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Published: February 2nd 2007
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Independance Day
The Day the first government was formed in Buenos Aires Hi all once again
Well we have arrived. The bus ride was pleasant enough although didn’t like having to spend a day on the bus and just watch the day go without us getting out and about. On the way in we saw a motorway that beat even the LA highways. It was 6 lanes in each direction, plus two additional lanes each way on a Nippon clip-on kind of thing but not actually attached. It was insane and I can’t believe that they needed that many lanes. We have never seen so many Toll gates in such a small space of road, it seems every on ramp and off ramp has a toll but they are quick and efficient and only take a minute when there is a queue.
We are staying at a cool hostel called the lime house (parts of it are the colour that used to be my room. On our first day here we just blobbed about and went for a stroll as we arrived in the afternoon and were rather tired from doing nothing on the bus. The next day we popped down the road to see the Pink Palace and the balcony
where Evita sang from. We tried to go to see the oldest church in Argentina and also the underground defence tunnels that are under the city, but as our luck has prevailed so far, the tours were in the afternoon and only on week days. We can’t go back as it is the weekend here, so we lucked out again.
On our walk we came across a large police presence near the Pink Palace and were curios as to what they were doing. Later in the day we were on a mission to find a place for lunch and ended up walking past the palace again. On the plaza in front, we saw about 30 policemen all crowded in a tight circle around a few people. Curious as we are we went for a closer look and saw that they were protesting against some education injustice. There were a few people holding placards and two people beating some drums peacefully nearby on the grass. As we were leaving we saw 15 policemen all in a line marching towards the area, as far as we could see it was a rather peaceful protest and didn’t require that many police (I
think they outnumbered them 2 or 3 to 1)
Lunch was at a quirky bar/cafe. It was an older pub style place and every wooden surface had graffiti etched into it, a cool effect. After lunch we took a stroll around the markets that were across the road (we were in the hippie part of town) and there was some guy singing away with his guitar in the middle of the square. All the stall owners were sitting there still making their crafts as we walked through. Liz bought a rather cool Mate cup.
Night times usually consist of grabbing a bite to eat and then going back to the hostel for a beer and Pepsi and plonking down in front of the TV. Nothing happens around here till at least 1am and by that time Liz and I are well and truly in bed. Although last night I crept into bed at 4am after the others at the hostel decided that it was time to hit the town!!!
Yesterday we went to see the Cemetery where all the rich and socialites of the city are buried (including Evita). Really weird actually. The families have built huge
tombs and shrines for these people. The Cemetery was like a small city, it had streets and roundabouts (well a small area in the middle where a number of the streets met and there was a statue in the middle with a round garden) Some of the ¨houses¨ dated from 1822 and were anything from a trapdoor in a small granite box to massive church like structures.
Each burial place has a small area in which they hang a cross and place flowers etc it seems to me that they come here and pray over their dead. Some tombs are better kept than others; almost all have a viewing window. We came across what seemed to be tombs that had space reserved for loved ones that have not passed away yet, and others that seemed to have the whole family in there (up to 13 coffins in one tomb)
Evita´s tomb was nothing special, just a humble marble tomb, but very well looked after.
We booked our bus ticket that day to go up to Iguazu falls that afternoon, and are looking forward to the 19hr bus ride :-) Buenos Aries itself is a big crazy city, with
Similar to London..no?
European Influence is everywhere in the city, from the colonial days huge wide streets (and all seem to be one way´s) it is definitely a city that never sleeps. But sadly once again it is just another city, fairly Europeanised, but the culture of the people still comes through and gives it that something special which we have enjoyed.
Last night we went to see a tango show, after our first attempt failed due to it being booked out. The show was underground, beneath a restaurant, and we had front row seats. We thoroughly enjoyed the show, although there were a group of 3 ladies how had had too much champagne and wouldn’t shut up throughout most of the show, luckily they were just out of earshot, and we only heard bits and pieces once in a while, but had I been behind them, they would have had a clip around the ears to make them shut up. The dancers themselves were amazing and we have a video that Liz took on her camera. They flicked their legs every which way and just stunned us with their performance. At the interval time a gentleman started off the show by beating his drum from the middle of all the tables (several
older ladies got a huge fright from this) He was truly amazing and his speed was damn fast. He then got out two bits of rope with a fairly large bead on the end of each and began spinning them and hitting the wooden stage at the bottom of each circle. This created a really cool beat with this and basically wowed us with his talent.
Throughout the whole show after each dance a gentleman would come onto the stage and sing a song in Spanish (to which Liz and I were enthralled as we knew exactly what he was saying!!....NOT) from what we can gather he was telling a story but we had no idea about the plot. Anyway it was a great night and definitely something I recommend. At the end of the show the singer man gave one last song to which the drunken girls sang along to!!
The whole show was accompanied by a piano player, a bass (like a cello) and an accordion (?) player, which really made the night.
That’s all for now, see you after the Iguazu falls
Love the Twins
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