Yo Soy Maria de Buenos Aires.

I am back from my last international journey while abroad. How crazy is THAT to say. Luckily I am in a country that is so gosh darn ecologically diverse that I still have plenty of traveling to do without even crossing a border (including a 4 day program trip this weekend to La Serena!) For the past five days, I have been frolicking around Buenos Aires. Due to the Aerolineas Argentinas strike on Tuesday, our flights ended up getting moved to Wednesday... but not at the same time. So for the first time, I flew internationally alone. Even though it is only a two hour and very casual flight from Santiago to BA, I felt like I checked off a big Abroad Bucket List™ item. But even more, I had about ten hours to explore this new city on my own. Find the hostel on my own. Get completely overcharged by a cab driver on my own. Set my own pace as I meandered through the tree lined side streets and peaked into cafes that felt like Paris on my own. Pick up a paper map at the front desk of the hostel owning the fact that I am a tourist and try to keep my phone in my ~fanny pack~ unless I wanted to sneak a picture on my own. Sit and wait for my lunch date with Audrey, a wonderful Tufts friend studying abroad in BA for the year, patiently trusting our meeting time, because I had no way of contacting her without wifi on my own. I was so scared to travel alone and be so starkly without communication outside of the hostel, but those couple of hours ended up being some of my favorite and certainly some of the most special of the trip. 

I met Auds for lunch at an adorable corner cafe in Retiro before we headed out for a political rally that she wanted to photograph and film for a class project. So after a quick pit stop at a delightful bakery that offered pick your own pastry for 9 pesos (about 50 cents) each, we walked over to the march. I felt very out of place in my sundress and sunglasses and purse, but I loved challenging myself and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. I could hear Lore's voice in the back of my head screaming at me to get as far away as possible, but not only did I really trust Audrey and Cam (her friend who tagged along), but I was drawn to seeing such a real part of a city that experiences, on average, two protests a day. I have done a lot of traveling over the last couple of months (and honestly throughout my life) that has hit the tourist attractions while not seeing a lot of the real present day struggles. It was refreshing to live through the real BA during my first hours there before I filled my camera roll along side all of the other Brazilian, Chilean, American, Spanish, etc visitors. 

I got myself one of those palmiers

The protest was a mixture of a lot of leftist, socialist, and workers rights organizations. Groups were calling for many demands, but they were centrally rallying around justice for Santiago Maldonado, an indigenous rights activist whose body disappeared at the end of the summer and only recently turned up a little over two weeks ago. His death is quite a question mark right now as the autopsy has not been completed and/or publicized. But many people believe his death was a forced disappearance organized by the government. I haven't felt the same sense of power and determination since being at the Women's March, but that is not a good comparison because the energy and just the racial/cultural makeup of the protesters was completely different. In fact, at one point, Audrey turned to me and whispered "this is the most amount of brown people you will see in BA while you're here."

Voyage Hostel patio

My lovely travel companions joined me Wednesday evening. After a lovely night out for a pasta dinner with Julia, where our waiter was chilean who moved to BA during Pinochet's dictatorship, we called it a night to get ready for our first day of exploring as a group. We were met with rainy and cold weather that was completely opposite to what I had enjoyed the day before. And what better things to do on a rainy day other than explore Recoleta's famous cemetery, go to a famous museum, and take a nice siesta! So we did just that. Recoleta, the neighborhood in BA we stayed in, has a very famous cemetery that most notably holds the body of Eva "Evita" Duarte de Perón, the wife of the not-so-quasi quasi dictator of Argentina during the 40s, 50s, and 70s. More to come on her a little later... 

After the cemetery, we popped over to Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. Sound familiar?!? But this time it was full of ORIGINAL paintings. What a novel thought. It was absolutely lovely to walk around and see impecable pieces of ~fine art~ from recognizable names like Monet, van Gogh, and Degas in addition to many Argentinian artists. Oh I just didn't want to leave! But we got hungry so inevitably had to. The weather got a little better but was still cold and misty, so after lunch we decided to take a little siesta before heading out for a delightful burger dinner. Easily had one of the top 5 burgers of my life that night. Burger, brie, caramelized onions, crispy escarole. Crunchy papas fritas. A nice home brewed ale. Eating outside on the streets of Palermo with some lovely humans. I was in heaven. 

                     

On Friday morning we hit some tourist attractions which included the Floralis Genérica. This mechanical flower opens and closes as the day goes on, mirroring natural petal movement. Each of the petals weighs a whopping 18 tons and is absolutely massive. I don't have any photographs with humans in them, but it was quite breathtaking. 

 

From the Flor we walked about 45 minutes to Avenida 9 de Julio. In the Guiness Book of World Records, this avenue goes down as the widest in the world. But, while we are being honest here, Buenos Aires is cheating. Sidewalk to sidewalk, yes, it takes the cake. But in fact, between those sidewalks lie 3 separate avenues. An avenue in Brasilia is the ~real~ winner. Nonetheless, it was a gorgeous day to walk around the city and experience the perfect spring weather as the thousands of jacaranda trees begin to bloom. Avenues are starting to turn purple like how the DC basin turns pink with the cherry blossoms in the spring. [Trivia question about that actually. During which presidential term were those trees planted? And whose idea was it? (Answer at the end of the blog!)]

At 3pm, we met in front of el Congreso to begin our free walking tour of the city. Side note here: whenever you travel, you should look into these! They are called Free Walking Tour. I went on one in Reykjavik back in March, and I could not recommend them enough. The Buenos Aires tour was just as fabulous. The guides work off of tips, so it is not completely free if you want to support them, but it is still a heck of a lot cheaper than any other tour you will find and they are really well done. And they are three hours long! So you get TONS of info. Our tour traveled along Avenida de Mayo which is basically the Champs-Élysées of BA. It connects the Congressional building to Casa Rosada (Argentina's White House). Our guide covered a tremendous amount of information from the Spanish conquest to Independence Wars to Civil Wars to how Argentina still things that the Falkland Islands are theirs to Argentina's difficult dictator history. What I also really respected about our guide was how honest he was. He did forewarn us that his political position was certainly not an unbiased nor passive one, but it added a real dimension to the tour that would have been lacking if he had tried to be neutral. And this in it of itself represents Argentinians' perspective on their history, especially about Perón. It is an incredibly divisive issue to this day, just like Pinochet is in Chile.

I highly recommend (if you are interested of course) doing a little research on your own about Peronismo and Argentina's many dictatorships. I certainly will continue to do more myself, because even after thirty minutes or so of the tour being dedicated to these topics, I still feel like I know practically nothing. I knew quite literally absolutely nothing going into this trip, and it is a very interesting issue. Perón was a populist (and fascist) leader that was elected primarily due to the incredible propaganda and people skills of his beautiful young wife Eva (think: Don't Cry for me Argentina). She was the connection between the government and the people, and fought, at least for the cameras, for workers and women's rights. Therefore, she helped Perón carry votes from lower class Argentinians. But her work was not disconnected from her husband's. Women want the right to vote? Sure, but as long as you vote for Perón. Want to open a newspaper? Sure, but as long as you don't say anything bad about Perón. But you also need to understand how absolutely beloved this woman was in the eyes of half of the population. And absolutely hated by the other. She died at age 33 from ovarian cancer, and her funeral went on for 2 weeks so that people could come and pay their respects. A mausoleum was designed for her just like Lenin's. And as you can see in the photograph above of her family's tomb in the cemetery where she is buried, people continue to bring fresh flowers daily. But during the same time as the funeral, there were celebrations and parties that lasted just as long. Walls were covered in graffiti reading "viva cancer."

I thought a lot about if you can be pro-Evita while being anti-peronismo. I honestly don't know the answer, and I certainly do not have enough information to make a decision let alone argue one. But this question definitely outlines the complexity of her pro-labor and pro-suffrage efforts while still playing a prominent role in her husband's fascist leadership.

Oh also wondered why so many Nazi's went to Argentina to escape prosecution after WWII? Well... guess who was in power...

famous obelisk in the center of 9 de Julio

Casa Rosada

Our last day in Buenos Aires was a day of plants and tango. We started off by walking to the Botanical Garden to meet up with Audrey again. It was absolutely lovely, and Maria was in heaven. It was hard not to see all of these beautiful green parks and trees and wish Santiago had some of it too, but I've really decided that you just can't compare these two cities. I love them both in such different ways! After the botanical garden we walked over to the Rosedale. Which is just a gorgeous park with fountains and a little pond and ROSES ON ROSES ON ROSES. Oh I couldn't get enough. I wish I could send you the smell over the interwebs.

Jardin Botanico

Rosedale

And after 25,000 steps before lunch, we took another well deserved siesta before heading out to our tango show. Not going to lie, I had some serious flashbacks to my second grade tango performance with Sean Jablon in front of the entire lower school (iiii knoowwwww), but thank god ours was nothing like what we saw. Oh the dancing was so complex and powerful and controlled and energetic and beautiful! The show was made up of three pairs, a live band, two singers, and absolutely NO photographs taken (Julia tried and it didn't go well -- those ushers take their jobs very seriously). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vB54MfijNo this is the best evidence I could find to give you a sense of the female singer. She went through 4 different gowns including one JUST for the curtain call. A tad extra. Also sorry, you will probably all have "Yo soy Maria. Maria de Buenos Aires" stuck in your head now. We certainly all do. I also highly recommend looking up some good tango because it is incredible. 

From there, we took our last group walk back to the hostel and got a solid 3 hours of sleep before our alarm went off to head out to the airport for our 6:50 flight. What a journey it has been. After this one in addition to our stop in Cordoba on our way to Peru and last months trip to Mendoza, I now have 6 Argentina stamps in my passport. So many over such a short period of time that the customs officer today asked me if I have an Argentinian boyfriend. Can't say I do, but it was a solid guess to explain page 14. And now, back on my bed at Chile España 537, I am settling in to write my final essays. And before long, December 15th will be here and so will my family!!

Sending lots of love,

Olivia/Liv/Boo

OH! And fyi: The Case of the Missing Natur Bag has been closed. Pedro Pablo was the thief and fessed up when pressed by his mother.

Trivia!!! Would it be a Chileen in Chile blog if there wasn't a tad bit of podcast geeking out?! The cherry trees were planted during Taft's administration, and the planting was overseen by his wife Nellie. Yay to beautiful blooming flowers brightening lovely cities.

Spanish Word of the Blog: más o menos = more or less
This is just a) very useful and b) when said in a chilean accent sounds more like "maomao." And that is just too good to pass up for a nice laugh.