Hola and welcome to my latest adventure, Argentina! Get comfortable, folks! If all goes well and I see this trip through to the end, this will end up being the longest trip I’ve ever done. Argentina is a really big country, so let’s get started. I arrived pretty early in the morning, which means day one’s struggle is to try to stay awake to beat the jetlag. I checked in to my hostel and decided to stay relatively close today which means the first site at my fingertips is… the cemetery. It’s right across the street. Here’s a pic from the rooftop of my hostel.

La Recoleta is the largest, oldest, and most famous cemetery in Buenos Aires. It’s filled to the brim with Argentina’s most important people, politicians, ex-presidents, artists, poets, and in the most elaborate mausoleums outside of Europe. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with any of these people, but it’s quite a place. Arguably, the most famous mausoleum, albeit very simple, is Eva Peron. She’s buried along with her husband, Juan Peron and some of his family. The most interesting tomb in my opinion, though, is Rufina Cambaceres. The story is she was found dead, no pulse, not breathing, then buried. The night watchman at the cemetery heard noises coming from the tomb that first night and found the coffin half busted and Rufina with scratches all over her hands and face. She’s known as the girl who died twice.

I had to look him up, but Batolomé Mitre was one of Argentina’s most famous intellectuals. He was also president from 1862-1868.

I still had a lot of day left, so I decided to head to the mobile store to sort out a sim card for my phone. I read it was better this way than getting it at the airport. False! It turned out to be quite the odyssey that took the rest of the day. They don’t sell sim cards at the store, I had to find a convenience store that had them in stock and buy it there, then back to the mobile store to show them my passport to register the number, then buy a monthly plan online. But nope! I’m a tourist and can’t use a credit card on their website (I don’t know why). I have to go to another convenience store and give them cash to credit my online account, THEN I can buy a plan online. It was a huge pain in the butt! Anyway, here’s Argentina’s Supreme Court.

And right across the street is Buenos Aires famous Teatro Colon. Building started in 1880 and it officially opened in 1908. Music and opera and ballet, Oh my!

My mobile phone odyssey also took me across Avenida 9 de Julio, the city’s main drag. Six lanes in each direction! The obelisk is sort of an icon in Buenos Aires right in the middle of it all. I thought the “BA”, the obelisk, and the Argentinian flag were a fitting welcome. Oh, and what happened on 9 de Julio? I have absolutely no idea! Haha! I’ll find out later.

After finally sorting out my phone situation, I still had time to go visit the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes just a couple of blocks from my hostel. It was a fairly small museum, but they were having a big Auguste Rodin exhibition. Awesome! They had a lot of beautiful pieces but my favorites were the Van Gogh and finding a Jackson Pollock is always a thrill for me.

Finally, it was close enough to bedtime, so I grabbed a quick dinner and then slept like a rock! The next morning I started at the epicenter of Buenos Aires, Plaza de Mayo. There’s a lot here, starting with the Cabildo. It was built mostly in the 18th century by the Spanish and once stretched almost all the way around the plaza. This is also where prominent Argentinians in the early 18th century decided they had had enough of the Spanish and started plotting against them.

Right next door is Argentina’s original presidential palace. Now it’s used for some other departments of the government. Very impressive!

I’m a little hazy on the exact chain of events, my Spanish is rusty and I’m working hard to get back in linguistic shape, but I think Argentina declared independence from Spain and started their revolution in May of 1810, hence the name Plaza de Mayo. Actual independence came a few years later. Below are paintings depicting the writing of their own declaration of independence and below that is what Plaza de Mayo looked like in 1810. Although they called it Plaza de la Victoria back then. The Cabildo is on the far right.

Plaza de Mayo is huge! The current presidential palace, Casa Rosada, is at the far end. It was originally a Spanish fort, now gone, and Casa Rosada was built in its place between 1862 and 1885. We have a White House, Argentina has a Pink House. As I discovered over my time here, their revolutionary history isn’t all that different from ours.

Out in front of Casa Rosada are monuments to the blessed day May 25, 1810, and General Manuel Belgrano. Belgrano is one of Argentina’s most important founding fathers and the designer of Argentina’s flag. He’s kind of a big deal.

Also on Plaza de Mayo is the Catedral Metropolitano. This was the seat of Pope Francis before he was the pope. The main reason for coming in here though was to see the mausoleum of General José de San Martín, another one of Argentina’s founding fathers. Along with Argentina, most of the countries in South America declared independence from Spain around the same time. General José de San Martín is credited with liberating both Chile and Peru, as well as helping to liberate Argentina. Between San Martín in the south and Simon Bolivar in the north, these two guys basically liberated the whole continent from Spain. All except for Brazil, that was Portugal’s problem.

I think Buenos Aires is mostly about the amazing colonial architecture all over the city. Between that and the amazing metro system (I’ve been zipping from one end of this city to the other) this place reminds me a lot more of Europe than South America. Every morning I wake up and forget which continent I’m on. But there are also a surprising amount of quality art museums in this city.

The Juan B. Ambrosetti Ethnography Museum hold mostly artifacts from the Chaco region, northeastern Argentina and most of Paraguay. It was small, but I really enjoyed it.

In the Retiro neighborhood is another significant plaza, Plaza General San Martín. I seem to be exploring one plaza per day. Anyway, on one side stands the Edificio Kavanagh. It was built in 1935 by an Irish heiress who supposedly used up her entire inheritance doing so. She also supposedly did it out of spite, building it to block her neighbors view of the church across the street. Ha! To this day you can still only see the church from the alley behind the building. This is why you should never leave your money to your children when you die. On the positive side, in 1935 when it was completed it was the tallest building in the world. I’m not sure how long it held that title though.

At the far end of Plaza General San Martín is the Torre Monumental. Presented to the city by its British residents in 1916, it was originally called Torre de los Ingleses. The name was changed to Torre Monumental after the Falklands war, but don’t call them the Falklands here. In Argentina they’re called the Malvinas. Argentinians are still very very bitter about the whole thing.

I got to climb to the top of the tower for a great view of Plaza General San Martín and part of the Buenos Aires skyline. This city is huge!

I also got a great view of the Buenos Aires train station, Estacion Retiro. The only business I had to do there though was a good long pee. Despite the beautiful building, the bathroom was about what you’d expect from a train station bathroom. Don’t touch anything. Bleh!

Way back on the city side of Plaza General San Martín is the monument for the man himself. Actually, I found several monuments to him all over the city, but here’s this one.

This seems to be a well to do part of town. There are several colonial palaces in the area. Most of them are used for government offices and tours are apparently very limited, so I’ll have to settle for views from the outside. At the Palacio San Martín I at least got a good view of the main courtyard through the gate. It was built between 1905 and 1909 and supposedly they have a piece of the Berlin Wall in there somewhere.

And right across the street is the Circulo Militar, finished in 1914 and taking up over two square miles of Buenos Aires real estate. It has several ballrooms and is mostly used for conferences. They wouldn’t let me in though. I did try.

Probably the most well known palace in Buenos Aires is the Palacio Libertad, right behind Casa Rosada. It was started in 1888, but took forty years to complete. It’s used as an exhibition space for art mostly. I walked around but didn’t find anything super interesting. Inside looks surprisingly modern and business like. I learned that by law, owners are not allowed to alter the outside of these buildings at all, but inside, they can do whatever the heck they want.

The San Telmo neighborhood used to be the bad part of town, the no go zone, but eventually it transformed into one of the more charming and historic parts of town. Really old buildings, cobblestone streets, and a great weekend fair, every weekend. I visited a few spots here, starting with a couple of churches. Convento Santo Domingo was founded in the mid 18th century and out in front is the mausoleum of General Manuel Belgrano, founding father and designer of Argentina’s flag. The San Ignacio church was originally built in 1734, but the Jesuits had been running a school here since the mid 17th century. This is the oldest church in Buenos Aires.

Also in San Telmo I took a really interesting tour of Zanjón de Granados. A local guy bought one of the big old buildings in the neighborhood and when he started to renovate the inside discovered the remains of some old tenement houses. Instead of the restaurant he was planning, he hired an archeological team from the university and turned it into a museum. Honestly, there wasn’t a lot to see, but the stories were really interesting. Connected to it is the skinniest house in Buenos Aires, Casa Minima. It was actually connected to a larger structure and this was probably servants quarters. It’s still bigger than my first apartment though.

Of all the incredible architecture in Buenos Aires, by far the most impressive building was the National Congress building.

That round section in the pic above is their House of Representatives. Thankfully, the tours here are not hit or miss.

Below is the inside of the House of Representatives. The Senate room was kind of drab actually. Argentina declared independence from Spain in 1810, but officially won on July 9, 1816. Now I finally know what happened on 9 de Julio. So, the first congress met in 1816, although this building wasn’t opened until 1906.

In the Plaza del Congreso out front is the giant Monumento de los Dos Congresos, celebrating the first constitutional assembly in 1813 and the first congress in 1816. Also on the plaza is one of only two copies of La Penseur in the Americas, signed by Auguste Rodin himself. Cool! I assume the other copy is in the USA.

What visit to a national capitol and all these government buildings would be complete without a visit to the National History Museum. There was way too much in there to include here, but I enjoyed it a lot. All my questions about Argentina’s history got answered and I saw tons of artifacts belonging to their founding fathers.

I discovered a new artist that I also like, even though I can’t totally figure out most of his paintings, Xul Solar. He’s one of Argentina’s own from the early to mid 20th century. I saw some of his works at the museums in town, but the biggest concentration was at the museum dedicated just to him. I’m definitely a fan.

My favorite was this one called the Development of the I Ching. As a student of the I Ching myself, I’ll be trying to figure this one out probably for the rest of my life.

Argentina is a major hot spot when it comes to dinosaur fossils. The Museum of Natural Science had a lot of great fossils. I had a good time in here! I have several other dinosaur museums and archeology sites mapped out for the rest of the trip, but this was definitely a good primer.

Everything I read in my planning said, “Go to La Boca, go to La Boca, you must go to La Boca!” So I went to La Boca. It’s where the original sea entrance to the city was, the docks. To me it seemed like a giant tourist trap. Lots of colorful buildings, a million restaurants, and 5 million souvenir shops. I did have a pretty amazing chorizo sandwich here though.

It wasn’t exactly a waste of time though. There’s a museum dedicated to Benito Quinquela Martín, a local guy who painted the docks as he saw them back in their heyday. I really liked his work.

Finally, I paid a visit to the Museum of Decorative Arts. It didn’t sound all that interesting to me, but I happened to be walking past and it was free, so why not? This place turned out to be amazing! Just walking around the gigantic colonial palace was good enough, but then it was also littered with awesome artwork everywhere. There was even a 1st century statue of Minerva in there. She’s a long way from home!

Holy Crap… I’m in La Plata!!!

Almost done. My last day in Buenos Aires I took a one hour bus ride down the coast to spend the day in La Plata. It was primarily their own Natural Science Museum that drew me there. Who knew Argentina had a dinosaur named after them? I sure didn’t. Meet the Neuquénsaurus, which was named after Neuquén Province, where it was first discovered.

There was also a pretty good collection of local native artifacts. I like the thinker below right. It seems Rodin wasn’t the first to have that idea.

Buenos Aires, the city, is the seat of the national government, while La Plata is the seat of the Buenos Aires Provincial government. However, the most stunning building in town was actually the La Plata city hall.

The City Hall sits at one end of Plaza Moreno and La Plata’s incredible cathedral, La Inmaculada Concepcíon, sits at the other end. And as you can see, Argentinians really love them some Pope Francis. Ha! Both buildings were built in the 1880’s along with the city’s foundational stone, which was placed in 1882, right here in Plaza Moreno. Mariano Moreno is another of Argentina’s founding fathers, by the way, just not La Plata.

The best part of visiting the cathedral though was the climb up the south tower for the birds eye view of Plaza Moreno and the City Hall in the distance. Awesome!

Thanks to the map app and the local busses not totally agreeing, I got back to Buenos Aires a little later than expected. On the plus side, it gave me the opportunity to take some nighttime shots of Plaza de Mayo.

And that wraps up chapter one of my Argentinian adventure. I think I’m all acclimated and back in Holy Crap mode now. One big surprise has been how cold Buenos Aires is this time of year. My puffy jacket put in some work this week. The three thousand empanadas I ate this week helped keep me warm too. See you at the next stop…