Protests

street blockers
Originally uploaded by MConnor.

And lastly for today, a photo that fits in with other photos from the blog, street protests! Walking around the obelisk area we encountered large street demonstrations. Later on we found out from an American expat that these are quite common. These groups of protestors are paid by former president Menem to just go around the city, block traffic, and create problems for the government that replaced him. The protest I saw was apparently the first one they had after their summer holidays. Yes, the protestors get summer holidays.

They were quite well organized though. There were lots of them dressed like the people above that would run ahead of the main group and block traffic while everyone would march behind them (see the large group in the background). These all were unannounced and would occur in random places, consequently having the effect of really messing up traffic downtown. Later on we would get stuck in traffic from one of these occuring in the evening and it really sucked, as they block the main arteries and not just sidestreets.