Eight of us in a Mercedes 12 seater with a kamikaze driver for a tour of the city's highlights. As the guide pointed out, it would take 5 days to really cover this city of 14 million. We started near the old port where the Spanish colony began. It has now become very fashionable, all the warehouses being converted into hotels, restaurants or expensive apartments. After liberation, Italians were the main immigrants and they came as port workers. They scrounged whatever materials and paint they could from their jobs and built colourful homes (shacks) some of which we saw. As usual, near the port was also the brothel area, and someone developed the ide of providing music for the gentlemen the as they awaited their turn with the ladies. This saw the birth of tango music -- the dance followed later.
The city boasts to have more trees than people, and there are some beautiful wide boulevards. Many parks, and memorial statues everywhere. We stopped at the Mayo Plaza opposite the Cathedral where demonstrations are held. Here they don't need a permit to demonstrate, as long as they remain peaceful. Every Thursday, the Mothers and Grandmothers of the thousands missing under the junta circle the centre of the plaza wearing white armbands and demanding justice for the lost ones. It is apparently a vey moving sight. The founder of the republic 1812 Jose de San Martin lies buried in the Cathedral where two ceremonial guards keep watch day and night. He was a top ranking Freemason, probably the only one ever to be buried in a Catholic Church.
While the south of the city was basically working class, the north was where the landed gentry moved in from the estates to build huge homes in the French style of the day (late 1800s). It certainly shows in the architecture. Agains lots of parks and monuments. Recoleta (recollection, reflection) is the centre of this development. Named after the Recoleta Friars (a reform branch of the Franciscans set up by St Peter Alcantara), the started their monastery at the church I went to on Easter eve. They rejoiced in the multitude of indulgences that Pope Julius gave them to dispense liberally (at a price I am sure) and were very popular. Their little cemetery and orchard have become today's Recoleta cemetery. The Friars eventually folded and it is now a parish church.
I couldn't be bothered searching for Eva Peron's grave: they say it is hard to find. I just did a walk down one road and back another. Some of the monuments are in bad shape with broken doors or glass. Coffins just sit on shelves, usually covered with a white pall. No attempt to seal the graves.
Tonight it was off to a dinner and tango show. El Querandi features a fine 4 piece tango band
(Piano, double bass, button accordion and violin) and a cast of 10 dancers and singers. The 3 course meal was ok. The show nosy but visually great. Through music, song, dance and costumes of each era they told the story of the tango's beginnings and evolution. I did wonder if the men wear cricket protectors as there seemed to be a awful lot of high kicking between the legs in some of the moves!
A lot of the pics were taken from moving bus, but still show what the place is like. See them Here.
No comments:
Post a Comment