Feb 1 and 2 (I think)

We're having such a good time I added an extra day to January in the last post.
February 1 and 2 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Buenos Aires is a city I would love to visit again. And again. Eva Peron, the disappeared, the avenues, the tango, Florida Street, the diverse neighborhoods, the Rio de la Plata, and of course Super Bowl XLIII in the Queen’s Lounge. Just kidding, I skipped the Super Bowl but Alan went.
First a bit of background. Buenos Aires, Argentina, is on one side of the Rio de la Plata and Montevideo, Uruguay, on the other. The Rio de la Plata is the estuary formed by the combination of the Uruguay River and the Parana River and forms the border between Argentina and Uruguay. The muddy water (think light coffee) is a result of 2 billion cubic feet of silt carried into the estuary each year. Constant dredging is required to keep the shipping channels open. And there is plenty of shipping. In the port area the containers stretch for miles and are stacked as high as the condos.
Argentina has had a troubled political and economic history but it is a beautiful city. They now have a stable government (and a woman president). Most of the boulevards are six lanes wide. Trees and parks are everywhere. We saw elegant old mansions, high rises, modest homes and terrible slums. The architecture is a mix of every style you can imagine.
When the first explorer/settlers arrived the area was covered with pampas grass….no trees at all. That is hard to believe as the city is probably now one of the greenest we have seen…..with every type of tree…..all imported years ago. One interesting tree is called the drunken stick because the trunk flairs out into a bulb shape and then narrows again giving the appearance of a bottle. They are actually kapok trees.
Like many cities we visit, we were at a very commercial port and by law had to take a small shuttle bus to the passenger terminal. At one point our little bus was almost wiped out by a speeding truck carrying a container. On foot you wouldn’t have a chance.
Three cruise ships were at the commercial docks, with a fourth one at a different terminal. We stepped off the shuttle into the terminal building and absolute chaos. Hundreds of passengers were disembarking from a Costa cruise ship ---with luggage, porters, cabs, buses, all screaming in Spanish or belching diesel. At least two thousand, possibly more, were trying to get into the terminal to embark on a MCS cruise liner. The passengers beginning their cruise consisted of several generations of families from Grandma down to tiny infants. Equally large family groups were on hand to see them off. It was pure bedlam. If you have a choice, NEVER, start or end a cruise in Buenos Aires. All any of us could say was thank goodness we weren’t on either ship.
After we had pushed and shoved our way though the masses, we started the first of our exhausting two days with a Cruise Specialist tour. Our bus ride took us to the many neighborhoods of Buenos Aires including the Italian section La Boca with its colorful houses; government house - -- the pink Casa Rosa where Evita Person stood on the balcony and charmed the people of Buenos Aires; the magnificent cathedral across the square; and the Plaza de Mayo where the mothers of the disappeared still don their white kerchiefs and gather once a week. We saw parks and parks and parks. At one we boarded horse drawn carriages and for a relaxing ride around the park.

The highlight of the day (if not the cruise so far) was an all too short visit to the cemetery in the section of the city known as Recoleta. At one time the cemetery grounds were a garden park attached to a church owned by an order of priests or monks. When things got too hot for Catholics in Argentina they returned to Europe and the gardens were bought by the very wealthy for a cemetery. (hot as in turmoil, opposition, etc., not temperature)
The cemetery was described as a city within a city and it truly is. As you pass through the gates of the brick wall surrounding the cemetery your jaw drops. Narrow streets branch off the center of the cemetery and its streets contains mausoleums and tombs of every size and style you can imagine and more. It’s one of those places you have to see to believe. It is like trying to describe the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat or the slums of Delhi. Or maybe not, the first two were spiritual experiences, the slums horrendous, but this cemetery cannot be described.
There are 7,500 mausoleums in the cemetery and it is still used for burials. How many bodies I have no idea but it’s been there for a very long time.
When Eva Peron was buried there many of the city‘s wealthy were offended. First, it is a cemetery for the very wealthy and influential families and although she became both she had humble origins. Second, Evita took from the rich and gave to the poor so while she is loved and revered even today by the poor she is not a favorite of the wealthy. However, her father was a member of the wealthy class.
When Eva Peron died in the early 1950s (while in her early 30s) she was embalmed and put on display for two or three years. Yes, on display in a glass covered coffin. Juan Peron was thrown out of office, Eva’s corpse stolen by the military and sent to Europe (I forget which country) where her body remained for 14 years until Peron returned to Argentina. He brought her body back with him but died within a year or two. Evita’s father’s family took control of her body and put it in the Duarte family mausoleum. Fifty plus years later fresh flowers are still placed at her resting place every day.
Don’t read the next part if you are at even a tiny, tiny bit squeamish.
Evita is the only embalmed body in the cemetery. People are buried in what I thought were pretty fancy coffins. After 10 years the body is taken out of the tomb and cremated. The cremains are then placed in small coffins or urns and put back into the mausoleums. It is possible to peak into some of the mausoleums and see the stairs to the lower level, some caskets, and flowers. And cobwebs.
In the early evening we re-boarded our bus for a trip to a tango show. HAL’s shore excursions featured a dinner and tango show but we opted to eat on board (we know what to expect for food on the ship) and join Cruise Specialists for just a show. The show was held in an interesting theater….quite small and quite dark. A balcony ringed the upper level with a row of chairs at the rail. When we were served our free glass of wine (awful) or beer (very good) we placed it on the foot rest of the railing. We were quickly told to “not on the railing, use the little table behind you.” The staff were quite militant but I guess they have a limited amount of time to get the people in, served drinks before the show, sell their CDs and get them out before the next show. The ground floor was level, not graduated like a theatre, with a very small stage. We all marveled at how the dancers didn’t fall of the stage as they shared it with five or six musicians.
The show was very good. The tango certainly is not ballroom dancing (except I guess for dancing with the stars). We were not allowed to take pictures inside (everyone managed to sneak a few). The one almost worth posting doesn’t show much……but it’s better than nothing.
Day two in Buenos Aries
Another early morning tour ---this time to the north of the city, the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and a river boat ride.
Passing through wealthy suburbs with streets lined with flowering trees and elegant homes, our first stop was another cathedral in San Isidror’s center square. Then it was on to the UNESCO owned home of a former Argentine intellectual Victoria Ocampo. It seems that Victoria was ahead of her times, wanted to be an actress, to write books and to do all the things wealthy young ladies of her era did not do. She married at 22 to escape the confines of her father only to discover that her husband was just as conservative. On her two-year honeymoon, she met a cousin of her husband, they fell in love and remained discrete companions for 14 years. Upon returning to Argentina from Europe, Victoria lived apart from her husband. She eventually inherited a large mansion outside the city and entertained the up and coming authors, artists and musicians of the time. Victoria is said to have been the first woman in Buenos Aires to wear slacks and the first to have a driver’s license. She died in the early 1940s at 80something.
The house and grounds were lovely, and contained photographs, books and memorabilia, all signed by the famous of the time. If you want to see the house and learn about Victoria go on line at www.villaocampo.org.
Next came our river boat ride on the river and canals where the Tigre river flows into the Parana River delta. The area was reminiscent of Florida or any other place with homes built on waterway. All type of boats ply the waters, from the trash boat (leave your garbage on the end of your dock), to the supermarket boat (prices 10% higher than ashore)to the bus boat which will pick you and your luggage up at your dock to canoes, motor boats and launches. The houses were for the most part modest with a few pricey places and shacks added to the mix. Most of the houses were on stilts because of the changes in the level of the river. Little resorts (pay by the day or the week) could also be seen. And the water was very, very tan.
Most of the homes are vacation homes and the population of the delta area is about 3,000. With just about as many huge dogs. It seemed that every dock had a dog on it….each one larger than the last.
We arrived back at the ship in time for an ice tea and then it was off in the H. Stern’s shuttle for a stroll down the famous pedestrian mall, Florida Street. We replenished my wine supply skipping the costly vino shoppes and finding a tiny doorway-wide shop that sold just about everything. For $21 US we got four bottles of wine, a large bottle of beer and two packages of Mentos. We have to wonder what the wine will taste like. However, a bottle of the cheapest wine on the ship is $32 so I can drink $4 wine smiling. Oh, the shop keeper threw in two key chains.
We caught the third from the last terminal shuttle back to the Prinsendam just in time for the life boat drill. US law requires that a drill for the passengers be held every 30 days. As usual, nothing went as planned.
When the announcement came for the crew member (and possibly our leader on the life boat should we have to abandon ship) to demonstrate how to put on the life jacket the fun began. First he couldn’t get his arms in. Off it came and he twisted it around. He tried again. Of course it was twisted worse than before. After about the fourth try an officer came along, laughing so hard he could hardly stand. He tried to help. No luck. Finally they got the straps straighten out and unkinked, the crew member held the jacket over his head and marched off. Of course, all this time the captain is on the pa system telling people they must be quite during the drill, stand in the proper place with the men at the back, etc.
Another dinner, another show and off to bed looking forward to two sea days before the Falkland Islands. We’ve been told that if it is too windy the tenders will not be able to be launched and we’ll miss out on going ashore. The Amsterdam, our world cruise ship, will also be anchored at the Falklands. Word has it that the Amsterdam just came around the horn and encountered terrible sea and wind conditions. Hope they got it out of the way for us.