I’m seeing dachshunds everywhere! So many dogs in Buenos Aires, all being lovingly walked by their owners.
Today was a City Tour, followed by a tango dinner. Nice!
This obelisk in the centre of downtown is a place where they get together when they are protesting or celebrating. Especially for the football! It’s a feature of the city.
We drove past the Opera house, but I didn’t get a picture. I didn’t realise what a fabulous story was connected with it!
There were 3 architects involved in the project to design and build the Opera House. The first architect died, aged 44.
The second architect was fit and healthy, but he arrived home early one day and discovered his wife with the butler. The architect was shot and killed, aged 44.
Of course, rumours started circulating that the project was cursed.
To get over this, the last architect was hired. He was older than 44, and the opera house was finished.
Our first stop was the main square.
In 1580 Buenos Aires was established by the Spanish. There was originally a fort on the ground where this building stands , because the local population were, understandably, less than enthusiastic about being enslaved.
Government Palace is where the president works . He commutes by helicopter from his home in the country. Don’t we all?
Pink building because the blood of cows was mixed with lime and fat. This was to protect it from humidity.
Eva Peron’s balcony is to the left, with the 3 arched windows.
Stones around the statue are a covid memorial. Every stone is a memorial for a person who died from Covid. There are literally hundreds of stones. It was really sad, and a sobering reminder of how awful it was in so many places.
People who now insist that Covid was a hoax are fools.
Suddenly there was a flurry of activity outside the presidential palace. It was the changing of the guard. They were on their way to the tomb of one of their greatest revolutionary heroes at the cathedral down the road.
As we walked towards the cathedral, we passed by the statue commemorating the day of liberation from the Spanish.
Andrea, our guide, asked if we’d ever heard of the Lost Mothers. (I had, but I thought it happened in Venezuala.)
During the last of a string of dictators in the 1970’s, over 300,000 people were kidnapped, tortured and killed by the regime. In an effort to prevent outsiders from discovering what was going on, many prisoners were lightly sedated, then pushed from planes in remote parts of the country.
Women who were pregnant when they were taken prisoner were kept until they gave birth, then their babies were placed with families loyal to the regime. None were returned to their birth families.
The Lost Mothers are the mothers and grandmothers of those people stolen and hidden. They originally marched to end the regime, but every Thursday they still march to remind people of what has been lost. They wear white headscarves to represent the nappies of their children and lost grandchildren. DNA testing has brought 134 ‘babies’ home to their birth families, but many more have been lost.
The eternal flame burns outside the cathedral.
The previous Pope, Pope Francis, worked in this cathedral for 20 years before he was elected to the top job.
The floor is covered with mosaic tiles from the UK, all in the Passion of the Christ and the Crown of Thorns. That last one sounds like a starfish to me, but I suppose that’s an Aussie thing.
Here’s where the guards were headed. This room houses the mausoleum of General José de San Martín, Argentina’s most revered revolutionary hero and a primary liberator of South America. It also has a couple of other generals and the Unknown Soldier.
His casket is buried underneath. He died in France, and was brought here. He was buried in a diagonal position as the casket didn’t quite fit… maybe because he was a Freemason? Or maybe they were bad at measurements.
Then we drove to the most FABULOUS neighbourhood.
This is the Caminito neighbourhood. It was a dump after the railway left, until an artist started to introduce colour to the place. Pretty soon, it all took off and now tourists flock here.
I nearly bought a painting but I restrained myself.
It was a wonderful place to walk around. There was a couple dressed up as tango dancers. They were grabbing tourists as they walked by, making them pose for a photo and then charging 10USD for the photo their partner took. The man tried to grab me, but I wasn’t having it. (Today is a no-spend day for me.) But it was fun watching them work.
Who knew that there is an Australia Park here, complete with massive concrete kangaroos?
These phone boxes reminded me of London. They’re standing near a MASSIVE rubber tree, with a fun twist.
They have poles holding up the branches, but Atlas is giving a hand as well.
Buenos Aires is a very clean, modern city. It was a pleasure to walk around here.
“We have no natural disasters here,” said Andrea. “No earthquakes, no hurricanes, no tornadoes. The only natural disasters are the politicians!”
The highest building here is only 54 floors. It’s residential.
There are only 3 million people in Buenos Aires. The city seems larger somehow.
Our last stop before returning to the hotel was the oldest cemetery in the city.
It’s the Recoleta Cemetery, established in 1822. Like the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris – where I kissed Oscar Wilde’s tomb – it’s full of mausoleums as well as graves.
The mausoleums here have basements. The people who built them were thinking ahead, working out how to fit as many family members into this expensive place as they could.
Back in the 1820’s and onward, Argentina was going through a boom time. As the rich were building their houses, they were using the same materials for their mausoleums. There’s marble and stained glass everywhere.
The contracts for each mausoleum is for 99 years. Families have to pay an annual fee of $40/ square metre for maintenance.
Scattered around the cemetery are crypts that have been neglected and are falling apart. No one can touch them until the 99 years is up. Then someone new can buy it and either knock it down or renovate.
5,000 crypts here.
Here’s what is believed to be the oldest grave here. This is the wife of the great hero whose tomb we saw at the cathedral.
She looks young. His parents were originally buried here too, but at some later stage they were moved to another town. That seems a little creepy to me.
Inside.
This one had a glass door, so we could see the coffins. Or maybe, so that they can see us?
Yikes!
This is apparently the most expensive one here. It was built in the early 1900’s, and the Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 1970 is buried here as part of the family. It has semi-precious stone ornaments, mosaics under the roof and takes up a fair bit of space.
This is the plan for a new mausoleum that’s being built after one of the neglected ones was sold. Look at all of the marble!
And then we came to it. The place where Eva Peron rests… finally.
This is the crypt of her Brother-in-law’s family. Duarte was her maiden name.
When Eva died she was only 33 years old. She had cervical cancer. Peron wanted her embalmed, against the wishes of her family.
People lost their minds with grief when she died, as she and her husband were very popular with the working class people, as they introduced many reforms.
She lay in state in an open casket for weeks, until one day her body was stolen.
A radical group who hated Peron took her body out of the country and buried it in Milan under a different name.
He body was in Milan for 15 years.
In 1955 there was a revolution by the people who stole the body.
They released the body to Peron and he returned to Argentina with his 3rd wife and the body of Eva, his second wife. The story goes that Eva rested in state in the dining room on a platform near the table for 3 years until his death.
Isobel, the 3rd wife, must have been a very patient woman!!
Her name was Liliana. She and her husband lived a very lavish lifestyle, which came to a sticky end when she was killed in an avalanche while skiing in Austria.
She’s in her wedding dress. She’s fenced off from the public, because people kept touching the dog’s nose for good luck and it was starting to damage it. There was an urban myth going around that the dog died at the exact moment that she did, but that’s not true. Her mother took care of the dog for years after the accident.
Hazel looks like this sometimes.
We were in for a treat tonight. A dinner – all food and alcohol included- at a Tango place.
It was an excellent night, but I can’t record everything, so here are some snippets.
oof. I’ve been trying for half an hour to upload another tango vid, and they keep getting rejected. I’m off to bed.
Tomorrow… gauchos!
Dad joke of the day:
Dancing With Frogs 
