San Telmo Market

The San Telmo market in Buenos Aires is part of the Instagram circuit of tourist attractions that every tourist must see. Therefore as I fail hopelessly at finding the “iconic” views you will get what you get. Frankly the term iconic has long since outlived its usefulness in my opinion.

If you’ve been reading this page for a while I have shown you enough pictures of hanging meat, roasted guinea pigs and piles of intestines in the colorful Andean markets of South America. Rest assured there’s non of that here; you could bring your mother-in-law to San Telmo and she would coo like she used when issuing  approval of your new date.

Ghee and maple syrup. What could be more familiar and sanitary than that, and iconic protein powder and stuff like that. Layne came on Sunday, the most iconic day at the market which includes outdoor stalls, but I stayed home with Rusty. He had spent enough time at home alone and deserved to have me around to bother him for a change. We laid on the bed and I read with one hand ruffling his fur. He must have missed me because he didn’t move away for once. Good dog. 

When she got back Layne told me I’d not missed much as the place was overcrowded and the sellers were offering food and dust catchers and not much else. 

A thrift store addict, and you know who you are, would be at home in San Telmo. 

I’d gravitate toward the pastry shop. 

Anyway when we were wandering around town with Ivan and Paula the group consensus was to stop there on a Tuesday to get a cheap lunch. Cheap-ish anyway. Something under twenty bucks. Layne and I went for the special of the day:

The real rate of exchange is supposed to be 1350 pesos to the dollar but Argentines view dollars as savings as the peso keeps losing value so they will allow you to use them in this messed up econony. We paid for our fridge repairs with two crisp Benjamin Franklin’s at the request of Jose. 

The sausage had flavor, smiley salty and a hint of bacon like pork. All of us wouldn’t have minded some aioli sauce  or mustard or in my case some ketchup because I like ketchup and yes I am a little defensive about my useless tastebuds. We also got a plate of grilled vegetables to offset the pork, or something. Paul’s got an empanada while Ivan and I drank beer probably heavily contaminated with gluten. It was delicious. And iconic. 

The market to me was a bit of a drag, happily not terribly crowded but not exactly loaded with 19th century peasant farmers anxious to pose for camera shots. I missed the Peruvian Andes for those kinds of pictures. Like this:

Not what you see in Argentina actual cow craving by road:

Oh I know I said no gross guinea pigs until this was Ecuador and no the little fellas don’t taste good.  

Back to San Telmo then, the sanitized market.

Weekdays not too crowded. 

Argentines have a bit of a sweet tooth.

Though their desserts interestingly are less sugary than we are used to. 

This covered market covers an entire city block and was built in 1897. Over time it got run down but it has been refurbished and cleaned up to become today’s tourist magnet. 

San Telmo is famous as the city’s oldest district dating to the 16th century and it started life as the preferred neighborhood of the city’s elite. 

That all fell apart in the 19th century as yellow fever swept the area killing at least 10,000 people so the folks with the money fled. Their mansions got turned into housing for the poor and life went on. Then the area became affordable for artists and musicians and they as usual cleaned the area up and made it attractive once again to the folks with money. And that attracted the tourists and so goes the cycle. 

The thing with green stripes on the lower shelf is a pistachio croissant. Argentines love pistachios and so do I. This thing is a regular croissant pastry but filled with pistachio cream. I want one just thinking about it. 

I told you they love VN pistachio flavor: 

And the cinnamon roll wasn’t at all bad. 

Time to go to cheer up Rusty.

La Recoleta Cemetery

This place is even better than the Key West cemetery except all the names of the dead are completely unknown to me. 

Eva Peron always attracts visitors: 

I took this photo of a crypt using the flash. It was otherwise just a black hole. 

I have always like cemeteries, especially the ones with interesting burial methods and even more so if they display history to connect you to the city. Buenos Aires set aside land for a cemetery in 1822, a project which has become world renowned for beautiful if eccentric tombs.

There were only two graves I was remotely familiar with, Eva Perón buried in the Duarte family crypt and Domingo Sarmiento, 7th President of Argentina. Shown here in his general’s uniform though he was a poet essayist politician and something of a philosopher: 

I learned about him after we camped on the shores of Lake Sarmiento in Chile in December 2024 and I was curious where the name came from. 

During Argentina’s 19th centrifugal struggles the Unitarian party wanted a European centric enlightened republic of which Sarmiento was one, but the Federalists on the other side saw them as elitists working at the expense of the poor.  Sarmiento didn’t lot of his life in exile including in Chile a country he admired for its progressive corruption free politics so I guess they figured naming a Patagonian lake after him

might be a good idea. He has a large tomb in the cemetery with lots of plaques from his supporters:

One of the oddities of this cemetery is how people stick bronze plaques on the tombs of friends or colleagues to honor the dead on the anniversary of their death. 

Person’s tomb is actually quite low key as these things go in La Recoleta.

Aside from these two there was no one familiar to me buried here which was rather liberating. It cost $18 to get in which seemed steep but after I photographed the two tombs I knew I wandered at will among the elaborate and crumbling crypts.  

This striking statue is of a 19 year old skater, a member of the River Plate Skate Club who died in 2018 in a car accident. 

And there she is, boasting the newest statue in the cemetery. 

This is an actual working cemetery and this tomb is a reminder of that. Despite the hordes of tourists taking pictures La Recoleta is where families bury their dead and there is no space devoted to explanations or headlines about the occupants. 

Aside from these two plaques from friends and colleagues the other oddity have never seen elsewhere is that of putting coffins in crypts and leaving them on display. 

This detail photographed the glass is of a mature woman cremated. At first glance I thought it was the coffin of an infant. 

There they all just dumped in the crypt which I thought was weird. 

It looks more like a funeral home than a tomb but I guess that’s how they like it. 

Exit this way, back to life and the bustle of the Buenos Aires.