1/25/17 Buenos Aires and the Tango

After a briefing this morning from our program director Gonza we were off on a city tour with our local guide Carla. We went to the old part of the city by the harbor where the a great many immigrants came to Argentina between 1900 and 1930. Many of the people built homes of sheets of tin and you can still see that on the sides of some of the buildings there. The houses are painted bright colors as well.  The streets are cobble stone. It is called  La Boca which means “the mouth” because this is where the people entered Buenos Aires. In 1900 there were about 60,000 people in the city and by 1930 there where a million. Many of the immigrants came from Spain and Italy.

While we were at La Boca, we were treated to with a performance of tango dancers and an accordion player to illustrate the birthplace of tango. With this melting pot of immigrants, different styles of music came together and the tango was born, first among the poor immigrants and then it caught on by the 1940’s with the more prestigious. We even went to a typical courtyard area which was typical of how the poor lived in the Boca and our group got to try learning the tango.  Frank even got some private tutoring!

Our next stop was a park where a famous sculpture was given to the city in 2001 called Flower Genericus. It is supposed to open during the daytime and closed at night. It seemed to be only partially open when we saw it. Carla explained that sometimes in is broken.

Our final stop was the Ricolete Cemetery where Evita Peron is entombed. The cemetery has rows and rows of oranate mausoleums. Wealthy Argentinians buy them for their whole family and furnish them. There are even basements in them. It all seemed like a very pretentious custom to me.

We stopped at Evita Peron’s crypt.
She is entombed with her sister’s husbands family. There were a lot of flowers because she is still beloved by Argentinians.

After our city tour, we had lunch with some of our group at a pizza place. We shopped a bit and then took a break since we were going to a Tango Show in the evening. I did not take any pictures there because I followed the rules. (Should have took one on the sly!) There was a live orchestra, a great tango singer and super tango dancers.
While Frank and I will never conquer this dance, it was fun to try on and experience this unique style of music and dance. Frank loved the scenery!