Inside the Pilar's blue eyes...(the jacaranda legend)

What there was in the Pilar glance so that Mbareté drowns in, so much so that losing his life ?She had arrived a few weeks earlier in this village which still was named "las siete corrientes". Her father, of Spanish gentry, had brought her with him. They had settled both not far from the Jesuit mission where worked many guaranis. It made a little fresher late in the afternoon. She wanted to go out and asked to her lady's companion to come with her. Indolente, she walked on the alleys of the "reducción". Her sunshade whirled above her head, protecting her skin that her black hair made even whiter. Mbareté should have never to pick himself up to sponge the sweat which ran down his forehead. At 16 years just completed, Pilar could not either mask the feeling which had seized her, when her profound blue glance had crossed that of the young Indian. They ever since made use of everything to met them again, another time, then others. Mbareté learned some words from Spanish : sufficiently so that he can stammer in Pilar's ear those she dreamed to hear. But one night, deciding to love themselves more, they were surprised by the father of Pilar. Determinated to wash in blood the honor of his daughter, he thrusted a musket to Mbareté. When the shot went out, Pilar threw herself to protect her beloved. She died without a cry. Swept by a second shot at the time he was rushing upon the Pilar's father, Mbareté collapsed on the girl.


Much later, those who came back to the scene of the drama, discovered at the place the lovers body had fallen interlaced , a tree with blue flowers, from the profound blue of the pilar's glance. Thus was born the jacaranda legend...

The most famous buildings of Buenos Aires : the Kavanagh.

Corina Kavanagh is not from those who joke. It is the end of the Twenties: since several generations already, her family opposes the Anchorena's one.The origin of this hate : common stray desire upon the same building lands, the same houses or the same apartments in the district of Retiro. Immensely rich, involved in a frantic race the only objective of which is the acquisition of the maximum of land goods, each of the two families wants to leave the largest print. One and the other are not on speaking except by lawyers. Then when one of the Kavanagh girls has the bad taste to become infatuated with one of its kids, the Anchorena family can only be opposed to this unthinkable union.Beside herself with rage in front of this affront, Corina decides to have a monumental building built in front of the Anchorena's house to deprive them of the sight of the Church of Blessed Sacrament they had build with aim of leaving their bones there. It will be necessary for them to bypass the obstacle or to pass by the appropriate named passage “Corina Kavanagh” to devote themselves to their pious activities.

Edificio Kavanagh : designed by the architects, Sanchez, Lagos and De La Torre, built in 14 month, it was inaugurated on January 15, 1936. Higher skyscraper of South America (120m-30 stages), its style art deco brought to it the Price of Honor of American Institute of Architects . Adress : Florida 1065.

River Plate, the other “temple” of Argentinian football.

Sunday October 8, took place in the "estadio monumental", the “Superclásico” won by the club “River Plate”, 3 to 1 (*), at the expense of its lifelong rival, the club of “Boca Juniors”.
Once again, as at the time of World cup, the whole city had stopped, families quarreled, lifelong friends insulted the one who did not carry the same shirt : blue and yellow for “Boca”, white and red for “River”. Impassioned comments of the sports correspondents went from TV set to TV set, preventing the indifferent one or the ignoramus, to benefit from the silence which prevails traditionally at the end of the Sunday evening, in “the city which never sleeps”.
Four times, a dull clamour come off all the “barrios”at the same time, succeeding the hysterical and without end “goaaaaalll” from the voice in the cathode ray tube. Only the few spite swearwords from the losers clan answered to it.
The “cancha” of “River” was inaugurated on May 25, 1938. Conceived to receive 70000 people, it could accept some 135000 the day of the finale of the World cup, in 1978, between the Argentinian national selection and Holland. The Atlético Club de River Plate resides in it. It was founded in 1901 and has a trophy list (**) which can make many European clubs envious. .

(*) 2 of the River's goals were marked by the 18 years old Franco-argentinian Gonzalo Higuaín.
(**) The Argentina and the world most titled club is however that of “Boca Juniors”.

The emblematic parakeet monk

This small bird could be the emblem of Buenos Aires, so much it succeed to cover, by its ceaseless chatters, the noise of cars horns, which certainly, are not less...ceaseless.
Researching buds of the fruit trees in Spring, it attacks on nuts at the beginning of the winter in horde made up, leaving on the ground only a carpet of jagged shells.
Never ceasing cheeping, brawler on the occasion, seducer when comes the season, it belongs to the sound landscape of Buenos Aires as well as the cicadas of Provence.
Parakeet monk or parakeet mouse (Myiopsitta monachus).
Family of psittacids.
Height : 29 cm.
Life : 30 years .

Mundial, completamente locos

Defying reason, a whole country, a whole people stops living when comes the hour. The hour of the match which opposes the selection to any other stooge.
All becomes folly then: streets which are emptied, shops and restaurants which are closed, employees who do not come to work, companies which stop, meetings of the Parliament which are adjourned, courses in colleges which are not given any more…
From the “Che” softened in his armchair, siping its “Quilmes" feverishly, to the “mujer” resigned behind its ironing board, or the “gato” which does not want any more to be the last one to haunt the streets, no, no one, for nothing in the world, would miss the inevitable event.

For fear - who knows - that only one momentum of the nation, that only one breath miss suddenly when the “albicelestes” play.
If by misfortune the selection comes to win (what rather often arrives to it) the intensity of outburst which occurs has of equivalent only that of the worrying silence which preceded it.
Completamente locos = totally crazy
Che = the guy
Quilmes = mark beer distributed by Nestle (comes from the name of the Kilmes Indians)
Mujer = woman
Gato = cat

Costanera Sur, the winter color lagoon

There are names that we, Europeans or North Americans, associate to exoticism, heat and sun. It is often the case of Buenos Aires and Argentina. That is to forget that this country of 2750000 km2 which stretches from the 21° of southern latitude to the accesses of the Antarctic, has almost all climates: wet heats of Mesopotamia (see article on the Province of Misiones) to the extreme colds of the Santa Cruz Provincia.
Buenos Aires is at the level of Casablanca or Kabul in the southern hemisphere. But its climate presents many similarities with that of the Mediterranean areas : a sky of color identical to that of Provence cleaned by a dry and strong wind in summer (the Pampero), heavy rains at the autumnfall and temperatures ranging between 0°C and 10°C in winter.
The very dense vegetation for a town of this size dyes with russet-red at the first colds. The leaves of the trees which border the avenues fall very quickly. But the many species of trees with persistent leaves do not give this impression of desolation which one can feel in our cities or our campaigns in winter.

The effect of the cold on the vegetation which invaded the lagoon, behind Puerto Madero, offers a surrealist vision of this city almost always bathed sun.
Beyond obsolete Balneario Sur, stand indeed the ornithological reserve established on the bed of rubble provided by the building site of the large motorways of the city between 1978 and 1986. Several species of birds are there installed in the middle of blazing trees, of creole willows or alders of river. At this beginning of winter, the graminaceous ones, the vegetable species most widespread stand out against the russet-red grasses and skycrapers, while on the Rio, “buquebus" leave for Uruguay.

Ornithological reserve: Avenida Tristan Achaval Rodriguez 1550

Cemetery of Recoleta, 7O tombs, hundreds of cats (Bs As)

As with the "Père Lachaise" in Paris, with the cemetery of the recoleta, one can find all that the country can count of great men (and great women): venerated, adulated, adored, forgotten, deposed... Inaugurated in 1822, it gathers 70 tombs: that of the wife of the General San Martin, the unavoidable tomb of the Alvear General and of course the vault of Duarte family where try to rest in peace a certain "Evita".
It is not however pilgrims more assiduous than the hundreds of cats which elected residence there: the come night, the last group of tourist being evaporated, this small stone and marble square becomes again their play-ground.

One morning, in the shade of the ombues (La Recoleta - Bs As)

It is told that a young Indian, to which her father, gone whith her brothers, had entrusted the responsibility to supervise the plantations, being in despair not to see the rain falling, had started to cry to sprinkle the plants. Moved, the gods made grow an immense tree with the tentacular roots to protect harvests from the sun. Thus had been born, the legend of Ombu, the young Indian...
The secular ombues, offer today a moment of quietude to the "porteño" allowing him one moment to forget the noises of the city and the sun relentless rays.

"Palermo chico" seen of the roofs (Bs As)

The foreigner who lives in Buenos Aires or who comes to visit it, as a tourist, sees only a little part of the city : only districts which border the Rio. Admittedly, they are the prettiest ones, But perhaps also the least authentic.

The equivalent of Ve and VIe districts of Paris is in San Telmo by its false airs of Montmartre or Belleville by its chips, its galleries of secondhand trades or its spectacles of streets. Palermo, very "bobo", points out the Marais with its literary coffees and its somewhat similar "fauna".
The district of Recoleta, it is joined together VIIe and VIIIe. The street Alvear shows all the characteristics of the street of the Faubourg Saint Honore. In the street Arroyo, the galleries of antique dealers in the medium of the buildings of style haussmanniens make think of the Swiss village. Very close to Rio, Belgrano and Palermo chico, has nothing to envy XVIe: even tallies of life. The presence of the soccer stadium of River Plate and the many parks which are stretched along the avenues Alcorta and Libertador point out us the Parc des Princes, the Bois de Boulogne. Without forgetting innumerable "canchas" of tennis which finish supplementing a painting to which only Roland Garros would miss.
Puerto Madero finally has something of the Front de Seine or Defense : tall buildings reflecting itself in the water of the wet docks of the port ..
Remain at the end of the streets, as far as the eye can see, with tens, hundreds of "cuadras" of this privileged Buenos Aires, a growing city, a succession of identical districts, a maze of towers, buildings in which come to take refuge, after one working day and several hours of "Subte"(tube) or" Colectivos "(buses), this million" portenos "which by certain sides resembles much Parisians or suburbans. It thus seemed to us interesting to gain altitude to try to imagine this city, this mégalopole of 11 million hearts which is stretched on nearly 200 kms.