19th-21st November: First impressions of Buenos Aires

19th November

The flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires was relatively peaceful, albeit with some surprisingly timed entertainment.  Take-off over the Beagle Channel and its icy gales was calm, but the storm that welcomed us to Buenos Aires made for a bumpy landing.  The same storm had caused havoc with the taxis, but eventually the remise arrived and drove us into the city.

We were greeted at our home for the next two weeks by Angela, our American hostess.  We would be staying in a lovely old house in San Telmo, where the high ceilings would spare us the worst of the incipient summer's heat.  The house had been carved up into three double bedrooms, with two bathrooms, a large shared area with sofas and dining table, and a well-appointed kitchen.  There was also a rooftop terrace, although we didn't get much use from it that rainy night.

As we arrived our fellow guests were having dinner: a young American couple and a pair of retired Australian women, all of whom were very pleasant.  They had already been in BA for a few days, so were able to give us some useful tips, to which Angela added her own very valuable advice.  We lingered for a generously-offered glass of vino tinto, then went for a wander to find dinner.  By then it was past midnight, so we had been forcibly introduced to BA time.  We found a decent bite to eat at a cool old diner called la Popular (decked out in red, appropriately enough).  We then returned home for a much needed sleep.

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20th November

We enjoyed a lazy Sunday morning, then strolled down the road towards the San Telmo fair.  On the way we stopped off for an extraordinarily gluttonous brunch, comprising seven courses finished off with a champagne cocktail.  We justified this as a celebration of our return to civilisation.  We could barely move but struggled on.

The fair was spread out over a couple of kilometres of road from the bottom of San Telmo all the way into the centre of the city, but was focused around Plaza Dorrego, where there were numerous stalls and shops selling antiques.  Elsewhere shops and street-vendors offered everything from clothes to food to useless knick-knacks.  Amazingly we managed to emerge unscathed and unburdened by purchases.

The fair ended at Plaza de Mayo, named after the month in 1810 in which Argentina had its first national government.  The plaza is dominated by the Casa Rosada, the Pink House, which is the Argentine equivalent of the White House.  No sign of the recently re-elected Cristina.  We did a tour of the plaza and then walked back down to San Telmo.  We cooked ourselves dinner (which was rather more moderate than lunch), had a nice chat with the Australians, and then went to bed.

Casa Rosada

Plaza de Mayo (the protesters in the background are troops who
were trained for but never sent to the Falklands War, who want the social
security benefits to which they would be entitled as "war veterans")

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21st November

Again we struggled to make it our of our comfortable bed.  We had lunch in the apartment, then set out for the Indian embassy to apply for our visa.  We thought it would be a good idea to deal with this immediately so we could get on with enjoying BA.  It was lucky that we were, for once, well-organised: we were told that the visa would take eight days to process, leaving us very little grace before our flight to San Francisco and beyond.  We had a slight detour via the embassy's former address, but once we did arrive we found it very pleasant.  The embassy has a spacious waiting area with computers, wifi, coffee, and books of the highlights of India that really whetted our appetite.

We left the embassy at around 3.30pm, which gave us an hour or so to wander around before our "free tour" started.  We strolled down to the Puerto Madero, the old dock which had been converted (like so many around the world, apparently) into expensive flats and offices.  Moored opposite several touristy restaurants was the corvette "Uruguay", which we had read about in Ushuaia as the saviour of the Swedish expedition to Antarctica in the early 20th century (see previous post).  We had a brief look around the ship, which was sturdy but not particularly large, and marvelled at what it must have been like to sail to Antarctica on such a vessel.

Aboard the "Uruguay"

We then walked across to Plaza San Martin, the start of our "free" tour around Retiro and Recoleta, traditionally the most wealthy parts of Buenos Aires.  The tour was led by a very enthusiastic young woman who had set up the tours with a few friends several years ago.  Judging by the number of tourists flocking around, the enterprise had been successful.  The tour is theoretically free, but tips are expected and given, perhaps even more generously than if payment were demanded.

Statue of General San Martin

The two-hour tour passed by several huge and ornate palaces built by BA's super-rich during the boom years towards the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries.  Clem was particularly impressed by the large buildings that not only looked Parisian but had in fact been shipped over from France slab by slab.  Our guide explained that it was a question of ballast.  The ships that carried Argentian beef over to Europe used to return to South America laden with immigrants.  This human tide receded during WW1, but the ships still needed ballast, so building materials were a perfect substitute.

French style, French materials

The ubiquitous dog-walkers (and, bizarrely, an English postbox)

We also passed by a rather tense juxtaposition: on one side of the square was "Big Ben", a clocktower donated by BA's English community to celebrate Argentina's centenary; glaring at it from the other side of the plaza was a memorial to those that died in the war fought over the Atlantic rocks known as Las Malvinas or the Falklands.

On one side of the plaza...

...and on the other.

Franciscan church next to Recoleta cemetery

In the background is the mechanical flower that opens at dawn and closes at dusk (when it's working)

After the tour had finished we walked back down to Plaza San Martin and caught the metro down south to San Telmo.  We walked the last few blocks along Defensa looking for a restaurant, and ended up at an old joint called Bar Hippopotamus.  This started life as a grocery store in the 19th century, and then became a writers' haunt in the 20th century.  Now it is a slightly touristy bar, which served up decent if rather greasy fare.