Misc from Buenos Aires

Tomorrow I'm heading out to the province/city of Córdoba for a week -- to have a look around Argentina's second largest city (over a million people) and otherwise be a tourist. Plus get out of the BsAs pollution and enjoy the foothills (they're not what I'd really call "mountains") and rivers/streams. A friend-of-a-friend from Dallas lives there, so I'm going to entrap him into being a tour guide for a day or two... if all goes as planned. So, this will be my last update til... I don't know when.


But I can finally post some photos that I've had for a while but no reason, excuse, etc, to talk about til now. Several times I've randomly mentioned Corrientes Ave., which is sort of the Buenos Aires version of Broadway. Except they have a mini-version of the Washington monument in the middle of it. And it crosses one of the widest streets in the world, "Avenida 9 de Julio". These photos were taken during the height of last winter's energy crisis, so you can see how serious they were taking it downtown. But the show must go on, even if the lights in your house won't.

Next up, you can see the new light rail train that just went into service a few months ago, I was there for opening day. It's down by the swankiest and most expensive-est barrio in town, Puerto Madero. If you're a real estate investor, this is where the real action is in Buenos Aires. Anyhow, this train will be humorous to watch evolve... in theory, it's going to link the poorest part of town to the main bus terminal, which requires going through the richest part of town (here in Puerto Madero) to get there.


For now, it only has 5 stops, costs a peso (outrageous! the subway only costs 70 centavos and is far more extensive!), and takes a year and half to go anywhere because it's above ground and has to navigate the stop lights and traffic. Actually, as I think about it, it's not that different from DART when it hits downtown Dallas.

This stylish bridge over to the right is called "the woman's bridge", and is somehow supposed to represent the tango... if you smoke crack and hallucinate as the designer obviously must have. To the rest of us, it obviously represents "a harp". The outstanding thing (if you read the tourism literature) about this area is that everything is named "whatever" of the woman or else has a specific woman's name. A shocking departure from tradition, here in the land of machismo.


But you know you're in Puerto Madero when you look up all around you and all you see are towers, towers under construction, and cranes. It's actually not that different than being in whatever other large city in the world although it doesn't really feel all that "Buenos Aires-y". Even the graffiti is lacking, unlike in other parts of the city (where there is an over-abundance). OK, this concludes my mini-tour of BsAs but I have to go pack my bags for Córdoba now.