La Capital-Buenos Aires

Now I am in Argentina! What a flight to get here. It was supposed to take 2 hours from Santiago. However, there was a huge storm in Buenos Aires so my flight was re-routed to Montevideo. We were there for 3ish hours then finally we headed to Buenos Aires. I landed and then found out that it was a 2 hour wait for a taxi due to the weather. So I took a bus instead, which was still a long wait.

Buenos Aires is very humid; muggy. Today I took a city tour in the rain. I saw most of the cities neighborhoods. One of the best was "La Boca"-an old immigrant neighborhood near the port. The houses were constructed from makeshift items and painted with left over paint colors found by the port. The result today is a very artsy neighborhood (also very touristy) and a place for people to dance tango in the streets. This neighborhood inspired the first tango song-Caminito-The Little Street. According to my tour guide, tango was first a type of music then became a type of dance that evolved over time.

We also visited Recoleto Cemetary, which was fascinating. The people are buried in little tomb houses above the ground. You have to pay a huge amount of money to be buried there. So most of the people buried there are rich or famous. The most famous person buried there is Argentinas beloved Evita. It literally is a small city for the dead. You can look right into some of the tombs and a coffin or coffins sit there. Also, a fee needs to be paid every year to keep the tomb. If the fee is not paid within five years then the tomb goes back on the market for another dead person/family. Fascinating place!