Paris Of The South

 I like Buenos Aires more than ever I expected to and perhaps in part that is owing to the season.

We took a tour bus yesterday, one of those hop on and hop off things with 25 stops around the city and I braved the cold to photograph Buenos Aires from the top deck exposed to the brisk autumnal air.

In 1880 Argentina made this important industrial port on the River Plate its capital combining the export of salted beef with politics. We saw the waterfront converted by  a developer called Maldonado into Puerto Maldonado following a trend seen in other big cities, Victorian industry turned into modern leisure center.  But Buenos Aires has retained its “gritty” ie: rundown neighborhoods.

Residents of Buenos Aires call themselves “porteños” port people, a city that made its wealth from trade through its contact with the sea. Now the port you see is a playground, a boardwalk filled with statuary honoring the memory of the work. 

Almost all overlanders shipping to and from Europe or South Africa go through Montevideo as Zarate, the actual working port of Buenos Aires is reputed to be a pit of inefficiency and bureaucratic slovenliness. You can jog along the Costanera Sud, the waterfront street if you are a creature of privilege…

…or you can live in luxury apartments as in any capital city: 

You can admire the engines of industry put out to pasture as symbols of a past fondly remembered but no longer lived: 

Boca not Maldonado is the neighborhood of picturesque working class “grit.”

Like poor people anywhere in Boca they worship gods to escape life’s grind and here the gods cloak themselves in the yellow and blue of a soccer team.

But this is the Paris of the South, that’s the Buenos Aires of wide avenues and monuments and the seats of power, the expressions of wealth and power created by the export of beef worldwide. The pink house is the Presidential Palace.

Every week the mothers of the disappeared march silently in protest in this square demanding accountability from a government that decades ago was run by dictators who disappeared thousands of opponents, student activists trade unionists assorted leftists many of whom were thrown alive from helicopters into the Atlantic Ocean. There are still a handful of mothers who are alive and show up but there is no official accountability. 

We passed a plaza dedicated to their memory with no mention on the audio tour…

Around the city you will see plaques on the sidewalks to remind passersby of the last place a person was seen alive before being snatched up and disappeared.

He lived there (above) and was kidnapped a few steps away (below) on the 10th of November 1978. 

The current occupant of the Casa Rosada is a friend of President Trump known for wielding a chain saw on the campaign trail symbolic of his desire to cut government. Elon Musk copied him while promoting the Doge project designed to cut government by firing park rangers. 

Last year President Milei begged President Trump for a bailout and got 20 billion of your tax dollars, all of which went to pay Argentina’s creditor banks to prevent one more sovereign debt default in this crazy ungovernable country. The pink house itself isn’t actually that big, dwarfed by the surrounding structures: 

Then there is the parliament  at the other end of the avenue. I was impressed how the entrances were guarded by apparently unarmed men dressed in sport coats carrying radios and nothing else. Despite Argentina’s inability to govern itself the country just keeps going. I fear we should take lessons from these extraordinary people. 

I found the congressional building a bit overwrought but memorable rather like the country it tries to govern. 

But the city is amazingly civilized from a tourist’s perspective. The streets are for once well paved and traffic is orderly. There are no beeping horns or wild lane changes and not even too much aggressive shoving in the inevitable traffic jams.

Apparently in summer it gets crowded and hot and the city chokes up on tourists visiting to escape cold winters Up North. Winters here in June, July and August are said to be cold, with no snow but lots of cold rain and damp days all of which will follow this autumn’s bright sunny days and cold nights. We had a windstorm over the weekend that produced a night tine wind chill down to 38 degrees. Rusty loved it. 

Sausage sandwiches -choripan - simple yet delightful. These are the main ingredient and are not hotdogs our guide told us indignantly. 

The endless parade of remarkable buildings. 

Even the cobblestones here aren’t terrible and the city is mostly very clean. 

Not Paris but Buenos Aires, “good airs.”

In all South America only Uruguay has completely legalized marijuana. 

I saw a sign at a business which I forgot to photograph. It said “the line forms here” in three languages, Portuguese, English and Spanish. It displayed the flags of the three languages, Argentina, Brazil and …Canada?! That was a first. A portent of things to come or for some other reason I don’t know, but I would have expected the British or US flag there.  But I did notice the maple leaf. McDonald’s is firmly American though. 

Car repairs in the Boca neighborhood right in the street. 

I missed Rusty. The sidewalks in Boca are frequently built raised to deal with river flooding that was a common feature here before the marshes were properly drained. Sounds lovely. 

Winter clothing. I had long pants on in a concession to the season and I got my vest out before we parked GANNET2.

A landmark old cookie factory. 

Orderly traffic. Buenos Aires has a reputation of being chaotic and theft prone. Our experience has been entirely different 

In Rome or any big European city this Vespa would be draped in chains. Not in this part of Buenos Aires.

Apparently it has a parking ticket also. 

I saw Rusty’s twin from the top of the bus. I can’t get my dog out of my mind. 

A bunch of school kids waved at the bus. We waved back 

We traveled through the city at pigeon height. 

Always that French inspired architecture. 

The Teatro Colón (Columbus). My grandmother sang here in 1917.  

Plug your headphones in and get an audio tour in six languages (not all at once).  

I always pick up after my dog. I have to say the sidewalks are actually very clean and there are lots of dogs being walked. 

A British style mailbox. 

And I should point out the city is full of do far unphotographed green spaces. We haven’t taken the time to dawdle in public parks but they are all over the city and very lovely. Buenos Aires is definitely worth a visit. I was wrong to be uninterested.