Dec 24^th Nahuel Huapi National Park

This park is the 3^rd oldest in the Americas, behind Yosemite and Banff (in Canada).  Founded in 1934 it comprises beautiful lakes, waterfalls, forests and mountains which I have tried to capture in the pictures.  I included a map of Argentina and Chile; you can see Bariloche which is only 40km from the border with Chile and is at the entrance to the national park.  This whole area was affected by the movement of the tectonic plates (I guess most everything on Earth was).  In this case it pushed up the Andes providing the natural separation between Chile and Argentina.  Chile has been losing shoreline and, as narrow as it is, it is likely to disappear in a few million years.

Fortunately, unlike in the U.S. there are not many forest fires as they do not have lightening storms.  One of the most interesting trees in the park is the monkey puzzle tree which I have shown in a photo.  There is still a dearth of wildlife other than birds.  We have seen one mouse, some trout and one rabbit-quite a bit less than on a safari.  However, we did see a condor today, circling over a mountain top where it nests.  It is awesome-lives 60 years; has a single mate and is a master raptor.  While the condor is black and white there were many beautiful birds, the males with bright colors to attract mates-is that why men wear ties?  Speaking of wildlife, we saw very few people in the park as has been the case for the rest of the trip.  It is the beginning of high season but I guess folks are not here yet-great for us having the forest all to ourselves.  We took a lovely hike through the forest and around a lake; I took some pictures.

It is Christmas Eve and we asked our guide and driver what it is like.  Dinner starts at 10pm and presents are opened after midnight.  Meats are the thing and every imaginable meat: sausage, venison, boar, is available (very little vegetables other than lettuce and tomatoes).  Argentina is not a good place for vegetarians.  The cooking is very German and there are many microbreweries with all sorts of German specialties.  As I said before, so far the food is nothing to brag about.

The guide was reluctant to talk about the “dark side” of Argentinean history but with some prodding there was more discussion about the aboriginal people and the war criminals.  Unlike the U.S. where the Indians were mostly herded into reservations away from the land needed by whites for cattle, in Argentina they were exterminated-not placed on reservations; and as noted before the people all look Western European.  As for the Nazis, there was a welcoming German community that had existed since the 1880s and Peron had kept Argentina “neutral” until two months before the war ended.  The result was that Argentina became the largest haven for Nazi elite who escaped the Allies.  Our guide, who is in her early 30’s described the time she was in high school and the principal was arrested as a war criminal.  She remembers being interviewed by the national media-her recollection was that he was a remote person who kept to himself.

Dec 23 Bariloche

Bariloche is the heart of Patagonia in Argentina (half of Patagonia is in Chile).  The name Patagonia means “big feet”.  Apparently when the Europeans arrived, they found the indigenous people to be much taller than they were, hence the name.

As you can see from the pictures the mountains and lakes are incredibly beautiful.  Note the glacier on one of the mountain tops.  There are also volcanos although the active ones are on the Chilean side.  One erupted on June 4, 2011 spewing ash for a year, carried by the winds to the Argentinean side.  What looks like a sandy path in one of the pictures is actually ash, which is silica.  The ash cloud was so dense at times it preventing flights and sheep had to be moved North because they were dying of lung ailments. 

The tip of South American is the confluence of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans so water at the top of the mountains that flows into the Chilean side goes into the Pacific and that from Argentina goes to the Atlantic.  In the past the temperature has been very unstable in Patagonia, changing by the hour.  With global warming in the last decade the weather has been both warmer and more predictable.  It has been beautiful with temperatures in the 60s in the morning and evening and around 80 in the afternoon.  The sky is perfectly clear.

There is a lot of bamboo but it is different from ours in that it lasts for 40 years and then dies after dropping it seeds.  One of the pictures shows the stands of dead bamboo acting as a cover over the path.  There are also unique trees, some seemingly as tall as redwoods and others orange from tannin.

I was able to take a kayak into one of the lakes and through a path to a hidden bay where I could swim.  The wind picked up and I could almost surf across the waves.  It was heaven.

Karen:

This area was originally settled by Germans and Swedes. It is notable that you almost never see Indians, as they were exterminated by the Europeans. For lunch we went to a German owned restaurant, where we had German goulash. They also showed us how they brewed their local beer. 

Dec 21-22 San Martin a los Andes

We are in the Andes for most of the rest of the trip.  Now we are about 1000m southwest of BsAs.  We are still more than 1000 miles north of the tip of South America.  Our area was affected by the glaciers, which we will visit later in the trip.  So the mountains are only around 10,000 ft while in the North where the glaciers stopped, they are over 20,000 ft.  This is where the plane crashed in the early 1970’s on the border of Chile and Argentina.  It was chronicled in the book Alive.  This was the Uruguayan rugby team; as you may recall they survived for 2 months and had to practice cannibalism. 

Speaking of planes, ours arrived in San Martin a los Andes on time.  San Martin, by the way, was the liberator of Argentina.  The war lasted from 1810 until freedom from Spain was achieved in 1816.  Then he guided the freedom fighters in Chile and Peru.  After doing all this he retired in Paris where he had spent most of his adult life, although born in Argentina.  Where did his support and passion for liberation come from?  The French and British wanted Spain’s influence to decline in South America so they supported his efforts with money and other resources.

The guide said we were lucky to arrive on time as the day before the plan was 2 hrs late and the day before that it was cancelled because of a day strike by the airspace controllers.  Strikes are so common that when we drove to town we passed a hospital that was on strike, including doctors and nurses.  They would only accept emergency cases.  Unions are extremely strong.  The one that supports the bus drivers has effectively prevented the expansion of the metro system in BsAs as an example.

Our guide complained that this was the difference between Argentina and Chile.  There is much less corruption and better fiscal policies in Chile.  He cited the current president being caught with suitcases full of money to be deposited in an offshore account.  This corruption goes all the way back to Peron who allowed Nazi war criminals to settle in Argentina if they brought their wealth and “donated” to him.  Mengele is probably the most famous-the Nazi doctor who experimented on concentration camp “prisoners”.  It is ironic that Argentina became a haven both for Jews before and after WWII and the Nazis after their defeat.

Jews have played a significant role for a few centuries in Argentina.  There has been discrimination but not institutionalized despite this being a conservative Catholic country.  Our guide, who is Jewish, noted the type of discrimination that we had in the US before the civil rights movement.  There was also the connection between human rights advocacy by Jews and the “disappeared” in Argentina.  There were a disproportionate number of Jewish professionals who disappeared during this period.  There were also two bombings with loss of life at the Israeli embassy in 1991 and the Jewish Community Center in 1994.  For the later, there is still an open investigation with Iran and Hezbollah being indicted.  In general security remains a problem, especially in BsAs.

We are taking a trip along the mountain lakes to Baraloche our next stop.  I have attached pictures.  They remind me both of Switzerland and the Rockies.  We passed a car that had a bright large sign on its trunk.  I asked the translation.  Our guide read “honk twice if you had sex last night”.  He noted, of course, that the car was from Chile.

In the early morning I went for a row with our guide in a two man shell on one of the lakes.  I used to row crew in college but this was the first time that I had done it in almost 50 years.  It is amazing the muscle memory you retain.  It was beautiful skimming over the azure water and seeing the mountains pass.

Yesterday our guide gave us a special treat, Matte.  This is a tea like drink indigenous to South America that is a stimulant and good for whatever else ailes you.  You pass it around like a hookah pipe.  It tasted very nice and we both drank a fair bit.  Of course, we then could not fall asleep until 2am and Karen got stomach cramps (and me less so, a known side effect when we researched it). 

While Karen was resting our guide took me to a beautiful small art museum in the mountain above San Martin.  The artist is Georg, who is apparently very well known in the US although I was ignorant of his work.  I was blown away by the action and 3 dimensional nature of the paintings of the forests, lakes and wildlife.  I was ready to consider buying one until I was told the price which approximated my annual salary.  I did get a nice poster!

We have had a number of meals and I have not written about them as they were not memorable.  Argentina is renowned for its beef but they don’t season it or salt it much so it is a big slab of tender meat with not a lot of taste.  The fish also has been bland and not exciting.  We were told that, unlike Mexicans, Argentineans do not like spicy food.  Our eating at 9pm has also been difficult to get used to.  Stores are open very late and even urgent care clinics were open at 11 when we walked out of the restaurant (that is one that was not on strike).

From Karen

I spent a lot of time talking to our guide. He was quite intelligent which we both appreciated. However he was very new age, which Mark didn’t appreciate. As Mark said he was Jewish and his ancestors came to Argentina in 1880 from Poland and the Ukraine.  A colony was established here and they did very well. The guide also said the area we are in now is where the Nazis lived because it was so isolated.

Everyone we meet is very proud of the new pope who comes from Argentina. Our guide said he was sure that if the Pope had time he would be able to solve the problems between Israel and the Palestineans.

We are staying at a fabulous hotel with a view of the lake and snowcapped mountains.

I took two years of Spanish in high school and little by little words are coming back to me.

We went to a Tango show in Buenos Airies. Mark really loved it, which surprised me. I appreciated it but didn’t like it as much as Mark did. 

Dec 19 In Buenos Aires (BsAs)

The city of the living: I was told before I came that many people skip BsAs and go directly to Patagonia or the Antarctic.  I can understand this decision as I have not found much distinguishing about the city itself.  The architecture is not distinctive-looks like most European cities and is not particularly clean.  BsAs is at the mouth (LaBoca) of the La Plata river and made its name as a port, as has been true of most large cities in the world.   The area around the port has not been developed and carries a rather unpleasant smell of dumped chemicals and dead fish.  The cost of housing is very high, $2,000 per sq ft for a condo in the best part of town. 

The city of the dead: While the living city was not terribly interesting the city of the dead had much to recommend it (see pictures).  The Recoleta Cemetary is now home to some 65,000 former residents of BsAs since it opened in 1822.  Its mausoleums take up many city blocks and the architecture is much more interesting than that in the live city.  Among former Presidents of Argentina and people of wealth rests Evita Duarte Peron, with people still bringing fresh flowers every day to her grave (see picture and monument).   She is actually buried in a vault below ground rather than in the mausoleum for fear of her body being stolen again.  It disappeared for 18 years shortly after her death.  There is a rule that no one can be buried until at least 24 hrs after their “death” because of the rather unfortunate situation in 1902 when a recently buried woman awakened from a coma a day after being placed in her mausoleum and started screaming.  It is not cheap being buried in Recoleta and you buy the space for 100 years.  If your line dies out by then the mausoleum is resold and the former occupants are crem

ated and their ashes deposited in the lower areas of the structure.  However, you can also rent a mausoleum for a month so the body can “lie in state” to be buried somewhere else for eternity.

The people: There was significant diversity in the city 100 years ago with the migrations from Spain, Italy, Turkey and other countries.  Today, I saw no one of African descent and no indigenous people and our guide confirmed this observation.  There are many undocumented aliens, however, mostly from Peru and Bolivia, looking for work and a better life for their families.  They live in tenements and we were shown one with 10 rooms for the same number of families and 1 kitchen and 1 bathroom.   It reminded me of the New York Bowery of the 1850’s. The people of BsAs are known for their love of steak (see picture of a barbecue), futbol and the Tango.  The tango only dates to the early 1900’s when it was performed by men.  It became the rage in Paris and then migrated back to BsAs when it assumed its current form (more on this in a subsequent blog).

The work day: It starts around 9am and ends around 7pm with a 1-2 hour break at noon.  Dinner is the major meal and starts around 8:30pm and, on Fridays, when combined with a show continues to around 2am.  Most of the work in BsAs are office jobs although in the outlying district there is the major industry of growing soybeans and wheat and raising cows.  The workday, however, does not always go exactly as planned.  There are demonstrations by unions and other protesters almost daily, causing massive backups.  No permits or control is required-a backlash from the military rule in the 1970s.  We were stuck for 30 min behind such a demonstration today.

Education:  This is very important and public education is free through college and post-graduate school and is mandatory through high school.  There are, however, tough entrance exams which 40% of students fail, giving rise to a large number of private universities of varying quality.  Unlike in the US (except in California), it is the public universities which have the best reputations in Argentina.