A sort of disclaimer:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTravel writing\u201d is a tiresome genre that is at the bottom of the creative literary ladder.\u00a0 One reason is that travel writing blends travelogue and personal reflection, neither of which is as useful as a good Michelin guide to restaurants and monuments.\u00a0 This part of my blog adheres strictly to this model of general irrelevancy, combined with personal reflection.\u00a0 These are a few impressions of the trip \u2014 the sort of selective view that travelers have when they have a few days and a lot of kilometers to travel. It is not a good guide to anything (except the answer to one trivia question, see below), but it has some thoughts that are specific to my own experience of Buenos (particular the architecture and culture of power).\u00a0 It is the first of two parts on Argentina, the second being a many-kilometer trip through Patagonia (buses, vast spaces, and glaciers). The first 5-airport day<\/strong><\/p>\n For people who sometimes speak of \u201cLatinos\u201d as a single concept, our trip from Maranhao to Argentina couldn\u2019t have offered more insight into the poverty of this generalization.\u00a0 Sao Luis is on the equator and is strongly influenced by its slave history and current economic backwardness.\u00a0 Buenos Aires feels like a modern \u201cEuropean\u201d city whose ethnic diversity is more displayed in the faces of people who are descended from the original peoples of the region (and Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia).<\/p>\n This was a trip from the equator to roughly the 42nd parallel south of the equator \u2014 about the same roughly distance to the south as from the equator to Chicago in the north.\u00a0 In other words, from the tropical center of the world to the southern regions of glaciers, snowy mountains.\u00a0 It is only a bit further to Tierra del Fuego where penguins look out to the water where the next stop is Antarctica.<\/p>\n The trip to Buenos Aires and Patagonia was a brief 10-day journey.\u00a0 I had to reset my Brazilian visa because I had reached the end of the number of days I could stay in one visit.\u00a0 As a kind of holiday present to ourselves, we spent several days in Buenos Aires, then to Barriloche (the Argentinian ski capital), and flinally by bus to Patagonia.\u00a0 The trip ended in El Calafate which has an airport from which we flew back through Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo, Brazil for the holidays.<\/p>\n We followed the famous Route 40 which links Patagonia with the rest of Argentina. It is thousands of kilometers over diverse roads \u2014\u00a0 paved, unpaved, and somewhere in between.<\/p>\n The first day\/night was a five-airport journey from Sao Luis to Brasilia to Sao Paulo (Congonhas Airport), Sao Paulo Garulhos Airport, to Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n The 1:30 am flight to Brasilia got us there just before dawn (photo below).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Buenos Aires and the Change of Government<\/strong><\/p>\n The long administration of Peronist government ended with the retirement of Christina Kirchner and the defeat of her designated successor, former Vice President Daniel Scioli, by Mauricio Macri.\u00a0 It was the end, at least for now, of the Peronist tradition that had been carried in recent years by Nestor, and then Christina, Kirchner. The transition was tense as Kirchner refused to attend the inauguration and gave a militant midnight speech to her supporters as she left the Casa Rosada<\/em>.<\/p>\n Feelings were high and the streets around the Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada<\/em> (the Argentinian \u201cWhite House\u201d) were a mix of excitement and tension, ratified by the presence of\u00a0 riot-prepared police and armored vehicles.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Outgoing President Christina Kirchner was said to be so angry at her party\u2019s having lost the election that there were stories (true or not) that she turned off the hot water, gave the staff a holiday, and bugged the telephones.<\/p>\n Maurico Macri won the presidential election in the urban areas of Buenos Aires where he attracted professionals, investors and businessmen, and younger voters.\u00a0 He won by only a couple of percentage points, having lost in the outlying rural regions and working class districts of Argentina (see photo above of the Macri mural in Perito Mereno)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Plaza do Mayo is a place for demonstrations.\u00a0 The photo below is one of a long-standing encampment of veterans.\u00a0 As nearly as we could tell, their service was mainly in the Falklands War with Britain (for the islands off the Argentinian coast known as the Malvinas).\u00a0 This is a critical incident for the self-examination of Argentinians \u2014 they lost the war to the British, precipitating the fall of the military government.\u00a0 The defeat helped produce a fledgling democracy, but the veterans were lost in the dishonor of defeat.<\/p>\n Plaza de Mayo is also a place where the mothers and relatives of the desaparecidos<\/em> \u2014 the \u201cdisappeared\u201d \u2014 demonstrated for justice (and even just information) about those they lost during the \u201cdirty war\u201d of the military dictatorship (1976 to 1983).\u00a0 There may have been as many 30,000 lost in the government\u2019s war against its own population, until it was forced from power following Argentina\u2019s defeat in the Falklands War. This veterans\u2019 camp in the plaza in front of the Casa Rosada <\/em>is another sign of the unresolved recent history of Argentina\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Recoleta Cemetery: Architecture of Death and Power<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Recoleta Cemetery is a testament to the architecture of power \u2014 buildings and avenues designed to impress, show power and wealth, and remind most people that this is beyond their reach.<\/p>\n Parts of street life give a similar feel, but not just the beautiful Casa Rosada, the Teatro Colon, and other government, commercial and religious buildings.\u00a0 The very design of the city seems designed to show power.<\/p>\n There is a classic trivia question: \u201cWhat is the widest street in the world.\u201d Answer: In the background of the photo below \u2014 the Avenida 9 de Mayo<\/em>.\u00a0 It is some 300 feet wide, has multiple traffic lights in crossing, and has more lanes of traffic than you count as you wend your way across.<\/p>\n It is a modern adaptation of an imperial road, designed to parade huge armies and horse cavalry, then soldiers, and police.\u00a0 If this were Russia or China it would occasionally be filled with missiles and tanks.\u00a0 the closest things to tanks we saw were the paramilitary vehicles at the inauguration designed to be used against its own population.\u00a0 A street to inhabit with power.<\/p>\n Buenos Aires also has scores of theaters and the legendary Teatro Colon, more or less across the Avenida 9 de Mayo where we were having coffee (photo below).<\/p>\n It is a marvel to cross, though that takes a while and is not without its dangers.\u00a0 We found our way to the other side to get to the Teatro Colon, the most famous of Buenos Aires\u2019 hundreds of theaters.\u00a0 There is no street that feels like this in the world, though the streets leading to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin has a similar feel of armies and historical power.<\/p>\n Imagine a street the width of two football (or soccer) fields filled with armies, tanks, politicians, rockets, and gaudy marshals on horseback.\u00a0 It is not so long ago this power in Argentina has a military dictatorship \u201cdisappeared\u201d thousands of citizens, still without a trace.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This man with a cart of boxes (photo below) is incongruously pulling it across the widest street in the world.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Puerto Madera<\/strong><\/p>\n The old area of working docks has been refurbished as a tourist district with office and commercial buildings, and a wealth of restaurants.<\/p>\n The ship below was once used to supply Antarctic explorers.\u00a0 Photographs nearby show its sister ship sinking in the Antarctic ice.\u00a0 It was a reminder of how close the tip of Argentina is to the end of Latin America.\u00a0 I think Sidney, Australia is closer to this dock than Chicago.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A rare opportunity: One of Simone\u2019s former artistic directors and choreographers<\/strong><\/p>\n Buenos Aires is full of tango clubs, tango lessons, tango shows, and touts on the street who can take you to one or another.\u00a0 The shows are famous, but we found something much better.\u00a0 Oscar Araiz was the artistic director of the Geneva Grand Theatre when Simone danced there.\u00a0 He is now semi-retired in Buenos Aires.\u00a0 When we visited him he was recreating one of his classic works, \u201cTango,\u201d in which Simone danced some years ago in Geneva.\u00a0 He was still exceptionally creative and developing a new work with several young professional male dances and an unusual vocal score by Mahler.<\/p>\n We spent an evening with Oscar and sat in on his rehearsal the following day.\u00a0 It was held at the University of San Martin on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Getting to Buenos Aires, and a disclaimer A sort of disclaimer: \u201cTravel writing\u201d is a tiresome genre that is at the bottom of the creative literary ladder.\u00a0 One reason is that travel writing blends travelogue and personal reflection, neither of which is as useful as a good Michelin guide to restaurants and monuments.\u00a0 This part … Continue reading From one end of South America to another: Maranhao to Buenos 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