Blogs from South America - page 5453

Have just returned from a two-day tour to a couple of UNESCO National parks north of Mendoza. The hostel I´m staying at in San Juan organised it for me through a local tour company but since there aren´t very many tourists around here at the moment, there were only three of us on the trip. The other two were a lovely Belgian Flemish couple but the driver was quite unpleasant, which put a slight dampener on things but we tended to laugh at him rather than getting annoyed and still had a good time anyway. The first park is famous for being a mine of early dinosaur fossils and the students working there were excellent at explaining the whole process. We cycled around the second park today, which was such a nice relief after hours in ... read more

Visión ecológica del río Toltén El Toltén es un ecosistema VIVO que se dañará mortalmente por el cloro, el cloruro férrico y los polímeros que usará la planta QUIMICA de tratamiento de aguas servidas. Aquí se explican algunas razones. Por Manuel Gross Osses Los ecólogos emplean el término ecosistema para indicar una unidad natural de partes vivientes e inertes, con interacciones mutuas para producir un sistema estable donde el intercambio de sustancias entre todas sus partes es de tipo circular. Para calificarla como ecosistema, la unidad ha de ser un sistema estable, donde el recambio de materiales sigue un camino circular. Un ejemplo clásico de un ecosistema bastante estable es nuestro río Toltén. La parte no viviente del río comprende el agua, el oxígeno disuelto, el bióxido de carbono, las sales inorgánicas como fosfatos y cloruros ... read more

And in this section we cross the Foz, ride thru´a bit of don´t-cry-for-me-land, have a run-in with the cops, and win!, make the easiest frontier yet, discover another hidden treasure in Uraguay, choose the Devil over Eden, and more.... I was riding along this morning just contemplating some of the perfect pear-shaped bottoms I´d seen in Copercobana and Ipanema, in fact on nearly all the beaches, but in Brasil they are special....and I was wondering who was the unimaginative jerk, locked in some dingy office, riding his overneat desk thru´his boring life and came up with the sicko idea of describing something that has failed as Pear-shaped!...unbelievable...why not brick-shaped, or cuboid or flat or passionfruit-shaped..pears are so perfect, and in relation to body parts, absolutely perfect...if I was working on a project and it turned pear-shaped ... read more

Hello.... Just a short one this time...it´s just a city!!!....albeit a very cool city. We had a great time in BA..lots of walking and trying to eat with the locals (i.e. waiting around starving until 10pm and then being the first in the restaurant) Anyway...I´ve managed to eat almost a whole cow...we´ve tried the best steak house in BA (does that make it the best in the world), but to be honest we´ve had better in other less ´famous´places. The only disapponitment was not getting to see Boca juniors playing, as they did so well in some South American competition that they didnt come home and so cancelled the game we were due to see. For any footie fans, we did get to tour the stadium...what a place that would have been to see a game...the ... read more

While booking ourselves onto a wine tour in Mendoza, the girl at the hostel we´re staying at happens to mention that Aerolineas Argentinas (the national airline, who we´ve booked a flight to Buenos Aires with tomorrow) are on strike and have been for nearly a week. We have to get there. Duran Duran are playing. Our room in our posh hostel has cable TV. Flick round the channels and find a live heated union debate with the workers from the socialist airline. The company have now started sacking people, so the strike is on for a while... Oh dear, this means a 13 hour bus journey back to Buenos Aires overnight. But the God of 80´s Pop Music is looking down on us and (with the help of an incredibly chatty and helpful travel agent, Francisco) ... read more