Police officers in orange traffic vests jogged alongside the black Mercedes hearse as the funeral procession wended its way through the wind and rain in crowded downtown Buenos Aires.
Tens of thousands of people emerged from apartment buildings, businesses and government offices to applaud the man considered the most influential Argentine politician of the last decade, credited with helping the South American nation recover from a crippling economic crisis in the early 2000s.
Onlookers holding umbrellas and sky-blue and white flags sang, chanted Peronist party slogans and tossed flowers onto the vehicle. Thousands marched along behind.
Arriving at Jorge Newberry airport, an honor guard loaded the coffin into an Argentine air force plane that then took off bound for Kirchner’s native city of Rio Gallegos, in the southern province of Santa Cruz in the Patagonia region, where an intimate funeral is planned.
His widow, current President Cristina Fernandez; his two children, Maximo and Florencia; and several officials accompanied the coffin on the plane.
Kirchner died Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 60.
Earlier Friday, Fernandez presided over the wake for a second straight day in the Casa de Gobierno, receiving dignitaries including former Spanish President Felipe Gonzalez.
People lined up in the rain outside waiting to pay their respects.
“Hang on, Cristina” and “We love you,” some visitors cried out.
Kirchner was president from 2003 until 2007, when his wife took office after he stepped aside to make room for election. At the time of his death, he was secretary-general of the United South American Nations, or UNASUR.
Previously he was mayor of Rio Gallegos, some 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) near the Chilean border in Tierra del Fuego.
