Advertisement
Published: November 7th 2015
Edit Blog Post
More than 24 hours door to door spent in that no man's land of airports and planes (apart from a brief foray into Frankfurt) finally brought us to this lovely little apartment in Buenos Aires. It's a new building and the architect is also an artist so there is whacky sculpture everywhere - I will try to get some photos put on! There's a tiny pool and jacuzzi on the roof too but they've only been open since 1 November so the water hasn't really warmed up enough yet for us to try them out.
For those that don't know/remember we stayed in Buenos Aires for a few weeks during our last long trip. Being back is quite strange - everything looks familiar but is not quite the same. We keep thinking we know where we are and finding we are wrong. Lots has changed though - noticeably, in the area we are staying there has been a huge building boom with some soaring residential towers. We are staying just alongside the train tracks and much of this street was derelict when we were here before but there has been a lot of development and it's still going on.
We had no real aim for these few days in BA but it has been lovely to get back into the feel of the big chaotic city. The first night we walked the mile or so to see the apartment we stayed in in 2008. Yesterday morning we walked through the Botanical Gardens - they are slap bang in the middle of one of the busiest roads in BA so the traffic noise is still constant but over the top you can hear birds and it is lovely to be surrounded by huge trees. Somehow we managed to get ourselves locked into a part of the gardens we shouldn't have been in - we just followed a school group through a gate into an area planted up to attract butterflies. After the children left it was very peaceful just sitting there watching the butterflies and bees, until one of the staff called to us over the fence to say that we were not supposed to be there. The gate we had come in through was now locked and if she hadn't spotted us we might have been there for a while!
On the way back to the apartment we
could see lots of people just up the road at one of the new large buildings which we believed was some kind of science institute. This was accompanied by the familiar noises of a BA demonstration so we wandered up to see if we could work out what was going on. It was clearly some kind of event with a screen and portaloos and the crowd were singing and chanting. There were a whole range of T-shirts with different messages and a banner with the name of Scioli, one of the candidates in the second round of the presidential election which takes place in a few weeks. We asked somebody in the crowd what was happening and ended up in a really interesting conversation with Adriana about the politics and economics of Argentina. The event was on because Cristina de Kirchner (current president) was going to be speaking inside the Science Institute and the crowd were her supporters who are campaigning for Scioli. Adriana told us that things have improved for all levels of society while Cristina has been in power but particularly support for those who have had little in the past. There has been a lot of investment
in education and jobs. There are still many problems in Argentina, not least it's relationship with it's creditors, but we were told that Cristina has worked on the basis that the country needs investment in order to pull itself up. Interestingly Adriana told us that the tax authority in Argentina had really become an important part of government in the last few years - previously she said that it was very easy for people to not pay tax (and yes, I have seen this week's HMRC news and I don't want any comments....!). She also said that Cristina has been trying to get engineers and scientists who are working elsewhere in the world to return by giving them incentives and this has been quite successful and resulted in a significant number of new patents being filed in Argentina in the last few years. Obviously this is just one person's opinion but is quite different from the view we got last time we were here when there were constant protests by many people about things she was doing (called caserolas as people would bang pots and pans as they demonstrated). At the time a lot of that was about farming and
things she was doing which impacted on the soy markets.
And this was in complete contrast to the view we were given by Gabi, a friend we met in BA when we were here last time. She had arranged to pick us up to take us to an Argentinian steak restaurant last night and we caught up on the last 7 years as we marvelled at her negotiation of the BA traffic! We had a lovely evening with great food and even a visit to see where they matured the meat (so cold!). Gabi has a very different take on the results of Cristina's reign (which is how it seems to be described - certainly I've seen UK stories that she is trying to create an Eva Peron type image before she has to stand down). Gabi runs a business printing large posters/banners and has had real problems importing the things she needs to run the business. She said that ink for her printers was currently sitting in the port but she could not get it released.
The rather large glass of red wine with dinner was probably a mistake and made our final day together in BA
rather quiet. Apparently we have brought the start of spring as, until we arrived, it had been cold and wet but temperatures are now heading to the mid 20s and beyond so after lunch and a walk in the Japanese Gardens we returned to our welcomely cool apartment.
Tomorrow we go our separate ways for a couple of weeks and H will take all the gadgets so there may not be much blogging for a bit - I must remember to make notes!
Hope all well
Sarah & Hugh x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.172s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 21; qc: 77; dbt: 0.1074s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jenny
non-member comment
Enjoy!
Looks & sounds great. Brings back v happy memories! Enjoy whatever you're both going on to next!