One of the cultural and commercial capitals of South America, Buenos Aires, dates back to 1526, when a Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza camped on a bluff above the Rio del la Plata, possibly the site of a current date park known as, Parque Lazama. In 1776 Buenos Aires (meaning, fair or good winds), became the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the River Plata. Current day Buenos Aires has a reputation as being the “Paris of the South”, which leads visitors to expect European styles, and in fact many of the capital’s turn of the century buildings would not be out of place across the Atlantic in Europe. Fun fact, The river has a rusty or brownish red colour making it look dirty but the colour is a result of the Tigre Delta, where these Delta Islands are formed by the continuous sediment of the Parana River.
We are overnight here in Buenos Aires which is always nice to have two full days in city with so much to offer. With that, Buenos Aires is the home of the Tango so we just had to make a pilgrimage to the founding area of the Tango, La Boca. The shuttle bus to the city took some of the edge off our walk today but we still managed some 20,000 steps or about 18 kilometres. Some of it was down pedestrian store lined streets and through beautiful parks and squares, including the 5 de Mayo square where Evita gave her infamous speech. Then there was the gap between here and La Boca, to make a long story short we zig and we zagged to avoid both heat and construction dust to make our way to this amazing district which is the birth of the Tango. We had a bit of a beer rest before wandering up and down the colourful streets and taking in the atmosphere. We then decided to walk all the way back, a bit of a shorter route but still a long way that did include another beer stop. We were back to the ship just after 6pm, in time for a swim and shower before dinner. A local troupe was brought in tonight to give us some more tango and a Gaucho show (gaucho = cowboy). They were very good and only sorry I did not pull my camera out sooner. Yes we did also have some retail therapy on route so all good, great leather items here. Here are a few pics of our day, hope you enjoy…
Quote of the day: “It’s a big world out there, go explore” - Anonymous
No comments:
Post a Comment