Carlo Reltas
8 x 8 Days at the
END OF THE WORLD
Across Patagonia from North to South
For Dalia and Viola
Cover picture:
Glaciar Perito Moreno
near El Calafate / Argentina
All photos:
© C. Reltas
© Copyright by CARE of Sattler 2025ISBN 978-3-758485-40-4
Publisher:CARE of SattlerHauptstraße 21, 53604 Bad Honnef / [email protected]
Distribution:epubli – a service of Neopubli GmbH, Berlin,www.epubli.de
Carlo Reltas
8 x 8 Days at the
END OF THE WORLD
-
Across Patagonia
from North to South
CARE
Bad Honnef
Content
Cover
Dedication
Title
Imprint
Preface: Where is the End of the World?
On the Río de la Plata
1-1 Bemvindo – bienvenido carajo!
1-2 Buenos Aires in 24 Stops
1-3 “I Don't Understand Art at All.”
1-4 Evita – the Eternally Shining Sun
1-5 Legends, a Kiss, and a crucified Man
1-6 Dances in Recoleta and San Telmo
1-7 Uruguay – Porongos in Everyone's Hands
1-8 Colonia – Pearl on the River Plate
Buenos Aires and Bariloche
2-1 Consumption, Culture, Tango, and Tablets
2-2 Tristesse of the Suburbs, Magic of the Andes
2-3 Bariloche – Gate to the Andes and Patagonia
2-4 A Dictator and a Majestic Lake
2-5 In the Mystical Myrtle Forest
2-6 Seeing Lakes Delights
2-7 Tronador – Finally at Thunder Mountain
2-8 On the Road – Southwards, Ever Southwards
Perito Moreno and El Calafate
3-1 Two-Country Lake and Swan Lake
3-2 Hands Full of World Cultural Heritage
3-3 On the Road Again – What a Detour!
3-4 All You Need is a German Bakery
3-5 How the Tehuelches Lived
3-6 Lago Argentino: Turquoise Like Depth
3-7 How Does a Glacier Form – and Survive?
3-8 Probably the Most Famous Ice Field on Earth
El Chaltén
4-1 National Trekking Capital
4-2 Condors, Eagles, and a True Pioneer
4-3 Incline, Gravel, Wind and Weather
4-4 Cerro Torre, the ‘Impossible’ Mountain
4-5 Tristesse, Vexation, and Bright Spots
4-6 The Smoking Mountain Plays Hide and Seek
4-7 Ascent and Farewell
4-8 Back to the Argentino and La Zorra
Once Again El Calafate and Puerto Natales
5-1 On the Estancia – a Look Back
5-2 Fight with the Most Unpleasant Patagonian
5-3 Off to Chile!
5-4 On Last Hope and a Discovery
5-5 Towers in the Blue
5-6 Friends of the Wind and a One-Tonner
5-7 Ascent to the Icy Glacier Lake
5-8 Recognising the Caracara
Puerto Natales and Punta Aremas
6-1 Visiting Sofía
6-2 To the ‘Barons’ of Punta Arenas
6-3 Among Penguins, Magellanic Penguins
6-4 In the Realm of the Dead
6-5 Among Patagonians, the Big-footed People
6-6 Tree, Secret, Great Sailors
6-7 Off to See the King Penguins
6-8 On Board Magellan's ‘Cog’ Victoria
Punta Arenas, Río Gallegos and Tierra del Fuego
7-1 Farewell to the Former Boom Town
7-2 Río Gallegos
7-3 Finally Heading to Ushuaia
7-4 The Southernmost City in the World
7-5 About Convicts and Shipwrecked People
7-6 With Seals, Sea Lions, and Cormorants
7-7 Haphazard Mix of Styles and Hero worship
7-8 The Sisters, Sancho, and Karl
Ushuaia and Back to Buenos Aires
8-1 At the Río Pipo, Where Pipo Once Disappeared
8-2 Uphill, Always Uphill to the Glacier
8-3 Martial Again and the Yámana
8-4 Anticipation
8-5 Raceday!!!
8-6 Almost a Homecoming … to Buenos Aires
8-7 La Plata – Capital City Next to the Capital City
8-8 Farewell
Epilogue: An End or Just an In-between?
Maps
About the Author
By the same Author
PREFACE
Where is the End of the World?
The Earth is round – so where is its end, where is its beginning? Geographers and cartographers have agreed on the poles as the endpoints and intersections of their longitudes and latitudes. The poles are the points where the axis of rotation of a symmetrically rotating celestial body intersects. This also applies to the home of the human species, planet Earth. Its rotation around itself defines our day, during which one side or the other faces the sun.Due to the additional migration on an orbit around the sun, the inhabitants of Earth experience the seasons. The curvature of the Earth ensures that the end points of its axis of rotation experience the least or, more precisely, the weakest solar radiation. A journey to the end of the world is therefore also a journey into the cold.The idea of the end of the world is commonly thought of as a remote, lonely, quiet place. However, this cliché also corresponds to a place for meditation in the middle of a hot desert like the Sahara. Our traveller Karl experienced this several times in southern Morocco, feeling lost in apparent infinity. However, a natural companion was always present there with all its might, one that he would also encounter in Patagonia: the wind.Patagonia, the landscape in southern Argentina and Chile, is the closest point to the South Pole in the southern hemisphere. Karl does not want to join the polar explorers who, although they no longer risk their lives in today's high-tech world like the first explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott, who perished in the ice and snow desert on his way back from the pole, but who still have to expose themselves to the rigours of an extreme climate. His goal is more modest. He wants to reach the southernmost city on the American continent and thus in the world. Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, is more than 20 degrees of latitude further north, and Singapore, the southernmost city on the Asian continent, is even just above the equator! Australia is no better off. The name translates as ‘southern land’. But it cannot compete with the southern tip of America in terms of proximity to the pole.Ever since the fixed idea of travelling to the end of the world had taken root in Karl's mind, ever since the hope had matured in him that he would attain philosophical depth in such a place, confronting the ideas of beginning and end, of where we come from and where we are going, it had been clear to him that his journey should take him to the southern tip of South America. The specific occasion for the passionate long-distance runner was news of a race at the end of the world, the Carrera Fin del Mundo. In December, the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia on the south coast of Tierra del Fuego, hosts the Carrera más Austral de Argentina, the southernmost race in Argentina. He registered back in March. And after paying the entry fee online and receiving confirmation, he began planning his travel itinerary.Ushuaia – this indigenous name sounds like a battle cry. Off to Ushuaia! But how? Karl wants to take his time crossing the legendary Patagonia, where sheep farming and wool production created enormous fortunes within a few decades from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. Of course, his journey is to begin in the capital of Argentina, the capital on the banks of the huge estuary of the Río de la Plata, the Silver River. He also adds a detour to the other side of this wide funnel to his travel list - this funnel from whose banks the opposite shore cannot be seen, the shore of Uruguay.After that, nothing should stop him on his way to Patagonia, this vast landscape that covers the south of two countries, not even the pampas with their herds of cattle. Karl has no ambitions to be a cowboy or a gaucho, as they are called there. He is much more drawn to the mountains, to the Cordilleras, the mountain ranges of the Andes. San Carlos de Bariloche is considered the South American ‘St. Moritz’ at the foot of the Cordilleras. This place, where many German immigrants have also settled, is to be his ‘gateway to Patagonia’. However, this gateway is so far away (over 1,500 kilometres from Buenos Aires) that he boards a plane for the only time on his way south.Due to the lack of a railway network in Patagonia, he continues his journey by comfortable long-distance bus. Perito Moreno, near the World Heritage Site Cueva de las Manos, and Los Antiguos on the transboundary Lake Buenos Aires (called Lago General Carrera on the Chilean side) are his next stops. El Calafate on Argentina's largest lake, Lago Argentino, appeals to him because of the famous Perito Moreno glacier, which is constantly rumbling and calving and has long offered a unique natural spectacle with its breakthroughs. On the neighbouring Lake Viedma, he is attracted by El Chaltén, the ‘hiking capital of Argentina’, at the foot of the FitzRoy massif. After that, he wants to cross a low cordillera and move on to the port city of Puerto Natales in Chile. Natales is the starting point for excursions to the wonderful Torres del Paine National Park, whose three towers remind Karl of the emblematic Three Peaks of Lavaredo in the Dolomites.In Punta Arenas, his next destination in Chile, the magnificent city palaces from the penultimate turn of the century bear witness to the wealth accumulated within a few decades by the sheep and wool 'barons' of Patagonia. From there, Karl crosses the southern tip of America from west to east. In the provincial capital of Río Gallegos, he encounters the Atlantic Ocean.Finally, he reaches his destination, Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the Americas. Once a tiny settlement, the administrative centre of the Argentine province – note the long name – ‘Tierra del Fuego, Antártida y Islas del Atlántico Sur’ is now a very lively, modern city with a population of around 82,000. The name Ushuaia comes from the language of the indigenous Yámana people and means ‘bay facing east’. Karl will encounter the fate of these indigenous people, who were virtually wiped out by imported diseases and murderous settlers, at various memorial sites, and it will touch his heart.The city at the end of the world will be the place in Patagonia where Karl stays the longest. After all, he has to prepare for his cross-country run, the Ushuaia Trail Race, a race that ends with him on the podium. In addition, despite its modernity, the place exudes a certain magic, which is reinforced by the sight of seabirds, seals and sea lions in the Beagle Channel and the memory of the tragic fate of the Yámana people. For they led an almost unimaginable, adapted life in this inhospitable climate, almost naked in the short summer and covered only by sea lion skins in the cooler seasons.The day after his ‘victory’ at the end of the world, Karl flies back to Buenos Aires. After his refreshing time in Patagonia, he finally enjoys the southern summer for two days in the capital, located about 3,000 kilometres to the north. After exploring its end near the pole, he will circumnavigate this round world and continue westward, or more precisely northwestward. In the South Korean capital of Seoul, he will meet many friends whom he made there in the runners' community during a three-year stay abroad.When he returns to Germany, he will have spent 77 days travelling around the world, 64 of them in South America. But 64 sounds too prosaic to Karl, who has a penchant for number games and doubling numbers. The doubling of the number eight, 8 x 8 instead of 64 days, makes him happier in advance. And that is why the title of the book is ‘8 x 8 Days at the End of the World’.*
* In line with the book title, the chapters are therefore numbered not from Day 1 to Day 64, but from Day 1-1 to Day 8-8.
Bem-vindo – bienvenido carajo!
Tuesday, 8 October 2024, Day 1-1,
when Karl receives useless advice from Will Smith, misses his Kiwi friends and becomes addicted to empanadas.
Stopover at 3 a.m. in Guarulhos, a suburb in the north-east of the Brazilian economic metropolis of São Paulo. Bem-vindo ao Brasil! Late the previous evening, Karl had begun his journey to the end of the world in Frankfurt am Main, the German and European banking city. Now, in the middle of the night, he finds himself stranded at the international airport of the megalopolis where the economic heart of Brazil beats. Its heart rate has slowed to a minimum. Nothing is happening in Guarulhos! Only a few night owls like Karl, who is wandering from his arrival terminal to the neighbouring terminal with his flight to Buenos Aires, are roaming the corridors. In Terminal 3, he marches up and down with his heavy hand luggage. He carefully records his early morning activity and posts it, along with a movement image, on the Strava sports app. He needs this as proof of his presence in their city for his Kiwis, whom he wants to surprise with this little joke.
But his New Zealand friends Judith and Stephen are probably still asleep. He would have loved to accompany the two Kiwis – as New Zealanders call themselves after their national bird – on their usual morning run in São Paulo's Ibirapuera Park. But his flight to Buenos Aires leaves at 6:55 a.m., he writes to them. Judith later replies with a smiley face, saying they would have loved to have him with them and wishing him lots of fun in Argentina. Fortunately, the friendships forged during the three years in South Korea continue, even though the former running companions from the Han River are now pursuing their professional careers on the other side of the world, but still collecting running medals there on the side.
Karl stretches out on the hard benches in the airport hall, does some straining exercises while lying down and thinks about the warm-up training at the Seoul Flyers Running Club, where he was still active 15 months ago. Then he rests for a while until flight LA8032 to Argentina's capital is called. He lets his gaze wander.
The only familiar face in the ultra-modern, chrome-glittering lounge hangs from the ceiling. On a huge poster, Will Smith holds up the yellow card of ‘Nomad’ and promises that this is the international account that will break down language barriers and clear the way for Karl's investments. ‘But Will, I have a MasterCard. That's just as international! I'm absolutely on the safe side with that,’ Karl mumbles in his half-sleep. He has no idea that this assessment will prove to be a fatal mistake.
Aeroparque Jorge Newbery is separated from the banks of the Río de la Plata by only a motorway. Karl has already selected the bus route to the nearby city of Buenos Aires while in the lounge at Guarulhos. He drags himself out of the airport building with his travel bag on his wrist and shoulder bag over his shoulder, and the first thing he enjoys is the unobstructed view of the sea. The ‘Silver River’ is so wide here that Uruguay on the other side of the estuary cannot be seen. The German immigrant strolls past the taxis to the bus stop on the right-hand side of the highway. Avenida Costanera, or Coastal Avenue, is aptly named here.
He tells the bus driver his destination in the city, asks how much it costs and hands him a note he has just withdrawn from the ATM at the airport. The conductor shakes his head: ‘No tiene una tarjeta Sube?’ Karl looks at him blankly for a moment. Then it dawns on him. He is no longer in digitally backward Germany! Bienvenido a Argentina! Even in Argentina – and not only in his modern ‘home countries’ of recent years, South Korea and the Gulf Emirates, but also in Turkey, for example – people nowadays use electronically charged prepaid cards for local transport. ‘No, I'm sorry. I've just arrived from Europe.’ The driver is in a hurry. ‘Buy a Sube card in the city.’ With that, he puts the car in gear, waves him through and drives off. "Muy amable. Very kind. I will,‘ Karl promises, relieved and delighted at the same time by the pragmatic generosity in his new host country. Instead of kindly granting the newcomer a welcome bonus, a grumpy public transport employee could have turned him away with the recommendation: ’Go back to the airport and buy a card first!" Exhausted from his long journey, Karl is happy that Juan Manuel, as he secretly christens the man behind the wheel after Argentina's Formula 1 idol J.M. Fangio, handles things with confidence. Highly focused, J.M. races along the coastal road. Around noon, Karl finally arrives at his hotel in the downtown district of San Nicolás. He treats himself to a little siesta before going on his first exploratory tour. But first, there are a few other things to take care of.
In the nearby pedestrian zone on Calle Florida, he buys adapters for his devices from Germany and the Emirates. In a side street off Florida, he discovers an empanada shop, a good opportunity to quickly satisfy his now ravenous hunger with something warm. At the window on the right, you place your order and give your name, pay, and then take two steps to the left, where you can see into the bakery where the filled pastries are made. Karl waits until ‘Carlos’ is called out and receives his three empanadas for a combined price of 2,100 pesos instead of the individual price of 750 pesos. Freshly baked, warm, crispy on the outside and filled with the fillings Karl/Carlos ordered: cheese, spinach and ham. ‘Simply delicious!’ says the German customer. He will stick with these three varieties when he queues up in front of this empanada bakery in Lavalle or the one in the parallel street Tucumán during lunchtime over the next few days, together with employees from the surrounding offices and passers-by from the Florida shopping mile. Never again on his entire trip to Argentina will he eat such delicious and inexpensive pastries. In tourist areas, they are more than twice as expensive and there are no combo deals. Apparently, holidaymakers have more money to spend than the ordinary office workers in the capital, who also have a choice of numerous competing snack bars at lunchtime.
After buying his technology and having lunch, Karl has one more thing to do. He promised Juan Manuel on the bus that he would do it. He found out at his hotel reception that you can buy the Sube card at any underground station. So he walks down the city hill to Avenida N. Alem, where not only J.M. and his colleagues rush by in their buses, but also the nearest metro station is located. However, here, as in neighbouring Uruguay, it is simply called Subte, an abbreviation of Subterraneo, meaning underground. The verb Subir can also mean to board. Sube al subte is therefore an invitation to board the underground. Karl doesn't even need to go underground. At the back of the former post office building, he comes across a kiosk where he buys his blue Sube card.
Karl's actual ‘tourism day’ begins at the front of the mighty palace. The classicist building was inaugurated as the main post office in 1928, but has not been used for this purpose since 2005. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Argentine Revolution of 1810, a cultural centre was to be built there. In 2015, the time had come. Under the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK) was inaugurated, named after her predecessor and late husband Néstor Kirchner. Argentina's current president, Javier Milei, apparently found this name a thorn in his side. Such a prominent building, named after a politician from the rival Peronist party, was simply unacceptable to him. By decree, he had the House of Art renamed. It is now called Palacio Libertad, Palace of Freedom, in keeping with his motto. Most of his speeches, including the one at his inauguration in December 2023, end with the exclamation: ‘Viva la libertad carajo! Long live freedom, damn it!’
The original purpose of the building is commemorated by the life-size but unspectacular grey figure of a postman. The real ‘mistress’ of the wide forecourt, however, is Juana Azurduy, a freedom fighter against the colonial power Spain, who was posthumously promoted to general of Argentina and, as a final accolade, to marshal of Bolivia. Her monument bears poignant witness to her courage. Unlike the French heroine Joan of Arc, she does not storm forward waving a flag, but with her sword firmly in her hand. ‘Juana Azurduy / Flor de Alto Perú, / No hay otro Capitán / Más valiente que tu’ (Juana Azurduy, / Flower of Upper Peru, / There is no other leader / Braver than you) is the first verse of Félix Luna's poem on the pedestal.
Casa Rosada on the east side of Plaza de Mayo
From the square in front of the Palacio Libertad, Karl can already see the side of the Casa Rosada to the south. The Pink House, the presidential palace, represents Argentina's destiny more than any other building in the capital. From its balcony, Evita Perón – a national saint for Argentina and an icon of world culture thanks to musicals and films – spoke to ‘her’ people. This people has demonstrated countless times against its rulers on the palace forecourt, the Plaza de Mayo. The sky-blue flag is flying from the tall flagpole as Karl enters the square, under a partly threatening grey sky, but to the right of the flag, a brightening white-blue sky, through which the sun is trying to break through. The new president, Javier Milei, probably sees himself as this sun. He used his battle cry ‘Viva la libertad carajo!’ at every campaign appearance and also in his inauguration speech. With the brute force of the anarcho-capitalism he has proclaimed, he wants to put his country's economy back on the path to success.
Pirámide de Mayo in the middle of the square
All this goes through Karl's mind as he walks across the famous Plaza de Mayo. On this cloudy day, the number of tourists is limited. A gaunt, middle-aged man approaches him uninvited, asks him where he is from and begins to explain what there is to see around the square: The many pebbles around the equestrian statue of General Belgrano, who was the first to use the white and blue flag in the struggle for independence – those stones represent the Desaperecidos, the disappeared of the military regime during the 1970s and 1980s. In the middle of the square stands the May Pyramid with the inscription 25 Mayo 1810. On this day, local politicians declared the Spanish viceroy Baltasar Cisneros deposed and established a junta autonomous from the crown.
South side of the square with Cabildo
The Cabildo, a kind of city council and preliminary parliament, met in the building of the same name on the other side of the square and authorised the Primera Junta (First Junta). The two-storey building, with five arcades on each level and a tower above the central arcades, is now a museum and an important testimony to the country's history of independence and democracy. In terms of urban planning and politics, it forms a kind of counterpoint to the Casa Rosada at the other end of the rectangular square. It is framed by magnificent buildings from Argentina's ‘Golden Age’ at the beginning of the 20th century, with a bell tower to the left of the Cabilde.
Karl's gaunt guide points out the Catholic cathedral in the north-west corner of the square, where the remains of General José de San Martin lie, who is regarded in the southern part of South America as the liberator of these countries in the armed struggle against colonial power. The classicist building with its twelve columns on the portal side resembles a Roman temple rather than a European cathedral with a long nave. Before Karl enters the church, he dismisses his ‘selfless’ guide with a donation to a children's charity for which the guide is collecting money. In return, the tourist receives a brochure for a city tour of the capital, which is always a good way to get an overview of a capital city, and which he is indeed planning to do the next day.
As Karl approaches the zebra crossing, which he wants to use to cross from the square to the cathedral on the other side of the street, a horde of adolescents in white coats trots along in front of him, a school class in uniform, like Karl on his way to General San Martín. Later that afternoon, after visiting the café, he encounters six real uniformed men marching in step at the same spot – with swords, braids, belts, laces and parade chains, the changing of the guard at the Casa Rosada. Karl does not linger long in the sacred hall with its shimmering golden ceiling and magnificent altar. He is drawn to the ‘Pertutti’ on the other south-western corner of the square. Despite its folksy name (‘for everyone’ in Italian), it is a posh coffee house. Karl is captivated by its charm and will visit it often. On this spring Tuesday, his first day in the city, he settles down on the terrace, close to the passers-by who hurry or stroll by, some of them disappearing underground via the stairs marked with the yellow circular sign bearing the inscription ‘Subte’.
Karl orders a Darjeeling and an alfajor, a real Argentine speciality, a chocolate-covered circular pastry consisting of layers of cake or biscuits, dulce de leche (milk cream) and fine jam. The German, who is on a culinary discovery tour and a particular lover of desserts and baked goods, celebrates the treat with a knife and fork. In between, he takes small sips of the Darjeeling, which is kept hot in a pretty black metal pot. ‘Tiene un sabor celestial. / It tastes heavenly,’ he attests to the interested waiter.
After this small but delicious afternoon meal, Karl feels a little Argentinean, he thinks, and a grin crosses his face. As a ‘Porteño’, a resident of the port city, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are called, he decides to go back down to the waterfront and walks past the presidential palace down to the old Puerto Madero, the former timber port. It has long since become a modern office, business and entertainment district. Karl crosses the old harbour basin, where only the museum ship Presidente Sarmiento and yachts are now moored, on the modern pedestrian bridge Puente de la Mujer (Bridge of the Woman). The huge Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur nature reserve lies in front of the old harbour and the new harbour city. Only beyond it does the Río de la Plata flow. Karl won't go that far this evening. He stops at the embankment of the Laguna de los Coipos, the swamp beaver lagoon. On the other side of the lagoon, he sees a green paradise of bushes and trees, in front of which, in the shallow water, is a long yellow-green phalanx: thousands of marsh irises. They also bloom on a small island in the lagoon.
In the morning, after landing at Aeroparque near the city, his first impression was the seemingly endless expanse of the silvery shimmering Río de la Plata (River Plate). In the evening, in the Reserva Costanera Sur nature park near the city, he stands in front of a magnificent piece of reclaimed nature. Later, as he settles down to rest in his hotel room, he looks once more at the splendour of the photographed irises and attests to his new hosts: ‘The Porteños are lucky to have so much renaturalised coastline on their doorstep!’
Buenos Aires in 24 Stops
Wednesday, 9 October 2024, Day 1-2,on which Karl made a pilgrimage to Messi and Maradona and experienced tango in its highest perfection at the Viejo Almacén.
Whether in Dublin or Abu Dhabi, Karl has always found it very effective to use a hop-on hop-off bus to get an overview of the sights in a completely unfamiliar city and then make a choice for the next few days on that basis. His gaunt Don Quixote had handed him an information sheet from Gray Line at the Plaza de Mayo, which offers 24 stops up and down the Río de la Plata and through the city. He spontaneously decided to purchase a ticket online that same evening. Now he is walking from his hotel on Tucumán Street past the Galerías Pacífico to station No. 11 on the south corner of Plaza San Martín. From there, the Gray Line heads north.Karl takes a seat on the upper deck of the open double-decker bus, puts on his headphones, switches from Japanese to German, relaxes and enjoys the mild spring air. The trees along the roadside are partly bare, partly already green. It is 9:20 a.m. A few minutes later, the City Cruiser departs from the edge of the boulevard. The scenery is indeed somewhat reminiscent of Paris. Many buildings here in the elegant north of the city were built during Argentina's Golden Age and are characterised by the historicist Beaux-Arts style that prevailed in Paris during the Belle Époque. But as soon as the bus rounds Plaza San Martín, the on-board announcer points out a modern counterpoint to the urban architecture: the Edificio Kavanagh. As Karl is only separated from it by a pavement, he cannot fully take in with his eyes what was once the tallest building in Latin America. He will have to return on foot. Before that, he will read more about the truly fabulous life of the building's owner, the fabulously wealthy widow Corina Kavanagh, whom the on-board announcer has made him curious about.
Floralis Genérica
The bus curves around the iconic bell tower at Retiro Station and begins its northbound journey on Avenida del Libertador, the Avenue of the Liberator. The wide street leading to the ‘better’ neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires is lined with parks, from which the Floralis Genérica stands out behind the monumental law faculty, the ‘mother of all flowers’, so to speak, a 23-metre-high sculpture made of stainless steel and aluminium parts by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano.
Christopher Columbus Column
Despite its simple name, the Club de Pescadores, or fishermen's association, is quite distinguished. Its clubhouse, built in the 1930s, stands on a former pier far out in the water. Karl gets off at the next stop along the waterfront road on the Río de la Plata. He wants to pay his respects to the discoverer of America. Standing on a high pedestal in the middle of Plaza Puerto Argentino, he looks out over the vastness of the Río, Cristóbal Colón. Around the pedestal, a huge compass rose with 16 cardinal points is drawn on the square in honour of the navigator, from north to south to north-northwest. The figure looks northeast towards his country of origin, Spain. Karl follows his gaze and hopes to see something of Uruguay on the other side of the seemingly endless expanse of the estuary. In vain!He stands in the spring sunshine under a bright blue and white sky, his hair tousled by the wind, looking out over the surface of the river, rippled by low waves, and towards the horizon, where Argentina's national colours in the sky meet the silvery glimmer of the water. No land in between. Karl enjoys this meditative moment. He thinks about how often Christopher Columbus may have scanned the horizon for signs of land on his way to the new continent.
On the Río de la Plata, the Silver River
Back on board the bus, Karl heads for a very modern destination at the northern turning point of the tour, the Monumental, South America's largest stadium. Originally built in the 1930s, but renovated since 2020, it makes a state-of-the-art impression as he circles it in the bus. It is not only the home ground of Argentina's record-breaking football champions River Plate, with capacity for 84,000 spectators. Concerts by world stars such as the Rolling Stones have attracted 100,000 fans there.
Other attractions in the affluent Belgrano district also have a sporting theme, including the golf course, polo field and hippodrome, all of which are upper-class meeting places. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Recoleta Cultural Centre, which Karl also passes on his way back to the city and which he will visit separately over the following days, also fit into this upper-class ambience. Before the bus reaches the starting point for the southern tour in the city centre, it passes the world-famous Teatro Colón opera house and, just 400 metres further on, the 67-metre-high white obelisk, which marks the centre of the city in the middle of the Plaza de la República.The obelisk glistens in the midday sun. At the starting point of the Gray Line's southern loop, however, to Karl's relief, deciduous trees line the roadside, providing shade for the upper deck, where he has to wait a while for the tour to continue. In the south, it is the turn of the much more traditional neighbourhoods of San Telmo and La Boca. The City Cruiser begins with the centres of power, the Plaza de Mayo with the presidential palace and, at the other end of Avenida de Mayo, the Congress Palace. The parliament building, largely made of white marble, with its imposing dome, was built at the beginning of the last century in the neoclassical style. The forecourt with its golden lanterns, trees, lawns and strollers looks downright idyllic on this sunny October day in the southern spring. How would the scene change when, in March 2025, pensioners demonstrate here against President Milei's austerity policy and their reduced pensions, and violent hooligans support the demands of the grandparent generation! The protesters throw stones. In response, rubber bullets fly across the Plaza del Congreso from the riot police. Karl has no idea of this as his double-decker bus peacefully crosses the plaza and glides on towards the historic district of San Telmo.There, after turning onto Avenida Independencia, two low buildings with the old-fashioned inscription ‘El Viejo Almacén’ catch his attention. The on-board radio explains that this is a hotbed of tango culture with decades of tradition. Karl immediately decides to return there in the evening and not to accept the invitation to a tango palace in the city centre. The bus makes four more stops in the San Telmo neighbourhood, which Karl wants to ‘conquer’ on foot at the district festival on Sunday, and reaches one of the highlights of the tour in the south-easternmost part: the picturesque working-class neighbourhood of La Boca (the mouth), so called because this is where the Riachuelo flows into the Río de La Plata. It is world-famous for its footballers, the Boca Juniors, and their most famous protagonist, the ‘football god’ Diego Maradano. So it's no wonder that after the art centre in a beautiful old brick factory building on the outskirts of Boca, the bus first stops in front of La Bombonera in the heart of the neighbourhood. This concrete bowl, painted in the club colours of blue and yellow, is the home of the Juniors. The stadium itself and the Club Atlético Boca Juniors museum inside are a place of pilgrimage for CABJ fans. The crowds are so large that Karl decides to come back in the afternoon.
Plaza del Congreso with the Parliament building
Thanks to his hop-on hop-off ticket, Karl has no problem returning to La Boca after his lunch break at his city hotel. This time, he gets off in front of La Bombonera, the chocolate box stadium, so named because of its rectangular shape. The stadium is virtually grafted into a block of streets. There was so little space left that only three sides could be fitted with reasonably normal stands. On the east side, only a few rows rise aslope. Above them, VIP boxes are arranged vertically on four floors. On the other three sides, the rows of seats go all the way to the top, but they are exceptionally steep. Behind the goals, the first rows are less than two metres from the edge of the pitch. This narrow design amplifies the effect of the fans' chants. Romário, the Brazilian football world champion of 1994, once said: ‘I have played in all the big stadiums in the world, but I have never been closer to hell than in La Bombonera.’ And Karl has a hard time taking a photo from the narrow streets of La Boca that captures the entire chocolate box. It's impossible. But he manages to capture its steepness!
The Bombonera Stadium of Boca Juniors
Karl walks along a narrow path from the football bowl to the heart of La Boca, where this neighbourhood once founded by poor Italian immigrants, is even more colourful than just blue and yellow. Incidentally, the latter colour combination came about because a ship flying the Swedish flag was entering the harbour when Club Atlético was founded. On the Plazoleta Bomberos Voluntarios de La Boca, the small square of the La Boca Volunteer Firefighters, the city stroller experiences a veritable explosion of colour. The Italian colours green and red are particularly prominent on the walls of the houses. Many of the colourful houses were clad with sheet metal from scrapped ships and painted with marine varnish. Corrugated iron house fronts can still be seen today.From one of the balconies on Firefighters' Square, a life-size doll of the new football god Lionel Messi greets passers-by. He is not a son of La Boca, but he has been the new national hero since well before Argentina won the 2022 World Cup. On the corner balcony a few metres away, his predecessor Maradona spreads his arms jubilantly, with angel wings on his back. He is already in the afterlife, but immortal for Argentinians.
National Heroes Maradona and Messi
Karl settles down at a street café on Caminito, the little path that leads from Firefighters' Square to La Boca Bay. He enjoys a hot chocolate with dos medialunas, two half-moons, the slightly softer Argentine version of crispy French croissants. While he nibbles on the sweet pastries from Café Alberto, a group of drummers entertains the many tourists in the square in front of the café.
