A European Lifestyle In Buenos Aires
We have been in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, for a month now, but haven’t got time to update because we’ve been swamped with work all the time. Let us sum up Buenos Aires very quickly here: Tango, dance culture, beautiful building architecture, smoke and cigars, very sweet pastries, cafes, steak, old cars and buses.
Buenos Aires has an odd feel about it: On one hand, it is fondly called the ‘Paris of South America’, on the other hand, poverty level is high outside of the main capital city. This was a country which went bankrupt in 2001 due to record debt defaults and currency devaluation. During the 2001 crisis, many Argentines queued up at banks to withdraw pesos before their money lost even more value, and there were also many who tried to get visas to leave the country. At the time, more than half the population were living below the poverty line. Today, Argentina has bounced back a lot and much of its recovery has to do with rising prices of commodities like corn, wheat, beef, soy etc as it is one of the world’s most major agriculture producer and exporter. Many Argentines still have a deep mistrust of banks and prefer to accept cash instead of credit cards or bank transfers for even business transactions. We even had to pay our apartment landlord in cash for the rental, which seems to be the norm if you wish to rent a place to stay here. Many restaurants don’t accept credit cards either.
Much of the country’s population is descended from 20th century immigrants from Europe, especially from the north of Spain and Italy. Porteños (people from Buenos Aires) are crazy about football; you can see some fans wearing football jerseys down the street, and watch football matches in cafes and eating places, screaming when a popular team wins. Indeed, many people outside of Latin America associate Argentina with Diego Maradona, a former football player who played in four World Cups. We are tempted to go watch a football match played by the popular Boca Juniors team.
In the past month of our stay, we’ve experienced the terrible haze that shrouded the Argentine capital and that made international headlines around the world. The foul-smelling thick haze, caused by farmers burning land in a rural province near the delta of the Parana River, was so bad that you could smell it inside the apartment and shopping centers, and some highways had to be closed. Just when the haze was subsiding two weeks ago, there came news of a volcanic eruption in neighboring Chile. Volcano Chaitén erupted in the Patagonian (southern) part of Chile on May 2nd, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,000 people from the town of Chaitén. Patagonia? We were just there barely a month ago, absorbing the picturesque beauty of glaciers and snow-capped mountains!
The eruption was so powerful that ashes reached as far away as Argentina, covering some Argentine towns with ashes. Satellite images showed that the volcanic ashes have reached even Buenos Aires. Scientists are warning things could get worse as the volcano still continues to rumble and spew out glowing-hot rocks from its crater. We are still hoping for the haze and the ashes to clear. It’s ironic that Buenos Aires, which means ‘good air’ in Spanish, is deprived of good air. Even without the haze and ashes, you are likely to be suffocated by the black exhaust fumes from 30-year-old buses and cars and cigarette smoke from everywhere. Luckily (for us) for a country where everyone smokes, most eating places prohibit smoking, unlike many countries in Europe.
Below are some pictures taken at Florida Street, which is the main shopping street in Buenos Aires. If you are claustrophobic or afraid of massive crowds, avoid the maddening weekdays when you’d see hundreds of porteños rushing to and fro in their suits. This street is the only completely pedestrianised street in the city. As we stay just down the street, we have to jostle with the crowd on a daily basis, but that’s the fun of staying in such a vibrant city!
Tango Away -Buenos Aires is the Tango capital of the world!
A Street Performer
Puppet Dancing In Florida Street
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Hi! I loved your description! Just two little comments: Florida street is not the only pedestrianized street, though it is the most important (others include Lavalle, Tres Sargentos, Diagonal Norte, Peru).
The second comment has to do with the burning fields that caused that famous haze… I doubt very much it was the farmers who did it. It happened in the midst of a political conflict with government and it is not yet clear who caused the fires. Some people in the area where they happened claim that people they didn’t know came down on a truck with gasoline and started the fire… and that it couldn’t have been them because they lost their stored crops and it wasn’t even the time of the year to do this kind of thing.
Hi, thanks for your comments.
Yes, there’s always the possibility that the burning wasn’t caused by the farmers.
It was great seeing some of the things you enjoyed in Buenos Aires. I had the opportunity to explore a little of what this great city had to offer during a seven hour layover. I miss the atmosphere of BA, for sure.