Purplelake: Day 17 – Jul 8, 2019 Buenos Aires, Argentina

We started our second day of sightseeing in Buenos Aires by visiting Caminito, an open air street art museum in the poor neighborhood of La Boca. This used to be the dumping ground for other neighborhoods. To brighten their environment, soccer crazied residents started painting their houses in their favorite team’s color: yellow and blue. Over the years, other artists also helped out and painted on the building walls as murals. It is also famed for inspiring the tango tune of the same name. This neighborhood is actually very small, composing of three streets only, but many houses had deep courtyards which were filled with small shops. Here in the few restaurants lining the streets, we saw our first tango dance in Argentina.

Although Buenos Aires has an extensive subway system, it is geared mostly toward residents living in the suburbs. For tourists and residents living in city, it is better to use their crazily complicated bus system. Luckily, Google Map showed the public transport options so we had been using bus quite a bit during our visit. The public transportation is unbelievably affordable. Most rides costed about 20 pesos ($0.60 CAD)!! It is the best sightseeing bargain of all time. Just jump on a bus and see where it takes you. The majority of the buses ran along metrobus corridors along major streets, making hopping on and off very easy. It’s a different story in the small side street. You have to look really really carefully to find these bus station markers. Sometimes, it’s just a painted number on the road beside the sidewalk!

The calm harbor just outside Caminito

Caminito's colorful neighborhood

Iconic building in Caminito

Wall art

This is a poor immigrant area

Colorful buildings and courtyards

Alleys jammed with artists and shops

Tourists flock to this neighborhood for the look and feel of the wall arts and shops

Tango dance

City bus

From Caminito, we took a bus to Puerto Madero, the newly developed port district with lots of expensive and fancy restaurants and hotel. We saw naval bands playing along the canal just next to the old frigate ship Sarmiento on their national independence holiday. Walking along the canal, we arrived at the ferry terminal where we would be taking a ferry to Uruguay tomorrow. When we inquired about the availability of ticket, we were surprised that all the sailings were sold out tomorrow! Going to Uruguay by bus would take 8-10h and flying there would be a hassle using the far away EZE international airport. Luckily, once we clarified that we were planning to go tomorrow and coming back two days later, they had spaces opened up. They just didn’t have space for same day return tomorrow since everybody planned to come back at the end of their national holiday.

From the ferry terminal, we walked past a gigantic shopping mall converted from a beautiful classical building, Galerias Pacifico, on our way to Teatro Colon, one of the ten best opera houses in the world today. Unfortunately, all the tours and opera shows had been sold out so we had to wait for future opportunity to see the inside. From Teatro Colon, it is a short walk to Obelisco, a giant obelisk in the middle of the super-wide 9 de Julio boulevard. It is erected to commemorate the 400^th anniversary of the city’s foundation.

Puerto Madero and the foot bridge Puente de la Mujer

Frigate Sarmiento in the background

Naval band playing to celebrate their national holiday

Skyline of Buenos Aires

Teatro Colon and Obelisco

Teatro Colon

Obelisco

A huge monument to celebrate BA's 400 anniversary

The next destination would be unthinkable in the visit itinerary of other cities, the Cemetery at Ricoleta. Here is Buenos Aires, a visit to the Recoleta Cemetery is a must for every visitor. First, throw away all your preconceptions about cemetery. Here in Recoleta Cemetery, a tomb is not a simple tomb. It is literally the size of a small house, some with elaborate statues and architectures that rival a church. They should be called mausoleums instead of tombs. Starting in 1822, the rich and famous of Buenos Aires had been buried here, including the most famous of them all, Eva Peron (Evita). You can literally get lost inside this maze of amazing statues and buildings like in a city. Sadly, you can also see many tombs or mausoleums starting to crumble due to neglect and lack of repair. There were several that did not even have any marker nor inscription to identify them anymore. Could the rich and famous have fallen so fast that their descendents cannot even afford to pay the upkeep of their ancestors’ tombs?