Buenos Aires - One of the Specials? - Yes it is.

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May 27th 2011

Published: June 2nd 2011

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Slowfeet

Tower of Babel

BA is the world book capital for 2011

I am told I was a little harsh about Buenos Aries in the post we put up on the Boca v River game. I now need to set the record straight. This is one of the most famous cities in the world, the Paris of the South indeed, and it deserves a better review than a few lines at the lead of a post on a football game. Football is not the only thing on offer here, even though it was pretty special.

We rolled gently into Buenos Aires (BA from now on) after a long overnight bus ride, a little over 1000km, from Puerta Madryn. Overnight buses can take their toll but on Andesmar the comfort level was about as good as we have found. Wine, 3 course dinner and a fair breakfast. We didn't win the bus bingo but you can't have everything (and we got to practise our Spanish numbers).

The decision had been made that BA was going to be worth a week and that opened up the option of an apartment. The place was pretty close to the centre of town in the Microcentro - a couple of blocks from Florida Street, a little

One of the Subte stations

over a kilometre from Retiro (where the bus and train stations are) and about 8 blocks from the main square. A bit on the light side for night life but that is not too much of an issue for us. It was an old apartment and not as well set up for cooking as we might have liked but it was large and comfortable with excellent wifi, reasonable cable TV and a great place to wash and dry clothes. And the price was right.

To get a feel for the place we decided to take a walking tour. We found a couple of free tours with BAfreetours and gave them a go. The first one was labelled as an 'aristocratic' tour of BA. Typically, there were a few Australians in the group. There normally are Australians on walking tours and you can back it in if the tour is free. The guide spoke excellent English, had excellent knowledge of her city, a wicked sense of humour and possibly the loudest voice I have heard for quite a while.

The tour took in the area around Plaza San Martin including the Malvinas Memorial. We were told that there are

Housing near the bus station

4 essential ingredients to the culture of Argentina and that every school child has these drilled into them: an Argentine loves meat, specifically beef; an Argentine loves football; Argentine's love to dance the tango; and Malvinas is one of the 24 provinces of Argentina. This analysis was confirmed more than once by others. Our guide was not keen on the war but described the feeling in the country when the then dictator, General Galtieri, forcibly annexed Malvinas/Falkland Islands. For most there it seemed like an obvious thing to have happened and was a popular move. Of course, the war didn't last long after the British ships arrived and in the battles ove 600 young Argentines died. The good thing seemed to be that this spelt the end of Galtieri. (I guess it also saved Margaret Thatcher and put paid to Arthur Scargill, but that is beside the point in this story.)

BA obtains some of its 'Paris of the South' reputation from the relatively high proportion of rather beautiful French buildings around the older part of the city. We were told that many of these buildings were constructed from materials and filled with furniture freighted to Argentina from France

Informal market

in the area behind the bus station

in ships that had carried Argentine beef to Europe, which makes sense. We walked past areas in the flasher parts of BA where you could easily have been convinced that you were walking through an up-market area of Paris.

In addition to the obvious Spanish influence in BA there is a very strong influence of the massive Italian migration that occurred during the 20th century. Australia benefited greatly from its migration program and a lot of Italians were included in that, but Argentina's efforts seem to have far outstripped us. Across Argentina, but most clearly in BA, the Italian influence is noticeable in the looks of the people, the use of the hands, the accent and the food. Pasta here is pretty good to eat. Pizzas here are better than those in Italy, in my ever so humble opinion.

There is a useful metro system – the Subte – which is the oldest in the Southern Hemisphere. We have racked our brains to think of another one in the Southern Hemisphere and can't remember being on one, so it could very well be the oldest I suppose. They do have a ticketing system that is a little different.

On the outskirts of BA

The bus system also seems busy although we didn't use it. Walking around is also pretty easy. A nice flat city laid out on a typical Spanish grid. On one day we covered nearly 20 kms around the city and had a very nice time.

Another free city walk with BA Free tours took us a few hours one morning. This business has been set up by some young people who know their city and love it. They don't charge and ask that you pay them with a tip at the end. Given that you normally pay an amount to a business and then tip the guide in any case, this seemed to us to be a good arrangement. The guides on the two tours we did were good quality and both spoke English and Spanish well.

Apart from the standard stuff, the Congress Building, Presidential Palace, the oldest coffee shop in BA – where you can pay 50 pesos for a cup of coffee in the original cafe, we also heard about the very large building across the road from the Congress which is now inhabited by squatters, the mothers and grandmothers of the 'disappeared' (who took

BA's Big Ben

The clock was a gift from Britain to mark Argentina's centenary of independence

on the regime towards the end of the Galtieri time at great personal risk by demonstrating in the square outside the Presidential building every Thursday, and who continue their work to this day), and the penchant of Argentinians to 'not give a shit' about things others would see as important – they drive carelessly and too fast, dump litter without thought, scrawl not-very-good graffiti everywhere and demonstrate against the government at the drop of a hat.

On the days we walked around the area there were never less than 6 or 7 decent demos underway. One, by a group supporting the unemployed, happily blocked a major city street. The police don't seem to take much action to shift people, although they are around. There is clearly still considerable angst over the number of people - approximately 30,000 - who were 'disappeared' during the dictatorship. We were told by both of the guides we had and other people we talked to that people are still very careful about anything that might look like the police or the government having too much power or exercising too much control. You get the impression that it will be a lot harder to put

Central BA

a coup in place now than it was the last time.

As is our practice, we have been contributing to the Argentine economy in a number of ways. The purchase of souvenirs and such is never a major activity but there are always things that catch the eye. They build up over time and you really do need to shed them. Our preferred method has always been to send them home. Thus, we have spent interesting times in post offices all over the world getting to know the various systems. We didn't have too much to send back from BA but there was a package of around 3 kg that could usefully go. The little post offices that are spread all over the city can only take packages up to 2kg. This is not an abnormal element of the post office systems in a lot of countries. It turned out that we needed to go to the main post office down near Retiro.

We embarked on this project with a little trepidation. The stories of other travellers and the LP indicated that BA had a system that could be difficult. The bloke in the first correo that we

Dog walkers at work

dropped in at was at pains to tell us that we should go to the right place and that, to get there we needed to go straight on past something else to get there. I am sure that he actually explained clearly what we should do but we could only pick up a little of what he was talking about. We trundled off anyway. In what seemed to be the right place we found an office with a big sign indicating that it was for Internacionales. Went in and took the inevitable number from the machine. The number we had was about 60 and the number being dealt with was 2. A great crowd of people, a lot with forms in their hands but not that many packages. After a few minutes we became convinced that, notwithstanding the signage, we had to be in the wrong place. We were about to give up and try in a smaller office in a smaller town but then decided to walk along past the correo as we were sure the bloke in the little place had told us. We found another office and went in. Even more people in a massive waiting room.

Family of dogs

on one of the bridges to Puerto Madero

Couldn't be the right place and, if it was, then we would wait. We walked on and found another office not part of the very large edifice called CORREO ARGENTINA. The little building was tucked in at the end of the much larger building. It had many less people and they had packages to send and the number being called was only a few away. This looked a lot more promising. There were 3 cashiers and there appeared to a very involved system where you went to one person and bought a box for your goodies, packed it and took it back, received forms, completed them and then took them to a different desk to pay. It was all a little hard to follow but at least there weren't too many in the queue.

In a little over an hour they deal with 4 people. There was an Aduana (customs) desk. The bloke was sitting there and every now and then some people, but not all would go up to him and he would poke through what they were sending. I had not much else to do so I thought he may as well have a look at our

Avenida 9 Julio

The second widest avenue in South America

stuff. He may just have been very bored but he had a lovely time going through all that we were sending. He was most intrigued at the collection of beer bottle caps. I explained that 'mi esposa es collecting'. He smiled and let them go. Eventually, he was happy. Soon it was our turn to go to one of the three amigos behind the cashiers desk. As we approached the desk there seemed to be a level of urgency developing. We were handed a box and assisted to pack it, wrap it and tape it. We were given the necessary forms and shown how to fill them in. That done we fronted back up to the same bloke and pretty quickly were run through the system. All very surprising until I looked at the clock. It was very close to knock off time. So 4 people in nearly an hour and the other dozen in 10 minutes. All done.

So now we move across Argentina heading for Mendoza and then to the north to Bolivia. I am still trying to get back to posting in as close as possible to real time. So things will look a little compressed