After nearly a week in Buenos Aires, I have some observations.
My first sentiments, already published on this site, that most large capital port cities are the same, still stands. With each passing day, BA becomes more familiar, and whether it be that familiarity or not, the city seems like any other bustling machine of commerce.
The city itself is easy enough to navigate, being divided up into fairly distinctive barrios, or neighborhoods, which all utilize a basic grid system of streets. Thus far, we have explored two barrios fairly extensively.
Palermo, our first home in the city, is by far the biggest in BA. The porteños describe it as full of parks and green spaces. While the city´s biggest park and expanses of neighboring parks does exist as the edge of Palermo, anyone from the United States, and from the West Coast in particular would dissagree. The park is small and on the weekend turns into a superhighway of runners, walkers, rollerbladers and bikers making laps around its parimeter.
But Palermo´s streets are lined with trees, its sidewalks are broad and its attitude is slightly more laid back than in El Centro. As in all of BA, some of Palermo´s streets are old cobblestone surfaces, leaving cars, busses and taxis to bounce along noisily passed the cafés, chic boutiques and businesses that make Palermo the "uptown" of BA.
Palermo also houses the Buenos Aires Zoo, which is pretty much like any other city zoo and surrounded by tall residential buildings. The animals here seem slightly smaller than other zoos, but patrons can buy a bucket of comida de animales for one peso and feed the inhabitants who often perform (beg) for the small nibblits of food, so malnutrition is not to blame for their size.
Just a 10 minute ride from Palermo on the Subte, which is usually packed but not exceptionally unpleasent for an underground train, lies El Centro, the heart of BA and center for commerce, business and daily activity.
El Centro is much different from Palermo or the other quieter more hip barrios of town. The sidewalks are narrow, the streets more heavy with traffic and the people more dense. Most constantly come or go from the many sky scraping fortresses of commerce, government buildings or residences at all hours of the day. Small motorcycles dart in and out of the rapid but not completely chaotic traffic and busses barrel and choke noisily through the streets 24 hours a day.
Our daily walk from Plaza de los Dos Congresos to the school is made up of 15 minutes dodging people on sidewalks and trying to make three of the consecutive four lights on Avenida 9 de julio - a monstrous four road conglomoration divided by swaths of lawn and sidewalk.
It is true, the porteños love dogs, and the canines seem to take on the same personality as the people, like any other large city dwellers their demeaner is indiferant but generally content.
While many travelers complain that BA is dirty, I find it to exceed my expectations of a South American port. It is by no means clean, but trash cans line the streets and sewage seems to stay out of sight. Although dog crap is abundant - no need for little plastic baggies here.
Overall, especially for its size the city is pleasant and the people friendly. But for a nature loving boy from the mountains, even after just less than a week, I can hear the peaks of the Andes beckoning me out of the concrete jungle that is BA.
- AC
PHOTO
The statue and Argentine flag at the end of Plaza de los Dos Congresos is sillhouted by a cloudy evening sky. - AC
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