Day 4 - Argentina 2025: Wandering through Buenos Aires

[I am trying to write this blog using an iPad, which is a piece of %$#@ that kicks me out almost after every paragraph, so I have to start all over again. Accordingly, I left my last blog incomplete. Here is the missing sentence:]

* Makes me want to don again my shiny dancing shoes and ... but then again tango is a team sport so there would be no point on bringing my shiny shoes out of retirement.

** Also, when I listed the passions of the Argentinians I forgot to mention that they are also obsessed with yerba mate, a kind of tisane that they drink through a metal straw out of a small wooden cup several times per day. It is a matter of national pride to invite someone to share the mate with them, and families travel with a hot water thermos, a box of dried yerba mate, the cup, and the straw, which passes from hand to hand as the family relaxes under the shade of a tree.

Resuming my narrative, today I went to visit the Ciudad Universitaria, whose campus extends along the shore of the Río De la Plata. Being Saturday the campus was deserted and I couldn't visit the Geology Department, but I still had a very nice walk along the shore. The Río de la Plata is the estuary formed when the Río Paraná (the one responsible for the gigantic Cataratas de Iguazú at the Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay triple junction) joins with the Río Uruguay (reminds me of the estuary of La Gironde, in France, formed by the junction of La Dordogne and La Garonne). But I digress. The Río de la Plata is immensely wide, so one cannot see the other shore and is not unlike the Amazon. The current is pretty strong so I imagine the base of the channel has all sorts of pools, chutes, and submerged bars. I was surprised to see very few sailboats out there, and no fishermen.

I will teleport here to my visit to the Museum Evita, where I learnt a little about the period between 1943 and 1955, when Juan Domingo Perón became president. He married Eva Duarte in 1945, and as Eva Perón she became the face of the social justice programs of the era. Juan Domingo was a populist president who identified himself with the working class, supported unions, and successfully brought the country out of the post-war recession. In the meantime Eva, the much loved Evita, opened schools, homes for the indigents, hospitals, and spearheaded the efforts to extend the vote to women (succeeding in 1947). Evita died in 1952, at age 33, and is to this day revered as a popular saint. 

Teleporting myself back to the shores of Río de la Plata, by the side of the university is the Park of Remembrance, which is a tribute to the many people incarcerated and "lost" during the period of 1955 to 1983, when Argentina was in turmoil and under the joke of several dictators. It is a quiet space that invites to reflection.

Eventually I ambled to the district of Recoleta, which is the quintessential middle class neighborhood of Buenos Aires, with many single homes, small parks, and an old cemetery that has curiously attracted a complex of restaurants and boutiques. I avoided the beautiful people and ended entering a small bookstore, where the elderly proprietor was in a chatting mood and took the time to ask me about my interests, talk a lot about the history of Argentina, and recommended me first this book and then that other, happily telling me what each book was about and why it was the best exponent of its genera. I ended buying three books that described the life of a gaucho (Martin Fierro), the encounter between the revolutionary general Lucio Mansilla and a tribe of Native Southamerican Indians (Una excursión a los Indios Ranqueles), and a set of modern short stories about the uniqueness of the modern Argentinians (ADN - Mapa genético de los defectos argentinos). Yes, he was a master salesman, and I was a sucker, but US$ 40 is a small price to pay for a delightful our of book conversation.

Day 3 - Argentina 2025: Callejoneando en Buenos Aires

I had the plan of exploring the city like a local, just following my nose from one street to the other. I soon got distracted, however, by stumbling upon a beautiful palace with ornate façades and colorful tiles that had a long line of people in front of it. The sign said "Museo del Agua", although I had a hard time believing that people would be in line early in the morning to visit such a place. Turns out I was the only one interested in visiting the museum, and everyone else was there to pay their water bill. The building was the main distribution center of potable water for the city of Buenos Aires, and today is the administrative center of the water and sanitation services of the city. The amazing thing is that the elaborate palace is just a box that housed 12 enormous steel tanks, with a capacity of 70 million liters, and from which water was distributed to the original Buenos Aires by gravity! But let me do a bit of basic hydrology for you:

As I repeat to my students fairly often, the land is really a tight mosaic of watersheds, each of which drains through a single exit channel into the next water course (in this case the Río de la Plata). Buenos Aires started on the side of a low dissected mesa, within a small watershed with very low relief that drained through the Arroyo Matanzas into the Río de la Plata (the point of discharge was La Boca, which I will talk about later). From the 16th to the 18th centuries the city saw many cholera outbreaks because of the lack of proper sanitation, and in the late 19th century the municipal authorities could no longer ignore the problem and a proper sewage started to be built, and a fresh water filtration plant was built by the banks of the river (hopefully with the intake upstream of the sewage outlet). The Río de la Plata is turbid but the water is highly oxygenated and thus of very good quality, so after filtration the water would be pumped uphill to the tanks of the distributing plant and from there would be distributed to the original footprint of the city by gravity. The system started operating in 1887, and was finally taken offline in 1970. In the interim a new potable water treatment plant was built near the banks of the river, and the water is pumped to several other distribution tanks, but basically the same system is still used. The old and beautiful original plant is now a museum and administrative center, and the steel tanks have been refurbished to store thousands upon thousands of priceless engineering drawings and maps. But why was such an utilitarian water plant housed in such a magnificent building? The city was proudly stepping into the "modern" era, and floated a contract for an engineering and architectural marvel; a Belgian company won the contract, brought the building, steel framework, and tanks as a Lego set from Europe, and a wonder kid like Ronnie put it together as a monument to 19th century design.

With my newly acquired knowledge I figured the next stop should be a visit to the barrio de La Boca, which is where the docks and shipyards were located. This type of work attracted many Genovese immigrants, who called themselves Gen'ese, a term that the inhabitants of La Boca have proudly retained for themselves. It was a rough part of town in the 19th and 20th centuries, and folks build shanty towns (or conventillos) with leftover materials from the shipyards, and slapped them with leftover paint of all colors, thus creating a unique part of town. Now it is a charming tourist trap where the big passions of the Argentinians are in clear display (soccer --Messy and Maradona being the big idols--, tango, Mafalda, and horses). Being contrarian I followed the signs to the Quinquela Art School and Museum, and discovered a real jewel. Benito Quinquela Martín (1890-1977) was an artist who moved into La Boca in 1947 and spent the last 30 years of his career educating children, collecting pieces of art, and painting at the building that now bears his name. The first floor was the school, the second floor was his workshop, and the third floor was the modest apartment where he lived, with a fabulous view over the docks. For the last 30 years he used his vantage point to record, in bold contrasts and sharp spatula traces, the everyday life of La Boca, its inhabitants, its sailors, and its dock workers. Fantastic work.

Being by now very curious about the history of Buenos Aires in particular, and Argentina in general, I headed for the National History Museum, where I had a very confusing introduction to the war of independence from 1810 to 1818. José de San Martin is the acknowledged Father of the Country, but other names worth remembering are Güemes, Belgrano, and Pueyrredón (if for nothing else because some important streets are named after them). Unfortunately there wasn't much on 20th century history, so tomorrow I will have to go visit the Eva Perón Museum.

It was time to grab lunch, this time at the Bar Británico, where I enjoyed a salad with prosciutto, a delicious grilled salmon, a glass of good Malbec red wine, and a flan. Life is good.

My last hurrah for the day was to visit the Museum of Tango, which was supposed to open at 15h00 but never did. Lástima. However, while I was walking past a couple of restaurants at La Boca I saw different couples demonstrating this, the most sensuous of dances, where the dancers appear to melt into each other, only to snap apart in a second as the music jolts. Makes me want to don again my shiny dancing shoes and ... but then again tango is a team sport so there would be no point on bringing my shiny shoes out of retirement.

Day 2 - Argentina 2025: Exploring Buenos Aires

I am still getting my sea legs regarding this city, and as I always do I figured that a city-wide tour using the hop on - hop off tourist bus would be the best way of getting started. But first I had to find the starting place. The internet was no good because the online maps were fuzzy and only mildly informative. Nothing to it but get to the immediate neighborhood, via metro, and then asking around. I took the opportunity to stop at a bank, to get money, and that turned out to be a problem. I figured I could start with ARG$ 150,000 but the stupid machine kept complaining that the amount requested was too large and I had to whittle it down to ARG$ 50,000 plus an ARG$ 10,000 commission. That is US$10 on a US$50 withdrawal, or 20% commission! Outrageous.

Finding the bus stop was difficult. First of all, people started by making fun of my Mexican accent and launched in a routine of their favorite Chavo del Ocho routines. Ha, ha, very funny. And who are they to say I speak with a funny accent? Argentinians not only have a characteristic sing song, but have also invented a new pronoun (vos instead of tú) and a couple of unique verb conjugations (vos comÉS instead of tú COmes, or the imperative estuDIÁ instead of esTUdia). But they are kind at heart, and they would never want to disappoint the tourist, so instead of saying "I don't know" they send you on a wild goose chase several blocks down the street. Eventually I got there, just in time to take the first bus run (9h30). My plan was to do the whole circuit, making a mental note of the places I would like to revisit, and then stop at some of them on a second go around. I had not counted on the fact that Buenos Aires is a big city (3 million people), where the whole circuit took 3.5 hours. When I got back to the starting point, at 13h00, there was a huge line of people waiting to hop on and only 8 seats available. How true are the words of the proverb that says "the early bird gets the worm". 

I finally got out of the bus at the historic district of San Telmo, known for its lively outdoor market, quaint commercial streets, and a whole lot of history. For example, this is where Quino, the author of the comic strip Mafalda, did most of his work. Mafalda is this 8 year old girl who is a fabulous example of social and environmental conscience, and she and her gang of friends are famous around the world, so I would invite you to check some of her adventures. I also took the opportunity to have lunch, which in itself is a bit of a challenge because many restaurants have gotten away from printing menus or adding prices to the menus they have (a consequence of a high rate of inflation) and have instead gone the route of scanning a QR code (which tourists cannot do because it needs access to wi-fi). Given the old rule that if you have to ask for the price you probably cannot afford it, I checked a couple of places until I found one that offered the "plato del día" for a very reasonable ARG$ 13,000 (chicken breast Caprese with potatoes, a beer, and dessert). Perfect!

On my way back to the bus stop I saw a travel agency that offered day trips to Uruguay, across the Río de la Plata, and I jumped at the opportunity to book an excursion three days from now. I also found out that they did money exchange, with no commission, so I asked the nice young woman to exchange for me US$ 100. "Gladly" she said with a radiant smile, and proceeded to count one hundred ARG$ 1,000 notes. When was the last time you carried US$ 100 in one dollar bills? It forms an impressive roll, and as I walked out with a bulging pocket I felt as vulnerable as a kid with a bagful of sweets.

I was fortunate to get back in the bus when it came around, but the afternoon was getting on and this was likely to be one of the last buses. So I just stayed on, enjoying the afternoon breeze as we drove to this beautiful city. I should add that mornings are very hot, but come mid-afternoon the clouds roll in (sometimes accompanied by afternoon rain) and the temperature becomes very pleasant. I already mentioned that there are many small parks in Buenos Aires, but now I will add that there are also some vast parks that parallel the river, which have smartly been devoted to sport facilities, horse racetracks and polo fields (the Argentinians are besotted by horse sports and betting), and buffers between the port facilities and the posh residential neighborhoods. Buenos Aires is also a city of sky scrapers that are headquarters of corporations or very exclusive residential flats. In contrast, the river port is where one finds the color and music of this mesmerizing city, which is famous as the cradle of tango music and dance. I tried to book a tango show, but there was nothing available for the next couple of days (the city is crawling with tourists), at least not at a price or a time that would suit me (as I mentioned before, the Bonaerenses are night owls of the extreme kind).

I am still getting used to how expensive everything seems to be (the ugly result of inflation), and how locals can afford those prices. I guess I am just a country bumpkin not used to big city prices. I have the feeling that what shocks me is that when I was in Argentina, 20 years ago, everything was dirt cheap, and I foolishly thought I would find more of the same. Instead items seem to be fully-priced in comparison with places like San Francisco. Tomorrow I will take to the streets. 

Day 1 - Argentina 2025: My arrival to Buenos Aires

I spent the night at Zoe and Jack's, in Redwood City, and the following morning had an Uber pick me up at 5 am to drive me to the San Francisco Airport. The place was a zoo! I thought I was the only fool who would travel on December 31, but I was wrong. I imagine a lot of people were taking the Early Bird flights to get home, unpack, and then go out for a New Year's party. From San Francisco a 4-hour flight took me to Miami, where I had a 6-hour layover (not as bad as it sounds because I took the opportunity to stretch luxuriously on the carpet and take a long nap), followed by an 8-hour flight from Miami to EZE (Buenos Aires), where I quickly got through immigration brandishing my Mexican passport. A friendly native advised me to buy the Carta Azzurra at a kiosk (US$1.50 plus a $8.50 initial charge), so I could ride all public transportation in the area. I much prefer solving challenges on the ground, but I had checked the exchange rate ahead of time, so I didn't faint at the total cost of 10,000 pesos for the Carta Azzurra (US$1 = 1,000 ARG pesos).

When I came out of the airport, to wait for bus 8, I realized that coming into a country on January 1 is not a very good idea. Everything is closed! After waiting for 20 minutes I started to wonder if the buses were running at all, but just when I was going to start looking for plan B the number 8 pulled into the stop. Now, Buenos Aires is one of those cursed cities where the airport is a long ways from city center, and of course it would be to easy to have a dedicated bus route or light train, so after covering half the distance with bus 8 I had to get off the bus, walk a kilometer or so, wait for another bus that never came, and walk another half a kilometer to the (very slow) train to bring me into the town. To me it is all part of being a tourist, and I enjoyed looking at the small neighborhoods I was walking through. Folks here love their dogs and they take seriously the task of taking them out for a daily walk; they are not very good at cleaning after their dog, however, so you have to walk carefully and from the size of the poop I concluded there are dogs the size of Shetland Ponies out there!

Fabiola gave me this wonderful travel vest that has many pockets and secure places to stash money, but it is a bit of a liability on a warm day, particularly when there are no open kiosks where one can get a drink. But eventually I made it to the city in the very slow train (whereI didn't have to pay because the gal at the cashier took a look at my white hair and informed me that as a senior I didn't have to pay - score!). A short walk took me to the first of the metro stations, and from there it was but a matter of minutes before I was in my new neighborhood and checking into my 9th floor penthouse (a very modest penthouse), where I will spend the next five nights. After settling in I went for a walk around town, enjoying very much the cleaner and much more attractive inner city. Buenos Aires has many parks, and the locals enjoying using them for sun bathing, jogging, walking their dogs, or just shooting the breeze.

Finding a place to eat was a bit of a challenge because it is January 1, and because I have not found a suitable ATM to withdraw a half million pesos. Eventually I found a place, which at 6 pm gave me the breakfast menu. Upon inquiry I got the dinner menu, but with a disapproving look the waiter frostily informed me that Argentinians don't normally take their dinners until 10 or 11 pm! It is going to be a whole lot of lonely dinners for me.