Thursday January 14, 2010 Buenos Aries
I awoke with the sun, about 6:00, took a shower and went up to find coffee and watch the ship dock… we were about two miles off the port of Buenos Aires…
By 6:30 we had reached dock at the container port, a very modern container port. The ship entered the breakwater and gracefully spun about, and with the help of a tug backed into a one of the spaces… ropes were thrown across to the dock but at first no one came to catch them… Two men walked up, and took one rope, then were chased away by two more, who arrived by truck, these wearing orange floatation vests, and finally took the ropes. Having tied to the pier we boarded the Argentine authorities.
The excitement of docking finished, I joined the family for breakfast…
The announcement that the ship had been cleared by Argentine authorizes came quickly, and we gathered, and walked off to the waiting shuttle bus. We were docked at a container dock, an industrial area with cranes, trucks, and such all moving about busily. There was one difference from an similar facility in the United States… there were dogs running about among the hubbub… dogging cranes and trucks.
The shuttle took us to the port office, as usual with lots of security, gift shops and an internet center. We met Jessica our guide at the gate. Jessica was a ex-pat, who had come to Buenos Aries to study Spanish for a few months. She has lived here for nearly 3 years… and loves it.
Our walking tour started with a taxi ride across the south end of the city past the Puerto Madero to the San Telmo neighborhood. San Telmo was the original rich neighborhood full of casa chorizo, sausage houses… named for their design, a long skinny house consisting of a series of courtyards linked together. The wealthy and powerful abandoned the neighborhood in the late 19th century, and it became the neighborhood of the new immigrants, the casa chorizos becoming tenements. Now the neighborhood has been gentrified, the buildings now given over to antique shops and apartments.
She led us through several of the buildings, then through the produce market (many stalls now given over to antique dealers, but some produce stalls remained) San Telmo claims to be the home of the Tango, but other neighborhoods claim that as well. It was a neighborhood rich in graffiti, including a mural of the Che’ complete with a tattoo showing a disgraced but loved soccer hero on his arm…
We walked through the Monserratt neighborhood past a church with the grave and monument to General Belgrano, one of Argentina’s founders (a cruiser, named Belgrano was sunk by the Brittish during the Faulklands war… that war will haunt this trip). The church spire was marked to show battle damage from one of several wars of British occupation (or attempted occupation in 1806/07).
From Monserratt we walked to Centro, with its Plaza de Mayo, where the Casa Rosa or Pink Palace stands. The Plaza was the home to the Mothers of the Disappeared as well as other groups including a group demonstrating against drugs, and an encampment of veterans of the Falklands war. The Casa Rosa is the office of the President, and from its balcony Juan and Eva Peron would give speeches… a nearby ministry shows the pot marks of the bomb which was dropped nearby killing 300 Argentines when during the coup which caused Juan Peron to flee into exile.
Also just off the Plaza sits the Cathedral Metropolitana, with the crypt of General San Martin, the second of the great Argentine heroes of independence, an honor guard standing watch.
From the plaza we worked our way up the Ave de Mayo, walking and taking the subway, on our way to a mid-day snack at Café Tortoni, the most famous of the Argentine coffee houses. For a tourist destination the café was truly genuine… we sat with coffee and pastry, and relaxed.
Having regained our strength we continued our walk… We soon reached the Avenue 9 de Julio (Argentina’s day of independence) the widest street in the world… at 140 meters, with 16 lanes of traffic… it is impressive. We jumped back on the subway headed north to the Retrio neighborhood. The new neighborhood of the rich… full of once grand homes, now government buildings, hotels and embassies… We had lunch, empanadas and cervisa in a local café, then explored the City cemetery.
The cemetery is holds the body of Evita, along with much of Buenos Aries once rich and important… We spent time walking among the crypts… then caught a taxi back to the ship…
That evening they showed Evita (the movie) aboard… we watched it… Sometime after 9:00 we set sail for Montevideo Uruguay…
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