Beautiful Buenos Aires

By special arrangement of Mai 10, the Virtuoso On-Site in Argentina, Jesse and I had the good fortune to spend the morning with the best tour guide in the city, Flavio. In a few short hours he not only showed us the city but gave us a taste of the Porteño way of life. The people of Buenos Aires are proud of their city, their European heritage, their beef, their soccer teams, their architecture, their wide avenues, their parks, their churches and their monuments. Flavio said, "in Rio, they say they are the best; in Montevideo, they say they are the best. They are lying. We are the best." Reminds me of most Texans I know.

Trivia: soccer is a passion in Buenos Aires and fans are loyal to the extreme to their favorite teams. The stadium where Flavio's team plays is painted in the blue and yellow team colors. Red is the color of their rival team. Such is the depth of their rivalry that Coca Cola was allowed to advertise on the stadium only on the condition they not use the trademark red background. Notice the black background in this photo. I'm not sure why that caught my attention, but I found that very interesting.

More trivia: the people of Buenos Aires instinctively mass in the wide avenidas when they want to gather for any reason. They don't announce "let's meet at the avenida" but rather somehow instinctively know to go there.



The old part of the city is called La Boca, meaning the mouth (of the river). In early days, the people who lived there were simple working class families, and they painted their homes and small buildings with whatever leftover boat paints they could find. The colorful tradition continues today, and the area is now a haven for artists. We arrived about 30 minutes before the daily onslaught of tour buses arrived. Flavio called the buses "the enemy" and of course had planned our stop there so we missed the crowd.

On one wall is a relief sculpture titled "Esperando la Barca" meaning waiting for the boat. It depicts families waiting at the nearby water's edge watching for their sailors to return from the sea.

We had coffee, or in my case hot chocolate (a specialty) in the Gran Café Tortoni, the oldest café in Buenos Aires dating to 1858. There was a line outside, but somehow Flavio got us right in.

More on Buenos Aires in the next post. Tango!