Amateur Traveler: Tuesday, Dec. 29

I got out of bed at about 9:30am, Becky slept until 10:00am. These Portenos (if you live in Buenos Aires you are a Porteno) must be sleep deprived. We are told they keep normal business hours, so they wake early. They don't seem to take a siesta, and With late dinners you have to wonder how much sleep they get. We must be missing something.

We were thinking we would tour the cemetery where Evita is buried. It is one of the standard tourist sites. After we were on our way we decided that Evita could wait til we returned from Antarctica. We went to the Obelisco that is on "9 de Julio" Avenue. The Obelisco is a 220 foot tall monument, placed in the middle of what is called "the widest boulevard in the world", 9 de Julio Avenue. Yep, it's wide and has those huge billboards including a large brightly lit electronic billboard. It is tree lined with 10-15 story buildings facing the street. It is also a mass of humanity.

After 9 de Julio Avenue it was the pedestrian avenue of Florida Street. Geez!, couldn't we get a few more bodies on the street, surely another 1000 or so wouldn't be noticed. Florida Street is primarily shopping. During our cruise down Florida Street it started rain pretty hard. Now what to do? Oh yeah, I forgot. Find a place to get a snack and a glass or two of wine. There was a Marriott hotel on the corner so we ducked into there.

After the rain subsided we went back to the Plaza de Mayo and went inside the cathedral, it was very nice inside with the traditional layout, but the outside was not traditional but more like a Greek or Roman temple. We did not know what it was at first. After that we made our way back to the hotel. We needed to get ready for the Tango show.

The Tango show was at a nice theatre facing 9 de Julio Avenue. Shuttle bus service to the theatre was included. This was a dinner show. We were seated next to a couple from Brazil and adjacent to them was a couple from China, Shanghai. So Becky and I speak English and some Spanish. The Brazilian man knew Portugese, Spanish, and a bit of English. The Brazilian woman knew only Portuguese. The Chinese knew Portuguese. We all had a good time, "talking".

Then the show was excellent. It was a live performance of Tango dancers with the band members perched at the rear over the top of the stage. There were probably at least 500 people in the audience. The band and the dancers were excellent in my humble opinion. It's funny how people ridicule things as being "touristy". Often popular tourist attractions are popular for a reason. Tourist aren't really "tricked" into attending. Here is the website for the show, Tango Porteno.

Vegetable Stand in San Telmo