It’s a 14 hour bus journey from here to Buenos Aires so we opt for the Cata bus with fully reclining seats and airline style food. It’s first class bus travel and the kids are delighted to discover they can even pull curtains around themselves, put their seat flat into a bed and cocoon themselves with a blanket and pillow. Peace at last. Now I can sit back and watch the film, even if I’m not going to eat this congealed lump of something that’s just been put in front of me.
Amazingly, the kids get a solid 10 hours sleep and even Will and I manage to sleep fairly well after a couple of glasses of bubbles that accompany dinner. The hostess with the mostest (this girl could literally balance about 20 polystyrene cups of coffee on a tray as she walked downstairs in the bus, travelling at about 70mph over bumpy roads) served our breakfast and before we knew it, we’re pulling into the bus station.
No such fiasco with taxis here, but just extremely long queues met by extremely tiny taxis which sees people piling into the cabs and then piling their luggage onto their laps once they realise the boot’s too small to fit anything into. That’s us included, who have to pile our bags onto the front seat, squeeze all four of us in the back and then fill any remaining space between us with our hand luggage.
After a 15 hour journey, we arrive at our pre-booked apartment at 8am to discover that it’s still a building site. The advert on wotif describes this place as being newly built and completed in May 08, but it seems it’s not completed even though it’s now June. The builders are bemused to see us and we’re not impressed to see them. A few phone calls later and the cavalry arrives promising to sort this out. Will and I play a bit of good cop, bad cop until we’re eventually moved to a new 1-bed apartment that is small but nice.
Everyone has told us that they associate Argentina with horses so it seems only appropriate that we go to the horse racing. The horse races I’ve been to in the UK involve leaving the kids behind, dressing up, meeting friends, paying a small fortune to get in, drinking champagne and putting bets on with the bookies at the front. It’s all slightly surreal then as we have the kids with us, walk in for free in our jeans and converse, there are only totes and…gasp, they don’t serve alcohol! But we have a great time watching the fine fillies parading around (unlike the UK, the only fine fillies here are the horses) before thundering down the tracks towards us and we even put a few bets on, although lady luck’s not being very kind today.
The other thing that everyone associates with Argentina is tango and there’s tango shows aplenty here. But a) they don’t start ’til late at night, b) we don’t have a babysitter and c) I’d rather see people tangoing as part of real life rather than part of a show. So I’m pleased to discover that there’s a bandstand in the park where the locals go to practise their tangos every Sunday night. And here’s real life Buenos Aires, right before your very eyes. Men and woman arrive, mostly singularly but some in couples, and stand around the edge of the dance floor. The music is in sets of three songs and then there’s a very obvious break between each set. The norm is to stay with the same partner for all three songs and then break and take another partner. If you’re a very bad dancer, you may well be abandoned mid-set. The shame of it.
San Telmo is host to a huge market on Sunday mornings and there’s plenty of street performers here too, including a couple of impressive tango dancers. Done correctly, this is a very sexy dance.
And there’s one more thing (or rather one more person) that will forever be associated with Argentina, and that’s Eva Peron (the real Evita, not the Madonna fake). As part of our sightseeing tour, we visit the Presidential Palace from where Madonna warbled Don’t Cry For Me Argentina across the balcony and then to the museum underneath where we learn a bit about the real First Lady. Both revered and reviled from different quarters, Eva became known for speaking out for the working classes and for women’s rights campaigns. She died of cancer in her early 30’s, thus ensuring her a future of adoration reserved for those who die young and beautiful. Her body is now encased in the Duarte family tomb at the Cementerio de la Recoleta where generations of Argentina’s elite rest in ornate splendour and thousands come here every year to leave flowers and notes for her. The cemetery also houses some rather fine statues to former presidents and there’s even a life size statue of a former boxer here, which doesn’t sit too well next to the angels and cherubs all around him.
Every Thursday there’s a march in the square in front of the Presidential Palace by the so-called Mothers of the 21 May, a group of 70-plus year old woman whose sons disappeared during the Dirty War and have never been seen since. In short, during the late 1960’s a group of middle-class youths formed a Peronist guerrilla group (the Montoneros) and bombed foreign businesses, kidnapped executives for ransom and robbed banks to finance their struggle. In 1976, a coup by General Videla took control of the Argentine government and this began a period of terror and brutality primarily aimed at the Montoneros. It’s estimated that up to 30,000 people died in this so-called Dirty War. To disappear meant to be detained, tortured and probably killed. Ironically, the Dirty Was ended only when the Argentine military attempted to repossess the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands), of which no mention must be made in these parts by us Brits. The Mothers march in an attempt to stop their sons being forgotten, but sad though it is that they’ve lost their sons without ever knowing what happened to them, I can’t see what good it will do.
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