure that we stuck out like a compound fracture on a soccer field. But we weren’t the only ones, all of Argentina is on their summer vacation and the streets were filled with the Faithful so we were in good company. This is one of the times that I was glad that the crowds were there because there is no substitution for that proverbial vibe that comes from the masses gathering at hallowed sites for celebration. The jersey stores were making a killing! 😊
Part of that vibe comes from the ‘practical’ architecture of this section. Back in the day, this area was started by some of the sailors that came ashore from the harbor and river. Settling here they used whatever they could to construct shelters that morphed into housing. Their materials came from many areas one of them being the ships themselves, so corrugated metals and the like were transformed into walls and roofs. They used the “whatever was available” colors stolen from the ship’s paint lockers and thence began the colorful rainbow effect of the exterior walls. Throw in the blue and yellow of the soon to occur local soccer team and we get back to that statement that I made before about the crazy, vibrant colors.
As you may imagine, this works extremely well for an artistic neighborhood! They were all built in the conventillo style which actually translates to ‘tenement’, but when you look at the root word (convent) you can see that this type of design with small rooms facing a central courtyard fits it perfectly. And nowadays, it works flawlessly as the small artist’s spaces that are rented out here. In fact, you must be a resident here in order to show your work here.
We had lunch at El Gran Paraiso, a traditional Argentinian café. Whenever you say ‘traditional” in terms referring to the cuisine down here it always includes beef. Argentinians eat their own weight in beef every year and Asado is the preferred method of cooking and that was fine with us as that meant roasting BBQ style! And…. not some gas-fired, fake ceramic briquettes….. it means fiery hot chunks of wood that never stop burning as there is a reservoir of readily burning wood right next to the grill to replace the wood that graciously gave up its life for the sake of incredibly seared, bark laden, Argentinian beef.
I hope that you have surmised that Asado may be the Second Religion of the country, and it is probably equal to soccer. Nowhere is the concept of a Melting Pot of cultures more prevalent than in Buenos Aires. That series of comings and goings of conquerors and allies has deposited a twist on everything from food, architecture, and even speech. Spanish is definitely the predominant language here, but it is spoken with an almost Italian accent (?) and is complete with those gestures and intensity.
It makes for a wonderful experience!
Mr. Hotdog kept wanting to go to Argentina! He had relatives there!
We’ve visited many, many places over the last four, going on five years of traveling, both in the Motorhome and on the Ship.
There are many that just get the aforementioned “Been there…” status. There are some that get the possible, maybe someday….. label. Then there are the special places that acquire the Love To Come Back To moniker because they are that special.
Buenos Aires comes under that latter designation, and is hereby awarded the title of, Return To!
