I am super excited to be in Buenos Aires – Argentina’s passion nucleus. It’s a place that conjures up images of tango dances in dimly lit underground bars and copious amounts of steak and red wine. Which is exactly how we spent our first night.
For me, BA offers a dynamic combination of rough and ready street life along with antiques stores and flea markets for the culture vultures out there, all topped off with a European twist that makes everything feel strangely familiar.
I could spend weeks wandering around the vintage stalls in the markets of San Telmo. The food markets are also incredible – they never fail to get the taste buds tingling.
I am in love with these tiles and was desperate to buy every single one on sale, thankfully Luke is the more practical one and talked me out of filling a shipping container with them.
There is quite a large contrast between the edgy, more grungy areas of town and the cosmopolitan CBD district. As we were meandering around the dockland area, we saw this very appropriately placed protest. Go on Greenpeace!!
‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber is a song I have been familiar with since I was little but until now, I never understood the meaning behind it. For starters I thought the lyrics were ‘the truth is I never loved you’ so Luke gave me a brief low down on the real lyrics and their significance.
I learnt that the song was written about Evita Peron, Argentina’s First Lady from1946-1952. She was a huge inspiration to the Argentinian people, particularly the working class. It was on the balconies of the Presidential office building above where she gave some of her most influential and world famous speeches.
Sadly, she passed away from cancer in 1952 at only thirty three years of age. Shortly after her death her husband Juan Peron, the President of Argentina at the time, was overthrown in a military coup. At this point Evita’s embalmed body was still waiting to be buried. Juan Peron fled the country and when he did so, Evita’s body went missing for sixteen years.
Between 1955 and 1971 it became illegal to display photos of Juan or Evita Peron. You were not even allowed to to say their names.
In 1971, the military revealed that Evita’s body was buried in Milan under the name ‘Maria Maggi’. When her body was brought back to Argentina, her face was heavily disfigured as well as her feet. There are many conspiracy theories as to what caused this disfiguration. One theory is that her face was damaged with a hammer, some insist that it happened during transportation of the body.
This is Evita’s mausoleum where thousands flock to show their respect to Argentina’s former ‘spiritual leader’.
