Exploring Buenos Aires

I am staying at a hotel in Buenos Aires called NH Lancaster. It is the same place where the conference will be so is very convenient. It is a pleasant hotel, based on an old English one. My room is very small but has everything I need to be comfortable. I have to remember to put the key card in the slot by the door so the lights will come on, and in the elevator, I have to remember to press 0 and not 1 to get down to the lobby. But otherwise, I could be anywhere.

I noticed yesterday that there were many convenience stores around, like our 7–11 stores, and these all say “Open 25 Hours”. Now, I know South Americans have a different concept of time, but do they know something we don´t know?

Apropos of that, I was down in the lobby at 9 am this morning, when my tour was supposed to start. At 9:30, in sauntered Nestor the guide. He showed me to a large bus, on which was one other person. Lucas the driver proceded to pick up many people from many hotels, except they were all from Brazil and Peru. And me. Kah-Nah-Dah once more. Nestor was great – he did the tour mostly in Spanish and I just clarified with him in English. Worked for me.

We picked up Benjamin, who proceded to take photos of each person on the bus, and shortly thereafter, got off. “Oh, oh,”, I thought, “I bet we see him again before the tour is over.” Of course I was right.

Buenos Aires has three million people and is the capital of Argentina. The greater Buenos Aires district has nine million people. There are only thirty–six million people in all of Argentina, so a full one–third of the country´s population lives here. There are forty–eight neighbourhoods in the city.

We drove around the center of the city, looking at the large Obelisk that was built to mark Argentina´s independence from Spain. We saw the newly renovated Opera House which holds twenty–five hundred people. I learned that the area I went to yesterday, the Flea Market in San Telmo, is only open on Sundays, so I was lucky indeed to be able to get there.

We went back to the Plaza del Mayo, where I walked yesterday and saw on one side of it, the Casa Rosada (Pink Palace), where the country´s president, Christina Fernando, works, but does not live there. And yes, it was always pink, even before a female president. In the Plaza del Mayo, the mothers of the disappeared, the Desaparecidos, their children whom they lost in the Dirty War of 1976–83, meet every Thursday afternoon. They have been meeting every Thursday afternoon in the Plaza del Mayo for thirty–three years. I hope I can get to see them this Thursday, but I think I will still be in the conference.

I learned about Yerba Mate, the special tea drink of Argentina. Mate cups and silver spoon/straws are everywhere. People here drink at home because they use the same spoon/straws. But everywhere, every market, every tourist store, has little gourds with silver spoon/straws. You put the tea in the gourd, pour in hot water, and slurp. It is a very typical Argentinian thing to do.

At one stop, I saw Lucas talking to a woman selling coffee on the street. I walked over to ask if I could buy coffee. Lucas very kindly bought me a cup. I had a feeling it was not cafe solo (black coffee) from the first taste, but I had to walk down the street and around the corner so Lucas and coffee lady wouldn´t see me toss it. I found out much later that “there is always a little sugar at the bottom of every Argentinian coffee pot”. Thank goodness my hotel really does serve cafe solo.

There are lots of immigrants from Europe in Argentina but a good half of them are from Italy. We saw corrugated metal houses built by the immigrants. And we saw a soccer stadium. Tango, mate, and soccer. That´s Argentina and was about 80% of the Flea Market contents yesterday. The soccer stadium was a small one – just 55,000. There is one that seats almost 70,000, which I actually saw later on another tour.

We drove to Caminito, where the houses are all different bright colours, there are wonderful cobblestones on the roads, the walls all have murals, there are lots of statues, both comical and not, and the focus is on scalping the tourists. Tango dancers who are very sexily dressed wander the street hustling and enticing tourists to take photos with them. A sexy woman will put a hat on a male tourist and pose in a seductive tango position with him. All for a price, of course.

We drove to La Boca – the mouth of the river, Rio de la Plata. Uruguay is across the river and there are ferry boats to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. La Boca is the poorest section and one is advised not ever to walk there alone. We saw people living in garbage. It made Victoria´s Pandora Street look like luxury camping. From there we drove to Puerto Madero, the richest section. What a contrast.

Everywhere we went we saw dogs. Yesterday I noticed a large number of dogs out walking with their people. But yesterday was Sunday. Today, Monday, we saw many dog walkers, but in one park in particular, dozens and dozens of dog walkers all together, and each one had eight, ten or twelve dogs. It was fabulous. There are many dogs around here, and every time I see one, I miss my Reenie even more.

Benjamin got back on the bus and had made little packets for everyone. Mine had my face on a tango woman with a dress split up to the wazoo. Now I don´t even own a dress. I do however own a wazoo. I think. And behind the photo were several CDs of the tour and tango music, etc. They could all be mine. For a price. I knew what he was doing the minute he snapped my photo. Did I buy it? Come to my house to see if it is on my bookshelves or not, and you will know.

From the parks we went to the stainless steel flower, which opens every day and closes every night. This flower was created by Buenos Aires artist Eduardo Catalano and it is located in the Plaza de las Naciones Unidas (United Nations Square). The name of the sculpture is Floralis Generica, but it is nicknamed the stainless steel flower. It opens during the day, its petals spanning 32 metres, and then closes at night, when it is only 16 meters. It is 23 meters high and it weights 18 tons. At night when it is closed, it has a red light coming from inside. It is really pretty incredible. While the folks took photos, Nestor, Lucas and I talked about night blooming Cereus. I showed him photos of my Queenie at home, and he told me his mother had one here. In Spanish, I explained to Lucas how Queenie worked, that one night, there would be a flower. It would take an hour for her to open, and all night, she had the most amazing fragrance. Then early in the morning, she was dead. The Floralis Generica keeps opening again every day. It´s an amazing piece of art, just as Queenie and all other night blooming cerii are amazing pieces of nature.

That was pretty much the end of our morning tour. I had less than an hour before my trip to the country so I ran back to the room for a very very short rest.