Argentina celebrated it's bicentennial this past Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Although whether that was the real date of it's 200th anniversary is up for debate. Argentina is one of the few countries to celebrate two independence days. May 25th is celebrated as Día de la Revolución de Mayo, which marks the date of the end of the May revolution that established the first local government in Buenos Aires. That's also when the Argentine War of Independence against Spain began. On July 9, 1816, Argentina officially declared it's independence, and every July 9th, the country celebrates it's Día de la Independencia. Argentina's history is very connected to the histories of other South American countries that were formally Spanish colonies, and Argentine history seems closely connected to Chilean history in particular. Chile also established it's first local government in 1810 and will be celebrating it's bicentennial in September.
Since May 25th fell on a Tuesday, Argentina declared Monday to be a national holiday as well in order to create a long four-day weekend. During those four days, there were hundreds of huge events being held all across Argentina, but the festivities in Buenos Aires were certainly the biggest! Millions of people from all over Latin America came to participate in or watch the various parades and shows that took place. On Friday, we made it to the Desfile federal (Federal Parade), which was full of all sorts of floats and performers representing Argentina's 23 provinces and Buenos Aires, an autonomous capital city. Every province had colorful displays of their own particular cultural identities. It was interesting to see the differences. Mendoza and San Juan had giant grapes parading through the street representing their famous wine country, while northern regions like Salta, Catamarca and Chaco had more indigenous floats and dancers depicting their culture, and regions of Patagonia like Chubut and Santa Cruz had mate-sipping Gauchos walking down the street. An interesting observation was related to the differences in displays of wealth of each province. The more "touristy" destinations had more elaborate floats and gaudy displays, which was starkly contrasted with the regions with more indigenous populations and less tourism, which had no floats and more people-centered displays related to dances and traditions. As foreigners and tourists, it was interesting and sad to see those contrasts and the apparent dependence on tourism as an industry.
After watching the parade for about 2.5 hours, we got tired of the crowds and headed out. All of the parades were routed down 9 de Julio, which is the widest street in the world, but since the street was also full of huge temporary food stands and stands with tourism information, the street didn't feel wide enough at all. It was really difficult and stressful to try to walk around.
Sunday was filled with another parade, but we felt way too tired to venture out to another one after having just done it the day before. We watched part of the Desfile de la integración (Integration parade), which included floats and performers from foreign populations in Buenos Aires and from other Latin American countries, on TV from our apartment.
On Monday, Argentina's national soccer team played against Canada, in it's last friendly game before the World Cup. We sometimes participate in a forum for expats in Buenos Aires and had the good luck of finding out that there was a group of Canadians giving away free tickets to anyone who would wear red and sit with them at the game. We thought we had scored 5 free tickets, but found out that it was likely that none of us would get in because we had responded so late and the Candians got fewer tickets than they had expected. So we sat at a restaurant full of Canadian soccer fans and drank wine with our friends Elana, Jill B., and Jess while we waited to see if some people would fail to show up. Fortunately we were able to get two tickets, but that left us with the difficult process of trying to determine who should go. Sara and Elana ended up being chosen because Sara was the one who had found out about the tickets and Elana really wanted to see the music acts that were supposedly going to perform at the game. They must have had pretty good seats because they were sitting about 20 feet away from a box that Maradona's father and brother were sitting in. Argentina beat Canada easily, but unfortunately neither Shakira nor Ricky Martin performed, it was apparently a wild rumor. Still, Elana and Sara enjoyed seeing a game surrounded by so many Argentinian fans. While they went to the game, Jill, Jill B. and Jess went downtown and met up with Bliss to explore some of the stands that had been set up along 9 de Julio. Again the lines and crowds were crazy so they really only made it in to two stands that were not necessarily worth the wait. So instead of continuing on to see more they got some emapandas and a liter of beer and people watch the crowds and listened to the concert playing at the obelisk.
Later up Jill, Jess, and Jill B. went to meet up with Sara and Elana to see the light show being projected on the newly renovated and reopened Teatro Colon. Once we found each other the show had started and we were too far away with the crowds, so we escaped to the subway and went back home to watch the show on TV! It was beautiful and much easier to appreciate from there.
Tuesday was the biggest day of celebration, but after dealing with the crowds the day before, we decided to celebrate at home. Argentinians traditionally eat a stew called locro every May 25th, so we made Argentine locro with Jess and ate it later that night with Jill B., Elana, and their friend Carolyn. Locro is hearty but not thick, and is made of beans, corn, carrots, red peppers, onion, squash, tomatoes, chorizo sausage, and panceta (the closest thing Argntina has to bacon). We made the traditional version as well as a vegetarian version and some empanadas. The girls brought an alfajor cake, which was like a giant-sized alfajor, for dessert. Alfajores are a very common cookie here, that are made up of two biscuits layered with dulce de leche (a carmel like substance made from condensed milk) in between. And of course we rounded the meal out with Argentine wine. While we feasted on Argentine food, we watched parts of the closing parade and a light show being projected on Cabildo (the first government building in Bs.As.) on TV. It was a nice way to wind down the long weekend.
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I was there too for the Bicentenario.
ReplyDeleteThe people was so happy and the shows and parades were amazing.
I was staying in a Buenos Aires apartment and the owners of the building give us an argentinian flag that we need to hang up in the window. When you look at the building from the street you could see in each flat a flag. It was really nice.