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Published: April 29th 2005
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The Tango
The show at Confiteria Ideal. Hello again,
We have spent nearly a week in Buenos Aires being good tourists. For those of you wondering, "When are they going to get to the good stuff?"(Evita, tango,etc.) Read on.
Monday (the 25th), we got up early enough to sign up for the tour of the Casa de Gobierno, or Casa Rosada. The tour is free, but one must sign in with original identity documents starting at 11am the same day. Space on the tour is first come first served. Tours start at 4pm.
To fill in the time until the tour, we strolled around the center sight-seeing. We walked back through the Plaza de Mayo and saw lots and lots of pigeons. Visited the Catedral Metropolitana and General San Martín´s (Argentine national hero from the War of idependence) mausoleum. The outside of the church is not very impressive, but the inside is nicer. From there, we had a look at the Congreso de la Nación. Continued on along Avenida Corrientes, "Argentina´s Broadway", passing many theaters and browsing in bookstores. At Corrientes and 9 de Julio we marvelled at the "phallic monument" (words of BA tourist booklet). This obelisk was built to mark the 400th anniversary
of the founding of the city and stands 67m tall. Also, 9 de Julio is one of the widest streets in the world. It has 20 lanes of traffic (10 in each direction) and several grassy medians. It takes at least two signals to cross. Of course, we have not tried sprinting yet.
It was finally time to head back and start our tour. With thoughts of Evita, we entered the Casa Rosada. Our tour guide talked mostly about the decorative elements inside the building and a bit about the history. It was originally two separate buildings that have been joined to form a larger government building. Only one Argentine president lived in the Casa Rosada. The guards live there now, but the president and two cabinet members work there daily. The decorations are European inspired and tend to the rococo. The pink color comes from "cal, sangre de res, and sebo" (used to weather proof the building) not the symbolic unification of two opposing political parties as commonly believed. Can you believe we toured the government building of Argentina, but have not toured the White House in D.C.?
That evening we had the best Thai food we´ve
had on our entire trip. It was also the only Thai food we´ve had on our trip. The Argentine influence was evident in the meatiness of the meal. Mmmm...meat.
Tuesday, we visited the Recoleta Cemetery and Evita. The cemetery is like a mini-city. The mausoleums are large. At least the size of cottage-style houses. All seemed to have underground stories. There are "streets" between the different "neighborhoods". And lots of pedestrian traffic, most pausing at the Duarte family mausoleum. It is a rather posh cemetery in a posh neighborhood. One of the other tourists made the old joke, "People are dying to get in."
Recoleta is where many of the rich Argentines live. We saw plenty of kids being escorted around by their nannies and even the famous dog walkers. We also saw the famous poop that no one feels obliged to remove from the sidewalk.
That night we went to see a Tango show at Confiteria Ideal. There was dancing, singing, accordian playing, and a French tour group. A good combination. The dancing was good and we had a good time.
Such a good time that we decided to return the next day for Tango
lessons. Everyday, the Confiteria holds Tango lessons for anyone that has the time (between noon and 3pm) and money (quite affordable at about US$5 per person). About 20 people showed up with different levels of experience. We are no longer super beginners. But we are not very good either.
That afternoon we went to another neighborhood called Palermo to visit a couple museums. One had a collection of Argentine folk art. The other, MALBA, had exhibits of Latin American Art.
Yesterday (April 28th), we took a day trip to Uruguay to visit a little touristy town called Colonia del Sacramento. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We took a short ferry ride across the Río Plate and then walked around the historic district. It is one of the few places in South America with Portuguese and Spanish colonial architecture. It was also a walled city and still has many of its walls intact. It was a very nice day and we were pretty lazy. Also, it was a little weird leaving a country without our luggage(stored safely at the hotel in BA).
We are headed this evening to Puerto Iguazú to see the waterfalls. Yeah, another
16 hour bus ride. Today has been a day to catch up on errands. We like BA, but we are ready for a break from the big city. Bring on the mosquitoes!
Ana&Ryan/Ryan&Ana
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anonymous
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ryan and anna -- dirty dancing?
busting out the dance moves? we always knew ryan was a dancer at heart... tango, cha-cha, salsa, marange. i want to see the break dancing pictures though. looks like you two were having a good time! - phil