Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 11th Jan

Last full day in BA and it's back to full on sun. Tomorrow we fly out south at 1.30 so we need to organise a taxi and book a hotel for our return on 2nd February. We decide to rebook here as it's nice and good value.
As for today we start with a walk down to the National Library and archive. One wonders what lurks in there and who does the dirty washing after dictators have gone. On the way we saw two striking sights but with the camera still in the rucksack I failed to photograph both. The first was a professional dog walker. The guy had around 20 dogs leashed to his left wrist. All the dogs filled the pavement but were trotting along briskly enjoying themselves. What a logistical nightmare, imagine when the first one stops for a poo........ These guys also collect and deliver as well as grooming them. Mind you BA's streets are a disgrace of dog dirt. The next thing I failed to record on film was a Citroën 2CV stretched limo. I did get the library as it stayed still. Here it is, the style is, I believe Brutilist.

Why all the space underneath I've no idea. Perhaps the building is designed for the high minded. The romantic heroic BA does rather well and rather frequently. Here's another

Next we head to the Theatro Colon.  This is the city's venue for opera, ballet and musical recitals. It is the second one, new improved model. In fact so good it ranks third best acoustically in the world moreover it seats in excess of three thousand people. Unlike the tory party, the good burghers of Buenos desperately wanted to be European hence the construction of this symbol of elitism where the top people would be seen.

And finally a look at those twenty first century temples to culture, the shopping mall of course. 

Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 10th Jan

Today we decided to have a little holiday from our holiday. They can be such hard work if you know what I mean. We set the modest target of getting to the San Telmo Sunday flea market. We also want to try to use the bus system which will be quite a challenge. You might notice an improvement in the quality of the photos because I have managed to get my decent camera to wifi shots to the tablet.
The market is quite a crowd puller and is located in a fairly run down area near Bocas. The original market started in 1971 with over 250 antique stalls but as well as the indoor market, the fiesta stretches down 9 blocks and is alive with street entertainment of every description. The main downer was that it rained quite hard so that limited the outdoor activities and our desire to see them. The next few shots focus on the market.

We also enjoyed an excellent late lunch inside before trying to
bus it to Retiro where the main bus and railway stations that serve the rest of the country are located.
Sadly the railway system was partly privatised and has suffered from lack of investment ever since. It is a shadow of its former self as you can see from the pictures of the main station.

We had hoped to do most of our travelling round the country by rail but the road lobby prevailed here so it will be coach travel you will be hearing about.
From the station we have a walk to the Subte for home. We pass this excellent, if somewhat ostentatious monument to General San Martin, the Liberator.

 Here is his story for those who can read

And here it is for those who can't. 

Talking of reading, the Subte system's lines are colour coded as they often are to assist navigation. However this system is also colour theme decorated to help the blind of course.

Do you see what I mean? 

Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 9th Jan

Buenos Aires is a bit like Stoke on Trent. I am not here making comparison with the football but the fact they are both federations of smaller towns. Much smaller towns in Stoke's case as BA is home to 5 million souls. Today we did the open topped bus tour. The itinerary is ambitious and takes more than three and a half hours. It was packed full of information and, of course sites, complicated by the fact it loops round and doubles back on several occasions. I suspect one could have gone round twice and not really noticed. The organisation was all a little tacky. It was hard to buy tickets, lots of the headsets malfunctioned, we crashed into another car which resulted in a chase and an altercation.  The thing stopped and we were told to get off so we all piled into a bar in Bocas, ordered drinks, only to be told to get on again. Now we had different seats and the headset problem again. Never mind have a look at some pictures instead.

You get the idea 

The National Gallery 

 The front of the Colon Theatre, mainly a venue for opera

Home to Bocas Juniors FC one of the big two in BA

Some of the new development on Puerto Madero

The back of the Parliament building with all the ministry buildings surrounding it. 

Political graffiti is still very much alive . Looks like Che, Eva,and Guy Fawkes but I rather doubt that. 

Looking up one of the huge Boulevards towards the obelisk. 

This is a massive stainless steel sculpture of a flower. It opens with the sun and follows it round 

More striking recent development. Banks and Electronic equipment manufacturers of course. 

Every guide book you read about BA gives a high recommendation for a visit to Recoleta Cemetery. This is somewhat akin to the Glasgow Necropolis. All the great and the good finish up here. One family competes with another for a more flamboyant permanent mark on the world. Some families gave up the race decades ago and their memorials are becoming a crumbling embarrassment of neglect. Others are visited on a regular basis and none more so than Eva Peron. It's not easy to find so Helen asks a security guard who starts rubbing his thumb against his fingers. He's after cash! Is nothing sacred? We don't pay him and he shows us the place anyway. 

A view down one of the many streets of the dead 

A more modern take on the old theme. 

Nineteenth century stone work 

The area outside the cemetery is a wide open space, dominated by a huge tree which fortunately the locals help to support. This rubber tree is almost impossible to do justice with a photograph 

due to its size. It is 20 metres high and a whopping 50 metres wide. It was planted in 1800, probably to create shade, a job it does even better today.

There is also a craft market and the chance for various people to perform for your delectation and their profit. Here's a tango dancer looking for a partner. 

Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 8th Jan

The only real down side to this excellent apartment is the traffic noise and although we are seven floors up if we leave the balcony doors open we don't need a morning alarm. This morning we decided not to rush out as we were still in flight recovery mode.
There are always a few tasks that need to be done when settling into a foreign city and getting to grips with the public transport system is one. Here you first have to buy a card, not at the tube station or on the buses of course but at random little shops that appear to sell everything except transport cards. That is until you finally find the elusive shop, then you realise that they are everywhere. Just ask a local I hear you say.  I reckon about 1 in 2000 speak English, maybe it's the Falklands effect. Buying a local SIM card for your phone is a similar problem. Don't go trying at the shiny local provider's shop, oh no, try that little shop that appears to sell everything except.........  Now you've got to put some credit on it. There are special shops for this. They are called Pharmacies. I think it might have something to do with the computers or maybe the drug users have cornered the market in pay as you go phones. That all took a little longer than anticipated so we texted each other to ride the Subte (underground).

As you can see the Argentinians go to considerable lengths to brighten up their Subte system with styles ranging from Soviet-Realism to Modern -Ethnic. Although the system looks quiet the trains are in-your-face full. We get out at the city centre Zoo. After lunch we decide to look round to see if the animals are coping any better in the heat than us.

Here's the gorilla's answer! All his own work as he took it off, as though doffing his cap, then carefully put it back on again. I always thought that the hat was more natural selection than a fashion item. The distortion in the picture is caused by the reflection of my rather smart checked shirt in the glass that he is behind.

There are two features of the BuenosAires Zoological Gardens.  When they were first opened in 1887 the various animal houses were designed to reflect the part of the world that the animals came from. Look at the elephant house two pictures up. It mimics monumental Indian architecture.  You can see Jumbo sandbathing in front. Also look at the grand condor cage that might have been designed by Gustav Effiel it seems to echo an Andean peak with the nest at the summit. Sadly Connie chose to remain in her shady cave.  Second feature, feeding. The zoo's main source of income apart from ticket sales appears to be the sale of food for the punters to give to the animals. This has resulted in some rather unnatural animal behaviour, rather like a badly trained dog at the dinner table. You can see this with the bear, pygmy hippo and even the fishes.  I found this rather undignifying, moreover there was a lot inappropriate feeding going on. The very rare white tiger was above all this.

We planned to join the open topped tourist bus just near this splendid marble monument but they wouldn't sell us a ticket as it was after 5pm, although the buses run till 8.40pm. So we walked home right down SantaFe Avenue and did a bit of window shopping. 

Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 7th Jan

From this perspective the last 36 hours don't seem so bad. We are sitting on the balcony of our subpenthouse apartment, drinks in hand, snacking and really enjoying the bright 30 ° sunshine. More of this apartment later.

Long haul flights are always arduous and this one was no exception. Two and a half hours saw us from Heathrow to Rome and after less than an hour wait and two lengthy bus rides (but no ferries) we walk through G4 for BuenosAires.

We had done our best to select decent seats with the check in girl but she wouldn't give a free upgrade to business. The seating configuration on these planes is 3-4-3 so we went for window and middle so the size of the passenger on the aisle is quite critical as is there toleration to being woken by one or other of us for ablution purposes. He was a very large German chap (Helen thought him to be a Jack Whitehall doppleganger) who was going climbing in the Andes and he put his large backpack and boots between his legs for safekeeping. Thank god he didn't have his ropes and ice axe there as well. As it was he presented a barrier about as insurmountable as the Andes. This was compounded by the built in obstruction under the seat in front of Helen which forced her to jam her legs into my slot as well. In fact the German was very obliging but we didn't really get much kip during the fourteen and a half hours of this flight. 

A couple of ariel shots of BA. Our apartment is roughly level with the leading edge of the wing, centre picture. Immigration was painless although webcam mugshot was taken along with electronic thumbprint. Also proof of accommodation was required, no problem with smartphone and your.booking.com 

There was the man with the Duce sign and we taxied to the front door of our apartment. It turned out to be really excellent. First of all security. The front entrance is controlled by electronic thumbprint and our apartment by electronic card . The subpenthouse is longer than a cricket pitch with another 3 metres for the balcony.  Have a look at some pictures. 

Note the bidet and loo with solid gold fittings  (this is South America remember). All in all it is very well appointed large flat screen TV, desk and office area, huge double bed plus a spare one to banish Nigel to. Oh, and the balcony sunshade has a handset to control it, nice! Now the only problem is where shall we choose to eat that steak tonight?