March for Jorge Julio Lopez

La Plata, Argentina: August 18, 2007

I was fortunate to attend a protest march this weekend in La Plata, which is the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, with Cachito Fuchman, one of the survivors of the military dictatorship. Cachito invited me to go with him to attend this march protesting the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez, a key witness in the 2005 trial of Miguel Etchecolatz. It was truly an amazing experience to be a part of. I met other members of Cachito's organization: Asociacion Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos. Check out their website here. These are remarkable people who survived kidnapping, torture and slave labor during the dictatorship. They are still fighting for justice to this day. September 18, 2007 marks the one-year anniversary of Lopez's disappearance. There will be a big march in Buenos Aires which I will be sure to take lots of pictures of!

Here's Cachito at the beginning of the day. A bunch of representatives from Buenos Aires city met up downtown. Then, we caravaned to La Plata together-- there were about thirty cars in total.


Police escort as we drove through downtown. You can see the Obelisk in the background.


Cachito organizes a lot of the events for the Buenos Aires contingent, so our car actually led the procession.


After we got to La Plata, we processed to one of the big squares downtown on foot and in cars. It was really cold so we drove this part!




Then we parked the cars and assembled in the Plaza Italia.


Members of the Asociacion. Osvaldo (center) is a close friend of Cachito's. They were both held in the ESMA military detention center outside of Buenos Aires.


View as we marched to the main government square in La Plata.


More members of the Asociacion.


Arriving in the government plaza.

Here's a short video of the presentation the leaders gave once we arrived at the main government building:



After the rally was over, we walked back to our cars and headed home. Needless to say, this was an amazing event to be a part of and I am so grateful to everyone I met for being so welcoming. I'm really looking forward to the march in September.

Sharleen's Here!

Sharleen and her sister Michelle arrived last week and it's been sooo great to have them here :)


First day.

Literally right after the girls walked off the plane we took off into the city. Later that day, we met up with Shar and Michelle's cousins, Nahuel and Santiago. They had actually never met before, so it was really fun to be with them for their first family coffee :) Then, we went walking around the "Bosques de Palermo," which are a series of parks in Buenos Aires. Here's the cousins at the Planetarium.





And Nahuel with all of the girls :)


Us in Caminito before our two-hour bus tour of some of the cultural highlights of Buenos Aires.


Michelle on the bus.


As you can see, Shar Shar's veeery excited about the bus tour :)


La Casa Rosada.


Heading down Avenida de Mayo on the way to Cafe Tortoni.


An awesome mural we found protesting the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez.

We also went to this great Brazilian restaurant which had a live band and dancing. We were accompanied by Shar and Michelle's cousins, Santiago and Nahuel.


Michelle and Santiago.


Shar and Nahuel.


The girls :)


The whole gang :)

The band was so amazing-- here's a video of them doing one of their songs:


We also went to see the World Tango Championships at the Rural (a big exhibition center here in Buenos Aires.) It was so cool!

Mark in South America!

I was so happy that my brother, Mark, came to visit me in Argentina. We had such a great time exploring the city of Buenos Aires, we traveled to Colonia and Montevideo, Uruguay, and even spent a day in the Argentine countryside riding horses and having a traditional Argentine barbeque. This is going to be a bit of a long post because I'm putting up highlights from the entire two weeks he was here. To see our entire photo album, please click here:


So our first stop when Munchie got here was to walk around Recoleta, see the cemetery and spend some time at the artisan fair.


We also stumbled across a group doing traditional dancing in the plaza, which was quite cool.


Then, like the good sister that I am, I forced Mark to have some mate, which is the national tea of Argentina. Needless to say, he didn't love it :)


Then we went on a walking tour of San Telmo


And visited the Casa Rosada


And the Obelisk on the widest avenue in Buenos Aires, 9 de julio.


Next, we went talking through the Buenos Aires Nature Reserve and wandered into Puerto Madero. Mark took an awesome shot of the "Bridge of the Woman." I have absolutely no idea why this bridge is named that.


The next day, we jumped on the Buquebus ferry to Colonia, Uruguay. Our seats didn't have any windows :)


Us at the entrance to the old part of the city.


It was veeeery cold along the Rio Plata.


Us out on the pier.


There's a tree growing out of that car!

Next, we traveled to Montevideo, which somehow seemed even colder than Colonia.

Statue in the Plaza Independencia.


Soooo cold.


Mark took this awesome shot near the Plaza Independencia.


Us out on Las Ramblas.

When we got back from Montevideo, we continued to make our way around Buenos Aires. We headed to the Buenos Aires Botanical Gardens first. For one reason or another, this garden is FULL of cats.

This is what Oscar would look like if we put him on a diet :)


Next we went to the Buenos Aires hippodrome to see the horse races.
***I'll put up a video of that soon****

Then, we were off to the Argentine countryside for a day of typical gaucho activities.

Here's us in the empty bus, haha :)


Horseback riding.


Beautiful Argentine countryside.


This is where we had the Argentine asado.


Mark being forced to dance-- haha!


Oh but then it was my turn.....

Here is the video of my dancing with a hilarious guy from Spain. I couldn't rotate the video, so you'll have to turn your head :)


This is a short video of the Argentine dancers' performance:


After lunch, we headed outside to see some traditional gaucho contests.


This is an awesome video here of this game where gauchos (Argentine cowboys) suspend a small ring from a string on a post. The gaucho then charges full speed ahead on his horse and has to effectively skewer the ring on a stick as he rides under the post. Traditionally, single women would give gauchos their rings to suspend on the post. If the gaucho go grab the woman's ring, then they were allowed to get married.



So there you have it! Munchie and I had a fantastic time while he was down here. I wish he'd come back so we could go see more stuff!