Author: Jonathan

Every so often you come across one of those little quirky things that serve very little practical purpose but are different enough to put a smile on your face and brighten the day up for an hour or two. One of those events too place last Saturday on the Avenida de Mayo in the centre of Buenos Aires, the 8th Annual Waiter’s Race.

The concept is very simple, waiters from all over Argentina race down the Avenida de Mayo, loop round the Plaza de Mayo and back up the Avenida, covering 1,600 metres carrying a tray with 2 bottles and a full glass.

That’s it, as simple as that. Obviously, you need to finish carrying what you started with, so dropping your drinks slows you down which means that the better waiter you are, the better your chances of winning – it’s not all about speed!

Whilst the winners took their athletic feats quite seriously, on the whole it was more about the taking part than the winning, with the last waiter across the line getting a bigger cheer than the winner.

I was recently asked a few questions by the good folks at Expanish Spanish School Argentina about my experiences in Buenos Aires and the things I love and hate about the city. The interview can be found here: Expanish Meets Buenos Aires Local Tours.

Graffiti is common in Buenos Aires, ranging from barely legible scrawls supporting or condemning political figures to huge artistic murals. The political messages are particularly prevalent in the Plaza de Congreso and the Plaza de Mayo due to the large number of protests and marches that take place in those areas, and very few surfaces are considered off-limits. Below is a picture of the iconic Piramide de Mayo erected in 1811 on the first anniversary of the 1810 revolution, which is the centrepiece of the weekly march of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. For the last few weeks it’s been daubed with slogans, which nobody seems in any hurry to clean off. Above is Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker in the Plaza de Congreso, which as of last week, is now a delightful shade of pink – it actually suits him!

Update: Only 2 days later and the pink had been scrubbed off, and less than a week later, the graffiti on the pedestal had also been removed – impressively fast for Buenos Aires! The scrawls on the Piramide de Mayo are still there however…

Update #2: According to this article, in their haste to blast the pink off with water, the City Government may have caused irreversible damage to the sculpture and its original patination. Seeing this is only 1 of 22 casts made from Rodin’s original mould, in addition to being the only one in South America, this is not a good thing..

Recoleta Cemetery is one of those rare places that no matter what the weather nor one’s photo-taking skills, it’s hard not to take a good picture. With some 4,500 beautiful tombs and mausoleums it’s a great place to spend a happy hour or so, snapping away. Below is a selection of pictures from my most recent visit. For complete and very detailed information about the cemetery and its “inhabitants”, take a look at Robert Wright’s excellent site, After Life.

There’s an interesting article in La Nación today (link in Spanish) which gives some of the statistics regarding the Buenos Aires colectivo system, especially concerning the subsidy system which means that the passenger is only paying 32% of the actual ticket cost – the government picks up the rest of the tab to the tune of 7.5 million pesos per day.

There are 90 companies running 135 lines with a total of 9,559 vehicles (an average of 71 per line).

Every day each bus travels an average distance of 207 km and carries 470 passengers – that’s nearly 2,000,000 km travelled and 4.5 million individual journeys every day!

I haven’t won a lot of awards in my life. I got a commendation in French from my school when I was 14, and that’s about it. So you can imagine my excitement when I got an email this morning from the good people at Tripadvisor telling me that Buenos Aires Local Tours has been awarded a 2011 Certificate of Excellence, which is given to recognise consistently high ratings from Tripadvisor members!

I’ve been given 5 out of a possible 5 stars 20 times, which given that I’ve received 21 reviews is something I’m very proud of! Obviously I couldn’t have done this without the wonderful people who have come on the tour, the encouragement & kind words they have given me and my friends and family who have supported me in the last 6 months since I started – thank you all! If you haven’t yet been on a tour, then I look forward to seeing you soon!

Now that I’m getting to know parts of Buenos Aires very well, I love coming across old pictures and comparing what was there then with what you can be seen now. So, I was very interested to discover the picture below showing our meeting point of Plaza Italia taken in 1904, with the Zoo in the backround (Avenida Sarmiento on the left and Avenida Las Heras on the right).

Compare to a shot from Google Earth taken from roughly the same direction (the statue is in the centre at the bottom):

Not surprisingly, a lot has changed over the last 107 years, not least the fact that back then, there was no pedestrian square as there is now, and trams rumbled right past Garibaldi himself.

A notable difference are the gateways that once ringed Plaza Italia. Indeed, before being renamed in 1908, the square was known as Plaza de los Portones, Square of the Gates, which were closed at night to block access to the Parque 3 de Febrero, (los Bosques de Palermo). One remains today as the entrance to the zoo, and can be seen on the right of the picture.

I’ll tell anyone that listens that the best map of Buenos Aires is the Interactive Map on the Buenos Aires City Government site. With it you can easily find any street address and for planning a journey on public transport it’s indispensable.

However, today I discovered a feature I’d not spotted before which makes me very happy indeed (it doesn’t take much). As well as the expected map and satellite views, it offers a choice of photographic overlays from times gone by. A satellite view from 2004 and aerial views from 1978, 1965 and 1940. I’ve spent most of the afternoon exploring 1940s Buenos Aires and am going to sharing some of the highlights here (click on all photos for larger views), most of which we visit in the daily tour.

Completed around about the turn of the 20th Century, the Plaza de Mayo has not changed beyond recognition in the 71 years since this photo was taken. The main change is that the Casa Rosada was surrounded by roads on all four sides back then. Balcarce to its left as we look at it is now pedestrianised and the Paseo Colón passed right past the front of the building instead of looping round the gardens as it does now. Also, with fewer trees than nowadays, it’s easier to see the symmetry of the Plaza itself in the aerial view, something its hard to appreciate from ground level.

If the Plaza de Mayo hasn’t changed much, then the above shot shows an area that has undergone some major work. We all know the Avenida 9 de Julio these days as it cuts its way through the heart of the city. Well it hasn’t always been this way – back in 1940 it was only 5 blocks long and was more of a Plaza than an Avenida! The Obelisco had been built 4 or 5 years prior and it wouldn’t be for another 10 years until the buildings between Cerrito & Carlos Pelligrini would be levelled to extend the avenue. The Teatro Colón can be seen in the bottom left of the picture.

El Caminito, now one of the main tourist attractions in Buenos Aires was a long way from that in 1940. As the above picture shows it was then simply a spur of the main railway that served the docks. It wouldn’t be for another 15 years before local artist Benito Quinquela Martín would begin working on his vision of transforming it into Buenos Aires’ first open-air musuem.

The above picture shows one of the main sights of the tour, the market building in Abasto. At the time of this picture it had only been open for 5 years and would remain so for another 44 years. Clearly visible is the rear sections which is somewhat altered these days, but the front section remains intact as it was then. Also note the tramlines running up and down Corrientes. Buenos Aires once had one of the largest tram systems in the world (more than 850km of track at its peak) which was dismantled in the 1960s in favour of buses.

There is, of course, much more to be discovered with these wonderful old aerial shots and as I find more things of interest I’ll post them here.

Around the beginning of the 20th Century, when Don Rafael Diaz was 15 years old, he worked in a general store in the Montserrat area of Buenos Aires. He worked hard and even spent nights sleeping under the counter and the owner of the store would tell him that he would be rewarded for his hard work in heaven, where a house was waiting for him.

25 years later, in 1927, as owner of one of the largest furniture shops in Buenos Aires, he made this prediction come true by building his own little house in heaven, on top of his store, overlooking what is now el Obelisco & Plaza de la Republica.

The house, based on a Normandy-style chalet Don Rafael had seen in Mar del Plata, was his home for the following 40 years until he died in 1968. In the following years the business he had built up struggled to survive and in the 1970’s the building was sold and his chalet converted to offices. Today, surrounded by huge advertising hoardings, it’s not always easy to spot, but it’s still there – the only house in Buenos Aires with a view of the Obelisco.

Historical update, January 31, 2011: Turismo Visión later published the first part of the programme on the TVArg505 YouTube channel. The original upload is no longer available, so it is not embedded here.

Had a fun day yesterday as Argentinian tourism channel Turismo Visión came along to film the tour! They’d been looking for alternative ways to see the capital and loved the way we do things on colectivos and the Subte. It was very exciting and I can’t wait to see the final result – which should be in 2 weeks or so. Obviously you’ll see it here first!