This weekend I spent a day in our neighbouring barrio of Recoleta. It is one of the wealthiest parts of the city. In the late 1800s there was an outbreak of yellow fever in Buenos Aires. Many of the richer residents moved out here to escape the problems in the low lying areas, thus forming the neighbourhood.

Today it is home to some exclusive shops, plus the Hyatt and Four Seasons hotels both loom nearby.

It has a good little artisan market on weekends and holidays. You can see stallholders banging hammers or stitching stuff, suggesting to me that they do actually make the things themselves, rather than paying someone in a factory in China.

Recoleta market on Saturday

It is also home to Recoleta cemetery.

Recoleta cemetery

Free to go in and wander around it contains the grave of Eva Peron. It’s easy to find her grave; you just look for the gaggle of people with selfie sticks and you’ve almost certainly found it.

Eva Peron’s grave. It took a long time for her body to be laid to rest here. After the military junta took over it disappeared and finally turned up again in Italy.  From there it went to Spain, where her husband was living in exile with his third wife.  They kept it in their lounge. Only after Juan Peron was returned to power did the body of his first wife arrive back in Argentina and went here to her family crypt.  

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This past week has disappeared in a blur of apartment hunting and other practicalities.

I finally found somewhere to live until the end of January. I still don’t feel ready to dive into a longterm commitment with the city. I’m at that stage in a relationship where you really like someone but you’re still not sure if you can live with some of their irritating little habits and anyway who knows? There may be someone better just around the corner….

View from the balcony at my ‘old’ apartment.

I shall be moving out of trendy Palermo the day after Christmas and into the very centre of the city (unimaginatively called El centro), just a block away from the obelisk.

The obelisk, attempting to hide behind some art work

I’m not sure how I will get on there. Whenever I have to go into the city centre I can never wait to get out again, because it is so crowded. However I wanted to be within walking distance of my Spanish school, so I thought I would give it a try for a month or so.