Buenos Aires

In Buenos Aires we did a city tour with a man who leads the food and wine tours and demonstrations as well as other private historical tours. He used to be a philosophy professor, but now he has developed a new subject that he teaches - gastrosophy. Gastronomy is the Law of the Stomach. He has transformed it into Gastrosophy, "Wisdom of the Stomach" because he thinks, " Pleasure is closer to wisdom" than the word law. Thus Gastrosophy means the Pleasure of being together eating and drinking.

Anyway, the first area we went to was La Boca, near where the city was originally established and where many artists now congregate to sell their wares and where there are interesting colorful buildings adorned with figures and images that reflect the local floklore heroes, such as Evita and Maradonna. Our guide said that this was the area where the tango started, but it was started by prostitutes so it wasn't popular at first. But after it became the rage in Paris, it was deemed acceptable and then took over the city.

Next we went to the San Telmo area. This is an area full of nicely preserved colonial buildings and is full of antique shops. On Sundays they have a big antique flea market. Here we visited the oldest silversmith in the Americas, with everyting you could imagine, including silver backgammon games.

We went on to see the government buildings, including the famous pink one, where the leader of the country helicopters to each day for work. It was near hear that we went into the oldest coffee bar in the city - a city full of coffee bars. Inside this large, famous bar was also a small tango bar, like many of the ones in the city. The picture to the right is the part that was the tango bar. We also went to one of the big shows at the Carlos Guardel Theater. He's like a national hero because he was such a famous tango singer. The place seats 500 people and has an excellent band and troupe of dancers.

The last part of the tour was to the Recoleta Cemetery. This reminds me very much of the famous one in Paris, though of course it's not quite as old. It's interesting to walk around and see the different styles of mausoleums, including Evita's. There is also a market outside the cemetery that attracts quite a few vendors, particularly on weekends.