Temaikén

Before I head 2000+ miles up north to Peru, I'm posting these pictures of a wild animal park / reserve / zoo / whatever thing so that there's something new to look at for the next two weeks. If this were a TV sit-com, it would be the mid-season episode when I stitch together a bunch of previous episodes and somehow try to tie them altogether via a very thin plot line.



Anyhoo, this animal park is about 45 minutes outside of Buenos Aires (using the direct bus, or 2 hours using the EXTREMELY indirect bus) and is called "Temaikén", which is an old indian name that means something. What, exactly, I don't remember but I'm sure it's quite profound. Or at least marketable to the local Argentines...


There are quite a few exotic looking flowers and flamingos right when you walk in the place. The interesting thing about flamingos, as I have learned whilst aimlessly wandering the greater part of southern South America, is that they live in a variety of places that are extremely dissimilar. This includes the super-freezing-cold-windy-Andes-mountains of Patagonia as well as the lush, warm, and delightful tropics of the Argentina/Brazil/Paraguay border.

Also, they have white tigers but they don't let him near the flamingo cage for obvious reasons. I think it's somehow become mandatory for every zoo in the civilized world to have at least one white tiger. At least this guy moved around a lot... usually tigers are pretty lazy as I've observed during my extensive, multi-continent, zoo-attending experiences.

Moving right along, let's get to the weird stuff. This guy is called a "Tapir". They look exactly like something you would see in the "Pleistocene epoch" section of your prehistoric animal history books. From my distant vantage point, they appeared to be somewhere between the size of a big pig and a hippopotamus. Also, this guy looked a little bored or annoyed while he was pacing around looking for something to eat.

Since I'm here in South America, right on the edge of the Andes mountains (well, a thousand miles away, but whatever) I would be remiss if I did not provide a picture of an Andean Condor. They're like the California Condors but not as big and with lesser publicity, I think. The wingspread measures somewhere around 10 to 12 feet wide though... we saw them all over the sky when I was down in Calafate, Torres del Paine, etc, last September. So... goooooooo Condors!

Next up, we have the "Ñandu", a distant cousin of the ostrich and rhea. They, too, are all over the place in Patagonia... running up and down the hills, mountains, and so forth. They don't seem to be the brightest amongst the bird family as our bus almost hit one, in the middle of a whole lot of nothing. You would think they could stay out of the road and stick to the nothingness all around.

These guys are called "Maras" and they're all over Patagonia as well. They're sort of a mix of a rabbit, kangaroo, and maybe a rat or something. They're about the size of a giant rabbit or a very small jackalope... if you're from New Mexico, you may have taken someone you don't like out to hunt jackalopes late at night. Anyway that concludes the tour of Temaikén.





In other news around here, my Spanish class was interviewed by a local Buenos Aires newspaper this week... naturally it will be published while I'm out of town. So I can't tell you if I made the cut, got edited out, or even what the story is about. But I bribed some of the students to get me a copy and hopefully something will be available online... assuming it's worth reading. And assuming you can read Spanish. When I return next time (end of November maybe?) I should hopefully have some good photos to post of Machu Picchu and the other Peruvian Inca ruins, plus Cusco, Lake Titikaka, La Paz Bolivia, and all points in between.

Random Buenos Aires Stuff

Well down here in Buenos Aires we're all still getting over the excitement of the Latin Grammy awards show from Las Vegas last Thursday. OK, I'm lying... it doesn't seem like anyone down here paid attention to them plus, when I watched PARTS of it, it mostly seemed to be a bunch of Tejano accordian-and-keyboard music. In other words, it was terrrrrrrrible. So I can see why a lot of the locals ignored it. Also, for being the LATIN grammy awards show, no one spoke Latin. Caveat emptor. E plurbus unum. Etcetera.

Anyhow the end of the year is coming soon, I can't believe how fast this year has flown by. In the USA the Thanksgiving holidays are not far away... around here there's no such thing. But the good news is that, as a consolation for missing the holidays in the US, I'll be spending them in Peru (Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca) and Bolivia (Copacabana and La Paz). Not sure where exactly, it'll just depend on when/where I catch the buses, trains, etc, etc. I can't believe how expensive it is there (Peru specifically, not Bolivia). In all my research, it looks like everything around Peru is priced in US dollars (at US cost of living). The trains are hideously expensive, unless you're a local in which case the train ride that costs foreigners $140 usd round trip only costs you $10 usd round trip! They're separate trains but to keep the foreigners (esp. backpackers) from exercising the more logical alternative, you have to have a national ID card to prove citizenship... not that I could pass for a local up there anyway.

That seems to be a common theme here in South America -- a lot of the tourist attractions are a cheap price for anyone from the same state/province, then it goes up a LITTLE for citizens of the country, and then it goes up a LOT for foreigners (including anyone from the surrounding Lat-Am countries). At least it's EXTREMELY common here in Argentina... anything from national park and museum entrance fees to plane tickets. Assuming the pilots, airline employees, customs agents, maintenance workers, baggage handlers, or airport facilities people are not on strike. Which is extremely rare in this country. It's amazing what a difference there is in the strikes in Argentina since three years ago. Back then it was mostly just a bunch of unemployed protesters on marches that blocked up the streets, wrecked traffic, and otherwise hindered people from getting to work. Now it's people with jobs refusing to work.

In the last month, we've "enjoyed" the following protests: taxi cab drivers, public (and long haul) bus drivers, airline employees, pilots, newspaper stand owners, bureaucrats (city workers basically), subway workers, hospital employees, petroleum production workers, and teachers (high school and college). And that's just ONE MONTH! The immediate response to go on strike and fear/refusal of competition (mostly domestic market protectionism) is a really interesting dynamic to watch up-close-n-personal. I have no idea how this country is going to be able to compete in the globalized marketplace... and it's not just Argentina but most of Lat-Am. OK, enough of all that Econ 101 stuff.

Sorry there are no pictures this time around. I just figured I should add something to this blog since it's been a while since I wrote anything. After the Peru & Bolivia trip I should have some interesting pictures to upload to the site. After that (in December), I'm planning a trip down in the Andes mountains in the lake district on the Argentina/Chile border. Then it's off to the fine beaches of Punta del Este, Uruguay before I finally have to return home... and find some work to pay for all of this!! Ah well, it's what I call "motivation".

Cordoba and further south

Wow another month has flown by and it's November already. Time really flies when you're out traipsing around the world and completely oblivious as to what's going on in the cubicle farms under the warm buzzing glow of the florescent office lighting. Anyway, I'm back from Córdoba, plus some other side trips to the towns of Villa General Belgrano (or "VGB" as I prefer to call it) and La Cumbrecita. It was a nice little one week break from Spanish classes and the big bad city of Buenos Aires.

Cordoba is Argentina's 2nd biggest city. About 1.2 - 2 million people live there, depending on who you ask and who's propaganda/literature you read. For me, it was nice to have a look around (like I said, I duped a friend-of-a-friend into being my part-time tour guide) but I definitely prefer living in BsAs. Cordoba is basically a college town, with over 120k students in all the universities, which consequently means if you want anything to eat that's not pizza or a hamburger, well... good luck.

There were two really big churches/cathedrals to tour plus a nice little "up and coming" neighborhood called Nueva Cordoba. The cathedral at the beginning of this blog dates back to around the 1700s somewhere. The dark stuff is pollution... it should be a light yellowish color. Then right nearby, you go to Nueva Cordoba and there are lots of restaurants, bars, a civic center with dancing water fountains, including music and lighting, plus a nice (big) park. So after 3 days I packed it in and found a bus down south.

And I have to say that I really enjoyed the towns that were about 1.5 - 3 hours south of Cordoba. They're all extremely German and/or Swiss looking, up in the mountains, and there are streams, cute little bunnies and birdies, plus a distinct lack of pollution. And people actually leave their doors unlocked... or so I was told. A lot of flowers too. Also we went through Che Guevarra's childhood town... I felt like fomenting a revolution or something.

The town of VGB was extremely touristy. The place is famous for it's annual Oktoberfest celebration the first half of every October. Yes, I missed it by one week. But the upside was that tourists were in short supply so everything was half the price and it was relatively cheap there (when normally it costs and arm and a leg). And when I say tourist, I mean mostly Argentines because it's off the beaten path and not a lot of foreigners know about it. Yet. But it was a little weird being in the middle of German everything and speaking Spanish.

The town also had a few hiking trails through it plus some that led to the outlying small mountains since the town is situated inside a valley. I went hiking on one of the trails that ran along an arroyo one evening and it was a really bizarre experience. At first it started out fine, a nice little path in the grass along the stream. Then halfway through, the path forked and I chose the longer one that the map showed, to get a better look around. After about 5 minutes, the trail became hard to discern and I came across a bunch of chickens and roosters along the riverbank. Then not much further, there was an old man near the water picking weeds right next to a small cow that was tied up and grazing (I assumed it was his). I then figured I needed to cross the water since the trail was almost gone but it looked fairly well worn on the other side.

I made my way down the embankment and saw a woman carrying a basket along with her kid plus an obnoxious dog. As I started up the embankment I could hear the sound of horses and then I saw one running full speed, cresting the hill I was going up. Then it stopped. It was unbridled, no bit, no rider, no nothing. I know absolutely nothing about horse behavior and that was it for me. I did a 180 and headed back to the main trail... but I DID find a good barbeque joint for dinner that night on the way back that I would have never have seen otherwise. So... happy ending.

The next day I did a day trip to a Swiss town called La Cumbrecita. It was probably my favorite place of the entire trip -- lots of "real" hiking, with waterfalls, natural springs, and other outdoor stuff. Plus horseback riding if you like that, although I already had enough horses the previous day. Lunch was at a restaurant on the top of a hill with a phenomenal view... German food, of course. Then I spent the day hiking around, it was typical mountain weather with the threat of storms or occasional sprinkles. The waterfalls were really nice... in retrospect I wish I had planned more time in that town. The entire area, actually.

Finally I had to reverse-engineer my entire trip to get back to Cordoba, then on to Buenos Aires. I was thankful the airline was only a half hour late... domestic flights in this country have really become a game of chance in the last 3-4 years. There was an article in today's paper that says Argentina's two main (only) airlines have pathetic on-time departure records. In fact, only Sudan, Nepal, and some country in Africa have worse records... IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! If the only airlines that have worse track records than you are in countries with a civil war, the poorest in the world, or somewhere with hideous weather conditions... you have serious issues. Anyway at least they land safely - sadly, that's about the only positive thing to say.

Misc from Buenos Aires

Tomorrow I'm heading out to the province/city of Córdoba for a week -- to have a look around Argentina's second largest city (over a million people) and otherwise be a tourist. Plus get out of the BsAs pollution and enjoy the foothills (they're not what I'd really call "mountains") and rivers/streams. A friend-of-a-friend from Dallas lives there, so I'm going to entrap him into being a tour guide for a day or two... if all goes as planned. So, this will be my last update til... I don't know when.


But I can finally post some photos that I've had for a while but no reason, excuse, etc, to talk about til now. Several times I've randomly mentioned Corrientes Ave., which is sort of the Buenos Aires version of Broadway. Except they have a mini-version of the Washington monument in the middle of it. And it crosses one of the widest streets in the world, "Avenida 9 de Julio". These photos were taken during the height of last winter's energy crisis, so you can see how serious they were taking it downtown. But the show must go on, even if the lights in your house won't.

Next up, you can see the new light rail train that just went into service a few months ago, I was there for opening day. It's down by the swankiest and most expensive-est barrio in town, Puerto Madero. If you're a real estate investor, this is where the real action is in Buenos Aires. Anyhow, this train will be humorous to watch evolve... in theory, it's going to link the poorest part of town to the main bus terminal, which requires going through the richest part of town (here in Puerto Madero) to get there.


For now, it only has 5 stops, costs a peso (outrageous! the subway only costs 70 centavos and is far more extensive!), and takes a year and half to go anywhere because it's above ground and has to navigate the stop lights and traffic. Actually, as I think about it, it's not that different from DART when it hits downtown Dallas.

This stylish bridge over to the right is called "the woman's bridge", and is somehow supposed to represent the tango... if you smoke crack and hallucinate as the designer obviously must have. To the rest of us, it obviously represents "a harp". The outstanding thing (if you read the tourism literature) about this area is that everything is named "whatever" of the woman or else has a specific woman's name. A shocking departure from tradition, here in the land of machismo.


But you know you're in Puerto Madero when you look up all around you and all you see are towers, towers under construction, and cranes. It's actually not that different than being in whatever other large city in the world although it doesn't really feel all that "Buenos Aires-y". Even the graffiti is lacking, unlike in other parts of the city (where there is an over-abundance). OK, this concludes my mini-tour of BsAs but I have to go pack my bags for Córdoba now.

Patagonia - Part II

Continuing where I last left off, I was in Chile and took a 3 hour bus ride from Puerto Natales down south to Punta Arenas... it was a nice uneventful ride with lots of wildlife to look at along the way, like ñandús, guanacos, maras, and patagonian geese.


Since they don't exist in North America and I am too lazy to find pictures of them, you'll have to do a search for them if you want to see them. Although I will say that Punta Arenas, for being the biggest city in Patagonia (about 120,000 people), didn't have a lot going on.

But they DID have some "quaint" little phone booths and a really weird cemetary... and you know your town doesn't have a lot going on when the cemetary is a big tourist attraction.

Later I stumbled upon a funeral procession whilst there among the tombs and the odd trees lining the walkways (I have no idea what they're called but they looked like giant, green, McDonalds' Grimaces). Naturally I had to take some photos much to the annoyance of the funeral attendees but the person in the casket is (presumably) already dead, so what did it matter?

After the visit to Punta Arenas it was time to venture across the Magellan Straights and Tierra del Fuego to return to Argentina and "the end of the world", Ushuaia. Last stop on the way to Antarctica -- about 620 miles further south across some really rough ocean, where the Atlantic and Pacific clash together. Or so I've been told.

The downside was that it was a 12 hour bus ride, of which 2/3 of it was over a bumpy, unpaved dirt road. But it was a good way to see most of Tierra del Fuego, when the windows weren't coated with mud and dirt. The final hour or so of the drive was pretty spectacular, morphing from desert into snow-covered mountains that dribbled down into the sea.

Ushuaia is a really nice place, very touristy though (I used to think it would be "exotic", "far-flung", etc) and it's really getting built up compared to the last time I was there 3 years ago. It's right on the Beagle Channel where Darwin & Co sailed through on the way to Galapagos Islands, etc, over a century ago .

It was here that I too navigated the Channel, as you can plainly see from my captains hat. There's quite a bit of wildlife to see, including sea lions, cormorants, whales (not in season), and penguins... also not in season. Although we saw two of them swimming around, so maybe they were lost or something. At least they were smart enough to stay out of my way.

So after all that, vacation time was over and it was time to head home to Buenos Aires. Also, it was then that I had yet to experience that delightful three and a half hour flight back, with all the screaming toddlers, absentee parenting, and surly Aerolineas Argentinas employee service. But at least they weren't on strike, which is somewhat rare in this country.

El Che

EVENTUALLY I'm going post those other pictures from my recent trip. Alas, at the moment I am too caught up in all the Ernesto "Che" Guevara excitement here in Argentina.

"El Che" was shot & killed exactly 40 years ago in a Bolivian jungle by the police/government (which the newspapers and magazines ALWAYS stress were manipulated by the USA, CIA, etc... to help refocus "the blame" I suppose, actually it's kinda funny). He was born here in Argentina, for anyone unaware of it. That's probably why he's replacing Evita Peron and Diego Maradona as the face of Argentina... so to speak.

For such a dead commie, it's quite ironic that T-shirts with his face on them are the biggest seller in Argentina... probably in all of South America for that matter. Soooooo capitalistic! The marketing of Che is everywhere down here in S.A. If I were a betting man, I would bet that only about 5% of Che t-shirt wearing public knows anything about him that wasn't in the "Motorcycle Diaries" movie. Anyway, Happy Che-is-dead Day to you from all of us down here in Argentina on October 9, 2007!

Spring is here in the southern hemisphere and the weather is really nice. Well, except for today since it's rained all day and will likely rain all week. Now please excuse me since I need to log off this computer and go buy my Che Guevara t-shirt now...

Patagonia in September

I can't believe it's October already... time is flying by here in the far south. I'm about to leave the latest school I'm attending (it's my final week) but it's been amusing since there's a fairly famous Canadian musician in class -- as I've learned from the various random Canadian students that come through the school. Apprently he played with 'SuperFreak' Rick James and opened for Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and some other 60s bands back in the day, plus was recently inducted in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. So, I SUPPOSE he has credentials. A pretty modest guy actually, I had to Google & Wikipedia him to find anything out. Oh yeah, Bruce Cockburn is his name.

Moving right along to the recap of my two weeks down in Patagonia... it was INCREDIBLE! What scenery! What distances! What animals! What COLD!!! But worth it. A friend and I went down to see the Perito Moreno glaciar near El Calafate and Argentina's glaciar national park and then I planned to go it alone in Chile (one of the advantages of having more vacation time than others!).

The glaciar park was amazing... having already flown over it on the way to El Calafate, I could tell that we only saw a fraction of the glaciars because most of the place is off limits. But we were able to hike around on Perito Moreno so that was awesome. Yes, I was a little concerned about cracking through some thin ice and plummeting down a crevasse (sp?). But the guides were JUMPING up and down on it, thus proving how safe it was. Or else how short their potential life spans are likely to be. Whatever.

One day we stopped at an island to eat lunch and it was there that I learned about the "wild cows of Patagonia". It sounded laughable but the guides warned us not to mess with the "feral cows" since they were imported to the island over a century ago and their decendents are fairly ill tempered if you approach them. All I saw were a bunch of cowpies everywhere.

Anyhoo, I would have been happy to spend some more time in the area but after 5 days, it was time to part ways and go across the Chilean border, all by my widdle self to Puerto Natales. And then wander around the nearby Torres del Paine national park! It was stunningly beautiful just like the glaciar national park -- assuming you're into mountains, gorgeous landscape, glaciars, icebergs, and the occasional deer, guanaco, or ñandú (basically a south american ostrich). You know, "nature stuff".

Obviously we REALLY got lucky with the weather. The initial 5 or 6 days of my trip were just sunny-and-blue-sky days. The locals said it was really rare to have so many sunny days in a row down there because usually it's just cloudy and/or rainy. But the Torres del Paine park was amazing... it was a lot like Alaska without all the large, carnivorous mammals that would like to eat you. I was there about three months before tourist season kicks off in high gear so the crowds were nil. It would have been great to have several days to hike around in it while going from one refugio (basically shacks with fireplaces) to another across the park. But I didn't have that kind of time, so alas. Next time!

We ended the tour at a huge cave (but not that deep) where some Chilean cowboy back in the late 1800s discovered a frozen piece of ice-age-mammal hide that was still somewhat intact. It cost me $3 to go in but since we were there for the next half hour whether I liked it or not, I was stuck. So I paid and looked around... it was semi-interesting but hiking in the park was better.

OK, that's enough typing today. Next I'll pick up the story "on the road to Punta Arenas Chile," including their weird/surreal cemetary plus the Magellan Straights, Ushuaia, the Beagle Channel, and oh-so-much-more.