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As you know, in our bike tours, we visit Caminito in La Boca, one of the highlights of Buenos Aires city, there you have the opportunity to appreciate for free the installation that dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei presents in the path of the Fundación Proa museum.

 

There are thousands of assembled bicycles, which form a semicircular shape, all the same, of the same color, without the seats, pedals or handlebars. It is a tribute to the memories of the author’s childhood, when having a quality bicycle was a luxury for any Chinese home. And inside the museum, you can see a large collection of works by this amazing artist, made with materials as diverse as Lego pieces, sunflower seeds, bamboo fibers, polished woods or inflated latex. It is fantastic and amazing this show, of great international level.

A typical Argentine custom, to drink mate, is something that wakes enormous curiosity among foreigns who arrive to the country.

It is an infusion of yerba mate (Ilex Paraguariensis). Originally it was served inside a small dry hollow pumpkin  and it is drunk through a metallic straw called “bombilla”. The mate cup is also called mate and currently you could find it made of different materials, colours and sizes.

For a lot of people it could be a unhygienic habit but, for those who drink mate frequently, it’s a social ritual that invites you to share a meeting with friends or relatives.

To drink mate doens’t have any side effects and whoever drinks it comments of the refreshing and relaxing effect it produces.

There are also mate consumers in Uruguay, Paraguay, southern Brazil and distant countries such as Syria.

Of course, in our bike tours in Buenos Aires we do a stop to enjoy some mates and share more about this habit that has been maintained since the founding of Buenos Aires city.

Since always, and especially since October 17th, 1945, the Plaza de Mayo has been the scene of the most important political and historical events in our country, and it’s our first stop in our BA South bike tour.

There is the Casa Rosada and there is also the “Piramide de Mayo” around which, since 1977, the “Ronda de las Madres” takes place every Thursday.

But there is a building  witness to one of the most terrible events in our history, the bombing the naval aviation carried out on June 16th, 1955, that left a very high number of dead civilians. It’s the Ministry of Economy, on Hipolito Yrigoyen Street, its facade exhibits, even today, the “scars” of the shrapnel.

The “crack” that is said to separate the Argentines has a mute and imperturbable testimony on that front …