On Saturday morning I went for a walk around La Boca, which is a slightly rough working-class neighbourhood that begins just a few blocks from my hostel. I didn't go to La Boca last time I was here because I'd been warned that it was dangerous, and I didn't particularly want to take any risks. However, having been to plenty of dangerous places in the past six months without anything bad happening at all, I decided I'd take my chances this time, and of course it was fine.
Firstly I went for a look at La Bombonera Stadium, the home of Boca Juniors, which was one of Diego Maradona's teams during his playing career. I was just about able to catch a glimpse of the pitch through the fence. I then continued to El Caminito, which is La Boca's most famous street, with its colourful painted metal houses and its craft fair. Predictably enough it was extremely touristy, with tango dancers and even a Diego Maradona impersonator willing to pose with you for a photo, for a small fee.
In the afternoon I caught the metro to Recoleta, which is the complete opposite of La Boca - it's one of Buenos Aires' most exclusive neighbourhoods. I began my visit at Recoleta Cemetery, which is the resting place of many of the rich and powerful of Buenos Aires. It contains literally thousands of tombs, all of them above ground, which are laid out in blocks like a small town - here and here you can see a couple of the cemetery's 'streets'. The cemetery's most famous resident is probably Eva Perón (aka Evita); her tomb was one of the more modest ones, and this is one of the plaques on the vault. Some of the tombs are extremely grand, for example this one belonging to Dorrego-Ortiz Basualdo, but the weirdest one was definitely that of the poet Carlos Guido Spano (below), which resembled a pile of rocks with a couple of trees growing out of it.
After spending an hour or two wandering around the cemetery, I went to see the nearby Floralis Genérica, which is a giant mechanical sculpture of a flower. Every evening at sunset the flower's petals close up, and at sunrise they open again, taking twenty minutes to complete the transformation each time. Unfortunately the flower was quite stationary the whole time I was there though. It was such a beautiful afternoon that I couldn't resist lying down in the sun on the grass next to the sculpture (it's a tough life travelling), and there I stayed until it started to get chilly, at which point I went for a look around the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts). I was surprised at what a good museum it was too, with works by artists such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Manet and Degas, as well as a version of The Kiss by Rodin.
This morning (Sunday) I caught the metro to Palermo, another smart Buenos Aires district, and I went for walk around Palermo Viejo, which is the oldest part of the neighbourhood. It was mainly posh boutiques and bars, and not particularly interesting, so I don't have a lot to report. After lunch I returned to San Telmo, which is the neighbourhood in which I'm staying. There was a huge crafts and antique market going on there all afternoon, both in San Telmo's main square and all the way along Defensa, which is the main road running north-south through San Telmo. This was the view along Defensa - it was full of people for as far as I could see. After spending a couple of hours walking around the market (and buying nothing), I spent the rest of my final afternoon in Parque Lezama (below).
That almost brings an end to my South America blog, but it's not quite over yet, because I plan to publish one final post when I get back to the UK on Tuesday.
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