Buenos Aires – Day two

My friend and I figured that things could only improve from yesterday. We headed downtown and climbed on top of the hop on/hop off bus again. This time we carried umbrellas, raincoats and cloths to wipe down the wet seats. As you can see, since we had all that stuff, the sun shone brightly and there wasn't a cloud in the sky!

First stop was Eva Peron's grave site at the Recoleta Cemetery. This has to be one of the busiest cemeteries in the world. People were flocking into this place like they were giving away candy or something.

We joined the crowds winding their way among the unbelievably ornate tombstones and over the top mausoleums. Some of the sculptured stone work was amazing, so I took a lot of photos there. (When I can find a cheap internet site somewhere, I will upload all these photos to an album so that you can look at them online if you you want to.) Evita (meaning little Eva) may have died decades ago, put she is still one of the most popular women in Argentina.

Next we headed back to the downtown area to see the Cathedral. Buenos Aires is full of large, ornate buildings like this. Outside the Cathedral, Argentinian veterans of the Falklands war were staging a protest.

Like I said in my Port Stanley blog entry, the war may have been over since 1982, but it is still fresh in the mind of the participants. On Thursday afternoons, this area is taken over by the mothers of the people who were killed in the 'dirty war'. They have been protesting for decades so that they can find out what really happened to their loved ones. Back in the seventies and eighties, the secret police would grab, torture and kill anyone they suspected of being against them. To this day, those families are still trying to find out where they dumped the bodies.

Down the road from the protest site is the Casa Rosada. It is from these balconies that Evita and Juan Peron would make their speeches to the adoring crowds.

Interesting fact – Buenos Aires has the world's widest street. Officially, there are 16 lanes of traffic. But after seeing how they drive down here, I can only say that drivers think that the lines on the road are only a suggestion!

One of the more interesting neighborhoods to visit is La Boca. Residents here live right across the street from the river. When the boats in the area have left over paint, the residents use it to paint their houses. As a result, the neighborhood is awash in bright colors. Now, a lot of artists display their work amongst the colorful buildings and the area is full interesting little shops and cafes.

Anyone who watches the TV show “The Amazing Race” will be familiar with this picture. This bridge was one of the places that the teams had to get to on their race around the world.

Back on the ship, we were entertained by a dance troupe that was made up of 8 family members (mom, dad, their 3 daughters and their 3 sons). Since this is Argentina, they performed the tango (above) and several gaucho cowboy routines (Dad is below in red and mom is right behind him).