The South American Tour

by Annie S. Peck

Unlike the cities previously visited, as might be expected from its size, a wide choice of accommodations is here offered. Hotels galore and lodging houses as well are to be found, though perhaps not a room at the desired hostelry unless engaged in advance: not always even then, if reports are true of certain establishments. There are all kinds of prices except very cheap, for this is quite another world from the West Coast, and except as to carriages, prices compare with those of New York.

The first choice of the ultra fashionable and wealthy is likely to be the Hotel Plaza, unless a new one promised to be still finer should already be completed. At the Plaza, barely two blocks from the station, a room may be had on either the American or the European plan. The lowest price for the latter is ten pesos ($4.40) a day—and from that far up, doubtless 30 or 40 pesos or more for suites with bath. Meals are in proportion. The location is good, on the handsome Plaza San Martin, and very near the river, the American Legation is close by—but it is quite a distance, 11 blocks, from the Avenida de Mayo, the principal avenue, and many will prefer a hotel in the heart of the city on this handsome and busy thoroughfare, or one within a few blocks of it. The other hotels are somewhat lower priced and by many regarded as more comfortable and agreeable. The Plaza, under the management of the world famed Ritz Carlton people, is naturally the grand affair that one would expect, the pompous, uniformed British attendants easily leading one within to fancy himself in London.

The Palace Hotel, before the erection of the Plaza, regarded as the first in the city, is a large edifice, property of Nicolas Mihanovich, the noted steamboat man. This fine structure, two blocks from the Plaza de Mayo, fronts on three streets, the 25th of May, Cangallo, and the Paseo de Julio, many rooms thus looking upon the Paseo, a fine boulevard and parkway, and out over the docks to the river. On this side there are five stories, with an observation tower at the corner 150 feet high for the use of the Mihanovich Company, and containing a powerful electric light. The offices of the company are on the ground floor of the building. The hotel has an imposing entrance with a monumental stairway (also elevators) leading to the main floor. Here is a hall of the Louis XIV style, and a luxurious dining-room of the Empire fashion with white and gold ceiling. All floors are heated and there is a telephone in every room or suite, conveniences and elegance of all kinds. Above there is a roof garden (a favorite resort on summer evenings) adorned with exotic plants, and a summer dining-room which affords charming views.

Other hotels, older and equally popular, are the Grand and the Royal, comfortable, even luxurious, much patronized by English-speaking folk. The Grand, built in 1900, on Florida and Rivadavia, is in the very heart of the city and by some called noisy; the Royal at the corner of Corrientes and Esmeralda is a few blocks distant. At these the price for room and board with bath privilege is from 9 to 12 or 14 pesos a day; for room with morning coffee only, 5 to 8 pesos a day.

AVENIDA DE MAYO

On the Avenida, which means always the Avenida de Mayo, are the Hotels Splendid, Metropole, Paris, Majestic, Caviezel’s New Hotel, all of the first rank with pension prices from 10 or 12 pesos up. Also on the Avenue near the Plaza de Mayo is the Hotel Nuevo, said when built to have been the acme of elegance. The Phoenix, San Martin 780, more quiet and less pretentious than some of the others, is much patronized by English. One preferring lower prices will find good board and rooms at the Pension Caviezel for from 7 to 9 or more pesos daily (elevator), an excellent location on the Avenida, Rivadavia and Esmeralda (painfully neat, some one said, which is hardly a fault), a Swiss proprietor; another pension of the same name is at the next corner, with prices a little higher. At the Hotel Albion on the Avenue rooms without board may be obtained, cheaper but less attractive, and furnished rooms elsewhere at 2-4 pesos a day, according to style and location.

Comfortably settled in a good hotel, what is first to be done? I should say, after morning coffee take a stroll around the center of the city, down the Avenue, turning to the left on Florida with a glance at the shop windows, down Cangallo to Reconquista and the Plaza at the right. If time is short begin at once sight-seeing there, the center of the old and new city, a historic site for nearly four centuries. Called by Garay, Plaza Grande or Mayor, containing 8 acres or more, it is now Plaza de Mayo. The center, regarded as the Altar of the Country, has been occupied by a modest monument, an obelisk called the Pyramid of May, commemorating the Revolution of 1810. For this, excavation was made in April, 1811. This will now be replaced by a great and worthy monument on the same spot to the same event, voted by the centenary commission to the competing artists, Gaetano Moretti and Luis Brizzolara. The splendid marble monument, having a base 150 feet square, will be a trifle taller, the base supporting a colossal obelisk 115 feet high, upon which will stand a group of statuary, the apotheosis of the Argentine flag: a figure representing the New Nation waving the sacred banner, preceded by Progress crushing down Ignorance and Prejudice, and acclaimed by Revolution, Justice, and the People. Other statues and reliefs will be used in decoration. An interesting innovation will be a large chamber within the monument to be used as a museum and to contain as a first relic the actual Pyramid of May, the first memento of the glorious dawn of liberty. This monument is to be finished and in position in 1916.

Of other monuments already decorating the Plaza, one erected in 1906 faces the Avenue, a fine group of marble portraying a figure, the City of Buenos Aires, being crowned by Progress; a child, the Future, observing the act. Towards the other end of the Plaza, the east, is an equestrian statue of General Manuel Belgrano, one of the first Council of Government, appointed by the Corporation of the City, May 25, 1810; he was afterwards a commander of Argentine troops, gaining victories at Tucumán and Salta, in 1812 and ‘13, later suffering defeat in Bolivia, after which he resigned the command to San Martin. The rest of the Plaza is occupied by gardens, walks, and fountains. Occasionally there is music.

At the southwest corner of the Plaza is the ancient Cabildo where met, May 22, 1810, on the upper floor, a popular assembly which declared the authority of the Viceroy incompatible with public tranquillity. May 25 the Cabildo appointed a Junta or Council of Government with Don Cornelio Saavedra as President. The Viceroy having already withdrawn to avoid bloodshed, the Council took the oath the same afternoon; Saavedra addressed the people from a balcony with an appeal for order and harmony. Thus the revolution triumphed without bloodshed, and from here spread to other sections, where long struggle was necessary; to Argentina, the success in all the countries south of Ecuador was largely due.