June 28 and 29: Art and Architecture in the Good Air—Buenos Aires

Colorful shops and houses fill the La Boca , a working class area of Buenos Aires

 "Without the streets or dusks of Buenos Aires, a tango cannot be written." - Jorge Luis Borges

Today we joined the “group” from Tropical Sails, a travel organization specializing in eclipses, for a tour of Buenos Aires that will take place over about 2 days. In general, Paul and I are not “into” group tours, especially on a bus, but since this is our ticket to get to the remote area for the eclipse, we are all aboard. And what we have found is that with a  great guide, like ours, Luigi or Luis, you learn a lot things you might not otherwise. Luis is interesting in and of himself as he has one Italian parent and one French parent but was born in Argentina and spent time studying in England. He is a polyglot. He works as a tour guide, but also as a professor of antiquities. He knows a whole lot about Buenos Aires and his country and he is loquacious and loves to share the information. Besides that, he is Jewish and married to a Catholic, so he knows about the churches and the synagogues, of which there are many. So the trade off has been reasonable.

The downtown of Buenos Aires as seen from the Rio Plata. As Luigi says (add Spanish accent in your head)," A  river that looks like an ocean."

We notice almost immediately that again the Rio Plata is a huge influence on the city, just like Montevideo, and that container ships, cruise boats and smaller craft can all come into the harbor which looks more like a brown ocean than a river. The center of town is the obelisk and it all branches out from there.

The "obelisk." in central Buenos Aires. Very reminiscent of the Washington Monument. It's a good marker for directions.

We are staying at the Hotel Panamericano which is five star (we would likely have chosen something less fancy on our own) but due to the economy of Argentina and the tremendous devaluation of the peso due to the 2015 default on the national debt, the price to stay is MUCH less than it was the last time I visited Argentina in 1991. The economy of Argentina is pretty crazy overall to the extent that it has been studied extensively and as a result a Nobel Prize winning economist characterized world economies into four classes: High-income, low-income, Japan and Argentina. Taxation is about 45% (18% for the worker and another 37% for the employer) but education all the way through graduate school (for those who qualify by exam) and all medical care are free of charge. There’s a generous social welfare system that even includes refugees.

No matter who you are in Argentina, if there's a soccer game on, you find a TV and watch it, even if it's raining in the street.

Every type of worker has a union (and hotels, clubs they can use for free or a small fee) and their own hospital. If you and your spouse are both employed, you can choose which “worker” class you want to get your benefits, vacations and medical care from. They all seem to be managing pretty well overall in Buenos Aires, although they are still plagued with inflation.

A birds eye view of Plaza Mayor with the cathedral and Casa Rosada. We have the White House. They have the pink house.

Our bus tour took us to various neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, including Recoleta, Retiro, the port,, San Telmo, Palermo , Puerto Madero,  and La Boca.   Plaza Mayor, the home of Argentine government containing the Cabildo, Casa Rosada and the large church from whence the current pope was holding mass for the president of Argentina to go for mass and serves little other purpose, although the leader is no longer required to be a Catholic).

The guards of the cathedral who protect the president of Argentina during mass.

Ornate altar of the church where Pope Francis used to say mass in Buenos Aires. This church is ONLY for the president of Argentina to come for mass. Others can come as well. 

After the city tour, we had time on our own and enjoyed a lovely tapas style dinner at Bis. We highly recommend this restaurant to anyone coming this way.  In contrast to our last two meals which were tasting menu style affairs, we had a much more relaxed and less plentiful plates, which was welcome.    This is the “less structured” restaurant by the same chef as Aramburu, which is across the alley from it, that we went to a few days earlier.

The following morning, we were off to San Isidro and to Tigre and the Delta. San Isidro is a swanky neighborhood full of mansions established during the Argentinian Golden Era. It is mostly homes of the wealthy today, sometimes second homes, along the Parana River.   San Isidro Labrador Cathedral. It’s definitely less ornate than the Plaza Mayor church, but equally regal.

The altar of the Cathedral in San Isidro. Compared to the Cathedral in Plaza Mayor, very simple.

We visited the neo-Gothic Cathedral.and observed the lovely tree lined streets and beautiful homes mostly built in the 1800s.

Catedral San Isidro

The highlight of today’s tour was the Delta area which we accessed by boat from the city of Tigre.

Waterways of Tigre are filled with people doing watersports such as rowing or kayaking.

The old casino of Tigre, now a museum

Tigre also has an industrial component and docks for commercial and private boats. There are also houseboats reminiscent of Amsterdam.

The delta has thousands of islands, many of which are inhabited and can be reached only be boat. There are enough people on them, usually in second homes, to justify electricity, and various boats for services us landlubbers tend to take for granted: boats for garbage, general store, HVAC repair, ambulance and even a hospital boat. Children are transported to school from their island by what would essentially be the school bus boat. The architecture on the island, like Buenos Aires itself, is a big hodgepodge of everything from tiny house/shack to modern glass and steel constructions. Nothing is too ostentatious or over a couple of stories.

Typical Tigre Delta homes. There is no certain style of house.

One of the worker's vacation clubs.

Scattered amongst housing are the “clubs” of various worker classes and a few hotels, restaurants and even a kayaking outfit. It was really interesting to see folks living up and down this maze of canals. We had lunch on an island at the Gato Blanco restaurant, named for a white cat that lived there. There is STILL a white cat in residence and everyone who is away from their pets fed it from their plates and bent down to get some feline therapy, including the pirate.

El Gato Blanco Restaurant on a Delta Island

The white cat. I could never respect a cat that poses for a photo.

We came back to Buenos Aires and did a short external tour of Recoleta and the outside of the cemetery where Eva Peron is interred. We were told we would see the inside later. I was there in 1991 and managed to find the needle in the haystack that is Eva Peron’s grave in this very large cemetery. It supposedly has healing powers and people are forever coming up and rubbing a body part or at least touching it. Not sure if the “legend” still persists in 2019. We shall see. (Interestingly, in 1991, we were told “Nazis” populated San Isidro, but when I asked our guide about that he said they were all in Bariloche. I would imagine most of the Nazis from WWII are a thing of the past anyway.)

Our dinner this evening was at a restaurant I don’t think Paul and I could not recommend any more highly called Roux.  lamb ravioli in marinara and llama carpaccio with Patagonian Chandras pinot noir 2015) and the business party started giving us port wine at the end from a bottle they purchased. I discovered that one of the businessmen and his wife had a son born in the hospital that I worked in in Chicago while I employed there. (Yes, you can start singing  “It’s a small world after all”.  Although I do recall an issue of backpacker magazine that said, “It’s only a small world if you aren’t walking across it.”)

Salad at Roux

Lamb meatballs. Yum

Monsieur Pirate studies the wine list.

Roux might have 15 or so tables in it. We didn’t have a reservation (even though we tried: Insider tip---call before you leave the USA), but were told we were first on the waiting list and to come at 10:15pm and they would TRY to seat us, but no guarantee. We did as told and discovered, of course, that there was waiting, but no waiting list. We stuck it out in the misty night until 11pm and they finally were able to seat us in the wine cellar (mostly occupied by a private party of business associates celebrating approval by the International Joint Commission of Hospitals). And despite all of that, we weren’t even mad, because the servers were awesome, the chef checked on us, the food was out of this world good (venison meatballs with gnocchi, llama carpaccio, and lamb ravioli ).

So overall an enjoyable 3.5 days in Buenos Aires--- a mix of free time, art, architecture, boat and bus tours and plenty of time on foot as well. We will have a “cheese course” tour left when we return from the Hinterland of Argentina for the eclipse. Stay tuned.

A great name for a bar in the elegant city of Buenos Aires!

“Buenos Aires has all the elegance of the old world, in its buildings and streets, and in its people all the vulgarity and frank good health of the new world. All the news - stands and bookshops – what a literate place, one thinks; what wealth, what good looks.” - Paul Theroux.

Paul’s Ponderings:    This was definitely an eye-opening period in the city of Buenos Aires.    I feel like I know the area a lot better, but not in detail, as a result of the last couple of days.    It is a very European city to be clear and quite a contrast to Montevideo, which is both much smaller and inherently Latin American in feel and ambiance.     The crazy thing we keep noting is how cheap it is…..a great thing for folks like us, not so great for the locals of course, since they can practically watch their income devalue on a continuing basis.     

The delta area was quite interesting and I’m glad we went out there.     Looks like a great place to spend a few days if you fancy getting around by boat taxi.  

The “wahoo” out of this was the meal at Roux, which was simply fantastic.    We kind of picked it out of a random list of options and were pretty glad we did.     If I lived in Buenos Aires or had the time, I’d eat there repeatedly.    

Now we are off to San Juan and the eclipse, which promises to be another experience entirely.