Two Days in Buenos Aires

Two days in Buenos Aires We are moored, February 9 and 10, amid a dock full of containers being noisily moved about by giant mobile cranes 24/7. The first day is considered a holiday, part of the Mardi Gras celebration and a time for vacations. We are lucky because this means the traffic will be lighter than usual. We take a shuttle ride through canyons of containers to reach the dock terminal area. There we meet our guide, and board our bus. Our voluble guide for both days, named Marina, is super enthusiastic about the city. She says she sees herself as Italian and Spanish, not Argentinian--and certainly not South American, although she was born here. "I am a 'porteña'," she proclaims, meaning a woman from this port city. (The male counterpart is a porteño.) She says Buenos Aires residents are different from other Argentinians--the city folks have the reputation of being loud and brash. Buenos Aires settled by Europeans starting in the late 1500s. They quickly dispatched the native peoples, and made the city feel like the countries they came from. On this first tour day we stop at parks and lakes, and see a downtown racetrack for Formula One cars, which are now electric to reduce the noise. We marvel at a 75-foot-tall shiny metal flower in a park in the Recoleta neighborhood. Made of the same material that sheaths Lockheed airplanes, it opens and closes based on the sunlight, just like a real flower. The architecture in this area is predominantly classical Beaux Arts French. We visit the elaborate and extensive cemetery where Eva Peron is buried; she is a cult figure among Argentinians. Families maintain their own tombs in this cemetery, a major tourist attraction, and many of their mausoleums--built during the city's economic boom times in the late 1800s through the late 1920s--have elegant architectural features, such as glass doors embellished with elegant iron scrollwork, elaborate carvings, and interior steps to reach up to six levels underground. We visit the cathedral that was the seat for the Archbishop who became Pope Francis. His friendship with the Jewish community (400,000) is documented in the cathedral along with a memorial to the Holocaust. The rose-colored government house is in the same area--the president's office is here, and he arrives each day by helicopter. As might be expected from Argentina's volatile political history, there was a demonstration occurring while we are in this part of the city, with hundreds of people camped out in the square facing the government house and the cathedral. Signs and banners demanded justice and evoked Eva Peron's name. We are told the peaceful demonstrators had lost their government jobs and were seeking money. To get from point to point, we must go through police barricades. The public seems to ignore what is happening, taking it in stride. We drive along the widest avenue in the world, 9 de Juleo Avenue; again, it is very French in appearance. Later in the day we are taken to the Puerto Madero area. This was the site of an earlier port built in the city. It became derelict after the new, more modern port was built, but now it is the site of urban renewal. There are many upscale shops, condos, office buildings and restaurants in the area. We enjoy an Italian dinner with wine; our guide cautions that the portions are huge, so we split an appetizer and entree (a house specialty: chicken lasagne with rosy sauce), and have plenty of delicious food for two. Our window looks out on the canal which flows through the area, now partially covered with flowers that have come down the river. After dinner we are bussed to one of the city's many tango theaters (ours is called Los Angelitos--"the little angels") for a professional tango show. The music is live, and the stage is two stories tall; the orchestra is visible on the second level while the dancers perform on the stage below. The passion and footwork are impressive. We try to imagine being able to master some of the steps we see--such as the male dancer's putting his leg around the woman's back while they whirl about the stage at about 20 miles an hour! We are back on the boat by 9 PM. The next day we visit the colorful painted buildings in La Boca, which also gives its name to a favorite soccer team. The area, with streets of cobblestone, is crowded with visitors and street performers, including tango dancers, hoping for money. It reminds us a bit of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Sumner has an Argentine beer, and both of us enjoy beef empanadas--baked, not fried like they usually are. Alice is delighted to have a very cold diet 7-Up, a unique event so far on this trip. On the drive back to the ship, we get a glimpse of the Buenos Aires slums we've heard about. These makeshift homes are tucked under bridges. Our guide says the Argentine economy has been suffering since the year 2000; before that, the Argentine peso was on par with the U.S. dollar; now the exchange ratio is 14 pesos to the dollar. We are warned, not for the first time, to show no flashy jewelry or iPhones; these can be stolen in a flash by pickpockets. Indeed, we later learn that a fellow passenger's Rolex watch was grabbed by a thief who whizzed by on a motorscooter. When we leave Buenos Aires and head up the coast to Brazil, we will have two more days at sea, and lose another hour. We are now three hours ahead of East Coast time.