The Rhythms of Argentina and Uruguay

 

As mentioned last week, Roland and I began our recent South American cruise in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And what does that make you think of? The tango, of course.

On our first full day in Buenos Aires, we went to lunch and a tango show at La Ventana. We have discovered that music and dance shows on excursions are usually geared toward tourists and vary greatly in quality. This show was quite good, however. The photo at the top and the following one show some of the dancers.

Besides the dancers, the tango show included a couple who could have been in a circus because of their skills with their hands, both on drums and with swinging ropes. That’s the next two photos.

The next day we were docked in Montevideo, Uruguay, where we visited the Museo del Carnaval. Uruguay outdoes New Orleans by celebrating Carnival for 40 days. Aside from the costumes and parades, there are Murga groups presenting musical stage shows that are mostly satire on the national and world-wide political situation. We saw a show at the museum, and it was pretty interesting.  Instead of politics, however, this show was designed to explain what Murga groups are and do. That’s the final three photos.

From there, our trip concentrated more on wildlife and geography, which I covered in earlier blog posts. The entire trip was entertaining and educational, but next week I’ll leave South America and turn to another subject.

The Look of Argentina and Chile

 

Our trip took us to four countries: Argentina, Uruguay, the Falkland Islands, and Chile. I covered the Falkland Islands last week and will make a stop at Uruguay next week. However, most of our time was spent in Argentina and Chile, and this post is limited to them.

The photo at the top of this post shows both countries. Chile is very long but very narrow. From the town of Fruitillar, Chile, which is about an hour from the Pacific coast, you can look across a lake and see several volcanos. The one on the left is in Chile and the one on the right is in Argentina.

We started our cruise in Buenos Aires, which is known for its colorful buildings, especially in La Boca, which was originally a poor Italian neighborhood. The only way the residents could get paint for their houses was to use the leftovers from the ships that arrived at the port. So they might have enough blue for part of the house and use yellow or red for the rest, or maybe they would need three colors to complete the exterior. La Boca is no longer a poor neighborhood (mostly tourist shops now), but the tradition has continued.

The following photos show one of the buildings in La Boca, with a figure representing Eva Perón in the center, and the iconic pink government building where Eva used to give speeches from the balcony.

The cruise ended at Valparaiso, Chile, which had its own peculiarities. It isn’t the only city on a hill with houses built over empty space, but the sight is still fascinating. The next photo shows residences hanging from the hill.

Valparaiso is a historic city and building owners can do whatever they want to the interior but aren’t allowed to demolish or change the outside of an old building. The following photo shows a creative developer’s solution—and he apparently got away with it.

It isn’t just the buildings that are interesting, though. The scenery along the cruise route was spectacular. The next three photos were taken from our ship. The first shows the scenery we sailed by, and the following two are of the Amalia Glacier at the end of a fiord.

I’ll finish this series next week by talking about some of the entertainment we took in along the way.