Buenos Aires--Art, Politics and Nature

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Summer in the Sizzling City

Since I'd been moving at a pretty good clip to outrace the summer crowds heading to Uruguay's beaches, I decided to slow down and take a month to slowly meander around BA. After a couple of weeks in my favorite, funky hostel (Hostel Augur, with its $8 dorm beds and $15 private rooms), I even took a room in a once-gorgeous apartment in San Telmo, the most charming part of the city, feeling like a real portena (resident of the city).

When I was here last, five months ago, the city was gripped in its winter gray and cold, and I was less than enamored with it. Now in the summer, greenery and flowers are everywhere, and the city seems so much more attractive.

However, because the weather is now hot and humid, and because January is the summer holiday season, all who could, had left the sizzling city for cooler beach or mountain destinations, which is why I didn't. I far prefer bad weather to high season crowds. I'll visit Patagonia when the weather is challenging, but the crowds thin.

Last time I was here, I spent lots of time exploring neighborhoods. This time, I went graffiti hunting, museum hopping, politics investigating and nature strolling. I spent time with friends, gorged on great pizza and summer cherries and caught up on films, read, and wrote my blogs for Brazil and Uruguay.

As I write this blog and all the next ones, it's July and I'm writing about my adventures of the past six months and hiding from the winter holiday crowds in a tiny town, Vicuna, in the foothills of the Chilean Andes.

Great Graffiti and Political Street Art

A friend, Gretchen, had sent me a link to a NY Times article on the fabulous graffiti of Buenos Aires. As luck would have it, I spent part of my time in San Telmo, a hotbed of this incredibly artful and often political street art. Through Craig's List, I'd found a room in an apartment with some fine new friends in a former, 100-year old mansion for two weeks.

San Telmo is one of the oldest neighborhoods and was filled with 18c and 19c once-glorious colonial houses and mansions. When a yellow fever epidemic hit the area in 1871, the upper classes moved out, and their homes were divided up to house the waves of immigrants arriving from Europe.

About 20 years ago, artists started moving in, and the place began to gentrify. Today, the neighborhood is trendy, and many mansions are being restored. On the walls of the unrestored ones, street artists find their canvases and paint gorgeous murals, sometimes with political messages.

Street art here takes other forms besides the murals. Stencil art is popular to get across messages. Some of my favorites were Muchas tierras en pocas manos, muschas manos sin tierras (Much land in few hands, many hands with no land); "Soy for today, hunger for tomorrow" referring to the thousands of acres of land in the pampas grasslands that are being turned into monocrops, especially soy, for export; or "Mines or Water," referring to the destruction of rivers and ground water that results from mining operations in Patagonia.

Colorful posters carry longer messages: "I prefer a dangerous liberty to a tranquil servitude" or "Why does bread cost 140%!m(MISSING)ore now?" the answer being the middlemen and exporters, not the farmers or consumers.

The government itself has erected large installations telling of atrocities that it committed during its "Dirty War," 1976-83, when 30,000 disappeared and many more were tortured and imprisoned. Near my apartment was the University of Buenos Aires former College of Science.

Several panels of photos and text told the story of the Night of the Long Batons in 1966, when the police arrested and beat students and faculty. Those who were released, fled the country which set back the country's educational and scientific development for decades.

Beautiful glass mosaics panels are imbedded in sidewalks all around town showing where students, workers and activists had been dragged off by the police and disappeared. In the plaza across from the of Hall of Justice, where the victims have mostly not found justice, there are statues and plaques in tribute to the many groups, such as journalists, who were murdered during the dictatorships. Thus art serves to educate, so that the lessons of the past are not forgotten.

I so admired the Argentine government's willingness to face up to its repressive past, one that was shared by many of the countries of South America in the 1970s and early 80s. However, as I was to see in my travels, Argentina was really the most open about acknowledging the truth. Bravo Argentina!

Museum Hopping

On a lighter note, it was not just street art and politics that I sought out. In the heat and humidity, it was great to spend days in the city's wonderful, cool museums. While the world-class institutional museums, Bellas Artes (Fine Arts) and MALBA (contemporary Latinos) were fabulous, I most enjoyed the myriad of museums housed in former mansions. I loved imagining that I lived in these grand French-style Belle Epoch palaces and architectural gems generally built around the turn of the 20c when booming Buenos Aires really was the "Paris of the South."

The most sumptuous palace is the Palacio Paz, once the home of Jose Paz, the owner of the still-influential newspaper, La Prensa. While other mansions often featured veneers and faux finishes, this palace imported marbles, furniture, chandeliers and art from all over Europe (rather like Hearst for his San Simeon castle. When the family could no longer afford the upkeep, they sold it to the state for a small sum and the state donated it to the military for a social club for officers; for this reason, it's now known as the the Circulo Militar.

The young tour guide, Pablo, was fabulously knowledgeable and answered my scads of questions; afterwards we went for coffee and spoke of our love of traveling and architecture. He's just finished his degree in curating house museums--what a dream job!

The next day, he gave me a private tour of the beaux arts Decorative Arts Museum, the mansion of the wealthy Errazuriz aristocratic family. So great to have someone point out the differences in the styles among the Louis XIV-XVI, and the kinds of marbles and woods. He also directed me to the gorgeous neo Spanish colonial Museum of Isaac Fernandez Blanco, an architect, with his collections of European and Hispano-American art.

More esoteric house museums that I loved were Museo Mitre in the colonial mansion of former president Bartolome Mitre (giving a vivid feeling for Victorian life) and museums of city and of national history, anthropology, folk art, weapons (ancient hand carved and forged swords and guns are gorgeous), and more. Still, there were still lots more museums that I never even got to--the city's so rich!

On weekends, the Casa Rosada, the Pink House, the office of the president of the country, is open for tours. It was beautiful and impressive, and I was touched by how open they were in allowing visitors to tour unlike our White House, which I was unable to get in despite a visit to the office of my Congresswoman.

An inspiring exhibition at the Casa Rosada was installed by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, of the Patriots of the Americas with photos and an explanation of their work. Here were not just old white men, but people of all sexes and races, champions of democracy, workers' and indigenous' rights such as Che Guevara, Bishop Romero, the social justice folk singer Mercedes Sosa, Rigoberto Manchu and many more. Once again, I was in love with Argentina!

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the zoo with its charming 19c buildings (sometimes a bit decrepit) in exotic styles designed to house their corresponding animals--an Indian temple for the Indian elephants, etc. There was also lots of native fauna such as the 4 different kinds of Andean camelids--the large, spitting guanaco of the cold south, the small wild vicuna of the north (in an Incan temple)and the domesticated llama and alpaca. Perhaps best of all were the Patagonian maras, hares-like, with small ears and long legs that wandered about freely.

Cool Days in the Delta and Riverside Nature Reserve

Some of my favorite days were visits to the Rio de la Plata delta towns of Tigre and San Isidro. At Retiro station, I hopped a funky little train which chugged me to Tigre in about an hour. The town was charming with cooling river walks, an artisan fair and an art museum in a belle epoch mansion.

The delta is threaded with waterways and honeycombed with scores of islands, some with vacation spots for the portenos escaping the sultry summer weather. A tour of the marshy delta took us past little canals, houses and restaurants on stilts, colonial mansions, a huge amusement park, and canoes, kayaks and boats of all sizes plying the river.

Another day, I took a commuter ferry an hour up river to the Rana Negra neighborhood where I spent several pleasant hours following a path by the river and over bridges that led past upscale vacation and funky residential houses with bird chirps the only the sounds. It was such a relief to feel surrounded by nature. If I'd had insect repellant, I could have followed small, semi-dry creeks branching off from the river, but after ten meters, I was covered in mosquito bites and went running back to the river. Next time.....

The same train took me to the upscale suburb of San Isidro. I got off at the Mitre station and explored the historic center, its neo-Gothic cathedral and many beautiful mansions. After walking several very hot kilometers and getting lost, I realized I should have taken the map offered by the tourist office. (I hate to waste paper--error)

Finally, I arrived at the UNESCO World Heritage site of the mansion and gardens, Villa Ocampo. The eclectic, turn-of-the century mansion has been wonderfully-restored and includes Victoria Ocampo's original furnishings, photographs, books and art.

Victoria Ocampo was Argentina's first modern woman. A writer, publisher of a literary journal, and intellectual, she hosted Stravinsky, Borges, Camus, Gabriela Mistral, and other artists and intellectuals at her home. She also designed and built the first two modern houses in BA, and was the first woman to drive a car among other "firsts." Returning, I boarded the train at the Beccar station that was only 6 blocks from the Villa and a better place to access the villa. Still, I had enjoyed seeing the town itself.

Another fabulous spot where I often went for refuge from the city was the Costanera (Riverside) Ecological Nature Reserve, along a canal of the Rio de la Plata, laced with peaceful trails through a wetlands. It's located behind Puerto Madero, the newest, most glittering part of the city, full of modern high rises and upscale restaurants.

Unlike most Argentine streets which are generally named after generals and independent heroes, Puerto Madero's streets are refreshingly named after notable Latin American women. Moreover, there's the Women's Park, the pedestrian Women's Bridge and the new, fabulous modern Museo Fortabat, built by Argentina's richest woman. Such an oasis of the feminine in a Latin culture!

After a month of civilization and culture, it was time to venture forth to nature since the height of the vacation season had passed. I was heading to wild, mythical Patagonia on the first of many long bus rides. My first stop was a 20-hour bus ride away, the Valdez Peninsula with penguins, sea lions and orcas. My adventures were about to begin!

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Photos

child of immigrant cardboard recyclers
not playing