I have not really had any one particular thing to write about recently since now I have met up with Robin (who is here en route to New Zealand) we have been traveling about and only spending a couple of nights in each place. After a few days showing Robin the delights of Buenos Aires (mostly eating alfajores in the Botanical Gardens) we headed off down to Sierra de la Ventana with high-minded ideas to do long walks and climb the mountains of the area and generally be outdoorsey and virtuous. Well yes it was all very well meaning however in reality it was unbelievably hot and it was as much as was humanly possible to walk all the way to the Heladeria and get ourselves an icecream. Hard work I know.
A note on ice cream: Argentina does incredible ice cream. Really really good. There are Heladerias on pretty much every street and the flavour options are 20 at minimum, usually including at least 3 or 4 different types of Dulce de Leche. In case anyone thought I might be wasting away out here, it has been decided that one ice cream is a daily minimum. Also.... it is one of the only things out here which is still cheap, with inflation up to the region of 20% and the pound being a bit of a weakling in the markets right now, things really are little cheaper than the UK unfortunately. In reality this means for me that although I will still be continuing to travel as before (which is camping by the way!), the weekend at a lovely estancia riding horses gaucho-style is looking unlikely. *sigh*
After lolling about in Sierra de le Ventana there was a 9 hour bus journey to Puerto Madryn. Guttingly missed the whale season but did get really close to penguins, sea lions, rheas, guanachos and malting elephant seals. I mean they were actually losing their skin so no need to go googling any new rare breeds or anything.
Next stop was what Rough Guide over-prominsingly called the 'Welsh Heartland'. Ok so everybody knows about the Welsh community that live in Patagonia, or really I mean lived. The little town of Gaiman (yes Gaiman) was settled by Welsh folk back in the day and now it attracts tourists to its 'authentic tea shops' and indeed there are Cymru stickers in lots of windows however ask any of the locals if they speak the lingo and they will tell you that they had to do a course at school and know a few words. The older folk may rave about their grandparents being very Welsh, yet red bedragoned flags aside, this is a nice little Argentine village.
Ok one last thing before I embark on a 12 hour bus journey to Puerto San Julian.... I visited Trelew's museum of paleantology. Wow. What a phenomenal collection of complete dinosaurs, all from Argentina. I was absolutely blown away. Also there really is a Argentinosaurus! Google that instead of the sea-lions as it is simply incredible and being Argentine it had to be the biggest... I don't even come up to its knee.
Friday, 30 January 2009
Thursday, 15 January 2009
La Plata, Ciudad de Masones
Generally my timing on this trip hasn´t been great, arriving in Benos Aires at the start of the biggest storm in 10 years, visit the Gauchos town when the gauchos are out of town (out on the plains no doubt) and I arrived in La Plata - a small university city an hour´s drive from BsAs - on a scorching Sunday when all the shops are closed and the inhabitants are off on their summer holiday. Since all the interesting things (such as the self-proclaimed best natural historl museum in South America) were closed I amused myself y exploring the place on foot.
It turns out that this rather nice place has a really quite fascinating story history. La Plata was Argentina¨s first fully planned city and the designs for most of the city¨s important architecture were chose by competition sometime and so there are loads of really delicious flashy european builings about the place. Most interestingly I think is the Masonic sub-plot that underpins the roots of the place (if those mixed metaphors work that is). Now I may have this wrong (googlers and wiki-ists can help me here) but what I gathered from Patchi the hostel owner was that the Masons who founded/funded the place did so at a time when the catholic church were not seeing exactly eye-to-eye due to the the Mason¨s religious inclusivity. In the huge Plaza in front of the huge neo-gothic cathederal (only actually finished and fully neo-gothicised in 1998) besides the many other statues I found an archer hidden amongst the trees who appears to be firing directly at the Cathederal. Curiously, one day his bow disappeared.
Also.... when looking at the plan of the city it features not only the usual grid pattern but also some diagonals, clearly shaping out the Mason¨s symbol in the streets. Conspiracy maybe, but a fun and convincing one.
Politically this place is quite controversial. Essentially La Plata was built as the beaurocratic centre of the Buenos Aires district, and therefore of Argentina. If I unerstand it correctly, a notable numer of the beaurocrats are left over from Menem¨s time in office (the chap responsible for privatising everything to foreign investors and screwing things up nicely in time for a crisis a decade later.... all things that I can speculate but many Argentines would never officially say for fear of, well I don¨t know what) now work here as paper pushers in the dusty corridoors of Government back offices here in La Plata.
Anyway, two years ago a left-ist thinker and activist by the name of Julio Lopez went the same way as the Archer¨s bow and hasn¨t been seen or heard of since. "2 años sin Lopez" and "Sin Lopez no hay nunca mas" and similar slogans cover the streets. Earlier military dictatorships became famous for having people ´disappear´by the mother´s protest in Buenos Aires´ Plaza de Mayo, no surprises that where there is still a concentration of the old boys, that kind of thing is still happening.
It turns out that this rather nice place has a really quite fascinating story history. La Plata was Argentina¨s first fully planned city and the designs for most of the city¨s important architecture were chose by competition sometime and so there are loads of really delicious flashy european builings about the place. Most interestingly I think is the Masonic sub-plot that underpins the roots of the place (if those mixed metaphors work that is). Now I may have this wrong (googlers and wiki-ists can help me here) but what I gathered from Patchi the hostel owner was that the Masons who founded/funded the place did so at a time when the catholic church were not seeing exactly eye-to-eye due to the the Mason¨s religious inclusivity. In the huge Plaza in front of the huge neo-gothic cathederal (only actually finished and fully neo-gothicised in 1998) besides the many other statues I found an archer hidden amongst the trees who appears to be firing directly at the Cathederal. Curiously, one day his bow disappeared.
Also.... when looking at the plan of the city it features not only the usual grid pattern but also some diagonals, clearly shaping out the Mason¨s symbol in the streets. Conspiracy maybe, but a fun and convincing one.
Politically this place is quite controversial. Essentially La Plata was built as the beaurocratic centre of the Buenos Aires district, and therefore of Argentina. If I unerstand it correctly, a notable numer of the beaurocrats are left over from Menem¨s time in office (the chap responsible for privatising everything to foreign investors and screwing things up nicely in time for a crisis a decade later.... all things that I can speculate but many Argentines would never officially say for fear of, well I don¨t know what) now work here as paper pushers in the dusty corridoors of Government back offices here in La Plata.
Anyway, two years ago a left-ist thinker and activist by the name of Julio Lopez went the same way as the Archer¨s bow and hasn¨t been seen or heard of since. "2 años sin Lopez" and "Sin Lopez no hay nunca mas" and similar slogans cover the streets. Earlier military dictatorships became famous for having people ´disappear´by the mother´s protest in Buenos Aires´ Plaza de Mayo, no surprises that where there is still a concentration of the old boys, that kind of thing is still happening.
Monday, 5 January 2009
The Sans Antonio & Nicolás
Happy New Year to all. I am now back in Buenos Aires after a couple of trips away. The first to San Antonio de Areco, a little 'gaucho' town 2 hours out of the city and the second for a friend's wedding in San Nicolás de los Arroyos.
The former is a beautiful little town which the guidebooks describe as things like original, authentic and beautifully preserved. I went on a Monday which meant I missed out on a lot of the gaucho horsemanship displays in the big park at the bottom of the town that seem to be pretty regular on the weekends but I still got a taste of the place. I take my hat off to the tourist office who supply a few bicycles to roam about on for free. This did mean that for all my care-free pedalling about I frazzled myself in the sun but I think it was worth it.
While I was doing my tour on my bright yellow push-bike I saw on the dusty back streets a few signs saying something like 'se alquiler caballos' (horses for hire) and I was incredibly tempted. There were plenty of ponies about and some were tied up by trees near the signs. Although I was desperate to ride I thought the horses didn't look very happy so I pedalled back to the tourist office to find somewhere a little more official. Yes there were estancias for riding and I went of to visit a couple... however the norm here is to do a 'day in the country' with more gaucho shows and lunch etc included, rather than just a trek out, so unfortunately I missed out again.
The rest of my time in San Antonio was just mooching about the very sleepy town with a beautiful town centre. There is a river at the bottom of the town which gets populated with teenagers daring each other to jump in off something higher. I sat watched and read my book.
Although San Nicolás de los Arroyos is not in any of the familiar guidebooks it still attracts thousands upon thousands of visitors every year. These visitors are not, I hasten to add, here because it is a particularly beautiful place... its popularity is due to some lady called Gladys having sightings of BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) back in the 80s and now it is a place catholics go on pilgrimage. On the 25th September (the town's big day) there are on average crowds of over 300,000 - nearly trippling the population of the town.
BVM sightings aside, now I know why some places are in the guidebooks and other places are not.
The wedding itself was fantastic and held on a beautiful estancia (no horses unfortunately) and partying until 6am. I crashed at 3am and was found kipping out of sight of the party by the estancia owners. They took me into their farmhouse and gave me coffee and even with the caffine injection I still managed to sleep for a couple of hours in a chair the their living room. Argentines are incredibly kind like that, so so generous and hospitable even to strangers.... although as always, the English accent helps.
One last thing.... am I right in thinking that of the 25+ letters and postcards I have sent, nothing has arrived?
The former is a beautiful little town which the guidebooks describe as things like original, authentic and beautifully preserved. I went on a Monday which meant I missed out on a lot of the gaucho horsemanship displays in the big park at the bottom of the town that seem to be pretty regular on the weekends but I still got a taste of the place. I take my hat off to the tourist office who supply a few bicycles to roam about on for free. This did mean that for all my care-free pedalling about I frazzled myself in the sun but I think it was worth it.
While I was doing my tour on my bright yellow push-bike I saw on the dusty back streets a few signs saying something like 'se alquiler caballos' (horses for hire) and I was incredibly tempted. There were plenty of ponies about and some were tied up by trees near the signs. Although I was desperate to ride I thought the horses didn't look very happy so I pedalled back to the tourist office to find somewhere a little more official. Yes there were estancias for riding and I went of to visit a couple... however the norm here is to do a 'day in the country' with more gaucho shows and lunch etc included, rather than just a trek out, so unfortunately I missed out again.
The rest of my time in San Antonio was just mooching about the very sleepy town with a beautiful town centre. There is a river at the bottom of the town which gets populated with teenagers daring each other to jump in off something higher. I sat watched and read my book.
Although San Nicolás de los Arroyos is not in any of the familiar guidebooks it still attracts thousands upon thousands of visitors every year. These visitors are not, I hasten to add, here because it is a particularly beautiful place... its popularity is due to some lady called Gladys having sightings of BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) back in the 80s and now it is a place catholics go on pilgrimage. On the 25th September (the town's big day) there are on average crowds of over 300,000 - nearly trippling the population of the town.
BVM sightings aside, now I know why some places are in the guidebooks and other places are not.
The wedding itself was fantastic and held on a beautiful estancia (no horses unfortunately) and partying until 6am. I crashed at 3am and was found kipping out of sight of the party by the estancia owners. They took me into their farmhouse and gave me coffee and even with the caffine injection I still managed to sleep for a couple of hours in a chair the their living room. Argentines are incredibly kind like that, so so generous and hospitable even to strangers.... although as always, the English accent helps.
One last thing.... am I right in thinking that of the 25+ letters and postcards I have sent, nothing has arrived?
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