Travelling not soliciting: Buenos Aires Part 3

This is over the half-way point in my time in Buenos Aires, after which I will travel to other parts of Argentina and then to Chile.

Spanish lessons

I'm slogging away at the Spanish classes, which I am finding pretty intense (five days a week and three hours a day plus lots of homework). I hadn't realised when I signed up for this course at the University of Buenos Aires that we would be taught Buenos Aires dialect which seems to be the equivalent of learning English with a Bronx accent and with slang grammar ! So I am trying to maintain what little I recall of the Castilian- Spanish pronunciation that I learned in my few lessons last autumn back in England so that I don't find myself laughed at in other parts of Latin America and in Spain. Thanks to Google I now understand that there are as many different dialects of Spanish throughout Latin America as there are countries--what have I got myself in for?!

Apparently the reason Buenos Aires developed its unique Rioplatanese dialect is down to historical reasons, and in particular the huge influx of Italian immigrants in the early 20th century (50% of portenos --the name for Buenos Aires residents--have Italian ancestry and a large proportion of the portenos have Italian surnames) who superimposed their Italian intonation and pronunciation onto the Spanish language.

So not only are there different words for the same thing--like American English "pants" meaning something very different to what it means in British English where "trousers" is the proper term--, but also there is a whole different verb form for "you"in the singular. In Latin America and particularly in Argentina "you are" is "vos sos" whereas in Spain you would say "tu eres"---I suppose it is a little like the equivalent in English of using "thou" instead of "you".

The worst of all for me though is the Buenos Aires pronunciation. "Ellos" which means "they" is pronounced "eh-sha" in Buenos Aires instead of "eh-ya" in the rest of the Spanish speaking world. Now it is true that people seem to understand me when I say eh-ya---but I don't usually understand them when they say eh-sha!

All very very confusing and now I appreciate the problems that non-native speakers find with American versus English pronunciation--as the old song goes "You say tomayto and I say tomahto".

Rio de la Plata and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Last Saturday I went across the Rio de la Plata to the historical city of Colonia in neighbouring Uruguay.

Rio de la Plata means "river of silver". Well it sure isn't! It is milk-chocolate brown. This is not pollution (although I am sure there is plenty of that) but silt from the huge rivers that drain a quarter of South America and join and meet the sea around Buenos Aires. Aerial photos from space show a huge brown stain which spreads for hundreds of miles .

The river is very wide at this point and the distance from Buenos Aires across the river to Colonia is a bit more than the English Channel. So you cannot see from one shore to the other. I found it really disconcerting to look across a horizon-less brown sea.

I crossed on one of the fast catamarans---me and half the families in Buenos Aires it seems! Colonia is a favourite weekend excursion for portenos.

Fortunately nearly all of the porteno families disappeared off to the beaches along the Uruguay-side river banks and to the newer parts of the city, and it was really only the tourists who went into the Barrio Historico (historic quarter).

It is one of those places which time forgot. It was founded by the Portuguese in 1680 and then was batted back and forth between Portugal and Spain for a hundred years because of its strategic position between the Spanish and Portuguese colonies. However, as soon as it became definitively Spanish, Spain promptly forgot about it and it mouldered away until being rediscovered in the late 20th century and becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has a number of tiny but interesting museums in the renovated 17th century buildings and wandering its shady squares and cobbled streets are a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

Interestingly, there are full border formalities between Argentina and Uruguay so you need to arrive at the ferry an hour beforehand to go through immigration and get your passport stamped and re-stamped and inspected and re-inspected. Makes you realise how nice it is to be able to cross borders so easily within the European Union.

Tigre Delta

On Sunday I--and the other half of the families of Buenos Aires!--went to Tigre which is summer home community about 35 kilometers north of central Buenos Aires (actually it is really all part of one sprawling suburb).

The delta is formed by the Parana River where it meets the Rio de la Plata. It is huge--14,000 square kilometer area with thousands of islands and inlets, water channels, canals and backwaters. Tigre is the only town but the shores of the delta area around it are lined with summer homes of the portenos, reachable only by boat.
You can take one of the traditional wooden canal boats and tour some of the channels. They are about 60 foot long and seat about 80 passengers.Being a weekend, the channels were clogged with canal boats, motor boats, kayaks, canoes, sea-dos, row boats, rowing skulls---and people swimming!

The water is an even darker chocolate brown than the River de la Plata, and what with the gasoline from the boats, debris and probably sewage from the many summer homes it is not the sort of place I would want to swim. But the water was full of people --jumping off their docks, wading out into the channel (which is very shallow), laying on their lilos--so I guess they know what they are doing.

Railways

Getting to Tigre gave me a chance to take a train for the first time since I've been here. Argentina downgraded its rail system a couple of decades ago and so all those mystical trains --the Old Patagonian Express, The Train to the Clouds, and others-- have either been closed or are shadows of their former selves. However commuter trains still run in Buenos Aires into the grand old 19th century Retiro station. And they are SOoo... cheap---an hour's train trip costs 20 cents.

Visiting it gives you a vivid reminder of the dominance of Great Britain during the last half of the 19th century industrial revolution when trains began to slash their way across cities and whole countries. Walking into Retiro is like walking into any British 19th century train station, such as St Pancras before it was gussied up. In fact the giant steel girders were manufactured in Liverpool (see photos)!

Buses

More on Buenos Aires buses, which I find rather fascinating and quite distinct --sort of like London's red buses are distinct. And I am not the only one--I found an Buenos Aires bus-spotters website on Google with hundreds of pictures and scores as to how many times each had been spotted!

There are many different makes of buses, which are called "colectivos" but all with a similar shoe-box shape. Each one of the several hundred different lines has a different livery--some pale green with dark green trim, some gold with red trim, some blue with red whooshes down the side, some turquoise and cream, and on and on.

Lots of chrome and many of them have elaborate etched glass mirrors as trim inside and fancy plastic mother-of pearl steering wheels, alongside the driver's favourite car ornaments--teddy bears, disco glitter balls, football penants. (By the way some of the buses do have horns.)

Each bus has its number painted prominently on all sides as well as its big lighted sign above the front window. This is good for passengers because the buses come along in droves and you need to stick your hand out in time as soon as you see it to flag down your bus before it zooms past you.

Buses run all night and very frequently and cost next to nothing. You have to be able to tell the driver where you are going since their are minute differences in prices depending on your destination--so you might end up --shock, horror--paying 20 cents instead of 19 cents!

Walking

Although the parks and plazas are plentiful and pleasant in many parts of the city, in the downtown area it is not so easy. The streets are narrow and the sidewalks even narrower ---you need to be thin and have nothing in your hands if you want to pass someone without stepping into the street. And they are in a terrible state of repair so you need to be constantly alert so that you don't trip over something or run into a wastebin, load of bricks, discarded metal post, newspaper kiosk, dog's mess, or worse.

Do I look so clever? No, I didn't think so..

While I am on transport, I should mention that a phenomenon that has marked my travels for the last 45 years has started up again.

That is, people asking me for directions. It happens wherever I go--even in Japan 40 years ago! Here in Buenos Aires at least once a day I am approached at a bus stop or on the street and asked where to get the bus to wherever or where such and such a building is. There may be 10 people nearby or in the bus queue but it is me they head for.

I'd like to think it was because I look naturally self-assured and intelligent but I tend to think that it is just that I look non-threatening.

Manners maketh the porteno man

I am pleased to report that chivalry is not entirely dead in Buenos Aires.Many men (of all ages and sizes and shapes) have lovely manners---ladies first onto the bus and would you like this seat senora.

Galleries and museums

Yes I've been to quite a few. I made a list of all the touristy things I want to do and I try to visit at least three tourist sites during the week days. This is not always easy since, curiously, art galleries and museums don't open until 2 in the afternoon so I have to go after my Spanish class for an hour or two.

I would not say that the contents of Buenos Aires' public museums and galleries are world class. The National Museum of Fine Arts has a few nice impressionists and some small Rodin sculptures but most of its paintings are by that well-known painter "Anonymous". In fact despite its veneer of being a classic European-style capital city, you see that Buenos Aires does not really have much history or deeply embedded high culture. It is after all a late nineteenth century city, the capital of a relatively new country with a very rocky history and thousands of miles from the European capitals that it emulates.

That said, there are a couple of private art galleries which charge a steep (by Buenos Aires standards) admission but which are housed in really well-designed modern buildings, and the art works are superbly displayed. These galleries have been built especially by wealthy collectors to display their collections--the Colleccion de Arte de Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat (cement heiress) is one and the Museo de Arte LatinoAmericano de Buenos Aires (showing the collection of wealthy businessman Deuardo Constantini) is another. Both really worth spending time in.

No tango?

You are probably wondering why I have not mentioned tango. It is of course so closely associated with Buenos Aires that every tourist must go to a tango show.

Well I did that with my son Ken a few years ago when we came briefly to Buenos Aires, and frankly once is enough. The shows do not start until 10 pm or later and they go on and on and on--and then on and on some more as the musicians and singers and dancers milk the audience for just one more round of applause.

The dancing and music is interesting but after the first three or four hours you feel you have got the idea well enough. The crowning touch for me was the grand finale when "Don't cry for me Argentina" by Andrew Lloyd-Webber (from London!) was played for about 20 minutes as though it was the Argentinian national anthem.

Here are a few more photos.

One of the "diques" (yacht basins) in Puerto Madero

Dinner at La Cabana Las Lilas, a tourist magnet in Puerto Madero, but deserves its reputation

The pink flowering trees are ceibas--"silk floss" trees--and they are all over Buenos Aires. Beautiful

View of the city skyline from the railway tracks

View back over the Buenos Aires skyline from the ferry over to Colonia--looks hazy because the windows were filthy!

The only colonial (1765) building left in Buenos Aires--the Cabildo (city hall). Only this small portion was saved from the grandiose schemes of some Argentian general or poltician.

Cafe Tortoni, a classic cafe from the early 20th century which has remains remarkably intact.

The beautifully restored early 20th century opera house, Theatre Colon

The ostentatious but beautiful gallery of the Teatro Colon

In my neighbourhood there are some inviting quiet streets with gentle hills which attract skateboarders

An interesting demonstration of 'capoeira', a Brazilian martial art performed to music, which was originated by escaped slaves who needed to keep themselves in good physical shape to defend themselves.