Buenos Aires

After an early morning flight we landed in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires where we’d base ourselves for a few days before heading off on our cruise. A peculiarity we had to contend with was drawing money out of ATMs, we could only draw out $40,000 pesos per-day which is about £40 (not going to last long with Argentina’s inflation rocketing) and it cost $8,000 pesos to withdraw, we overcame this by utilising Western Union for the first time ever (which was interesting as we withdrew $200k pesos which was given to us in wads of notes)!

On our first day we first headed to El Ateneo book store, we were looking for some new books for the children but it is also a tourist attraction in its own right. Set in an old theatre you can wander around where the stalls would have been, sit and thumb through books in the balconies and have a coffee on the stage, it’s a great and unusual setting for a bookstore. After coffee we made our way to La Recoleta Cemetery which, with the intricate and tall mausoleums, was like walking through a small town (it has become a tourist attraction for which you have to pay to enter). There are many prominent people that have been laid to rest here such as former presidents, actors, the most popular mausoleum is that of María Eva Duarte de Perón (known as Evita - ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’) who was laid to rest in her families understated mausoleum. Dying at the age of 33 she was First Lady and was running for Vice President before her death, she was very popular amongst Argentinians. There are also stories of strange occurrences that we retold to the children including the girl who was buried twice. Rufina was a 19 year old socialite, one day she unexpectedly collapsed and three doctors pronounced her dead from a heart attack. Following her funeral grave workers heard strange noises coming from her mausoleum, on investigating they noticed that the lid of her casket had been disturbed. Upon opening the casket scratch marks were observed on the lid of the casket and injuries noted to her face and hands. It is thought she suffered from catalepsy making it difficult to pick up on her vital signs, she then died trying to escape. She was reburied in a grander mausoleum, one of the most architecturally splendid in the cemetery.

The following day we headed out on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city in order to save our legs in this vast city. The first thing we had to contend with was the volume of mosquitoes that were latching on to us, we had left our repellent back at the hotel as there wasn’t a problem the day before, so had to buy some from the local chemist. Nothing seemed to deter them though, they were even biting us through our clothes! We started out from our apartment in Palermo, a lovely residential area, travelling along Avenida 9 de Julio through the centre of the city. We could see there was a lot of activity in the city and soon our bus journey was on a detour bypassing most of the central sights. We continued out of the city to La Boca area which has colourful houses and a street market, and then on to Puerto Madero, a residential and office gentrified dock area. We then attempted to walk to Plaza de Mayo and Presidents Palace (Casa Rosada) as the bus route had been cut short. This is when we realised that the protests we’d seen around the city was a massive event! It turned out to be the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, the anniversary of the coup d’etat in 1976 that brought the National Reorganisation Process (military) to power and the subsequent death and disappearance of at least 30,000 people during their reign. This year’s demonstrations were even more significant as the new President has suggested the numbers were exaggerated, provoking the millions of people who turn out to remember each year. The streets were packed and there was an intense atmosphere as people gathered to protest, chant, play music and dance. It was quite a spectacle to watch and made getting out of the city centre difficult.

Once we’d managed to get out of the chaos and walk miles for a taxi, we took the children to the Children’s Museum in Buenos Aires. It contained lots of interactive play stations such as driving a car, working at McDonald’s, working in a bank, shopping in a supermarket, flying a plane and working in an operating theatre, plus lots more! The kids loved it and it rounded off a wonderful day.

On our last day we went back to the hop-on-hop-off bus mode of travel (with less emphasis on the hop-off to avoid the mosquitos) to cover off the parts of the city we couldn’t see the day before. We made it to Plaza de Mayo which was a lot quieter. The Plaza is the main foundational site of Buenos Aires and key gathering point for protests and demonstrations, every Thursday relatives of the 30,000 people who died and disappeared during the coup d’etat gather in protest looking for answers.

In the evening we made our way to a local bandstand where locals put on a show of their tango talents, unfortunately the mosquitos hadn’t abated, we later read that they were suffering with a plague of mosquitos spreading Dengue with it! Unfortunately we didn’t get to one of the performances in the city as they tended to begin late in the evening (not compatible with little ‘uns). Mosquitos aside it was a nice experience to watch the amateur performances as the sun set on the city.

Buenos Aires was a lovely city with plenty of intricate colonial architecture to view as we made our way about the city.Leggi altro