Argentine musings

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Recoleta may just be a perfect reflection of Argentina's proud and sometimes tortured history. Just outside the crenellated brick walls of its famous cemetery lies a Disneyesque neighbourhood of glitzy movie theatres and restaurants catering to a young crowd of late-night diners. It's not quite as odd as it seems, given that Recoleta cemetery is also probably the city's biggest tourist attraction. What a city for the dead! Burial place of the country's rich and famous - general this and company founder that - it's also a grand monument to excess, each opulent family tomb attempting to outdo the others in grandeur, and each unique in style and ornament: stained glass domes, outsize sculptures of weeping angels and fawning muses, art deco black marble or gothic arches or obelisks or Roman pantheons or Greek temples with carved corinthian columns. In one, the family patriarch sits perched in a wing chair, sculpted double size at least, on a high platform under a pergola; in another, bronze bas-reliefs of bank buildings decorate the sides of a monument to the bank's president. In many, you can peer through dusty glass or intricate iron grillwork doors to see coffins in century-long repose on shelves, stacked deep below; sometimes there is a curved staircase going down, ready to offer passage to the next deposit of bones. Disconcertingly often, the coffins are small. The mausoleums stand cheek-by-jowl along long streets of tombs. You can wander for hours admiring (or being repelled by) the inscriptions extolling the original inhabitant's virtues and accomplishments (and so often it's so-and-so "y sposa" -- she, apparently, isn't even worth an inscription of her name). But the one tomb everyone seems to make for is the relatively modest mausoleum of the Duarte family, a black marble mausoleum on a narrow side "street" where the infamous Evita lies. There are numerous bronze plaques on the side given by various societies in admiration, and there are fresh flowers stuck into the grillwork - an unusual sight in this cemetery though, as we found on our arrival, funeral parties still arrive to lay to rest a family member.

Saturday was spent among the living. First, a visit to the national art museum, a rose-coloured edifice with an impressive collection of European art from the renaissance to the 20th century, including a wonderful Tintoretto nativity that I'm sure I've seen in photos, quite a group of Rodin sculptures, and plenty in between. It had been closed, along with other national museums, on Friday, since Thursday had been a holiday and that wasn't enough time off! After that we headed west to Palermo, a spacious residential district of beautiful, six to 10 storey apartment buildings on tree lined streets with upscale shops and restaurants that reminded me more of Manhattan's nicest residential neighbourhoods. As Central Park is to New York, Parque 3 de Februar is to BA: a broad expanse of green space with streets cut off to traffic on weekends that draws hordes of families to stroll, cycle, rollerblade (an impossibility virtually everywhere else in this town -- no smooth pavement! -- picnic or eat vendor junk food, see some modern art in a little gallery, admire the koi at the wonderful Japanese garden, soak up the sun from a park bench, stroll in the well laid out botanical garden, paddle around the small lake and under the beautiful white Greek bridge, visit the zoo or the planetarium, or sniff the flowers (still in bloom in the depths of their "december"!) in the prettiest and biggest rose garden I've ever seen. All in all, a lovely way to spend an afternoon in the company of Portenos still in a holiday mood. As the sun dipped, all too early, we jumped in a cab for the national museum of decorative arts, housed in a spectacular French-style mansion built during the first world war for one of Argentina's agricultural barons. The "vestibule," as the english translation charmingly describes it, is a soaring grand entrance and marble staircase that opens to equally amazing sitting rooms, a gilded ballroom and a "drawing room" grand hall that makes Casa Loma look like a dusty Muskoka cottage, with enormous tapestries and a mantelpiece that was not designed by Rodin (who had been commissioned for it) only because the war interfered! A balcony all around the great hall gives entry to some of the private rooms that once filled the second floor. Every good vacation for us has involved a visit to some ridiculously opulent mansion, and this certainly filled the bill!

We headed back to Recoleta for dinner at a fine restaurant called Lola, determined to celebrate our 24th anniversary in style (and not in the dusty town of Encarnacion, Paraguay, where we expect to spend the real date!). It definitely did not disappoint, despite our chuckles over the English translation helpfully provided for the menu. Jeff loved his duck "aromatized" with cherries and oranges, as I did the pumpkin ravioli flavoured with ginger butter, sage and amaretto. I had an appetizer that included pate, a smoked salmon souffle, and a stacked assemblage of avocado, tomato, mushroom and other good stuff, all beautifully presented. The waiter's recommended San Sebastien wine was delicious. And for dessert - chocolate napoleon with a pistachio "shot" - a sort of mousse in a shot glass! and for me, a fabulous creme brulee with frutas rojas that Jeff decided was the best he'd ever had. Yum. We rolled home in style with a wild cab ride down some of BA's 12-lane streets (where the lines are basically a suggestion) and spent a few minutes unwinding on the rooftop deck overlooking the square. This morning, as I write, vendors are setting up outside our windows for the Sunday market, which we're looking forward to enjoying.

Some random observations:
Dog and cat wars: Argentines love their dogs! There are so many of them, there's a real industry in dog-walking. They are invariably doted on (most wear coats on these chilly days), well fed, street wise, and well behaved almost without exception. The streets belong to the dogs, but the cats -- well they take refuge in the few dog-free zones, with huge colonies of feral cats roaming in Recoleta cemetery and the botanical gardens. Still well fed and cared for; though wild, they're happy to have you pet them.

Transportation: The BA subte is about as expansive and efficient as Toronto's subway, and only slightly grubbier. The stations are decorated with beautiful glazed tiles, sometimes in murals of rural scenes. But you can't complain about the price - 1.10 pesos, about 40 cents, to ride. Taxis are correspondingly cheap - last night's wild ride cost about $5, well across town. Gas here seems to be about the same price as in Canada.

Every street a civics lesson: Kids here don't need to work hard to remember historical dates; they're imprinted on street names and park names: 9 de Julio, 25 de Mayo, etc. Half the time the dates commemorate the overthrow of some dictatorship or revolution. Heroes are commemorated not just in street names, but in enormous plazas and sculptures of equally heroic proportions designed to compliment the size of the avenues, sometimes literally 12 lanes going in a single direction! It's commonplace in developing countries to see these ridiculously huge monuments, though typically they are much uglier. BA's may express gigantic ego, or huge relief, but they're generally aesthetically pleasing. This may be one of those things that mark us Canadians apart, whether because of our stereotypical modesty or our relatively bloodless history. Our biggest monument probably isn't even on our soil -- the Vimy Ridge memorial. The most memorable I can think of is the slightly outsize ladies of the wonderful Persons monument on Capital Hill, the genial women drinking tea. You won't find anything like that in BA.

Time shifting: BA works to a different clock. Shops may not open till 11. Businesses take a siesta for a couple of hours in the afternoon. At 6, everyone is drinking coffee in a cafe somewhere. Walk into a restaurant for dinner at 7:30 and the kitchen staff haven't even arrived. The restaurant is finally starting to buzz at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. At 4:30 a.m., young crowds cheerfully sing and clap their way down a dark street. Early risers? Except for the men who come to blow leaves and power scrub the square in the morning -- before the restaurateurs and crafts people come to set out their chairs and tables for the day - not too many. This is ok except in winter, when it is dark and cold at 7:30 and grumbling Nortamericanos far from their hotel would like to head inside somewhere for a warm meal and must wait at least an hour to do so, when the lonely gringos will sit down like Floridian grandmas arriving for the early bird special at 4:30. Sigh.

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