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Published: January 27th 2010
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Evitas Resting Place
Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina ...Continued from the first blog. Recoleta and Palermo I spent the day exploring both barrios. I went to the Recoleta cemetery. The cemetery is very impressive although surreal. A lot of Argentine famous people are buried here including Evita. It was Evita's resting place I wanted to see. I began learning about Evita and how she became a national idol from watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical both on movie and on stage. I would imagine the interest would be generated from people seeing the musical. I hope to visit the Evita museum at the back end of the trip because I ran out of time and had to take things easier because of the heat!
I spent an afternoon at the Jardin Japones via getting lost and hot in one of Palermo´s many parks nearby! I eventually found the Japanese Gardens. It was nice wandering around the neatly arranged gardens with the Japanese architecture and taking it easy in between with the never ending heat!
La Boca I caught a taxi from my hostel to La Boca´s Caminito Street. I spent half a day exploring the area. There is a nice nostalgic feel and a colourful
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Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina atmosphere to the place despite it being a tourist trap. There was tango and bandoneon music being played. I had my "tourist" photo taken with a dancer (at a small cost!) and saw artists and tango dancers mixing with the crowds...more so for photos and touristic purposes! I loved the colourful tin houses and the energy of the place. I relaxed and had a drink in one of the nostalgic cafes. However, parts of the barrio are unsafe for tourists to wander around on their own so I had to catch a bus back downtown.
Subte I mainly used the Subte (metro) to explore around the city and some of the Barrios although I did a lot of walking as well. The subte was adequate enough. Compared to the other metros around the world, the trains are quite old and there are quite long waits between trains. I remember waiting a good 10 minutes for one. Usually, at other metros, the longest I waited was half the time! The stations could do with upgrading especially replacing the old wooden escalators at some stations. I remember the wooden escalators at the London Underground a long time ago and they
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Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina were removed because of a serious fire in the 1980s. A cigarette butt (not properly extinguished) was left on the escalator that had caused the fire and hence replacing the escalators with metal ones and banning smoking in the underground stations. I saw a number of Subte staff, Subway Police and commuters smoking despite the non smoking signs. I felt this is a fire hazard and probably they are more laid back on such things than back home. However, a single journey is only AR$1,10 (around 20p) so I should not expect much but for a local commuter they would be expecting more!
I will be back in Buenos Aires at the back end of the trip. Now I look forward to the cooler climbs down in Patagoina!!!
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