Buenos Aires – Wide Boulevards, Stores, Cats and Ice Cream
I don’t know if I really liked Buenos Aires. It’s not that I disliked it. I just wasn’t grabbed by the place. Just another big city. It has no geophysical character like a mountain or pretty waterway to speak of and my favorite cities always have something non-city about them that attracts me. It has a good number of parks, but they are small and you never really get removed from the city. It has a waterway, but aside from Havana’s harbor, it was the most disgusting water I have ever seen especially in the La Boca section.
It also reminded me very little of Latin America. It has more stores selling everything imaginable than London and New York. And there are signs and billboards everywhere to remind you that everything imaginable is for sale. I went to Buenos Aires thinking it would be a very sophisticated city and people would be dressed to match that sophistication. There are some aspects of this supposed sophistication that I got, but I didn’t find all of the people that are dressed so well. Even in the financial areas, I found people in work clothes that were pretty relaxed. Sure there are suits and dresses, but they are not the normal. And I rarely saw a suit or dress that wowed me. I saw a lot of high end clothes for sale, but I am not sure who is buying them and where they are hiding. I looked at the women’s shoes and I didn’t see anything like I saw in Bogota. I get the impression that while Argentina is the wealthiest Latin American country this wealth is severely concentrated and the average Argentinian is still hurting from the devaluation of the peso six years or so ago. Imagine waking up to the value of everything you have being one-fourth the value of when you went to bed! The people of Buenos Aires are warm and friendly and I really loved that, but it makes me wonder if the non-wealthy class is too warm and friendly and maybe they should have revolted that morning. My understanding is that the wealthy didn’t lose much that day and they control the system so that their numbers do not increase.
One thing that did remind me that I was in Latin America is the sidewalks, Here we have a city with some of the grandest boulevards you will ever find. One street has eighteen lanes – three, median, six, median, six, median and three more – so wide that it is not possible to cross all of them in one light unless you run. There are many other grand boulevards with eight or more lanes and they often have medians with park-like settings including large, old trees. And they are lined with sidewalks that are falling apart. Just like I see all over the place. I’m now a master at walking these kinds of sidewalks after being broken in by Kampala, Nairobi, Stone Town, Mexico City, etc. My feet actually bend and I apparently see most of the holes without having to stare at the ground. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t take note. And let me tell you that there is a lot to note in Buenos Aires in this respect. They used a lot of blocks, tiles and bricks for sidewalks and a lot of them are missing or have disintegrated. Do they replace them? Apparently not! They do put these wood structures which are like low pallets over them which definitely covers the hole, but causes another issue since they are in no way flush with the surrounding sidewalk.
The drivers are much more civilized than in Peru. They don’t rely on the horn every minute and they seem to drive relatively safe. I had someone tell me about how dangerous they are, but after seeing the Peruvians behind wheels Argentinians seem quite tame. I’ll cover more kilometers now that I am out of the city and should have a more in depth knowledge soon enough, but my money is currently on Argentinians being much safer. I would love to see a bunch of Peruvians trying to deal with crossing eighteen lanes though. First, they would ignore all of the lights and then they would lay on their horns as they bulldozed through all of them on a wing and a prayer.
Amongst all of the stores, Buenos Aires true addiction becomes quite clear. Paris never thought of selling so many pastries and Boston doesn’t know anything about ice cream. The citizens of Buenos Aires must eat more cake and ice cream than anywhere else. A balanced breakfast is coffee and sweet croissants. I have an addiction for ice cream that I keep in check except that all fell apart in Buenos Aires. I have never tasted such good ice cream in my life. One vendor called Freddo could teach a lot about how to make a fine ice cream to Ben&Jerry and Haagen Dazs.
The parks are full of cats. They are not scrawny or in bad shape so I guess someone is feeding them. When I was in Recoleta’s famous cemetery, I saw a lot of cats there and someone had left piles of food. I also saw one eating a bird and my guess is that the bird and rat population is in check in Buenos Aires. In the Botanical Gardens, I saw a few dozen cats before I even entered. By time I left I had seen hundreds of them. Many of them were quite friendly. Who needs a cat in Buenos Aires when you can walk to the local park and more than one are ready to sit on your lap and purr away?
I went to La Boca Sunday morning. This section is considered dangerous, but it has an artsy area where all of the buildings are painted brightly… something right up my alley. I took a taxi early enough in the morning to miss the people who are supposedly dangerous and before la Boca´s famous football team took to the field. I was told it is very dangerous to be in the area during and after a game. I was quite disappointed with the initial artsy area because it is so touristy. I walked deeper into the neighborhood and found its charm. Some nice old architecture, painted buildings, markets and regular life including people filling up on pastries at the numerous bakeries. I walked to the harbor and found the disgusting water that I mentioned earlier. I followed the harbor along thinking it would take me to the San Telmo neighborhood, but I ran into a naval station which forced me into the neighborhood. In the meantime, I had noticed things getting mighty quiet and I took precautions by putting my camera away. My concern became very real when I went around a corner and found a shantytown. I watched for a few minutes and decided it would be very stupid for me to attempt to cut through it given that I was in tourist mode, I had been warned about bad sections and there were characters that I could see. I went back and walked a main street through La Boca to San Telmo.
I was in Buenos Aires seven days and that was about three or four too many. It’s not a bad place, but just not my kind of place. I will say, though, that it has some of the most beautiful women in the world. One thing that makes Argentina so different from Latin America is the mix of peoples here. The typical Peruvian, for instance, is only 160 centimeters high (OK – I’ll help you on this one – divide by 2.5 to get inches), black or brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin and somewhat Asian looking. In Buenos Aires, the people are tall and short, brown, blonde, black and red haired, every color of eye color except they do not know what hazel is so I don’t think it exists much and their skin color varies from pale to dark. There is very little indigenous blood and they have a very European look. Whereas the beauty of Colombian women was very homogenous, the beauty of Argentinian women is not easily describable. I can’t say why there are so many beauties here, but there is. After seeing the same eyes throughout Latin America, it is unbelievable to see a Latina with the classic dark skin with light blue or green or grey eyes. Now that gets my attention! And a red head speaking Spanish really gets my attention!
Finally, speaking of different peoples in Buenos Aires, there are very indigenous folks which I think is true of most of Argentina and there are very few blacks. It took me a couple of days to recognize the lack of black folks and then I really started to pay attention. Sure enough, they are less than a minority here. I was speaking to a black woman and she laughed about it. She told me there are no blacks in Argentina and then proceeded to tell me that she was from Dominican Republic. Most of the indigenous people were wiped out intentionally or killed by disease. It makes the diversity of the looks of the women that much more intriguing although it makes the lack of diversity of the culture that much more understandable. Buenos Aires… maybe the whitest city in the world… who would have thunk?
Tags: argentina, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
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