Ah, yes. The brat. OK, we’ve raised two sons, so we understand the terrible twos and not-much-better threes. But this kid was in a whole new league. Screaming. Shrieking. “No”ing. Crying endlessly. Did I mention that our patio area is an interior courtyard? As in, all of the apartments have one side that faces into it? Hot days and nights; doors and windows open; sound does its thing. Oye, I wanted to collapse into bed around 10:00. Well, I was in bed, but not sleeping. I think it was midnight before the last wail trailed off. Only to start again at 5 a.m. Auuuuuggghhhhh. I had turned the air conditioner on to try to mask the noise, but it didn’t completely do the trick.
[Postscript: Our host said the kid had an earache, and was in pain. Thankfully, they got it under control, and we didn’t have a repeat the next two nights. Blissful quiet for the cranky traveler.]
Kevin is a breakfast host par excellence. The spread he put out made up for the lack of sleep. The pastries were still warm from his morning run to the bakery. Fresh-squeezed juice, delicious coffee, fruits, yoghurts, cereals. We were doin’ fine.
Oh, the Christmas tree. Kevin had been vowing to himself to take it down for many weeks, but there it stood at the end of February. I guess he meant it this time, as it was gone when we returned that evening. He recommended that we take in the exhibit at the MALBA—the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, so we plotted out a walking route for the day. We also had wanted to track down Eva Peron’s burial place and see some parks, so we had our legwork cut out. Like any city, BA’s neighborhoods range from dismal to upper crust, but a typical middle class one looks pretty much like this.
This one is a lot cleaner than most, but not nearly as fancy as the posh ones over in the “Chico” area by the museum. Note the trash bags piled around the tree. No one uses trash cans, it seems. What isn’t simply dropped on the sidewalk is placed in plastic bags and dumped on the pavement. The trash trucks, when they come, have two or more guys hanging off the back who jump off and sling the bags into the hopper. Trust me. This isn’t a perfect operation. A lot gets left behind. Unless it’s very new, an apartment building doesn’t have central air or heat, so a common sight of the more upscale older buildings are dozens of air conditioners festering the facades.
Our first destination was the Cimenterio de la Recoleta, home in death to BA’s rich, famous, or having the right name. Generations of the elite repose in ostentatious mausoleums. They have a saying: “It’s cheaper to live extravagantly all your life than to be buried in Recoleta.” I can believe it. Like all public spaces here, the trick is finding the entrance through the wall that surrounds the place. We circumnavigated at least half of it before we found the white portals. Once in, it’s like a mini BA, with some broad “boulevards” (like this one) with tinier streets radiating off.
The directions for finding Eva’s tomb were not particularly accurate, so we kept wandering around until we saw a crowd down one aisle. That was the spot, but it was a lot less imposing than I had anticipated. It’s actually her family’s (the Duartes) crypt. The modest façade is the upper right photo with the red flowers. The plaque with her name is the one at the upper right of the door. I thought the most impressive tomb in the place was the stainless steel vault holding Arturo Gomez. Fort Knox should be so secure.
Next to the cemetery is the rather simple (as far as cathedrals go) colonial Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar, built by the Recoleto friars in 1732 and famous for its six German Baroque-style alters. One of those had this unusual seated Christ figure holding his head in one hand while dripping blood.
So much for the sacred. From here we started meandering towards the museum, passing by the Plaza Naciones Unidas, the centerpiece of which is this rather stunning huge sculptural piece, the Floralis Generica, designed and funded by its architect, Edwardo Catalano and finished in 2002. The huge (60+ foot) aluminum and steel petals used to open at dawn and close at dusk, until the gears broke. Now it just sits there, but impressive nonetheless.
Fronting this park is the Avenue del Libertador, which segues into Avenue Presidente Figueroa Alcorta, which is lined with upscale residential buildings. It really feels a world apart from the more gritty parts of town. The MALBA sits across the street from the swanks.
The major exhibit at this time was a wowser. It featured the works of Carlos Cruz-Diez. Unfortunately, they did not permit photography in the exhibit area, so I had to be content with the few (and definitely not the best) items that they had hung in the main entry hall. C-D’s works are hard to describe, but easy to appreciate when you see them. They consist of parallel lines, painted in such a way that the aspect changes as you move across the face of the work. Sort of like a hologram that you tilt, but this is done solely with paint and shading. Some of the works were truly remarkable and I had a lot of “how did he do that” moments.
Another part of the exhibition were the light rooms. You had to don booties to enter them, but at least I was permitted to take photos. Not quite sure if this is “art,” but it was way cool.
Click on the Cruz-Diez link above for his website and more photos.
Most of the parks we saw were simply grassy/tree-ey areas, which were a nice relief from the hubbub of the city. And it is a noisy city. Tons of traffic and lots of horn-honking. Our walk back to the B&B took us past the pay-to-enter Jardin Japones which, from outside the fence looking in, wasn’t a must-see. We continued past it and through the wide-open Parque de Febrero (left, below). The walled and gated Jardin Botanico, however, was impossible to enter without going a lot further than we wanted to.
There aren’t a lot of round-abouts, but one of them sits on Avenue del Liberator at the Monumento a los Espanole (sorry, the collage cut the top off). Liberator is a huge street, about nine lanes wide (I didn’t waste time counting them as we hustled along the crosswalk – I wouldn’t want to be caught in it when the light turned green with all those cars champing at the bit. When there are street signs at the intersections, they look like these, complete with ads for Claro and Nokia. Wonder if L.A. will seize on this opportunity to make a few bucks?
All that walking is hard on the feet. These old bones needed a pick-me-up. Ahhhhhh.
OK, to complete this post’s title loop [Warning: X-rated content approaching!], we couldn’t believe the name of this establishment. In neon, no less!
It was in the 80’s the whole day, and that nice cool patio at the B&B, with no more wailing waif, was just the ticket to wait out the evening until it was late enough to eat dinner.
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