Argentina Archives

Final days in Argentina: The non-Evita side of Buenos Aires

17 August, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

What?! There’s more to Buenos Aires than Evita?! That’s crazy! But yes, indeed, there are some things to do and see that are unrelated to Eva Perón. I spent my days there walking around town, which I find to be the best way to explore any new place. Not that a few days in a city like Buenos Aires can do it justice…

Galerías Pacífico, a shopping mall in Buenos Aires — Galerías Pacífico is a shopping mall in the centre of town, housed in a ‘Beaux Arts’ building from 1889 and declared a national historic monument 100 years later. It’s been remodelled and renovated during that time, perhaps most impressively including the frescos of the central cupola.

The ceiling inside Galerías Pacífico — Inside Galerías Pacífico

San Telmo street art, Buenos Aires — San Telmo is the more bohemian neighbourhood, or ‘barrio’, of Buenos Aires, and its oldest.

Buildings in San Telmo, Buenos Aires — San Telmo has great vintage shops – if only I lived there so I could buy some of the gorgeous furniture!

Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo, Buenos Aires — Empty chairs and empty tables at Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo

Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires, Argentina — The Puerto Madero is a lovely area to walk, with lots of new office buildings and restaurants and modern architecture.

The Puente de la Mujer in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires — The design of the Puente de la Mujer, ‘Women’s Bridge’, was incomprehensible to me – it’s a long steel needle pointing diagonally upwards, not particularly feminine – but it seems it’s actually a stylistic representation of a tango-dancing couple.

In front of the Ponte de la Mujer in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires — Not bad for a selfie!

That’s the one typical Argentinean thing I didn’t do: go to a tango show. I had already been to two in the UK – one in Norwich and one at the Royal Festival Hall in London – so maybe it’s okay? In fact, the genuine tango experience is to dance, not to watch, and as I haven’t ever learned Argentine tango I think it was probably for the best that I stayed off the dance floor. In any case, it takes two to tango, doesn’t it?

Tango steps on the pavement of Buenos Aires, Argentina — Looks… easy?!

Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina — Teatro Colón was inaugurated in 1908 with a first performance of Verdi’s Aida. The design of the Teatro Colón was inspired by the style of the Paris Opera, with some Italian influences as well.

The grand steps of the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires — The grand steps of the Teatro Colón separate the real world, on the ground floor, from the artistic world on the upper floor – a world that was much more ornate than the everyday world below.

Inside the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina — Cupid whispers something in his mother’s ear…

A ceiling inside the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina — Not too shabby

The auditorium of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina — The auditorium is said to have some of the best acoustics in the world – apparently Pavarotti sang here and said that there was “something wrong with the sound: it’s just too… perfect”.

And I’m sure that’s just a tiny part of what Buenos Aires has to offer. Still, Evita is never far away…

On the trail of Eva Perón: Singing songs from Evita in Buenos Aires

13 August, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg 1 Comment

Number 41 on my bucket list from 5th July this year: Sing Evita songs in Buenos Aires. That’s a big TICK then!

Eva Ibarguren – that was her mother’s name; her father Juan Duarte did not recognise her as his legitimate child – was born in 1919 and grew up in a poor area of Junín in Buenos Aires province. At the age of 15, Eva ran off to the capital city. In the film, at least, she did so with the tango singer Agustín Magaldi, though this is not known for certain.

To think that a man as famous as you are
Could love a poor little nothing like me
I wanna be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires, Big Apple…

While I arrived by boat, Eva arrived by train at Estación Retiro, met by her brother who was doing his military service

What’s new Buenos Aires?
I’m new, I wanna say I’m just a little stuck in you
You’ll be on me too

I get out here, Buenos Aires
Stand back, you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
Just a little touch of star quality

Eva found some success in Buenos Aires as a model and an actress

The lady’s got potential, she was setting her sights
On making it in movies with her name in lights
The greatest social climber since Cinderella

She met Colonel Perón at a fundraiser he organised at Luna Park Stadium in aid of the victims of an earthquake in San Juan in January 1944; in less than two years, they were married

I don’t always rush in like this
Twenty seconds after saying hello
Telling strangers I’m too good to miss
If I’m wrong I hope you tell me so
But you really should know, I’d be good for you
I’d be surprisingly good for you

Apparently Evita lived with Perón on the fourth floor of Calle Posadas 1567 in the Recoleta neighbourhood…

…when I went there, though, there was actually a plaque on the hotel next door at 1557. Hmm…

Eva followed her husband on the campaign trail for the 1946 presidential election, which saw Juan Perón win a landslide victory. This is where, in the film, Evita – ‘little Eva’ as she became known among the ‘decamisados’ – stepped out onto the balcony of the Casa Rosada to greet her fans

The Casa Rosada is, as its name suggests, though still quite unexpectedly, PINK; it’s still the office of the president and visits are allowed only at the weekend and during public holidays, but I was pretty happy with walking around the outside of the building singing…

Don’t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance

Thousands of people gathered in August 1951 to beg Evita to accept the role of vice president (she refused) outside the Cabildo, now a museum; behind, you see the clock tower of the ‘Edificio de la Legislatura Porteña’ where Evita had her office in what was then the Secretariat of Labour and Social Insurance

In 1950, Evita was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and she died at the age of 33 on 26th July 1952, and her body lay here in the Congreso for a day to allow the public to pay their respects; she was granted a state funeral

You let down your people Evita
You were supposed to have been immortal
That’s all they wanted – not much to ask for
But in the end you could not deliver

Evita’s body was kept in a locked room in the building of the Confederación General de Trabajo but disappeared in 1955 when Perón was overthrown in a military coup; the body somehow made it to Milan where it was buried under another name

In 1976, Evita’s body was finally placed in her family’s mausoleum in Recoleta Cemetery

The choice was yours and no one else’s
You can cry for a body in despair
Hang your head because she is no longer there
To shine, to dazzle, or betray
How she lived, how she shone
But how soon the lights are gone

Many thanks to the Eva Perón Historical Research Foundation, whose website pointed me in the direction of the less obvious Evita locations. Unfortunately I couldn’t visit the Mueso Evita, which is located outside of town at 2988 Lafinur Street in the Palermo neighbourhood.
I did, however, discover La Muestra de Evita, El Museo del Pueblo on Avenida de Mayo 930 (some of the photos above are from this small but interesting museum).

Toucans and Technical Wonders: The Parque das Aves and Itaipú Dam

1 August, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg 2 Comments

On leaving Puerto Iguazú in Argentina, I didn’t go very far: just across the border to Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil. Although I had already seen the Iguazú Falls from this side, there were other sights of potential interest.

First, I headed to the Parque das Aves, the bird park that ironically turned out to be just a short walk from the waterfalls, so that it would have been much more efficient to combine the visits in one day. It was also the weekend, so local families were lining up at the ticket office when I arrived.

I’m not keen on going to see animals in cages – since my safari experience of seeing the animals in the wild in Africa, I no longer enjoy going to zoos (a small enclosure in Sweden is not a natural habitat for lions) – but I really wanted to see a toucan, having failed to spot a single one in the national park. In fact, the Parque is more of a bird sanctuary. They take in birds that have been rescued from poachers and illegal traders, and release them back into the wild when the birds are ready to survive on their own. And I spent much longer there than I had intended!

The next excursion in Foz was to Itaipú Dam, voted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. (The others that I’ve visited: the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building and the Channel Tunnel; and those that I haven’t: the CN Tower in Toronto, the Delta Works in the Netherlands and the Panama Canal.) Unfortunately, the construction of the dam left 10,000 local families without a home, and flooded the Guaíra Falls, which had been a significant tourist attraction, as the largest falls in the world in terms of volume of water. Although the dam is no longer the biggest in the world – Three Gorges in China took that title when completed in 2012 – they say it is “the world’s largest generator of renewable energy“. Half of the electricity generated powers 75% of Paraguay’s energy (all of which is hydroelectric), while half powers 25% of Brazil’s energy. They are also building a university, which will house 10,000 students.

At the bus terminal in Foz, I had an existential crisis as to where I should go next: to Río or not to Río? That was the question. I hadn’t intended to go to Brazil on all this trip – it’s a big country that warrants a whole separate trip, with a whole other language to learn – but I was sooooo close to Saõ Paolo, which is sooooo close to Río. What to do, what do do…?

Iguazú Falls: One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World

30 July, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg 6 Comments

The Iguazú Falls are located between Argentina and Brazil. (In fact, at the junction where the Iguazú River merges with the Paraná River, the water forms a natural border between three countries: Argentina’s Puerto Iguazú, Brazil’s Foz do Iguaçu, and Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este.) The name Iguazú means ‘big water’ in the Guarani and Tupi languages, and indeed the falls are the widest in the world, although divided into anything from 150 to 300 individual falls (depending on the season and the amount of water), making the Victoria Falls the widest uninterrupted sheet of water in the world (at high flow).

My first visit to the Falls was on the Argentinian side, where I joined a ‘safari’ tour through the jungle to hear about the Iguazú National Park, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area is rich in flora and fauna, though unfortunately for tourists we are unlikely to see many of the species on the paths that we take through just a small part of the 550km2 park. The largest mammals are jaguars, while others include pumas, ocelots, anteaters, coatis; the hundreds of different species of birds include toucans, eagles, and vultures; and insects are even more numerous – it was the first time in my life when I could say that there were ‘too many’ butterflies…

After the jungle tour, we transferred into a boat on the Iguazú River and headed towards the Falls themselves. After a short pause to take photos, the captain took us into and under the waterfalls first on one side then on the other. I wore the rain poncho that I had bought but never used on the Inca Trail, but it was pretty useless – water came up and under, leaving me pretty much soaked through. Any parts of my clothes that were still dry when we got out of the boat were drenched when I went down the walkway for a closer look (and feel). There are walkways on the upper and lower parts of the waterfalls, giving you different views of the different falls from different angles. Unfortunately the walkway of the Garganta del Diablo, the Devil’s Throat, had collapsed when the river flooded in June after an unusual amount of rain and so this was closed for most of the month of July. There was plenty to see, though, and by the end of the day I was out of battery from all the photos I took!

The safari tour through the jungle – I didn’t see a single animal, but we did get a nice introduction to the park

Fully equipped for the boat trip into the waterfalls (we were also given a waterproof sack for our bags and cameras)

Our ship

Getting closer

The rainbow was a highlight

…and it followed me everywhere I went – on the lower walkway

On first-name terms with the coatis

Looking out from the upper walkway

One of the many beautiful ‘mariposas’

You could walk all the way along the top of the falls on the Argentinian side

A pretty bird (but sadly not a toucan)

Bye bye Argentinian side!

The next day on the Brazilian side, I was quite unmoved at first sight. I had already seen the waterfalls from up close in Argentina, and the view from afar was initially not that impressive. As I approached, though, I once again became caught up in the beauty and sheer size of the full panorama that’s visible from this side, while the end of the walkway took me closer and deeper into the water… and I again ended up soaked. (This time, I hadn’t bothered to bring a poncho.)

The first glimpse from Brazil

Getting closer

There are rainbows in Brazil too

I’ll be down on that walkway soon

…getting a little bit wet

Bird’s eye view again after taking the lift up

And a final rainbow

In the film The Bucket List, Morgan Freeman wants to “witness something majestic”. He had in mind Mount Everest, but I’m pretty sure he would have been satisfied with the Iguazú Falls.

The practical bit

For the Argentinian side:
-There are buses with Rio Uruguay running every 20 minutes between Puerto Iguazú and the Argentinian side of the waterfalls ($60 for a return ticket)
-Entrance is $170 for foreigners
-The Iguazú Jungle company offers the following excursions: (1) Nautical Adventure – motorboat ride that takes you into and under the waterfalls. You get wet! (10mins, $180); (2) Great Adventure – safari ride on land, followed by boat trip down the river, and finishing with the Nautical Adventure (1.5h, $380); (3) Ecological Tour – a relaxing trip in a rowboat down the upper part of the river (30mins, $80). I recommend the first one, unless you’re pregnant, you have back problems, or you’re wearing non-waterproof mascara…
All prices are in Argentine pesos, as of July 2013.

For the Brazilian side:
-There are buses with Cruz del Norte running only every 2 hours between Puerto Iguazú and the Brazilian side, so make sure you check the time ($60 for a return ticket; note that you’ll need your passport, as you’re crossing the border – the bus will wait as you get your stamps)
-If you’re staying in Foz do Iguaçu, there are local buses that take you to the falls in about 45mins for a few reais, and these run regularly
-Everything on the Brazilian side, except the walk along the actual Falls, costs extra – there are boat rides, bicycle tours, hikes, helicopter rides… I didn’t look at these as I’d already done the activities in Argentina

My first ruins in weeks: The Jesuit missions at Trinidad and San Ignacio

28 July, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg 2 Comments

Situated just outside Encarnación, the ruins of the Jesuit missions at Trinidad and Jesús constitute Paraguay’s only two UNESCO World Heritage sites. My Chilean amiga and I had planned to visit Trinidad at night, when the lighting makes the ruins a particularly spectacular sight, but after our gun encounter of the previous night we didn’t feel comfortable wandering around deserted ruins in the dark. Nonetheless we wanted to visit the ruins to at least have seen something more positive of what Paraguay has to offer, so we took the bus out the next morning before leaving for Argentina.

The Jesuits, of the Society of Jesus, today form the largest male religious order in the world, and recently saw the first of their members to be elected to the papacy: Pope Francis. From the time that they came to South America around 1570 to their expulsion in 1767, they brought Christianity to the indigenous people by setting up missions or ‘reducciones’ along the Paraná river where they could govern the Guaranis more effectively. An estimated 140,000 people lived in these centres at their peak, the most important ones within an area now occupied by Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. According to a sign at one of the ruins, this “was an organization which was the admiration and amazement of those who dreamt of utopias, but which also aroused suspicions in those who were in power”. At one point, they even organised a militia to defend themselves against slave raiders. Following their abandonment, the mission buildings became the ruins of today as a result of plundering for gold, and civil war.

The Santísima Trinidad del Paraná Mission in Paraguay was established in 1706 and is the largest of the region’s missions, with a big church in the central square. There was a short introductory video at the start giving us some background on the ruins and their heritage, after which we were left to our own devices.

The church at Trinidad, viewed from the side

Its well-preserved pulpit

Standing in one of its ornate doorways

The arches of the indigenous houses

Having crossed the border into Argentina (Javi was allowed to pass through without an ID after a lot of begging and having to leave her police statement behind – she would have to obtain another in Argentina), getting stuck in traffic for over an hour on the no-man’s-land bridge between the two countries, we proceeded straight to the town of San Ignacio, and the following day visited the ruins of the San Ignacio Miní mission, established in its current location in 1696. Here we visited the museum and then joined the beginning of a guided tour (that we abandoned when it proved a tad too in-depth) and so received a bit more of an explanation of the layout of the mission. We entered through rows of indigenous housing into the main plaza, opposite which was the remains of the workshops, the priests’ quarters, the cemetery, and the area designated for “widows who had no relatives, orphans, elder women, some single women, and the adulteress. The main task given to these secluded women was spinning wool and cotton.”

The entrance to the church

The ‘IHS’ on the Jesuit seal is derived from the first three letters of ‘Jesus’ in Greek: iota-eta-sigma

The area of the workshops for wood- and metal-work

And this is where I would have been spinning wool with the widows and adulteresses

As if returning to the ruins of Cair Paravel, where once the Pevensies had ruled as the Kings and Queens of Narnia

By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about the missions through the eyes of Hollywood, there is a film from 1986 starring Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro, called The Mission.

Final days in Argentina: The non-Evita side of Buenos Aires

On the trail of Eva Perón: Singing songs from Evita in Buenos Aires

Toucans and Technical Wonders: The Parque das Aves and Itaipú Dam

Iguazú Falls: One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World

My first ruins in weeks: The Jesuit missions at Trinidad and San Ignacio

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