Cape Horn

 

I suppose one could question the wisdom of heading out by boat to a monument dedicated to the 10,000 people killed in ship wrecks, but some times your vacation plans make more sense in your living room than in reality. We left Ushuaia and headed out the Murray channel to the Atlantic Ocean.  Just fourteen hours and numerous ups and downs later, we were approaching the island of Cabo de Hornos, (Cape Horn) in 40 knot winds.  Fortunately, we were protected by the island and were able to land.

We climbed the 160 steps to the bluffs above the ocean and looked back at Tierra del Fuego

and headed to the monument.  It is dedicated to the men killed in the 800 ship wrecks that have occurred trying to bend the horn. When viewed from the correct angle, it looks like a albatross.

We reached the monument, looked down at the horn

stopped at the lighthouse at the end of the world, said a quick prayer in the chapel and headed back to our ship before the winds shifted.

Photos from Cape Horn

Ushuaia

 

By the time you get to Ushuaia, you are already off of the continent.  It is in the "Tierra Del Fuego," or land of fire. Tradition says that it got it's name from the natives who lit fires along the beach to warn of the coming ships.  Anthropologist say that the natives lit bon fires on the beaches when whales were grounded to let everyone know that there was going to be a party tonight with lots of food.  Choose your own interpretation.  All of the guide books describe Ushuaia as "wind swept Ushuaia"

The town itself refers to itself as either the "ends of the earth,"

or the gate way to Antarctica which is where you go if you don't think the ends of the earth are far enough away. I think both vies overlook the quality of the extremely fine chocolate candies that you can get there.

Ushuaia is on the Beagle Channel, of Charles Darwin fame, and  it is where we caught our boat to go out to Cape Horn.

Ours is the smaller ship behind Paul Allen's rather large yacht. I think that we left a much smaller carbon foot print.

Photos of Ushuaia

Caminito

 

After the Argentines obtained independence in 1816, they fought each other for the next 50 years until no one was left to fight.  This resulted in there also not being no one left to work, so the Argentineans enacted an extremely generous immigration program.  The upscale section of Buenos Aires is known as little Palermo.

 
The not so upscale section around the docks was called Caminito  and it was settled by French Basque and Genovese Italians  immigrants.  They made houses out of corrugated zinc and painted them in the bright marine colors that they could salvage from ships.

It has a quirky sense of humor

And great folk art

It is a fun place to be on a sunny afternoon, but you do not want to be there after 5:30.  The shops close up and it is a dangerous area.

more photos of Caminito

The rich and the dead

Buenos Aries is divided into a number of barrios.  Recoleta is the most exclusive neighborhood and was populated when upper-class portenos fled the yellow fever out breaks of the 1870s.  Even more exclusive than the neighborhood, after all anyone with money can buy property, is the cemetery.  You must have a surname of one of the ruling families to get into Cementerio de la Recoleta.

Good taste is not a requirement.  The goal is to outshine in death those that you couldn’t in life

Some of the statuary is quite beautiful, but in general the artist are unknown.  This is not because they used unknown artists.  Most of the work was imported from France and includes people like Rodin.  But if the artist is know, then it is art and it is taxed. One constant in the Argentine upper classes is that they do not like to pay any taxes.

Interestingly, and I’m not sure what this says about Argentinean culture, most of the statuary is of women.  It seems that Argentine men may need a lot of feminine intervention to get into heaven.

 

 

More photos of cemetary

Plazas, boulevards and Churches

 

Buenos Aries is cut through by several wide boulevards, and I do mean wide.  Avenue July Ninth is reputedly the widest in the world.  It has six lanes of traffic going in each direction  and a wide  grassy median down the center.  It is named after the successful revolution of 1816.  There are a lot of open green spaces  filled with people relaxing.  

Churches

 

And people whose parents probably wish they were walking.

 

Photos of parks 

There are several cathedrals, but all are of recent construction. They are certainly intense   in their representations of Christ

But it is Mary who they pray to and apparently dress in endless costumes.

Our Lady of the Church

Buenos Aires

 

We headed off to “the city that never sleeps” on the airline that never lets you sleep.  Twenty hours later we got off of the plane, a little groggy, very stiff, and very pleased to be on our way to the hotel.  Buenos Aires is also called the “Paris of South America” because of its wide boulevards, parks and monuments.  It also has an incredible café society and lots of dancing.  Our hotel is located on the corner of July 9th Avenue, the Argentinean Independence Day and the Liberator Avenue. Every president, dictator, general,  or otherwise colorful person has a statue in a square somewhere in Buenos Aires.  It is  a country where democracy was not easily obtained, but is celebrated widely. Of course most of the people in these statues were doing their best to retard its spread.

There is not a lot left of colonial Buenos Aires. For the first two centuries of its existence, it was a colonial backwater to the Spanish capital at Lima Peru. The central plaza named Plaza del Mayo is named after the first, but unsuccessful revolution of 1810.

It is the location of major demonstrations which are frequent in Argentina.  At the end is the Casa Rosanda which is the site of the parliament.  You can see the balcony from which Eva Peron, and later Madonna playing  Eva Peron, addressed the crowds of adoring Argentineans.

 

More poignant is the obelisk, which mothers of the disappeared march around every Thursday afternoon.  Large numbers of people who criticized the military government simply disappeared in the 1970’s.  The mothers are symbolized by the white scarves that they wear about their necks.

The Argentine flag  is made up of the blue, the house of bourbon colors when they ruled  Spain.  They make it clear that they did not want to cut their ties with Spain and did not revolt from Spain until Napoleon conquered it and replace the monarchy with one of his many relatives.