Buenos Aires Day 3

Whew, today was a looong day with a lot of walking exploring some of the other neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. We definitely weren't far off distances when hiking in Patagonia, but luckily no bags. It was also pretty hot and sunny, but better than the alternative.

Our first stop in Retiro was the Ateneo Grand Splendid. This former theatre has been transformed into a huge bookstore. It's such a unique place to fo see a bookstore. The former seating areas on each floor were covered in bookshelves. The stage was now a small cafe. Buenos Aires, Argentina has more bookstores per capita than any other city in the world, with about 25 bookstores for every 100,000 people.  In 2011, UNESCO named Buenos Aires the "World Book Capital". We went up and down the elevator and the escalators to each floor. I was totally geeking out over all the books and the setting. Lucky for me, all the books were in Spanish so it removed the temptation to buy anything.

We headed up through Retiro to Recoleta. On our way to the next stop we walked down Avenida Alvear. This street is in the bougie part of town with fancy stores and some huge, beautiful buildings. The buildings were mansions and now house hotels and embassies, except one. The mansion dubbed "Dracula House" by locals is am old mansion with white and red brick and tall trees blocking part of the front of the house. It's not entirely clear who lives there adding to the mystery of the building.

Our next stop was Cementerio Recoleta where Eva Peron is buried. This was one of the top sites in Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor so we had high expectations. Unfortunately these expectations were immediately soured on arrival by the extortionare cost to enter the cemetery. We had come all the way to see it, and everything we saw said it was worth a visit, so begrudgingly we paid and went in. We made our way to Eva Peron's vault first. It was much simpler than I expected with just black stone and a cube shaped tomb holding her body and her family. We tried following our map for some other recommended tombs and mausoleums, but ended up googling the best ones to see.

A couple tombs had some nice statues and tragic stories. One tomb with a statue was of a pretty girl and her dog. She died while on her honeymoon. The inside of the tomb was set up to look like her bedroom which I thought was an interesting element. Another tomb with a statue had a scary and tragic story. The tomb was originally quite simple, but after a teenage girl was buried alive. After sounds were heard coming from the vault, they pulled the casket out and found nail marks on the inside. They suspect she was just in a coma when she was buried. Her parents then added a large statue to the tomb to honor their daughter.

There were also plenty of tombs dedicated to rich families and previous presidents and government officials. Apparently, the space for a tomb/mausoleum is reserved for 99 years and then the family must renew the lease. If no remaining family renews it, the plot is given to someone else and the bodies removed and put somewhere else. Some of the graves were in the process of being taken apart and it was a bit bizarre to see them either halfway dismantled, or ones that had fallen into disrepair and the caskets falling apart above ground.

After the cemetery, we kept walking through Plaza Francia where a local market was on. The plaza reminded me more of a large park rather than a plaza. I wonder what qualifies a plaza versus a parque...

Speaking of parques, we continued walking about an hour to Parque Tres de Febrero in Palermo. It was a huge park with a big pond and people using peddle boats. There were several small bridges and lots of paths. We found the path that led to the center of the park where the large rose garden is located. There were lots of different colored roses. It looks like a lot has been picked though as some bushes were pretty bare. It was still a beautiful garden with the roses and orange paths. The bridge at the end of the garden and the water also added to the aesthetics.

Time was getting away from us, so we picked up the pace from Palermo to get back to the historic center before our tango show. We walked about 45 minutes, stopped at Ugi's for a quick and cheap pizza, and then ubered to save ourselves the last half hour of walking. We managed to each have a quick shower and then head back out to Tango Porteño. We met some people from our Antarctica Cruise there too which was pretty cool. After sorting out a bit of a ticketing mix up we managed to get in on time for the show. (Allan accidentally booked the tickets for the 26th not 25th and got the email address wrong so we had no electronic ticket to show either.)

The tango show was interesting. There were different numbers where the 6 tango couples performed, only one couple performed, and then another number with a woman and 2 men who had long string looking things that sounds around and clacked on the ground. They also beat drums. The small band also has some solo numbers. Allan was impressed by the sharp movements and all the leg flicking. A lot of the time I was thinking about the origin of tango we were told about at Salvo Palace and trying to work out its evolution.

After the show was over, we said goodbye to our shipmates and went back to the hostel. Tomorrow is our last day in Buenos Aires, and another busy one, so we did some packing and went to bed.Читать далее