Tango town and the north-east


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South America » Argentina » Buenos Aires
March 27th 2007
Published: March 27th 2007
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Claire and Erin are underwhelmed!Claire and Erin are underwhelmed!Claire and Erin are underwhelmed!

International Women's Day ad for flowers, Buenos Aires
Our holiday with Erin in Buenos Aires and north-eastern Argentina has been a radical change in mode of travel for us, as we took to buses and did the trad backpacker thing for almost three weeks.

Buenos Aires is a crazy city! It is vibrant and lively and full of art museums and movies and other cultural things we've been starved of in remote areas, but also polluted enough to hurt our throats and eyes. We noticed that people had a pressed, tired look that we had become unused to in the west.

Erin's first day with us happened to be International Women's Day. We soon discovered that, for most porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) the meaning is far from the usual one of equality of choice and opportunity. Everywhere there were ads for IWD — featuring a demure woman looking pretty in pink, and promoting the sale of flowers. At least some Argentineans have a different idea of IWD: we came across a cardboard sign, which read "Where are the women of history?", that had been hung on a statue of yet another famous colonial male!

Of course, women have played an active public role in
"Where are the women of history?""Where are the women of history?""Where are the women of history?"

Sign on yet another statue glorifying male deeds, central Buenos Aires, IWD, 8 March
Argentinean life. One of the best known examples is in the fight for democracy in recent decades. On 30 April 1977, in the first year of the military junta that lasted until 1983, 14 women organised the first of a series of demonstrations in front of the presidential palace, which sits on the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. They had met in the waiting rooms of police stations while trying to find out the whereabouts of their children, who had disappeared. The women, who became known as the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, met every Thursday in public at the plaza to demand (unsuccessfully) that the fate of those who disappeared be made known. Their overt action put them at risk, and some of the women themselves disappeared. However, they would not be silenced, and membership of the group grew to the thousands. When democracy returned, laws were enacted to protect those involved in the disappearances from prosecution, and the women continued to meet every Thursday to demand justice. (These laws have since been repealed, to allow for prosecutions.) The women still meet every week at the plaza.

Having done with our underwhelming IWD celebrations, we turned our attention to something more mainstream. The 3 of us decided to go to a football game, and we were determined to avoid buying an expensive tour. This meant we were on our own, because the city's information centre, and tour agencies and tourist hostels only promote tours. The two big BA teams in the Argentinean premier league are Boca Juniors and River Plate. It took us half a day to research the details, including how to get a bus to the River stadium to buy tickets for the following day's game, but we felt a considerable sense of achievement when we finally clutched our tickets in our hands. (And for less than half the price of a tour!) Things only started to unravel the next evening. As we neared the River stadium our footsteps seemed to echo, and our hearts began to sink: the streets seemed distinctly quiet and dim. The stadium came into view. Was there not a light on somewhere? Why couldn't we hear the crowds? As we arrived at the gate and the reality of missing the game began to sink in, sirens shattered the quiet evening air. We turned to see a bus under police
Work for bread, bread for workWork for bread, bread for workWork for bread, bread for work

Mural in the working class port suburb of La Boca, Buenos Aires
escort coming down the road. As it passed us and turned into the stadium we noticed that there were only a few people in it, precisely enough to make up a football team. And they were all wearing the red, white and black of the River team. The game had started four hours earlier, in an away game at another BA stadium. A couple of assumptions and our inadequate Spanish had let us down. There was nothing left to do but stop at the first bar we came across and drowned our sorrows with some excellent Argentinean wine, and avoid televisions showing game highlights.

By the following morning we could laugh at ourselves, and a couple of weeks later we managed to get to a premier league game between Vélez Sarsfield (from BA) and Colón (from provincial Santa Fe). It was a solid game of bad mullets, and poetic footwork and defence, and we were treated to an exciting finish when Colón evened the score to 1 all in the last 2 minutes. The ball rolled into the net so blandly that, for a few moments, we thought it had slipped past the goal posts. Just as we realised
Cheesy with that?Cheesy with that?Cheesy with that?

Erin, Claire and Dave take in the mood at the Vélez–Colón football game
that the silence around us, in one of the home-side stands, was thick with displeasure, the Colón supporters erupted in jubilation. And then the full-time whistle blew. It might not have been quite the same as a River game, but we had lots of fun sharing a Saturday evening with the locals.

We were also thwarted in our attempts to soak up some different culture when we chose 24 March to visit some of the city's fantastic art museums. Many museums displayed notices advising that they were closed to honour the day, and we soon found out why. March 24 marks the date in 1976 that the military junta under General Jorge Rafael Videla took power in Argentina. Videla disbanded parliament and suppressed all political parties and trade unions. During the years of the junta thousands of people disappeared, including artists and intellectuals, unionists and outspoken workers: the numbers given vary, from 9,000 (official figures) to 30,000 (human rights organisation figures). Although the prosecution of those involved in the disappearances is now possible, it is claimed by local activists and others that this is leading to more people disappearing.

For a complete change of pace and environment, we
No-one in Argentina forgets the MalvinasNo-one in Argentina forgets the MalvinasNo-one in Argentina forgets the Malvinas

Sign at a market in Mataderos, Buenos Aires
also spent time in the north-east of the country.

Our first stop was the terrible and beautiful Iguazú Falls, on the border of Argentina and Brazil and a few kilometres upstream of their border with Paraguay. Standing before them, particularly the semi-circular Garganta del Diablo (Devil's throat), it takes no imagination to understand why the Guaraní people who lived here held the falls in reverence. The name of the falls comes from the Guaraní words y (water) and guasu (big).

We had heard lots about these magnificent falls and seen friends' photos, but no-one had told us about the butterflies. It was a magical moment when we found ourselves walking into rainbow clouds of fluttering air. There were hundreds of them, and dozens of species. Dave uncovered a latent talent as a butterfly magnet (surely it wasn't just the yellow of his rainjacket) and we all watched them lap up the sweat from our skin, sitting on our hands for minutes at a time.

The bird life was as rich and colourful as the butterfly life here. We were lucky enough to spot some lovely little toucans, and to watch great dusky swifts fly in clouds of wheeling black stars against the spray from behind the waterfalls, where they nest.

Along the tracks, which were really well made, placid hordes of anteaters snuffled in and out the undergrowth.

South of Iguazú, and still in Misiones province, we stopped at San Ignacio, a quiet town that survives a Jesuit mission, San Ignacio Miní, now in ruins and protected under the World Heritage Trust with several others in the region. This province is named for the missions, and about 30 were founded in the 1630s in this area and in nearby areas of what is today Paraguay and Brazil. The missions were intended to civilise and Christianise the Guaraní people, and revolved around the performance of communal labour and artistic pursuits, as well as religious. It seems that many Guaraní preferred life in the missions to the alternative, near slavery on the colonial plantations. (Retaining their traditional way of life wasn't an option.) These days, San Ignacio Miní is peaceful, with the rainforest tamed into park-like gardens that set off the magnificent red stone and beautiful stone masonry.

Getting from here to the Esteros del Iberá (Iberá wetlands) in Corrientes, the next province south, required three days and four buses (since we shunned a tour). We stayed for a few days in the sleepy, sprawling village of Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, which bakes on the shore of one of the largest lakes in the wetlands. People here live quietly, and everything is relaxed. Even the dogs were the happiest we have come across in Chile and Argentina! The town has wide streets of sand and few facilities, and locals must travel 4 hours by bus or 2-and-a-half by 4WD to the nearest town.

Iberá (from the Guaraní ý berá, bright water) is the second-largest wetland in South America, with an area of between 15,000 and 20,000 km². It is a complex environment of swamps, bogs, stagnant lakes, lagoons, islands of floating vegetation and streams, and is considered to be one of most important fresh water reservoirs in the continent. There are 350 species of birds here, which makes it almost as rich in birdlife as Iguazú Falls. The Iberá is also home to two species of caiman, the yacaré negro, which we saw, and the broad-snouted caiman, as well as the pretty marsh deer, and the capybara, or carpincho, the largest rodent. These comical creatures have
Recoleta cemetry, burial ground of the wealthy and powerfulRecoleta cemetry, burial ground of the wealthy and powerfulRecoleta cemetry, burial ground of the wealthy and powerful

In the background are is tenement housing of people who could never afford to be buried here
adapted happily to human habitation in the Iberá: everywhere there is mowed grass, there are small groups of capybaras grazing.

Pellegrini is at the opposite end of the urban scale to Buenos Aires, so it was quite a shock returning there to put Erin on the plane home, and head back to the foothills of the Andes ourselves. A 20 hours bus trip later, and we are back in Bariloche, and glad to be on our bikes and travelling the slow way north.



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Mmmm, that tastes goodMmmm, that tastes good
Mmmm, that tastes good

Butterfly lapping sweat, Iguazú Falls
Garganta del DiabloGarganta del Diablo
Garganta del Diablo

Devil's Throat, Iguazú Falls
Up close and personalUp close and personal
Up close and personal

Scavenging coatís (anteaters) introduce themselves to Erin in search of food
San Ignacio MiníSan Ignacio Miní
San Ignacio Miní

Ruins of a Jesuit mission, now World Heritage listed


12th April 2007

Tango town......
You sound a lot happier when you are out on the open road. Keep on treking.
24th April 2007

Missing you
Hello there in the southern end of the Americas. This travel with Erin sounds like a huge difference, but certainly a welcome one. Good to see you head up north to Bolivia as well. Take care with the visa as they sometimes want Australians to pay for the service. Take care,
28th April 2007

love your story
Love the fascinating story you make out of 'mere' travel. Your story has a rich passion about people and their place, justice and injustice, real history, poverty and richness, glory and pain, joy and problems, solitude and the press of cities ... What joy for you Claire that Erin can be with you. Don

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