Friday 10th February - Buenos Aires (Sadly)

Friday 10th  February - Farewell To Buenos Aires and "The Last Tango in BA"

After roaming round the Buenos Aires sites yesterday, we decided a leisurely planning session over many coffees was the way to start the day. Coffee here is great and we never needed much of excuse to stop and have one especially as our legs were still aching.

Our first port of call today was to the Evita Museum in the old region.  Because we were pretty knackered after yesterdays marathon walk, we decided to have a much more sedentary walk around Buenos Aires which clearly was very capable of eating us alive. The Evita Museum was a house originally owned by a wealthy family who donated it to Eva Peron’s foundation as did many wealthy families across the country. These were used as welfare houses where poor women could come to receive advice, welfare, support with children etc.  (More on Eva Peron back story later)

The exhibition in the museum was interesting, sometimes very moving but as usual here, very hot. It was a good balance of the social justice work done by the Eva Peron foundation, plus movie reel of her famous speeches, clothes and books and the speech given a few days before her death.

On balance, understanding more of the pro’s (workers rights, welfare, social justice, womens vote, affordable fridges for the poor etc) and the con’s (the disappeared thousands, virtual dictatorship in the later Juan Peron years, allegation of Swiss bank accounts), we think Eva Peron gets our vote, if for nothing else then for championing women’s rights and securing the vote for women especially noting she died at 33 which for most people have not achieved much at all.

It seems like tremendous achievements in such a short space of time given how young she was when she died.

From there we headed back down to San Telmo district with its antique and flea market flavour

although our cases are so stuffed, we would struggle to fit anything more than a beer mat inside. This looked a very interesting area which we hadn’t had much time in yesterday.

The Plaza Dorrego is home to a huge weekend flea market and spontaneous tango events. San Telmo is the home of the tango which started out life as a dance for men with music and no words and evolved into the ultimate couples dance we know now.  Never sure if we would feel the same about it if men only dances the tango.

It also is the home to the artisan shops, so we spent a happy couple of hours wandering around exploring the little artisan businesses.

Buenos Aires has police on every street.
Steve was constantly advised against
 showing his camera

We also had to try another Buenos Aires speciality snack, Empanadas.  These are sold everywhere and being naive tourists and also learning that here, they are the best in Buenos Aires, we ordered one each only to realise that they are 4 inch Cornish pasties without the swede. They were lovely and we were sure the waiter just thought we were on diets.

                             Video from the oldest Tango club in BA (Dont try this at home!!)

As it was Friday night and as in most happening cities it’s the night to go out and sample the nightlife so we headed off to a Milonga (Argentinian dance salon) to watch some proper Tango.  We were recommended to go to Café Los Angelitos which had some of the most professional and adventurous tango, so off we went.

The Tango was fantastic!  Much flicking of legs and dramatic poses by very bendy people, great to watch and a real education – we’re not sure they bend in the same places as we do and there was no way we were going to even try but the Tango was a logical end to our visit to Buenos Aires and tomorrow we are off to Brazil (briefly)

Epic Street Art 

Children's cartoon character, Mafalda, was so popular over 50 years in South America, They now have a big family and turned into a political message family.  Names are Freedom, Inequality etc.There is a model of Mafalda in town on a bench where people can sit and have pictures taken with her, it was non stop all day!!

All images for individual days are here South America Image Files