Parque Lezama cerca de San Telmo

One of the main reasons I am in Buenos Aires is because in the spring time a friend of mine did a tour of South America and he and his girl friend Susannah ended their trip in Buenos Aires and they stayed here ten days before returning to Estados Unidos.  Two or three days after returning home, I called him on the phone to check in with him and see how his trip went and debrief him on his journey.  He was kind enough to call me back almost immediately because he knew the trip was so fresh in his mind that I would get the full story while it was still fresh in his mind and he was still pretty much in the dream of being in South America.  We had a very long conversation, probably close to two hours but when he hung there were two things he said that really rang out in my mind.  One was that Salta, Argentina was a very nice town.  And two was that Buenos Aires was the coolest most livable big city he had ever been in, and he has done a lot of traveling in his day.  So, it was with that information that I started doing my research, and in the end settled on moving and living in Buenos Aires.  I want to publicly thank my friend for him getting me down here, and also say that in life, you never know who you are going to influence when you tell them something that rings in their ear.

Today I took my same friends advice and visited the area of San Telmo on a Sunday afternoon.  I continue to be amazed by this country, place and people and today was clearly no exception.  If and when you ever have the opportunity to visit this lovely city, be sure and ir a San Telmo a Domingo.  You won´t be sorry.

Besides the beauty of the oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires, it is here that you get a sense for the history of this city more than any place else I have visited so far on my journey in Argentina.  Currently, I live in Belgrano which is a more trendy, upscale, newer part of town.  When I say newer, I mean the last 100 years.  San Telmo, dates back to the 17th century and you can sense and feel an air of the past and what it was like to live here before this became the Paris of South America in the early part of the twentieth century when Buenos Aires was on par with New York City as far as economic growth and prosperity.

Wikipedia San Telmo
Pictures of San Telmo

It really wasn´t until about 1910, just after the Panama Canal was completed that Buenos Aires began to lose its status on the world stage.  I would argue that today, at the beginning of the twenty first century that Latin America as a whole is regaining its luster, and that especially Brazil and the European countries south of Brazil that are really making a nice come back in many different ways.  This is a positive note on what is happening both politically, culturally and economically in Latin America today.  Even recently, I read an article where Cuba is considering adding incentives for people to move there from around the world.

Enough rambling about history and economics, let us get back to the beauty of the city.

For the past couple of days it has rained here.  In fact, the winter weather has been very nice since I arrived except for the first couple of days that were cold and windy.  After that, the weather has been sunny, rather temperate for this part of the world and mostly sunny.  This was our first storm since I arrived and for a time there it was raining really hard and there was some flooding in the lower lying delta areas of the Rio Plata.  In another post I will talk about the river and its influence on the area as one of the largest port cities in South America.

Today was a simply lovely day.  Yesterday afternoon the weather broke and the sun came out and I walked over to China town which is about a 10 minute walk from where I live.  Its actually nice to have access to some pretty good Asian grocery stores and restaurants close by.  Its almost like being back in southern California on a very, very small scale.

Today I ventured out around mid day and took the subway downtown.  Its about a 20 minute ride into the heart of the city from where I live.  All transit points end downtown where the big ports are as well.  I live at the end of the D line, and one good thing about living at the end of the line is you can almost go to sleep on the ride home and not worry about missing your stop.  I was thinking about that today as I was dozing off on the subway while reading my book and watching all of the activity around me.  The same was true when I lived in LA.  I always rode the Gold Line home, I loved riding the Gold line and I lived at the next to the last stop on the Gold Line called Allen.  Here in Buenos Aires I live at the next to the last stop on the Green D line at a stop called Juramento.  This is all probably much more detailed information than any one cares about, but another one of my friends said she wanted details, so I am sparing the rest of you with too many details.

The Parque Lezama was lovely.  Its on the southern edge of San Telmo and houses the Museo Histórico Nacional.  The park is well known for its Sunday flea market, and its there that I bought some pretty nifty items that I needed.  As I mentioned in another post, if you are going to buy stuff in Latin America, it certainly makes more sense to buy stuff directly from the people instead of stores where you are going to pay more of a full price.  So, I have been making a habit of buying most of the stuff I need on the street if I can find it, and you get slightly better prices.  The markets in Buenos Aires are in the parks.  The Parque Lezama flea market is known for its clothes.

I spent hours hanging out in the park today.  Its not a really large park, but its big enough so that you feel like you have a bit of space and with the sun blasting down on my face on this late winter day in Argentina I was very happy.  I got to talk a bit to the local folks and mostly observe the people and the flea market vendors as well.  I was once a flea market vendor at my local flea market in Placitas, New Mexico so I know what its like to hang out all day and sell stuff.  This was a good flea market.  For those of you who attended the Santa Fe flea market back in the late 70´s and early 80´s it is probably more like that, at least that is what I heard.

As the sun started to set and the afternoon began to wane I realized I had not eaten any food for hours.  So I stopped by a local panaderia for a sandwich and a cookie.  As I sat outside, eating my cookie and sandwich, I began to contemplate mi vida and the corazón y el alma of what its all about to experience the richness of being on Mother Earth, and the opportunity we have to embrace our lives with the utmost appreciation y pasión.

Parque Lezama

three young girls

laughing next to me

sunny park bench 

happy puppy

happy people

selling their wares and tools

sunshine abounds

san telmo edge

He comprado un 

cordón del zapato y

libros de Sherlock Holmes

después de tres días de lluvia

un muy linda dia 

me gusta buenos aires