Day Tour in Buenos Aires Argentina Part 2.

The Pink House - the seat of government
In the first post on my day trip in Buenos Aires, I described La Boca. This is a poor area of BA, but has some wonderful pubs and on the day of a football match, much of the pub area turns into al fresco dinning areas. The day of my visit was a football match day, so it was very lively at La Boca.
Remains of old Spanish colonial style

Anyway, back to the tour. The next stop on the tour was May Square. Just does not sound quite so special in English. In Spanish it is called Plaza de Mayo. Sounds a bit more exotic! This is the main square in BA and the "Pink house" is the seat of government in Argentina. The film about Evita, who was played by Madonna, showed this house when "Evita" spoke from the balcony. This balcony is, in reality, where many of the politicians have made important announcements and speeches. Apparently, the pink colour was as a result of mixing white paint with ox blood and fat to preserve the paint in the past. Now the quality of paints have improved,and ox blood and fat is no longer needed to preserve the paint but they have kept the pink colour.The guide provided very interesting history of Argentina. I must say, quite a checked history. There are very few people of colour in BA. There are also not many indigenous people as you see in many of the other South American countries. According to the guide, the government of Argentina in the 1800's, agreed to help another country who was involved in a war on condition that they take all the black people from Argentina. So they literally exported all of the black people! One of the governors in Argentina apparently tired to get all of the indigenous people killed off. This was, to a large extent done. I must state at this stage that these are stories of the guide and I have not looked up supporting information for these stories yet.
Free masons church in BA

As a result of the efforts in the 1800's to keep Argentina "white", BA is now very much like a typical European city. The architecture is very much like Paris. There are even cheese shops, just like in Paris. When Argentina gained independence from Spain, most of the Spanish colonial buildings were destroyed and replaced with typical French architecture. One of the only Spanish colonial building which has survived was the viceroy's house opposite the "Pink House". This is a typical example of the Spanish style architecture. Apparently the building was made smaller when the roads leading to the square were built.

Place in front is where mother would come and sleep.
Another interesting story about the checked history of Argentina was during the time of one of the military dictator when thousands of people went missing. Grandmothers and mothers of the missing still, to this day gather at Plaza del Mayo looking for information on their loved ones who went missing.

The final destination on the tour was the Recoleta cemetery. Sounds a bit strange to do a tour of a cemetery. The main site in the tour is the last resting place of Evita Peron. She still divides BA even so many years after her death. She was all for the poor and was popular with them, but she was not popular with the rich. However, the feature of the cemetery is the many amazing mausoleums of the rich and famous people of Buenos Aires. Apparently space in the cemetery is at a premium and when a space does become available it can cost around 1 million US$, for a very small piece of land. This is in such stark contrast to the poor area of La Boca. Yes, sure, there are a few places there which are set up for the tourists, but many, many people still live there is abject poverty.   The art work on many of the Mausoleums is amazing. On of the first interesting stops was at a crept for a young girl.
There was an open space in front of the crypt. Apparently this was built for her mother who would come an sleep by her coffin every night! Some of the mausoleums are in disrepair and these, after efforts are made to find the family and fail, are then set up for sale.

All in all, this was a great day tour (or rather a half day tour) which covered the highlights of BA. it was really well worth doing.

The final stop of my stay in Argentina was to move to a hotel much closer to the airport. This was Posada de las Aguillas hotel close to the International airport. My final meal in Argentina was in this little hotel and I had, by far, the best steak I had in Argentina! 
Best steak in Argentina

Final resteing place of Evita

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