We disembarked this morning and those of us taking the land extension got on the bus and headed out for a driving tour of Buenos Aires. It is a beautiful city with lots of modern sky scrapers and other areas that look like parts of Paris. The 9^th of July Avenue is 16 lanes wide, vying with the Champs Elysee for the title of the world’s widest street. Some areas of the city are quite wealthy, with parks full of people exercising and professional dog walkers leading teams of 10 dogs.

We went to the Recoleta Cemetery next. This is an amazing collection of mausoleums, some modern, some modern granite and glass, and some as big as a Spanish church. Each Mausoleum is only one family! Talk about impressive. Eva Peron is buried there in her birth family’s tomb (Duarte). She was thirty-three when she died from leukemia.

 

We then got to the older part of the city, the original port at La Boca which is now filled with colorful houses and tourist shops, art galleries, restaurants and places where there are tango demonstrations on the street and a lovely young woman wants to place a hat on me (Alan) and pose me in tango positions with her, for a fee.  We also drove past the stadium of the famous Boca Junior soccer club.

We checked into the Hotel Emperador, took a nap and then it was off to the Tango Show and Dinner. That was great. The food and wine were good and then there was a show that traced tango music from its origin in the late 19^th century, up through the golden age of tango in the 30’s, through the great tango singers like Carlos Gardel, and up to the modern tango of Piazzola. There were dancers in the costume of each of the eras visited. The music was good, the dancing excellent and the singing was enjoyable. Finally, in bed by 12 with a 6:30 wake up to head for Iguazu Falls the next day.