La Vida Loca

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The Big City

My one-way ticket to this southern-most American capital brought me a couple of portenas (residents of Buenos Aires) as companions on my second plane, and my first opportunities to speak Spanish, my new language. They provided lots of tips--water was potable, organic veggies were rare, but obtainable, and my hostel was located in the dodgy Abasto area where I needed to be careful.

With no reservation, I bused and walked to the city’s cheapest hostel, and in this out-of-season, winter-frigid August, was met with open arms. My charmed life here had begun. On hostel booking sites, reviewers had complained that the hostel was filled not with other travelers, but with long-term residents.

However, these long-termers were mostly Colombians studying for their Master’s degrees here in Argentina where education from kindergarten to doctorate is both excellent and free (or low cost to foreigners). When I learned the country also provides free medical care to all, I was immediately in love. The grad students were patient with my Spanish, and I had great discussions of politics and social issues with these future architects, economists and city planners.

Buenos Aires is filled with gorgeous Spanish, French and Italian architecture with lots of whimsical details, a riverside promenade, outdoor cafes, lots of different neighborhoods with their own unique flavors and quirky museums; thus it is called the Paris of the South. However, the paucity of classical music and free concerts in churches, the crowded sidewalks and metros and the traffic noise and fumes didn’t let me embrace it as I had the City of Lights. Still, there was lots to love.

Microcenter--heart of the city

My first day, I headed to the Microcenter, the heart of the city. I hopped on the very convenient, cheap subway, the subte, the first in Latin America, built in 1913. Many of the stations are tiled with colorful scenes from the city’s history or culture. My stop was Carlo Gardel, named after the most famous tango singer who had lived in my area, so the tiles there depicted him and the city’s obsession, the tango.

Florida Street, a long pedestrian shopping street was massively crowded with bundled-up winter shoppers and tourists, great street musicians and Bolivian immigrants and hippies selling handicrafts on the pavements. I escaped the throngs into the elegant, French-styled, 1889 Galeries Pacificos with crystal chandeliers and murals on its vaulted ceilings painted by leading artists of 1954 when the building was restored.

Up on the second floor, I indulged in a feast at one of the few vegetarian restaurants in this beef-obsessed city. A tenedor libre (a buffet, but literally free fork), it had lots of dishes that were yummy and new to me. Milanesa is popular style which means breaded and baked or fried. Here it was eggplant, but it’s used with meat and cheese as well. Not California cuisine, but very tasty.

Further on, I mistook the impressive National Bank for the rather plain Cathedral, the latter of which was a bit of a disappointment, except for the ornate, guarded tomb of General Jose de San Martin, Argentina’s liberator and national hero. In such a Catholic country, I expected lots of Baroque over-the-top gilding and fat, flying cherubs; thankfully, I did find these later.

I continued to the famous Plaza de Mayo where political protests have long taken place as its grassy, fountained and concrete expanse spreads between the 18th century Cabildo where the city council used to meet and the Casa Rosada (Pink House), the office and former home of the president of the republic, and from whose balcony the much-loved Eva Peron (and Madonna) spoke to her fans.

The Dirty War

Argentina has emerged from the disastrous years of its military dictatorships and its “Dirty War,” 1976-83, with a lively sense of possibilities, and there are many demonstrations and protests in the city--a sign of a healthy democracy. The most moving of these is the weekly march for justice of Las Madres y las Abuelos de la Plaza de Mayo (The Mothers and Grandmothers of the May Plaza).

In 1976, when the first of several military dictators seized control of the government, leftists, predominantly politically-active university students, began to disappear (los desaparecidos, the disappeared). Eventually, 30,000 desaparecidos, were kidnapped, tortured, raped, killed and dumped in mass graves; many others were simply kidnapped, tortured and released.

Las Madres--ordinary heroes

A small group of very ordinary mothers (think Rosa Parks) desperate, but unable to learn of their children’s fate, decided to confront the military junta publicly to demand information. Wearing white kerchiefs (originally made from the diapers of the disappreared) and carrying large photos of their children, they courageously marched in the plaza, before the presidents’ house, embarrassing him and bringing international attention to the juntas’ human rights’ abuses.

Every Thursday at 3:30 since 1977, Las Madres and now Las Abuelas have marched in the plaza, demanding information on their children and on the hundreds of infants and small children who were taken from the young mothers and given or sold to prominent right-wing families. Today other relatives of the disappeared join the mothers and grandmothers seeking justice and an end to all oppression.

Films on the Dirty War

Argentina’s fine film industry has dealt explicitly and metaphorically with both the disaparecidos and their kidnapped infants. Before coming, I scoured Netflix and the library for all I could find. An early, 1985, Oscar-winning one was The Official Story, whose female lead had been kidnapped, tortured and exiled herself.

Other films include the documentary Spoils of War (this being the infants and small children) and the film Cautiva where an adolescent is told the truth of her heritage, taken from the only home she’d known and given to her previously-unknown grandmother. The situation is emotionally complicated.

The powerful Vidas Privadas (Private Lives) with Gael Garcia Bernal (yum) and Cecilia Roth (yum) presented the story as an Oedipus Rex tragedy. Incidentally, Cecilia Roth, like many other artists and intellectuals, fled to Spain during the military juntas. The silver lining in her cloud of exile was that she then gained world-wide attention as she starred in many of Almodovar’s films.

The current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirshner, is the first in a long time to pay attention to the affairs of the dirty war. One of the most powerful figures in the country, Ernesta Herrera de Noble, owns the country’s largest media conglomerate, the Clarin Group, and has two children adopted in 1976, whom many say were stolen children.

Some think that if the children’s (they’re actually 34 now) identities are revealed, the country will experience a release and some relief from the unresolved and unprosecuted horrors of the dirty war. Others say that the battle is simply an extension of that being fought between the president and the media group over other matters and is just harassment. It’s all very complicated.

Recoleta and Chacaarid Cemetery

So, I’ll leave current politicians and recount a visit to to dead ones. Recoleta Cemetery is the final resting place of the city’s elite--its presidents, generals and cult hero, Evita Peron. Her understated tomb is always mobbed with photo-snapping tourists, but the rest of the miniature city of finely-carved stone sepulchers and angels and well-fed cats afforded a pleasant afternoon stroll.

I visited Recoleta on a Sunday and so meandered through the Hippie Fair, much like Santa Barbara’s Sunday beach show. However, since I’m traveling for three years, possessions don’t interest me, and I regard them with pleasure as I would objects in a museum. It’s so freeing to feel that I have everything I need.

Another day, seeking information on the train, I ended up in a less well-known, but more used cemetery, La Chacarida. A long line of hearsts, accompanied by clumps of loved ones, waited their turn for a quick, priest-officiated ceremony in one of the three, small happening chapels before the next dearly departed was hastily rolled in for their turn at sanctity. Death in the big city.

While there, I met a mother of one of the disappeared, come to visit her daughter’s simple, wooden-cross marked grave. Sad and angry to have lost her child, she felt lucky that she at least knew her fate.

She led me to the evocative grave of Carlos Gardel. A life-sized, tuxedo-clad stone statue of him had a fresh red rose in his hand and a burning cigarette in his fingers--left by fans. All around him were dozens of plaques of gratitude for his tango songs in a babel of languages.

This was more like the feeling I had in Paris’ Pere La Chaise Cemetery where graves were sculpted in a creative variety of shapes (not just like small buildings) and in them Maria Callas, Jim Morrison, Simone and Yves and so many beloved artists were buried and still brought flowers and revered. I’ll take an artist over a general any day.

A current artists’ hangout is San Telmo, one of the oldest and most charming neighborhoods in the city with narrow, cobblestone streets and buildings that are still on a human scale. Originally an enclave of the wealthy with fine mansions, it was abandoned by its residents in 1871, when a yellow fever epidemic drove them to higher ground in Recoleta. The mansions were divided up into tenements by the Spanish and Italian immigrants pouring into the city. Now, gentrification has turned these into antique shops, cafes, hostels and boutique hotels.

On Sundays, an antiques/crafts fair fills 20 blocks with curb-to-curb browsers. In the central Plaza Dorrego, a wonderfully ancient couple, often depicted on postcards, performed the tango for us tourists. She, in her dyed-blond ponytail and pancaked make-up, lovingly looked up into the canyon-creased face of her partner, and they seamlessly glided around the floor, so in tune with each other my heart ached at their beauty.

After listening to a great 7-piece tango band and touring the properly Baroque Iglesia Nuestra Senora de Belen, I simply had to escape the crowds. I headed in the direction of the Rio Platt, and after crossing some rather unsavory areas, I was rewarded with the luxurious spaciousness of no traffic, a sociable amount of people and sunset reflections of the new city, the Tango Bridge and old schooners.

Across the river, Puerto Madryn is the newest addition to Buenos Aires. The former warehouses of the port are rapidly being turned into luxury condominiums and building cranes are everywhere. Even better, behind this is a huge, bird-filled estuary far from BA’s traffic and crowds. I look forward to exploring and using it as a sanctuary when I return.

Having learned not to go to tourist hot spots on crowded Sundays, I visited the rough, blue-color neighborhood of La Boca on a quiet Monday. Books warn not to veer from the central tourist area, and I’d heard first-hand accounts of people being relieved of purses and cameras at knife-point; thus most people take tours here.

Yet, I am an intrepid traveler, not a mere tourist, and so caught a city bus to visit like a native. However, when the driver dropped me off in the midst of empty fields and waved his hand toward a dark, deserted street to indicate the way, I felt more nervous than I care to admit. Yet when in a situation like this, I always think of the families who live there--they endure this everyday; certainly I could too.

After about ten blocks, I came to the famed Caminito, a colorful tourist trap par excellance. Originally, workers from the meat-packing plants and shipyards used paint left over from painting barges to tart up their houses. The wild colors attracted tourist attention, and soon a weekend crafts fair, tango for tourists and cafes with very-insistent barkers pulled in busloads of tour groups. There were many photogenic sites, so I enjoyed a bout of snapping photos, and then visited the elegant, avant guard Fundasion Proa with thought-provoking, modern Argentine art.

My last day in the city, I was hungry for trees and sick of traffic--BA boasts/confesses it has the widest urban street--16-lane Avenida de 9 de Julio that bisects the city. I subwayed out to the fine botanic garden, filled with labeled trees and scads of proud cats patrolling the grounds. Yet it was surrounded by the black, belching fumes and roar of Friday afternoon traffic that competed with Bach’s Cello Suites on my Ipod.

I walked through nearby gardens and realized I’ll have to return on a Sunday--that glorious day in cities when cars and their occupants take their rest and peace returns to the streets. I will visit BA again for a couple of weeks. I’ll just be more clever about choosing times and routes to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

That evening, I went to the glorious, gilded, old-world Teatro Colon for a concert of my current favorite symphony, Mahler's 3rd. I passed on the $200 seats and went for a $7 standing room spot where it was so crowded that men and women were segregated into different galleries. While Americans call these the “nose-bleed” rungs because they’re so high, the Colombians call them, “the swallows’ nests”-- much more poetic.

The concert was thrilling--Enrique Diemecke, the Mexican-born conductor of the philharmonic (also directs the Long Beach’s symphony and Mexico’s national opera), was energetic and funny (he turned and glared at a cell phone that rudely rang). The orchestra, women’s choir and mezzo soloist were flawless and passionate--a perfect last night in BA..

I’d passed a week and a half meeting no other Americans and speaking only Spanish--a good beginning to my journey! I look forward to returning and visiting some of the many mansions, museums, Sunday parks, tango venues, underground tunnels and the surrounding delta area. So much to explore!

Next, I was off to Posadas, a town I’d not considered, but which was the terminus of the much-maligned, but cheaper train. Little did I know that the supposedly 24-hour journey would turn into a freezing 36-hour one (13 on the bus). But that’s another story.

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