Day 13, Recoleta Cemetery and Final Thoughts on Leaving Buenos Aires

Our last day in Buenos Aires, really cut short because we have an evening flight, and must be out of our hotel room by 1pm.

We go for a walk while it's still not too hot in the morning, head to the Recoleta Cemetery.

The neighborhood we pass through is absolutely lovely. Trees, elegant buildings.  We come to a park, and see the apartment we could buy (haha). This park is quiet, has a big old tree for year-round shade, the streets around it are not too busy, I can imagine its desirability.

Jim, sitting below "our future apartment"

Continuing our walk, we see how there are dog-walkers for our dogs (haha), cleaners, rocers (small and big), everything you could want just steps away.

Shoe stores to take those steps (but too expensive for us to buy).

Get your duster from the guy on the corner.

We reach the cemetery, but signs do not indicate where the entrance actually is. So guess, what...I guessed wrong and we ended up walking around a long block that included a shopping
center. Oh well, just more sights and sounds.

At one end of the cemetery is a beautiful old church.















Jim in front of his future home

 Entering the cemetery is like entering a park of little mansions or chapels. Each one strong and individual in style and materials.

Evita in Duarte mausoleum

There are trees, a map and directory to find each mausoleum.

Of course, we are looking for Evita's resting place, the Duarte family, it has flowers and admirers still.

Cats guard the cemetery

So this was our last excursion into Buenos Aires, now we rest in the air conditioned hotel lobby, for our ride to the airport and home.

I will add a few more thoughts on things interesting in Argentina...many of the places where we used a credit card, required that we enter our passport number. I am not sure why, possibly part of the currency controls?

We also ran into a cover charge "cubierto" at restaurants. It was about 8 pesos per person. Some charged it, some did not. Some mentioned it on the menu, others did not. But it is not supposed to interfere with the tipping!

Finally, at a restaurant when you are going to charge the meal, they ask for the amount of the tip in advance, so there is only one charge made. And the waiters are very up-front about asking you to add a tip!

Day 12, Buenos Aires Yarn District...and the Peso Problem

This morning we head to the Yarn District. Yes, Buenos Aires has a district for all things yarn! So the start of this blog is only of interest for other yarnies and knitters...read further down for our experience on money in Argentina.

It is along Av. Scalabrini Ortiz, starting on Av. Cordoba and extending toward Av. Corrientes, most of the shops are pretty close together within 4-5 blocks, both sides of the street!

We take a taxi, and I am thrilled with the windows and little shops full of yarn. But it is confusing. The yarns are generally unlabeled, they are bundled in bins with headings that mean something to locals, but not much to me! Fiber content may or may not be listed, nothing about gauge, needles, yardage. Just price per kilo.

I just wander the shops and finger the yarns, not sure what I want. No one speaks English to answer questions. But I know algodon is cotton, seda is silk, and lana is wool.  At Hilados Reina, I settle on a nice multicolor dyed cotton for 44 pesos, calculated as .45 kilos at 98 peso per kilo. It looks like a lot of yarn for a short-sleeved sweater, about $9.

Now we are running short on pesos (more on that below), so I look for a shop that accepts credit cards. At Yanabey, hard to select from that gorgeous wall of color, but go with a 50/50 cotton/silk, 1.42 kilos at 195 pesos, $56. Enough for 3 sweaters.

Postscript here...since returning home I found someone online who works in the Buenos Aires yarn district who answered some questions.  While seda is spanish for silk, they are actually referred to rayon "artificial silk". No silk is made in Argentina, so they are loose on labels because they all "know this".  But the good news, the unlabeled yarns are made in Argentina for that store, so I have some unique yarns!

Okay, I'm done with knitting heaven!

Hot day, we nap in the afternoon, and go to a local restaurant Piola's for dinner. The forks in the cement outside the door point us in! It's an amazing space, narrow and deep into the block, 3 large rooms and an inner patio, that have brightly painted walls, lively music, english menu options. Even the tablecloths and napkins are distinctively printed.
And the pizza was delicious!

About the Argentina Peso.  We heard about inflation and currency problems before we got here. When we first arrived in Bariloche, we were able to exchange $US at cambios for
between 6 and 6.5 pesos per dollar.

The official rate, what our credit card purchasing convert with, is 4.9 pesos, established by the government.

When we get to Buenos Aires, we are mystified by the lack of cambios. Our hotel tells us to go to the Citibank...but they will not change currency.  We go to another bank, they say
they will only exchange for their Argentine customers.  We learn that the cambios have been going out of business over the last few months due to government pressure. Hotels are no
longer allowed to exchange currency.




The crux of the problem is...the prices of goods and food are way too high at the 4.9
rate. For instance, we would peer into a window of shoes that are 500 pesos.  That is $100,
for a pair of shoes that we might pay $50-60 here in the states.  So the "unofficial" rate,
if we could get the pesos, would be more in line.

BUT, we can't get the pesos at that rate! Apparently, we should have been able to use
dollars and get the rate, but that just never seemed to be agreeable at the particular
merchants we asked. Sigh...

This all left us feeling that Argentina is not a good place to visit right now, cost is too
high.  Let them work out their issues, and be more visitor friendly on this currency
exchange! The costs in Montevideo and Chile were less of an issue, in line, not cheap.

Day 11, A Tour of Buenos Aires Neighborhoods

Our first full day in Buenos Aires, and we have a half-day city tour. Full bus, without
very good windows, and so the photo opps were limited.  Why is everything of interest always "look out the right side", but I'm sitting on the left??

That makes me laugh about hotel design and who designs bathroom lighting that is useless for women?  These tour guides must also attend the same school.

I offer photos of interesting buildings, we travel through several neighborhoods starting from our own Centro neighborhood which is just on the border with Recoleta.

A rather interesting sculpture flies by on the right side of the bus. A metal flower whose petals open and close during the day.

Buenos Aires is located along the Rio de la Plata, but the muddy polluted side (as opposed to the pretty clean side of Uruguay). So there are no beaches here. Instead, lots and lots of parks to cool off in the heat of the summer. Truly, as tourists we are liking these too...it is HOT and muggy.

Our drive takes us into Palermo neighborhood, mansions and embassies. Then Palermo Soho for artists.  They are lovely areas.

Crossing the Ave 9 de Julio boulevard again, we learn it is 18 lanes, 144 meters wide. Some additional interesting sites...McDonalds, the Subte signs for the sub-terranian metro, the national theater Teatro Colon, which is a pride and joy for excellent acoustics.

Teatro Colon

Pink Government House, famous balconies

Plaza de Mayo is an important square for a nice walk around it.  On one end is the Pink Government house where the president works...balconies famous for Evita's farewell speech.

Also on Plaza de Mayo is the Metropolitan Catedral.

In there park are several demonstrations, quiet today. The Women for the Missing People demonstrate on Thursdays at 3:30 pm. These are the mothers of revolutionaries who were picked up by the government decades ago, and never seen again.

demonstration of crosses

Beautiful buildings around Plaza de Mayo, the lightposts remind me of Paris in a romantic way.

Next on our tour is the San Telmo neighborhood, where the tango was born.

Off to the right side...there are the ornate domes to the only Russian Orthodox Church in Buenos Aires.  Mostly Catholics here, of course.

La Boca is our next couple of stops to walk around, and what a treat this is!

La Boca means "the mouth", and it is a small inlet on the river that defines the border between Buenos Aires city and province.

Starting with the neighborhood of their football (soccer) team stadium. Of note are the Coca Cola logos along the roofline...black and white instead of red and white...because the arch rivals of the local team have those colors. And it's obvious that blue/gold are the local team colors, perhaps a dozen souvenir shops are open for fans.

Buildings in La Boca are often quite brightly painted. And the murals are amazing!

Obviously a poorer neighborhood, looking between the bright colors are dark alleys and dank corners of living, trash, thin dogs.

Behind a bright mural, stark backsides of buildings. And then some art on the side of a home that depicts a much bright home of the imagination.

As we are waiting to reboard our bus, I wander into an amazing courtyard of brightly painted scenese. Oops...bruskly told in Spanish that I don't belong there, a little further along it is a "museum" of some sort for 10 pesos admission...but no one being admitted right now.

Caminito Street is our next stop in the La Boca neighborhood. Another place where I think I've died and gone to Color Heaven.

Look at all the multi colored walls. The story of the walls is the availability of paint.

Too poor to paint in one color, the residents get paint leftover from ships. There is only enough paint to do a wall at a time, and colors are limited to those of boats.

Our tour guide has some explanation about the Caminito Street conception. The homes used to open up to the railroad tracks for commerce, but that died with the train. The other sides of the buildings were just windows...so you don't see doors on the street! But with all the shops opening up to the street, that is not obvious.

I'm the least colorful character on
Caminito Street in Buenos Aires

In the Caminito Street area, here also these wonderful statue characters. We saw on a balcony is the Evita at center. I'm not sure what the story of the figures is, but they add so much character!

Caminito Street is a major tourist draw. Outdoor restaurants, lots of souvenir shops, artists on display, street performers.

We also see the tango being danced in the restaurants, tango dancers looking to pose with you for photos to make a few pesos.

Wait...is that Jim doing a tango move with a statue?

If not in the street, this would be the place to come and dance in a tango club. But alas, Jim has already performed.

peaking inside a Tango Club

One of the extra special things of the neighborhood is to see residents cooling off on
their balconies. However, many of them do not seem to have glass windows, just cloth
coverings.

After La Boca, we ride alongside the harbor area Puerto Madero. That includes a section below the upper road ramps, where there is a shanty town or favelo.  By my rough estimation, this may also be close to the start of that long delapidated pier where people were fishing on our way in on the ferry yesterday.

Moving back into the San Telmo neighborhood...look off to the right, there is a large
antique and handicraft market held every Sunday.

I do not get a photo, and  We do not get off the bus...and possibly that was a good idea. We meet a couple ladies tonight from Australia who were there. Upon leaving, they turned down a not-busy street and were assaulted by a foul-smelling spray. A couple "passers-by" offer to clean off the "bird poop", but really just lift the wallet from one's handbag, and dash off into a waiting taxi. This is the "famous Bird Poop Scam", which BA residents on TripAdvisor believe "everyone should know about this and be warned", yet you are never warned, this cannot be acceptable.

And our tour is over, ready to rest for a short while, cool off. Lunch at a corner
restaurant, ice cream from the corner store, we enjoy a sit in the local park where it is a lot cooler when you just don't move. The homeless there also were cooling off.

Tonight is a Big Event...we are going to the Carlos Gardel Tango show and dinner! Jim is particularly a fan of Carlos Gardel, as being responsible for expanding the popularity of the tango and making it accessible to everyone. Tango was originally performed by whores and men of low social standing, but after Carlos and others in the 1930's brought it out as a distinctive music and dance form, everything changed.

Our show is of course not photographic without flash, and that's not allowed. It is held in a palacial room with elegant furnishings. After a dinner that was okay, the tango
performers and singers were amazingly talented (was I ever that young and limber?),
wardrobe outstanding, choreography interesting, every moment was a thrill and worth the price of admission!