Tierra Santa

A theme park all about Jesus!? Only in Argentina.

Rosario 80 years later...

This town which used to be a bigger port that Buenos Aires and is where the monument to the Argentine flag is located is also the birthplace of Che Guevara. Albert and I took a journey out there for the 80th anniversary of his birth and unveiling of the first ever statue of him in Argentina.

Chile

1. 

So, here I am finally getting around to posting pics and stories from the 12 amazing days Christine and I spent in Chile. We made it by bus all the way from the Bolivian border in the north to Entre Lagos about 2/3 of the way down before crossing over the mountains into Argentina. That was some 70 hours in buses! Chile is about the length north to south as the US is from east to west to give you and idea. More to come!

Uruguay: life on the flip side del Río de la Plata

First of I must mention that, despite popular belief on both sides of it, there is nothing riverish about the Río de la Plata. This is evident

enough at a glance from the shore on either side. Looking out over the sea of Wonka-esque brown waves and the endless horizon, it feels exactly like an ocean, which it isn´t really either. The most enlightning way to experience whatever this massive body of water is is via the 3 hour ferry between Buenos Aires and the small Uruguayan coastal town of Colonia, famous for the colonial Portuguese ruins there and the gorgeous trees (every time I asked what type they were, I got another response...appologies again to any botanists who might be reading this) lining the streets. I took the ferry, enjoyed the charm of Colonia and then headed on by bus to Montevideo, the southernmost capital city in the Western Hemisphere (your daily dose of geography trivia) which was wonderfully tranquilo in comparison to BA. A couple of friends of mine from my exchange progam and I stayed with an American studying there for a year that I found on couchsurfers. He showed us an amazing time, from the Spanish fort atop the only hill as far as the eye can see, to the downtown nightlife, to the outskirts of town where we joined him for an afternoon of volunteer work with some kids from the slums outside the city.

Parque Nacional de Iguazú - yes, water falls!

So here are some pictures from the fabulous weekend I jsut spent in Iguazú. To sum up, I felt like I was on a moving sidewalk through paradise for two days. This place was very moving and spiritual.

On a more wordly note, you will also notice some decidedly less heavenly photos of the highway which connects the airport to the national park and then to the city of Puerto Iguazú. What happened was that the parents of the public school kids in Puerto Iguazú had been protesting the horrible conditions of the schools there for several months and had decided out of desperation to take their protest into the streets. This took the form of a ¨corte de la ruta¨ or roadblock of the only highway into town. Argentines takes their protesting very seriously and this was a serious picket line. I was unable to reach the city for the first day and spent several hours in the bus from the airport stopping on the highway before we turned around and headed to the waterfalls for the rest of the afternoon. That night some friends I had made on the bus and I managed to get through the corte when they decided to lift it to pedestrians later on that night after we had waited there with all our lugage thinking of where to sleep outside (since ALL the hostels and hotels in the area were on the other sid of the corte) for quite a while taking in the action. The next morning, we tried to cross back through the corte to spend the whole day at Iguazú (since we only had a couple of hours the first day) but they were having non of it. They had decided overnight not to let a single person or car through until the Province´s Minister of Education came out there to negociate. So we waited. Eventually the minister did show up and we managed to sneak in in the mass confusion surrounding his entourage but they wouldn´t let us out the other side so we wound up stuck inside the 40 or so yards where the protesters were camped out on the highway between two long Argentine banners that bloqued al lanes of traffic. As the negotiations were taking place (which consisted of angry protesters taking turns on the microphone bitching at the minister and him smiling and nodding very uncomfortably in the middle of a huge crowd and military guards) a ridiculously strong jungle downpour began to come down. We took shelter under a huge piece of black plastic that the protesters had ready and preceeded to be stuck there for about an hour and a half waiting for the torential rain to let up. It may sound miserable, but it has to be one of the best experiences of my life. There I was, taken in sponteneously to the struggle with the protesters (it was NOT EASY keeping that ¨tarp¨ over our heads in the strong wind) in the middle of the highway in the middle of the jungle in the middle ofa very dysfunctional political system. People were laughing, there were children playing in the mud. The Argentine national anthem and snare drums broke out on more than one occassion, all while the minister and the protest leaders huddled underneath and Ice Cream umbrella in the middle trying to sign an agreement.

Definitely an experience. Anyway, they finally signed off on an agreement and they lifted the corte and all marched back into town. I spent the whole of the next day in the Iguazú National Park which was nothing but paradise, even with the confused British tourists and hectic Chinese tour groups. The next day I spent in the town where I went to the meeting of the Paraná and Iguazú rivers which forms the boundary of Paraguay, Brasil, and Argentina. It was a very moving view and a great end to an amazing trip.

Ciudad de los Muertos - El Cementerio de Recoleta

These are all photos from the Recoleta Cemetary, which has got to be one of the top 5 coolest things I´ve seen in Buenos Aires. It doesn´t seem that big from the outside, about a city block of high old walls with the occasional cross or stone angel peeking up from over the top, but once you enter it is literally and metaphorically a complete otehr world, and one that doesn´t seem liek it will ever end. I definitely got more lost there than I have in the rest of Buenos Aires, but all for the better. Highlights include the mosuleums of Evita and Domingo Sarmiento.

La Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur