Wednesday, December 8th, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The disembarkation procedure on the Veendam was far more pleasant than most other cruise lines. After watching the crew hoist all the flags and having a nice, relaxed breakfast at the Lido deck buffet, we returned to our stateroom to finish packing our carry-on luggage and wait for our disembarkation number to be called. That allowed us enough time to stow everything in our backpacks and carefully double-check that we had indeed removed all our things from every nook and cranny of the cabin. And after that we had the leisure to go to the bathroom one last time and then sit quietly in our stateroom until our disembarkation number was called. I was so happy to start our day relaxed and refreshed rather than being stressed out. Other cruise lines typically do not allow us to return to our cabin on the day of departure but rather force us to take all our things and then wait in the public areas for disembarkation, a process that always leaves me feeling hassled, hurried, and harried.

For our last day in South America, we had booked a tour of Buenos Aires followed by a tango dancing show, and our tour bus was waiting for us right beside the gangplank. After we assembled our group, the bus drove us through the newer section of the city to the Recoleta area while our guide gave us the by now standard warnings about the pickpockets and petty thievery that seems to characterize at least the tourist sites in Buenos Aires. The advantage of having a $20 watch rather than a Rolex, however, is that I could take the risk of having it stolen with some equanimity and therefore could keep it on rather than having to stash it away somewhere.

The Recoleta area turned out to be the site of an old Spanish monastery and cemetery. The cemetery was a curious place indeed with rows and rows of mausoleums, some rather fancy, multi-level, some simple ones. Each one built on each small plot by a particular family. However, the maintenance of each mausoleum depended on whether the family had any real interest in it. Thus, some were perfectly maintained whereas others were left to go to wrack and ruin, a particularly macabre fate given the coffins with the remains of ancestors still prominently displayed on the shelves!

There were statues everywhere. Our guide told us some of the stories that went with the statues, others you had to guess at. But the main claim to fame of the cemetery was the tomb of Eva Peron. She had been interred in the family mausoleum after she died of cancer at the untimely age of 33. Although the mausoleum was not as impressive as some of the others in the cemetery, it was the only one where the doorway was decorated with fresh flowers so clearly some people still care about Juan Peron's second wife.

After touring around the parks of the modern section of the city and seeing both the proud forms of very modern skyscrapers as well as some of the more ornately decorated buildings from the late 1800s, we returned to the old port area called La Boca. We had very little traffic while criss-crossing the city, but our guide said that traffic congestion is usually severe in downtown Buenos Aires except for holidays as was the case during our visit. I thought the streets were generally clean and free of litter, and the city seemed more economically vibrant than Montevideo, but our guide also discussed the ubiquitous political corruption in Argentina that acts as one brake on the country's growth and development. Overall, I got the impression in Uruguay that the political scene was, and has historically been, more peaceful than seemed to be the case in Argentina. We in fact drove by a political protest rally during our drive, but it was a quite peaceful scene with speakers addressing a crowd from a small temporary stage on the street.

At La Boca our bus let us off to wander around on our own for about 45 minutes. We criss-crossed the area and found it to be an interesting, rather Bohemian type of place with old ramshackle houses with gaudily painted corrugated iron siding. Currently, the oldest section seems dominated by artistic types whereas if you just go one block away you find yourself in a more normal and less tourist-oriented working-class neighborhood.

Our next stop was the Plaza de Mayo where we had about 25 minutes to tour the cathedral and the adjacent square. A religious service was going on in the cathedral, so we were correspondingly quiet and circumspect. Unfortunately, that meant we didn't get any more than an oblique glance at the final resting place of Jose de San Martin, who liberated Argentina from Spanish rule. I was curious about him as he seems to have voluntarily relinquished power and retired to live in France in his old age, a pattern more like the atypical life course of George Washington than many other powerful presidents in Latin America or dictators around the world.

The highlight of our day in Buenos Aires turned out to be the demonstration of tango dancing, which was surprising as I had thought that would be some kind of chintzy, tourist-oriented dance demonstration. First we were seated at the Cafe Angles and fed a first-class meal with complementary beer, wine, or soft drinks.

The meal was followed by the tango dancing, and that was far more professional than we had expected. A corps of ten dancers and two singers was accompanied by a sextet comprised of a piano, concertina, bass, guitar, viola, and percussionist (I think!). The dancers were absolutely astonishing with the speed and precision of their footwork. The entire performance lasted about two hours, which was also far longer than we had expected.

The speed of the footwork in that performance was similar to the Irish step-dancing I saw in Riverdance, but in this case the moves were choreographed while the male and female were literally plastered together. Often those moves involved kicks between the legs of the partner, and if you have any imagination at all you can see how that could go horribly wrong for the male dancer! The movements of each couple were truly a matter of centimeters clearance from each other as they pirouetted and strutted across the dance floor.

One of the final numbers was really what I would call a ballet piece. The moves may have been inspired by the tradition of tango dancing, but honestly it was at least 90% ballet moves and choreography. That is not a criticism, by the way, but rather a high compliment. Monika and I both felt that the corps of dancers really had to have ballet training in order to move like that. Those young folks did, of course, make the intricate footwork of both the traditional and the modern tango dancing look easy as well as graceful and beautiful, but that is rather misleading. From our front row seats we could see that even the young performers were breathing heavily at the end of the performance!

When it comes to dancing I am a complete klutz, of course, but nevertheless I can assure you that most normal folks cannot, repeat cannot, leap out onto a dance floor and do intricate tango steps and routines without quite a bit of practice. Even our tour guide admitted that she just could not get the hang of tango dancing although she really like seeing people do it well. All in all, it was wonderful to end our day in Buenos Aires by seeing a really good performance of tango dancing just as we had ended our day in St. Petersburg, Russia, during Wanderung 18 by seeing a really good traditional ballet performance. To each his or her own, of course, but I would highly recommend seeing a truly professional tango dancing presentation if you ever visit Buenos Aires.

Unfortunately our tour ended after that and after a short drive out of town we were dropped off at the international airport about 4:30p.m. We shuffled through the baggage check line for Economy Class for about an hour, and then worked our way through security, immigration, and all the other rigamarole to Gate 6. Curiously, among the rigamarole was a forced transit through the duty free shop--at least I didn't see any way we could avoid it--and that was a first for us. Since our LAN flight didn't leave until 10:30, we had to sit on the rather hard seats in the waiting area for a good long time before boarding the 767. That is one of the few cases where sitting on the airplane seats might have been more comfortable than sitting in the airport lounge!

Although the night spent in an economy-class seat was about as excruciating as I expected, we both did manage to get 4 hours or so of intermittent sleep during the 8 hour flight. So we were at least coherent when we dealt with U.S. customs, Immigration, and Homeland Security the next morning. Apparently LAN didn't have a connection with American Airlines, so we had to take our luggage in hand and roll it around Miami airport in a cart until we found the check-in area for American. Fortunately, they did not impose an extra fee for having more than one bag apiece, which would have been frustrating. As we worked our way out to Gate 46, I was surprised to see a large scale model of the old Pan American Flying Boat, which I regret never having had the chance to fly in, and a complete, flyable plane hanging from the ceiling. The small, parasol-winged monoplane appeared to be a Pietenpol Air Camper to me, and it looked like it was in flyable condition. Even as groggy as I was, it made my fingers twitch to take the controls. We watched the news as we waited for the final leg of our flight and it was clear that Old Man Winter had come early: Florida was under a freeze warning and several feet of snow had fallen in upstate New York, so I steeled myself to facing winter conditions when we returned to Dulles airport and reclaimed our car.