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.