Argentina
Our
5 hour bus ride from southern Chile into southern Argentina is
uneventful. So is the view out the window. Patagonia gets flatter as
we travel east into Argentina, we see mostly empty plains, and a few
rheas, sheep and cows as the mountains and bluffs of Chile fade into
the dry plains of Argentina.
We
spend one night in Rio Gallegos, southern Argentina, so we can catch
a morning flight to Buenos Aires. Rio Gallegos is just as described
by Lonely Planet – not a tourist destination. It's a port city on
an estuary, so we walk along the riverfront. On the other side of
the river there's no development whatsoever. There is nothing to see
except the tide rising.
Rust bucket on the river in Rio Gallegos, Patagonian Argentina |
We
watch the evening news about Alberto Nusman, the Argentinian prosecutor who
was about to file a court case against the government alleging a
cover up of Iran's involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish
Cultural Center in Buenos Aires that killed 84 people. Nusman's
draft arrest warrant for President Cristina Kirchner was found in the
trash bin outside his apartment, after he died in what appears to be
a murder thinly disguised as suicide. He died of a pistol shot to the
head, but had no gunpowder on his hands and left no note. Nusman's
draft warrant alleged a cover up of Iran's role in the bombing in
order to preserve a favorable deal to import Iranian oil. La
Presidenta, Cristina Kirchner, says she knows nothing about this and
pins the blame on the the Argentine security service, which she now
says she will have to dissolve for this impropriety. Both the head of
the security service and the journalist who first reported the
suspicious nature of Nusman's “suicide” have fled Argentina.
Doug
engages the young man at our hotel desk on the topic of money
changing. Argentina's rate of inflation is galloping. The official
exchange rate is 8 Argentine pesos for 1 US dollar, but Doug has read
up on the “blue market”, the underground exchange rate. It is one
of Argentina's least well kept secrets. The desk clerk tells us to
wait til his “jefe” (boss) arrives, and she offers us 13 pesos
per dollar.
Later,
in Buenos Aires, walking along the pedestrian mall, we see at least 3
people per block calling out “Cambio, cambio”, meaning “ I
change”, i.e. I'll change your money on the blue market. Doug says
this is how they hedge against inflation, holding their savings in US
dollars rather than rapidly devaluing Agentinian pesos. After debating the safety of
this move, we talk to one of the cambio guys, who quickly agrees to
give us the 13 peso rate. I think we will do this on the street, but
no, he takes us into a building and up the elevator to the back room
of a place that sells tickets for a tango show. I'm feeling nervous,
but Doug says this looks better than standing on the street, and all
goes well. We get more pesos.
We
have airline tickets from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires at 9:20 a.m.
tomorrow, but have no lodging in BA yet. This is cutting it close –
where are we going when we get off the plane? I've been undecided
whether we should stay in BA, cross the river and visit Montevideo
(Uruguay's capital), or head directly north to see Iguazu Falls
national park. So securing lodging for tomorrow is our priority for
tonight. Here's the problem with us “playing it by ear”..... We
had difficulty checking into our hotel in Rio Gallegos because their
internet system was down. Now the desk clerk explains in Spanglish
that there is a major problem with a big cable, and the whole city
and surrounding area has no internet. How will we book a room for
tomorrow? Finally, by 11:00 p.m., the internet is back up and we opt
for 5 nights in a very reasonably priced small apartment with a
balcony in BA. Airbnb offers us an “instant book” option, which
searches only for places that accept your request automatically, a
real blessing at this point. The apartment turns out to be very nice.
The
view from our plane the next morning reinforces our decision to fly
rather than take the bus from the far south to BA. Everything I can
see from above is big and flat and brown. Even along the coast, the
brown Patagonian plains drop into the Atlantic without a river or a town in
view. Partially paved Argentine Highway 40 runs through here,
popular with long-range truckers, intrepid motorcyclists with extra
gas tanks, and Che Guevera 60 years ago, as described in his
Motorcycle Diaries.
One of our many stops for refreshment at street cafes in Buenos Aires |
Plaza San Martin, BA |
BA, a mix of old and new |
Casa Rosada, the "Pink House", the presidential palace in BA |
Doug helps guard the Pink House, Presidential Palace |
In the BA Cathedral, former abode of Pope Francis |
Interior Courtyard of the Presidential Palace |
Outside
the Casa Rosada is the Plaza de Mayo, where mothers still hold weekly
protests seeking resolution for the thousands who perished during
Argentina's “Dirty War”, the military dictatorship from 1974 to
1983. The right wing security forces and the military took advantage
of an unstable government, took control, and persecuted anyone
suspected of being left-wing, including thousands of union members,
journalists and students. And yes, the US stood on the wrong side,
with Henry Kissinger telling the dictatorship's foreign minister “We
would like you to succeed.”
Recent findings indicate that the military ensured that the bodies of their victims would not be found by loading their political prisoners into military planes and dumping them out over the Atlantic. In addition, abies born in the temporary concentration camps were taken from their mothers and adopted into families in league with the military. In the plaza we also see encampments of veterans protesting their lack of benefits after the Falkland War. It looks like they've been there a long time.
The
military was finally forced from power after Argentina's loss to
Britain in the 74-day Falkland Islands war, which Argentina started
by invading the historically British Islands off Argentina's coast in
hopes of building support for the Argentine government.
We
decide to keep walking as dinner time approaches (ours, not Argentine
dinner time). Near the zoo we finally see a parrilla (grill house)
that is open before 8:00. We have a bottle of red wine, a nice salad,
and a bife de chorizo, a nice sirloin steak. I'm not a big steak
eater, but when in Rome.... It's delicious. Rejuvenated by the meal,
we walk on and eventually reach our apartment. This is typical for
us, we start walking and just keep going, a good way to keep
exercising while traveling.
The next day we go on a marathon shoe buying expedition. My cheap tennis shoes from home are not going to last. We're shocked by the prices of walking shoes here. Most of the clerks agree that they're high priced, because brand name shoes are imported. We trudge and trudge, and I'm more and more wishing I was wearing new shoes. Finally, we hang our heads and go back to the first store we shopped in, hoping that the helpful young woman who spent so much time with us before we walked out has gone off duty so we won't be embarrassed to return. It seems she has; we don't see her, and another young woman starts to help us. Suddenly our original clerk re-appears. There is no unpleasantness between the clerks, they disappear together and we presume they're searching for my size. We wait. And wait. And wait. Doug thinks they're in the stockroom duking it out over who is going to get the commission. Finally our original clerk returns, all smiles (because she has a better right hook?), and I get my tennis shoes with bright pink laces. I happily wear them as we walk to dinner. We try a place near our apartment with “asado”, or mixed grill. It's a big pile of meat delivered to our table on a small grill with a base of smoldering charcoal. We've got some sausages, some pork, some chicken, and lots and lots of grilled rib cuts, which are not at all tender. We chew our way through most of it, washing it down with beer.
Adam
will not arrive in BA for at least another week, so we decide to fly
up to Parque Nacional Iguazu Falls. Doug is ambivalent, but I am a
big fan of waterfalls, so he accomodates me. It's a 2 hour flight,
and we lift off over the muddy brown estuary of the Rio del Plato on which BA sits. We
head north, toward the equator, and when we arrive in Puerto Iguazu
it's clear we've changed climate. BA was hot; Iguazu is tropical,
with a good dose of humidity added into the heat. It's very green, a
rainforest area, with epiphytes and vines hanging on the trees. We
have a nice hotel, with a balcony and a big pool. After the first day
we don't open the balcony doors, we need to keep the air conditioning
going in the room.
We
spend our first afternoon with drinks by the pool, planning an early
start the next day to see Iguazu Falls. We need to exchange more
dollars for Argentine pesos; we brought cash from home in order to get the
best rates. The conductor on the bus from the airport to our hotel
had offered to change money for us, but we can not decipher the phone
number he wrote for us. Doug asks the desk clerk to try to dial it,
but the clerk has no better luck. He tells Doug not to worry,
however. Everybody knows somebody who changes money, and our desk
clerk is no exception. The clerk calls his friend, who arrives in a
brand new city vehicle. Doug gets in, and I wait outside. It's a
little un-nerving, as the car windows are darkly tinted and Doug
could be getting mugged in there for all I can tell. But Doug emerges
unscathed and smiling.
Next
day we'd planned to get on the 7:30 a.m. city bus to Iguazu Falls, so we'd
arrive in time for the 8:00 a.m. park opening. Judging by the crowd
at breakfast, it seems most everyone else in our hotel has the same
plan, though most of them are going by tour bus. When we see how many
people are heading out, we opt for a taxi to beat the crowd. Our taxi
driver is friendly and helpful, telling us when we arrive to get in
the ticket line while he parks, then walking us through the process
to buy our entry tickets in one place and our boat tickets in
another. We take the little people-mover train and finally see Iguazu
Falls. You can't really describe a big waterfall, so I'll just say
it's much wider than Niagra, though Niagra carries a greater volume
of water. The stats say Iguazu is 1.7 miles wide and 270 feet high
and is the 6th widest waterfall in the world. Here are yet more pictures of the waterfall.
Part
the falls are in Argentina and parts are in Brazil. Two rivers, the
San Antonio and the Iguazu, meet here, and we are actually at the
triple border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. We can stand at the
river overlook in town and see all three countries. The falls were
formed because an ancient lava flow ended, and the the hard basalt
layer above the falls forms a ridge over which the water drops. It's
high water season, and the flow is intense. You can see the mist of
the falls from a great distance. Argentina has engineered a fantastic
series of catwalks over the falls (not for the weak-hearted). I wish
they'd also engineered a few more women's toilets..... you know how
rushing water can make you feel.
I'm
glad that Doug suggested an early start. The Iguazu Falls are an
international destination, and it seems much of the world is already
here. It's hot and steamy, so when we board our 11:45 boat ride and
are warned we'll get “totally wet” as it approaches the base of
the falls, it sounds like a great idea. They give everyone big rubber
bags to stow your gear, so we put cameras and our shoes in the bag.
And yes, we get totally wet. It's fun, but there's so much spray you
can barely see the falls. As we relax after the boat ride the snack
area is over-run by packs of coatis. They look like racoons, but are
longer and leaner, with a pointy snout and a long lemur-like tail
that they hold up in the air. They are total pests because here in
the park the wildlife is protected, and they know it. We enjoy
sitting here at the snack area watching each new group of people
shriek as a coati climbs up the back of someone's chair. Several
coatis have a good hunt and run off with half of someone's sandwich.
Why
do I love waterfalls? There are millions of molecules in each tiny
speck of mist. ActPually, billions, trillions, quadrillions of
molecules, but then you lose the alliteration. I am most fascinated
by the lip of a waterfall, watching the water coming and dropping,
coming and dropping, over and over. It's seems eternal. Maybe it's a
metaphor for the human population; we keep coming and coming, and
dropping away and dropping away.
For
dinner, we walk into the “downtown” of Puerto Iguazu and decide
to try Argentine beef again. We order sirloins, and our jaws drop
when it's delivered to the table. This is mega-sirloin, it's at least
14 ounces per plate. After we stuff ourselves, we again hear the
throbbing music we heard last night. A crowd is heading on past our
hotel, so we follow them. It turns out to be one of Puerto Iguazu's
carnaval nights. Carnaval here in Argentina seems to be scheduled
differently in different places. This is a competition between 4
different groups. It's very late and a lot of people are lined up to
get tickets, so we don't go in but enjoy the costumes and the practice
performances here on the street for a little bit.
The
next morning we return to the park and again walk out on the
kilometer-long catwalk to the Gagantua del Diablo, the Devil's
Throat. This is the most dramatic part of the falls, where the basalt
has dropped away into a deeply curved “throat” through which the
water pours into a narrow channel below. Today the sun is brighter,
and we can see the reddish tint of the tropical soil that the river
carries. After absorbing this deluge, both psychicly and physically,
we take a quiet float trip in a rubber raft. This boat trip starts
above the falls, and I look at the map twice to reassure myself that
there's no danger of our raftsman missing his landing. All goes well.
Then we hike around, and make sure we miss none of the multiple views
of the falls, from the catwalks on top, the trails up and down the
side, and the misty paths along the base. The crowds and the heat
build as the day goes on, so by 1:30 we're happy to call it a day. We
take well-deserved naps on the bus back into town.
We
opt for the dinner buffet at our hotel. We were heading out the door
to find a restaurant, but the maitre'd was trolling for customers and
reeled us in with a discount. It has a great salad bar, the rest of
it is just okay. We to try the river fish, which has a much
stronger taste than I anticipated. At the park we learned that the
species of fish above the falls are completely different from those
below. The larger fish, the ones on the menu, are predators that live
below the falls. The fish that live above the falls are smaller and
nimbler – they have to be, it's a strong current and mistakes are
fatal.
Cotton candy seller, BA. |
McDonald's, BA. In case you weren't getting enough cholesterol, they add an egg |
Our
last night in Puerto Iguazu we go out to a quiet, lovely restaurant
overlooking the river. The next day we fly back to BA and rush to the Seacat
office to buy tickets on the boat-bus across the estuary to Uruguay.
We've been unable to buy tickets on-line and have already booked a
small apartment for three nights in Montevideo. We wait a long time
in the boat-bus office as others buy tickets, but are finally successful. We
spend one night at a small hotel near the dock and have beer and sandwiches to the Bar Baro, which has been given historic status for its role in the 60s alternative art scene in BA.
Uruguayan
Jaunt
Next
day we're on the boat-bus for a one hour crossing to Colonia, the
closest Uruguan city to BA. The seating in the boat-bus is arranged
like a very wide airliner. In Colonia we board the bus for the 2 hour
ride to Montevideo. After we leave the palms on the outskirts of
Colonia, the Uruguan landscape looks remarkably like Wisconsin, with
rolling fields of soybeans separated by woodlands. We don't see
farmsteads, however, where do the owners and workers live?
We
check into our apartment in Montevideo and go out for dinner. Our
waiter is interesting, he's a bit younger than us, has lived in
Australia, and is looking forward to leaving South America to live
with his Australian girlfriend. He acknowledges that the economy is
better here than in Argentina, and that there is less corruption, but
he still gives his native country a “Phaugh” when we wonder why
he wants to leave. I see Montevideo only as a traveler sees it, and I
like it. It's considerably smaller than BA, and though it is
statistically more prosperous, it's a bit run-down - sidewalks are
crumbling, buildings are aging. Uruguay is a liberal country, with
strong gay-rights and a new law legalizing marijuana for residents.
Doug notices that unlike BA and much of the world, women here are not
wearing a lot of leggings. They're in pants, shorts, skirts, long
dresses, short dresses. He also notices that few people are plugged
into headphones. They're an independent lot, these Uruguans, but seem
just as friendly and helpful as the Argentines and Chileans.
Montevideo, Uruguay, skyscraper from the 1920s |
Indigenous Arts Museum, Montevideo |
In the Carnaval Museum, Montevideo |
Next
day we walk around the city, out onto the crumbling breakwater, and
into several museos: Torres Garcia (artist), the Museo Carnaval
(small), Pre-Colombian and Indigenous (mostly contemporary
indigenous), and the Museo of the Andes.
The
Museo of the Andes is based on the survival of 16 Uruguan rugby
players whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. I read their story
“Alive” when I was in college and am still intrigued by it. Their
plane was off-course in bad weather and both wings were torn off the
plane as it passed between two peaks. Quite a few died in the crash,
more were killed four days later when an avalanche hit the survivors
holed up in the fuselage, and others died of their injuries later. A
total of 29 eventually perished. The survivors were at 12,000 feet
elevation, with no warm clothes and no food. The 16 survived for 72
days, having to resort to eating the flesh of those who did not
survive. I remember from the book their difficult discussions about
making this decision to survive. After they learned by transistor
radio that the search had been called off, they constructed a double
sleeping-bag of airplane insulation and two of them undertook a
10-day hike to find help. They made hats and gloves of seat cushions,
and fashioned home-made sunglasses. They hiked up the nearest peak
and saw nothing but snow and mountains. All they knew was that Chile
lay to the west, so they went that way and eventually saw a cattle
drover across a river. He threw them a pen in a piece of paper
wrapped around a stone, and they wrote a note saying who they were
and threw it back. They couldn't hear what the drover said, but they
thought they heard “Wait.” The drover rode his horse for a full
day to reach a police station, and the rest of the survivors were
rescued. The man at the museum's ticket desk is quite passionate
about their story, making sure to tell us in his limited English how
successful the survivors have been in the rest of their lives. If you
survive something like that, you would want to make the rest of your
life meaningful.
Next
day we walk along the Rambla, the seaside road and walkway that
extends toward the beaches beyond Montevideo. It's a hot and windy
day, as we pass the city beach sand blows up and sticks to my
sunscreened neck and cheeks. We need something to drink, so approach
a building along the coast that appears to be a restaurant. Doug has
doubts – there is a fence and a gate, but the gate is not locked or
even latched. He suggests that this is a private facility, but I'm
thirsty and press on. Inside is a bar and a grill, and the people
seem friendly to each other, and to us. I go to the bar and order a
large coke for us to share, and we sit and drink and relax. Doug
still thinks we are intruding, and as I look around I see a sign
outside that says “Exclusivo socios”. I'm pretty sure this means
members only. The remarkable thing is that no one has raised an
eyebrow or given us a crooked look. Maybe tourists wander in here
periodically, or maybe they're just very polite people. And the coke
really tastes really good.
We
go on to the art museum that was our original destination. It's large
and cool and we spend some time enjoying the mostly contemporary
work. Doug immediately recognizes a large panel by Torres Garcia, of
yesterday's art museum. Upstairs theirs a large body of work by Saez,
who died abruptly at the age of 22.
We
return to the apartment and are surprised by a sudden wind and
rainstorm, that thankfully waits until we are inside. We've been
incredibly unmarked by rain in our travels, so this is overdue. In
the morning we reverse our course back to Buenos Aires via the
Buquebus.
We
check into our next airbnb apartment, in the Tango District. Carlos
Gardel, the tango king lived and worked near here. His photo is
everywhere. There are lots of theaters and tango shows. Tango is in
the midst of a big revival in the last decade. Since we're staying a
week, we're disappointed to find that our apartment is on the first
floor, and lacks any view. But our hosts, Gabriela and Mathias, greet
us warmly and spend time explaining the area to us, and showing us
how to use the city bus guide.
Next
day we finally catch up with our son Adam. He rings the buzzer and -
here he finally is. We go out for dinner and beers and catch up on
life. He's at liberty this year, traveling and working on his small
business, Snack, a skateboarding biz. Adam says Argentina is a hard
place to get his skateboard products on the market – import
regulations are tough. He's operating on San Francisco time, staying
up late and sleeping in the morning. This puts him on the right
schedule to mix with his Argentine friends. Adam's girlfriend Joana
will join him in a few days, and they plan to spend a few weeks in
Buenos Aires before returning to San Francisco. Adam says he's
enjoying this year enough that he doesn't think he'll return to
teaching next year either. But he is still teaching as a substitute
in the San Francisco school district when he is at home.
Next
day we walk down the pedestrian mall again and change money. We stop
outside a cafe for something to drink, and Doug leaves a tip on the
table. As we get up, we see one of the many people who walk around
handing out small printed prayer cards. This one is for Saint
Expedito, who seems to be someone to help you out with urgent and
just causes. Doug glances back just in time to see the St. Expidito
guy stealing our tip off the table. Later, we look up the word for
thief (ladron), so if it happens again we can yell at the thief.
We
go on to the San Telmo neighborhood, a historic area with old
buildings and cobblestone streets. It's know for it's antiques. We
stop in San Telmo Plaza for a soda, and are entertained by the young
couples tangoing for tips. They haul in their music systems and their
roll-up dance floors. Along the way, we notice the street work in
Buenos Aires – almost all of the digging is being done by hand.
There are holes and small piles of soil along many of the streets.
This may be a sign of the tough state of the Argentine economy –
the poverty rate is close to 40% here in Argentina.
We
go to the train station to check on tickets for tomorrow – we've
decided to visit the Tigre Delta on the north side of Buenos Aires.
We've been walking a lot today, so we decide to buy subway cards. We
successfully negotiate this in Spanish, only to find that the subway
is closed for two days – they're installing air conditioning, which
apparently is long overdue. Fortunately, the subway cards also work
on city buses, so we take a chance on a bus that seems to be running
up the right street and make our way to the apartment. The bus system
is complicated (the schedule is published in a small book), but is
very cheap. Each bus line is privately operated by a different bus
company; the city must put this out for bids periodically. Or, if
tales we hear are true, the city puts it out for corrupt deals. Adam
says his Argentine friends expect almost nothing from the government
except corruption.
We
sit down for dinner at a cafe with a street side window, and watch the street
being blocked off and masses of people arriving. Little did we know,
it's Carnaval Avenida Corrientes, the local carnaval for this street.
After dinner we watch the carnaval for a while, and the kids having a
great time spraying each other with some type of canned soapy foam.
As we walk home, we see a bar with a band outside, and a big crowd
dancing in the street. It's a two-day banking holiday, and everyone
is out to enjoy it.
Next
day we take the local train to the Tigre Delta. The train is cheap,
cool and very smooth. The public transportation here is a real deal.
The Tigre Delta lies on the northern fringe of Buenos Aires. It's an
hour by train. The delta is the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, which
forms the boundary between Agentina and Uruguay. It also forms the
wide, brown estuary between the two countries. The Tigre Delta is a
watery maze of channels and a popular weekend destination for
residents of BA. It's the last day of the banking holiday, and we
normally wouldn't have chosen such a busy day, but didn't realize
just how popular it would be. It turns out to be fun watching the
families enjoying themselves. The channels aren't very deep, and the
water is warm, so lots of people are swimming. A local guide sees us
wondering what to do after we get off the train and explains that
everything in the delta moves by water. The “buses” and “trucks”
are taxi-boats and barges that run up and down the chanels. Many city
people have vacation homes here, and get around by boat. The guide
says lots of kids kayak to school. We take the taxi-boat to a small
“town” and walk around a bit. It's very hot and not much breeze.
When we're ready to get back on the taxi-boat, we wait an hour for it
to show up. Families are getting ready to go back to the city, and
the boats are really full. Our expert pilot bucks the current to back
into many resort docks to pick up passengers and their hand luggage.
It's so busy that people on the docks are yelling at the taxi-boat
drivers to stop for them, but many of the boats are already full.
We're glad we didn't wait any longer to return. We have dinner and
beer back in the city at an outdoor cafe (most cafes have outdoor
seating) ovelooking the National Congress (apparently the seat of
corruption), and call it a night.
We've
had two power outages at our airbnb apartment. One started in the
morning, but since we were out most of the day it didn't bother us
much. However, we're now into hour 22 of what turns out to be a
24-hour power outage. The phone in the apartment goes dead, as does
the router, so we have no internet anymore. Fortunately, Doug has
brought a little portable power cube, so we are able to charge our
Kindles and read. We have gas hot water, so we can shower, and a gas
stove, so we can make coffee. We're in a ground floor apartment, and
get some natural light during the day, but not a lot. We stop at an
internet shop so we an email Adam, and also our hosts. Later, our
hosts are very apologetic, and give us one day's free lodging. This
is generous of them – the power in the city often fails in the
summer time, this is nothing our hosts can do anything about.
The
next night Adam's girlfriend Jo (Joana) has finally arrived. Her
standby flight status made her a day late and provided a free visit
to Brazil, at least to the Sao Paulo airport. We have dinner with
them at a Peruvian restaurant, where we order seafood for the table.
It's great – I'm thinking Peru is going to be a good place to
visit.
Our
last morning in Buenos Aires I want to mail a postcard. This entails
an internet search for the post office, asking several people where
the post office really is, and speaking with three different postal
clerks when we finally arrive. The stamp costs 29 pesos. In order to
provide just the right amount of postage, the postal clerk spends a
great deal of time finding the right stamps. This turns out to be
exactly 10 full size stamps. Yes, for one post card. Fortunately, the
clerk knows just how to put them on, with glue from a bottle, and
overlapping them appropriately so the important part of the stamp is
exposed. Doug says it will be a miracle if this postcard ever reaches
Wisconsin. After an hour-long taxi ride to the international airport,
and a 5-hour flight to Lima, we are in Peru.
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