Buenos Aires: La Boca

If you've ever seen a picture of Buenos Aires, you've seen a picture of La Boca, a working class neighborhood originally established by Italian immigrants.

 

Due to its proximity to the river Riachuelo, the neighborhood was once home to a shipyard and fisherman. This maritime history is reflected in La Boca's architecture.

 

La Boca is known to be a rough neighborhood if you stray off the tourist path, so we made sure to stick to the main avenue as we walked there.

 

Our route took us by the river where a tango show was going on. For fifteen minutes, we joined the audience and watched a family of tango dancers spin, dip, and twirl their way across the improvised stage. In fact, they moved so fast that I wasn't able to capture any decent photos of them, just videos. It's said that La Boca is the birthplace of tango, but I have no idea how much truth there is to that statement.

 

El Caminito, probably the most photographed street in the whole city, is the heart of La Boca. This short, pedestrian street takes you past vividly colored paintings: sea greens, hot pinks, egg yolk yellows, fiery reds, and a painter's pallet of other bright shades.  

 

El Caminito is pretty much always full of tourists, snapping photos and not paying attention to where they're going. Local artists sell original paintings and stores are well stocked with souvenir trinkets.

 

Mini Bear stopped in a cafe to snack on some empanadas.

 

I don't understand what motivated this car's owner, but I couldn't resist this photo. Believe it or not, I've actually been called bossy myself.

 

 

Buenos Aires: sculptures, tombs, & drums

It was a gorgeous, sunny day today, so we planned our itinerary so we could be outside as much as possible.

 

The first stop was the sculpture garden in plaza des Naciones Unidas. Officially named Floralis Generica, but commonly referred to as the Steel Flower, the central sculpture was unveiled in 2002. A porteño named Eduardo Catalano created the eighteen ton sculpture.

 

In googling the Steel Flower to find its proper name, I discovered that the flower actually opens and closes. I've only ever seen it in the daytime, when it is open, but apparently at night, the flower closes its petals and emits a red glow. I'll try to catch it at night next time I'm in town!

 

Our group of three carried on to nearby Recoleta cemetery. Best known as Evita Peron's final resting place, the cemetery is a great place to visit. Wide, tree lined avenues splinter into narrow streets and alleys filled with above-ground tombs. Some are beautiful, some are falling apart, but all are fascinating to see.

 

The tomb of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak is always crowded with spectators due to its uniqueness. Most of the tombs resemble phone booths in size and construction while hers is a green statue of herself petting her dog and standing on a podium. She died on her honeymoon after an avalanche in Austria and her body was sent home to her native Argentina.

 

Whenever I've gone to Recoleta in the past, I've always found Evita's tomb just by following the crowds. Today was surprisingly quiet and we had to ask for directions.

 

Lunch was across the street at a cafe. My ears perked up when I heard an accordion, so I grabbed my camera, recruited someone to take my photo, and dashed off towards the music. The accordionist was more than happy to have his photo taken with me and in this picture I am in fact moving his hand to my hip and away from other parts of my body.

 

After a long day out in the sun, we went out to a concert I had heard about from other backpackers months ago. La Bomba de Tiempo is a weekly improv drum circle that takes place on a stage in an old warehouse. This was an event I had been eager to see for months but as I had no idea when I'd next find myself in Buenos Aires on a Monday night, I half expected that I'd never see it. Even after the long wait and anticipation, it didn't disappoint one bit. There must have been enough energy coming off that stage to power Las Vegas for a week!

 

Fifteen musicians clad in red jumpsuits stormed the stage and took turns conducting the group. The conductor controlled the music with simple hand gestures. What impressed me the most about the performance was that such a large group of people could work together so seamlessly without saying a word. Each musician was clearly a skilled percussionist but, more importantly, was also able to follow directions and cues without the slightest hitch. It made me seriously wonder what the rest of society could learn about successful communication from these musicians.

 

The show lasted about two hours and they switched conductors every forty or so minutes. At this time, some of the musicians took the opportunity to shuffle instruments, going from bongos to cow bells to drums that I won't pretend to be able to name. Meanwhile, a new conductor might pound the drum in front of him to start a beat and draw the other musicians in.

 

Watching the conductors felt like something of a spectator sport. These guys definitely have rhythm but for some reason, they absolutely cannot dance! One conductor moved around the stage like Sideshow Bob wearing flippers. The audience also included some amusing dancers, most notably the hippies prancing and swaying about.

 

In love with Santiago

I've actually been postponing writing a Santiago post. In just three short days, I walked so much and fell in love with Santiago that I am worried this post may end up overwhelmingly long!

 

I had been told that Santiago is a great city for living but not really for visiting. I had a great time visiting and I could see that it's a very live-able city. It has a strong arts scene in every sense. Runners exercised throughout the day. The architecture is varied, but there are neighborhoods that are modern, European, and plenty that are distinctly Chilean. This year saw the hottest March in one hundred years and the heat was still evident when I visited. Locals were out at every hour, whether they were on their way to work, making out in a park, or meeting friends for drinks.

 

The metro makes the city very manageable and easy to get around. And I have never seen so many people offer to give up their seat for the elderly, the pregnant, anyone with a young child, and women in general! I think I only stood once or twice on the train all weekend, and even then it was when the train was completely packed and inevitably a man would tap me on the shoulder to offer me a newly vacated seat.

 

After having wandered around the city on my own, I did a fantastic walking tour of the city on my last afternoon. In hindsight, I wish I had done it on my first day! The tour brought me to a few places I hadn't seen before and I had a better appreciation of the city and its history afterwards. Also, our guide was one of the most naturally animated people I've ever met!

 

First stop of the tour was Plaza de Armas. Every major city in Latin America has a Plaza de Armas. The first thing the Spaniards did upon establishing a new city was to build a central square to be used as a defensive base. The city of Santiago is naturally well defended: rivers bordered two sides of the city (la Cañada has since been diverted), and the mountains pretty much took care of the rest.

 

In colonial times, Plaza de Armas was home to the most senior Spanish officials. Today it houses museums, offices, and a beautiful post office. A statue of Santiago's founder is pictured below.

 

The Mapuche were already living here when the Spaniards arrived. The two sides clashed many times, the Mapuche even burning down the cathedral at one point. The cathedral has been rebuilt several times over the past few hundred years as a result of attacks and earthquake damages. As it stands today, la Catedral Metropolitana is beautiful with an equal interior. Arches are used on the exterior and interior so as to reinforce the structure.

 

La Moneda, the coin, used to be a mint and is now home to the president's office. (Chile's president gets to select his or her residence; current president Sebastian Piñera lives in the mountains where the city's wealthier residents live.) The stations of the cross had been erected in front of la Moneda in anticipation of Easter.

 

The greenery around La Moneda is a pleasant space filled with friendly stray dogs and lined with statues of former presidents. Long before 2001, September 11 was an important date in Chilean history. On this date in 1973, the Chilean air force attacked La Moneda and President Salvador Allende, the world's first democratically elected Socialist president, died.

 

Allende's death remained controversial for decades. He was shot with a Kalashnikov but some claimed he committed suicide, which would be challenging with such a large weapon, while others maintained he was killed as members of the coup d'état entered his office. Allende's body was recently exhumed and scientists determined based on the angle of the wounds that he did, in fact, kill himself. General Augosto Pinochet took over on September 11, 1973 and began a dictatorship which would last until 1990.

 

Nearby is the former location of El Congreso. Forty percent of the country's population lives in the capital so, in an unsuccessful attempt to decentralize the government, the congress was moved two hours away in Valparaiso. Today this building houses government offices. When the building was built, the gardens were designed to be European. The landscape artist added the Chilean palm trees to give it a bit of a local feeling. Because the hearty Chilean palm is able to grow at altitudes of over one thousand meters, it is one of the few varieties of palm trees in the world that you can see with snow.

 

Across the street is El Corte Supremo. It was being renovated but it is a lovely, European style building.

 

The side of the Opera still displayed damage from the February, 2011 earthquake, though the front of the building has been repaired.

 

Cerro Santa Lucia is a hilly park with a great view of the city. It was a bit smoggy the day I climbed to the top so the mountains weren't clearly visible, but I was surprised to see how close they are to the city. The park used to be open twenty four hours a day but, in the words of my tour guide, "it's a very romantic place but maybe it got a little too romantic so now the park closes every night."

 

Barrio Lastarria is an artsy, bohemian neighborhood full of vintage clothes shops, cute cafes with chalkboards advertising specials in colorful script, and a Thursday-Sunday street market selling second hand books and antiques. One way or another, I found myself in this part of town every day.

 

In the evenings, Chileans all come to Parque Forestal to hang out. Between the park's design and all of the activities going on, it felt like a cross between Paris's Jardin Tuileries and New York City's Washington Square Park. Perhaps my favorite Chilean detail of the park is the presence of dog houses for the city's beloved stray dog population.

 

Across the street from the park is Emporio La Rosa, generally considered Santiago's best ice cream. I stumbled across it quite by accident: I saw a huge crowd of people and my human instinct to gather took over, so I went to investigate. When I realized it was a popular ice cream place, I joined the queue immediately. It was so busy, it took over twenty minutes from when I paid until I was served and it was well worth the wait.

 

The Museo de Bellas Artes is located on the edge of the park. Modeled after Paris's Petit Palais, buskers and performers in front of the museum draw crowds.

 

Fun fact for New Yorkers: you know those Nuts 4 Nuts carts that are on every corner selling honey roasted nuts? The business was started by Luis Martinez from Santiago. He began with one cart in Santiago and the business failed in no time. He managed to scrape together some additional funds, set up one cart in NYC, and the rest is history. Once the business had taken off in New York, he returned to Santiago where Nuts 4 Nuts has thrived ever since.

 

More common than Nuts 4 Nuts food carts are carts selling mote de huesillo, a popular Chilean drink. The sweet liquid is made from dried peaches and has a generous helping of cooked wheat on the bottom and a surprisingly large dried peach in the center.

 

I loved Santiago. I really didn't expect it to make much of an impression on me since these days I'd rather be in nature than in cities, but I found the city has plenty of parks and nature, plus great nightlife which I barely sampled but still enjoyed, a healthy arts scene, plenty of culture and museums, and, unlike Buenos Aires with its famous European atmosphere, Santiago still felt very much like Latin America to me. Its proximity to the mountains and the sea means you can easily enjoy the best of nature should you need to escape the city. It certainly didn't hurt that I was fortunate enough to stay with my good friend's hospitable mom in her cozy home (thanks again!). I could see myself happily living in Santiago one day. Of course, I'd first have to learn how to speak Chilean Spanish, which is no easy feat.