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| Sunday, we had a few 'tormentas', meaning one of those Buenos Aires downpours, which regularly flood various parts of the city. Here a stretch of the Panamericana Highway, a main access road to Buenos Aires. After the tormenta, is was turned in to a canal which would look pretty good in Amsterdam. Cars stopped and everyone just waited until the flood disappeared.... |
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| There is carnival in Buenos Aires, however our local 'murgas' cannot compete with flamboyant and exhibitionist Rio de Janeiro. Our murgas are neighbourhood affairs, which consist of about 33 street closures throughout the city (drives the taxistas crazy) and locals dress up in glittery coats and top hats and dance to the sound of drums. |
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| Dance wear Brazilian Style. The idea of using anything else but bum floss to 'cover' female rear ends on the beach or during dances never remotely enters the minds of young women here. However, it needs to be said, that 'samba-bum' implants are the most coveted and most performed cosmetic surgeries in Latin America, with Brazil and Argentina leading the parade of bums of steel - or silicone. Girls get them as a present for their 'quinceanos' celebration, their 15th Birthday, which is a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood....hmmmm. |
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| And the second largest cosmetic surgery business, the upper regions... |
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| Back to a Long Weekend Monday in the City. All is relatively quiet, shops are closed, public transit bearable - all have empty seats. An almost perfect day to play tourist guide for visiting friends - albeit their tango shoe purchase dreams won't be fulfilled, as those stores are also hiding behind their shut 'persianas', metal blinds. |
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| General Martin waves from his steed on the Plaza Martin. |
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| One strolls past the Teatro Colon, here in its earliest days of glory |
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| The wrought iron and glass canopy of the Teatro Colon, still intact and as attractive as ever. |
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| A couple of doors away from the Teatro Colon, the Jewish Synagogue. |
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| And a little further along the Avenida de 9 Julio at the intersection with upper end Calle Alvear, the French Embassy. It actually blocks one end of the Great Champs Elysee equivalent, the Avenida 9 Julio. When the avenue was constructed, the French just refused to give up their embassy, so it survived in it's prime spot until today, and still is one of the most 'classic' Belle Epoque buildings in Buenos Aires. |
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| Exclusive Calle Alvear starts at Plazoleta Pelligrini, an immaculate little park, where the French Embassy Staff has the privilege of parking, and the Jockey Club has the privilege of keeping the park well groomed. Pooping and scooping is definitely de rigeur here... |
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| At the end of Calle Alvear, the Recoleta Cemetery, always good for a few more discoveries of statues, half cracked open sarcophagi, stray cats, and the obligatory visit to Eva Peron's last resting place. |
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| Evita, for ever in the heat of the People of Almirante Brown... |
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| And more plaques to commemorate venerated Evita... Although this is the Duarte Family crypt, there is hardly a plaque for any of the other dead housed in this crypt, which probably has several levels of basements below ground level, with at least a couple of dozen Duartes resting in peace down there. |
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| At the cross roads in the Dead Centre of Town, a corner dividing a couple of crypt alleys in Recoleta. |
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| Winged Tango.... |
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| Serene and simple, one of the less elaborate statues.... |
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| Life springs eternal, little saplings grow from some of the crypt roofs. |
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| A whole block, a small city of the dead, surrounded by high apartment buildings, parks, museums and galleries, and the elite dwellings of the 'upper class' of Buenos Aires, who keep their dearly departed in sight, right here in Recoleta. |
