Now that we have been to a few highlights of the city, I think I can further comment on Buenos Aires. First of all, everyone smokes. That appears to be a given and for Torontonians, it is sort of shocking to see people smoke in restaurants, bars, everywhere in fact. Another thing that is amazing is that there seems to be a whole underclass of people that pick garbage day and night. They schlep around huge barrels and go through the garbage of stores and houses picking through the ‘good’ stuff, whatever that is, throw it into their trundle and wander off to their next treasure. We see it everywhere and I presume they are doing us all a great favour by recycling. Most things happen at night, it seems. We took a bus ( no easy feat) because you have to tell the bus driver where you are going so he can determine the fare and the drivers do not react that well when we tell them we are just on for the ride and do not have a specific destination. Anyway, after we have to pay through the nose, about fifty cents, we drive through the streets and it seems as if nothing is open. Last night, we dropped into a restaurant at the unheard of hour of seven and when we came out at nine and started to walk on the street it was literally a different street. All the restaurants were open, stores, supermarkets and so on. It seems there are two classes of citizens of Buenos Aires, those who work in the restaurants and those that eat in them. You must have spent the whole Daniel in the coffee houses or restaurants reading the paper! By the way Daniel, the cafeteria at the Melba was a great disappointment, although the art gallery was fine and had an Andy Warhol exhibition. Isn’t it great how a Czech immigrant can call himself Mr. America. What a country!
Of course, the city seems to live on music.
We went to a tango show at the Tortonni and even though we had tickets, had to stand outside for an hour for the privilege of getting in. When we finally did get in we were so thankful that even though we had last row seats we did not complain. However, it did not seem to stop the other visitors from complaining. I have no idea how the workers in these various establishments take all of the abuse of foreigners or how they can be so inefficient, but life seems to go on. The cemetery at Recoleta was fascinating as it seems to show how the Argentineans venerate their dead. As you can see from the pictures of the cemetery, each seems to have their own separate mausoleum that are buried deep into the ground and in one mausoleum there were 17 bodies of male descendants. No idea what happens to the females, but I suppose they end up in their husbands families’ tombs.
Eva Peron seemed to still cause quite a stir amongst the Bolivians and Columbians who visit her grave on a daily basis and leave flowers. Not sure what the Argentineans think. General Peron is buried elsewhere by the way. What I found amazing was that this is still a working cemetery and in a few hours we saw two separate funerals. I have no idea how the grieving families must have felt to entomb their loved ones with so many tourists in tow. By the way, as you look into the tomb, you can actually see the casket rotting away. The whole experience is quite amazing really. I guess it rains every Monday in Buenos Aires because last Monday it rained all day and it is pouring again. We were going to go to the delta at Tigre today but I guess we will put that off and stay indoors.
By the way, don’t believe guide books. Our guidebook says not to trust taxi drivers, but that is simply not the case. They have been fantastic in writing instructions, listening to our lousy Spanish and giving us all kinds of great recommendations. They seldom charge us full fare, yet in the guidebooks they are all trying to cheat you. It is nice to be able to make one’s own judgement on things.
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