Buenos Aires, Parte Dos

We`re back in this gigantic city. Yesterday we visited the Museo de Arte Latinoamerica de Buenos Aires, which had some decent exhibits on contemporary Latin American artists. I enjoyed some of the stuff from the 40s and 60s but could have done without the floor dedicated to a temporary exhibit by a dead Brazilian artist whose preferred medium was photographs of pop icons decorated with lines of cocaine. Think Yoko Ono and Marilyn Monroe with white eyebrows and moustaches. Stupid, really. Afterwards we shopped in Palermo and I convinced mom to get her own stylish pair of crazypants. 3 down, 8 to go.

Today we visited some of the older parts of the city, starting with La Boca near the original port. The colorful buildings in the 1.5 block refurbished area were pretty but I kind of felt like I was in tourist hell and was ready to leave after about 20 minutes.

Souvenir shop in La Boca

We then walked up through San Telmo, a more relaxed neighborhood, before coming to Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada, the historic home of the President.

Don`t Cry for Me, Argentina...

DRT II

In addition to soon-to-be-swarmed little girls feeding pigeons, on Thursdays Plaza de Mayo is the site of women protesting the disappearance of their children during the dictatorship from 1976 - 1983 (?). The protest was a little weird, since it started exactly at the scheduled 3:30 and had far more observing tourists than mothers of the disappeared. Also, there has been some mission creep as this photo shows:


The sign calls for redistribution of wealth. There was a smaller line of moms wondering what happened to their kids several paces behind the main even but no one was paying attention to the truer protest.