Day 23 - San Telmo

Final packing, breakfast and waiting to disembark took up the early morning. We disembarked about 10:00 and caught a taxi to the apartment in San Telmo that Gail had arranged for the next week. The owner was there just finishing the clean up from the guests who had just departed. He gave us a rundown of the apartment and suggested places around the neighborhood, then left.

The apartment is modern and spacious with two bedrooms, full kitchen, one and a half baths, and a long balcony overlooking Peru Street. It's on the third floor of a key-entry residential building. It is three blocks from Plaza Durrego, where we had stopped on yesterday's walk. A bit later, we went out exploring.

San Telmo, in the mid-1800s, was the upscale neighborhood of the nascent city, with large, elaborate family mansions. In 1871, a yellow fever epidemic decimated the city and the rich fled the low-lying neighborhood near the river for higher ground to the northwest, leaving their mansions to decay. European immigrants began arriving and took over the abandoned mansions, converting them to tenements housing whole families in a single room. From the patios and balconies of these tenements, the people blended musical styles into what we know as tango. Once tango became internationally popular, the wealthy Argentines adopted it as the country's nation music.

On Sundays, the area around Plaza Durrego is thronged with stalls for the weekly craft fair. It is a well-known event and locals and tourists come to stroll. We walked through the narrow, cobblestone streets lined with small, temporary booths selling crafts and antiques. There are leather goods (belts, purses), wood carvings, metal sculptures, knitted wool pieces, stone works, and more. The fair stretches for many blocks down Defensa Street and jams the small plaza. Naturally, there are tango demonstrations. We sat at a terrace bar and ordered beer and pizza. While we were waiting for our order, our California table mates from the Eclipse surprised us since they, too, were visiting the fair.

We walked over to the roofed market, also thronged, and picked up some fruit and vegetables then stopped at a bakery for bread and pastries. Rested at the apartment then went back to Plaza Durrego and attended mass at the Church of San Pedro Gonzalas Telmo. On the way home we shopped for groceries for the week. We read up on things to do, had a light dinner, but soon went to bed (early, for a change).Read more