Argentina Argentina is a modern land still living, as it
always will, in the shadow of its inconclusive past, a twenty-first century
society whose image is still defined as much by a solitary gaucho herding
his
Gaucho on horseback. (Patagonia, Argentina)
sheep across the grassy pampas as it is by the self-referential
millions of its world-class capital city, Buenos Aires. Its culture is still
led by the brooding and tortured precision of its tango dancers. Its politics
are still captive in many ways to the old caudillo, Juan Perón, and
the tragic figure of his wife, Evita. Its history is the history of people
with pasts that are meant to be forgotten, the legacy of the Spanish conquistadors
having been supplemented through the years by the shadowy and indecipherable
pasts of the Germans and Italians who came during the World Wars and the
Welsh who first ventured to Patagonia because there was no better place
to escape the rest of the world. As Jose Luis Borges said of his native
land: "History is mere history. Myths are what matter. They determine
the type of history a country is bound to create and repeat."
This sprawling country encompasses the stark deserts
of the north, the unending pampas of the west and south, the up-and-coming
wine regions of the Chilean border, the cosmopolitan flair of its 'Paris
of South America' capital city, the turquoise glaciers of Perito Moreno
on the backside of the Andean cordillera, and the blustery shores of Tierra
del Fuego, fit only for penguins and useful only as an excuse to vie with
Chile for control of the southernmost tip of the inhabited world.
While the country's shadowy history and brooding culture
overshadows any visit to Argentina, many visitors don't come for the gauchos
or the pampas or the tangos. Nor do they come for Buenos Aires' porteños,
who pass evenings of revelry in the cafes that line the broad boulevards
of their sprawling megalopolis….. and then rise the next morning
in time for their therapy sessions, doing their part to keep their city
at the forefront of the world's great hotbeds of psychotherapy. Not for
these reasons do visitors come. Many visitors are motivated by the desire
to experience Argentina's many natural wonders. Argentina is a land crying
out for discovery, from the northern deserts to the splendor of Iguazú
Falls to the stark desolation of Patagonia to the wind-blown austerity
of Tierra del Fuego, the "land of fires" at the end of the world,
to Aconcagua, at 22,834 feet (6,960 meters) the highest peak in the world
outside of central Asia. Covering over 1,000,000 square miles of territory,
four times the size of Texas, Argentina has something for everyone.
Despite the generally private nature of its people,
the country itself is friendly to international tourism. The most amazing
feature of Argentina's largely immigrant population is the way in which
the cultures and predispositions of its Welsh, its Germans, its Italians,
its Spanish and even its Croats have been transported intact from the
Old World and set down unchanged in the middle of the New World. As a
result of this still-unblended amalgamation of cultures, and the preservation
of ties to the European motherland, Argentina is one Latin American country
where travelers can feel at ease and can move about inconspicuously.
"The history of Buenos
Aires is written in its telephone directory. Pompey Romanov, Emilio
Rommel, Crespina D.Z. de Rose, Ladislao Radziwil, and Elizabeta Marta
Callman de Rothschild - five names taken at random from among the R's
- told a story of exile, disillusion and anxiety behind lace curtains."
Bruce Chatwin,
In Patagonia, 1977
While not entirely rejecting
Chatwin's viewpoint, many visitors can still see the city as its poet
laureate, Jorge Luis Borges, did. A city as eternal as air and water.
Or perhaps as eternal as the wind, the 'good winds' for which the city
is named. Many porteños see their city as being
Trekkers and horses. (Argentina)
synonymous with the country itself, conveniently
forgetting - or perhaps never even knowing - that the pampas stretch to
the horizons from just beyond the end of the capital's sprawling suburbs
and that rivers of ice edge through gaps in the western border's Andean
cordillera. But maybe the self-absorbed porteños are not too far
off from the real truth. Fully forty percent of Argentina's population lives
in its capital city, spread over 1,500 square miles (3,885 square kilometers)
on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata. Nobody disputes the
city's somewhat proudly-held appellation, the 'Paris of South America.'
The cafes along its tree-lined avenidas and its elegant open plazas are
most reminiscent of Paris, covered with a thin veneer of faded but alluring
elegance. The city's three-piece-suited bankers, acting as if they were
in London, and its sophisticated and smartly-dressed matrons, acting as
if they were in Paris or Milan, share the sidewalks with the beggars and
the unemployed who've come in from the suburbs and the Argentine countryside
expecting food and work and hope.
Buenos Aires, founded in 1580 by the Spaniard Juan
de Garay, revolves around the downtown Plaza de Mayo. Nearby, the Avenida
9 de Julio, known as the world's widest thoroughfare, cuts a broad swath
through the city's heart. The fashionable shopping districts are centered
around the Avenida Santa Fe. At the top of the city's lists of attractions
is the Catedral Metropolitana, the site of the tomb of José de
San Martín, Argentina's venerated hero of its struggle for independence
and the namesake of at least one major street in all of the country's
towns and cities. Another well-known attraction is the Teatro Colón,
a world-class facility for opera, ballet and classical music. The city's
museums are also world-class, ranging from the fine arts museum, the Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes, to the natural history museum, the Museo Histórico
Nacional. The colorful suburbs of La Boca and San Telmo are worth a visit.
The city's jazz clubs, theaters, art galleries and coffeehouse culture
are all worth sampling. But no one passing through Buenos Aires can get
a glimpse of the city's soul without paying a visit to the Cementerio
de la Recoleta, where the country's national passion for death is on full
display.
The Pampas In addition to being the country's greatest natural
resource (surpassing lead, zinc, tin, copper, iron
Guanacos near Cerro Castillo on the Argentine-Chilean
border. (Patagonia, Argentina-Chile)
ore and petroleum), the fertile but unrelentingly
flat Pampas are also the symbol of Argentina's national being. The Pampas
include the country's most productive agricultural lands, extending more
than 1,000 miles through the heartland of the country, from the Gran Chaco
plains in the north to the Patagonian steppes in the south. But, more
importantly, the Pampas have engendered the gaucho, that symbol of romantic
nationalism, leading his sheep or his beef cattle from pasture to pasture.
The Pampas are more than just endless grasslands, however. Their varied
environments include forested hills and flamingo-fringed salt flats. In
addition to the few humans brave enough to defy the vastness of the Pampas,
and the livestock that they have brought with them, the grassy plains
are also inhabited by llama-like guanacos, ostrich-like rheas, pumas and
vizcachas, a variety of wild chinchilla. The main cities of the Pampas
region include La Plata, Luján, Rosario and Santa Fe.
Iguazú
Falls In the extreme northwestern corner of Argentina,
near the country's remote borders with Brazil and
Old gaucho near Cerro Castillo. (Patagonia,
Argentina)
Paraguay, lies one of South America's most spectacular
natural wonders, the Cataratas de Iguazú, or Iguazú Falls.
The Río Iguazú, just 16 miles from its confluence with the
larger Río Paraná, plunges over a 230-foot (70-meter) high
crest into a large double drop and then through a series of thundering cataracts
before vanishing in an abyss of thunder and spray far below. In the dry
season, the falls split into two broad torrents of water. In the rainy season,
the two halves merge into one vast cascade more than two miles wide. Above
the falls the waters of the Iguazú are perfect for kayaking, rafting,
canoeing and other water sports. The surrounding national park, the Parque
Nacional Iguazú, is a pristine subtropical rainforest with abundant
wildlife and plant species. The area also boasts the ruins of numerous old
Jesuit missions, including the popular San Ignacio Miní and its unusual
'Guarani baroque' architectural style.
Patagonia The Argentine version of Patagonia, situated on
the dry eastern side of the Andes, is very different from the Chilean
version located on the western slopes of the massive cordillera. Argentina's
Patagonia boasts miles and miles of golden grasslands, hosting estancias
bigger than many American states, while Chile's Patagonia is, for the
most part, a bleak land of mountains, rocky shores, rain and overcast
skies. Both sides of the divide, however, do share one thing in common:
the violent, unrelenting wind.
Chatwin's impressions of Patagonia, recorded in his
journal on a long day that he spent walking along an endless highway,
waiting for a passing truck that was still days away, were as follows:
"Walked all day and
the next day. The road straight, grey, dusty and trafficless. The wind
relentless, heading you off. Sometimes you heard a truck, you knew for
certain it was a truck, but it was the wind. Or the noise of gears changing
down, but that was also the wind. Sometimes the wind sounded like an
unloaded truck banging over a bridge. Even if a truck had come up behind,
you wouldn't have heard it. And even if you'd been downwind, the wind
would have drowned the engine."
Bruce Chatwin,
In Patagonia, 1977
Argentine Patagonia hides many
spectacular treasures in the vest pockets of her vast treeless plains.
Perito Moreno Glacier, a 200-foot tall river of ice the color of the Argentine
flag, slides off the back side of the Andes and melts into the turquoise
waters of Lago Argentina. El Calafate, the outback town nearest the glacier,
is a bustling community of galleries and sophisticated shops.
Life in Patagonia continues the way it has
for many years. (Patagonia, Chile)
Río Gallegos, an end-of-the-road coastal
town at the southern tip of the grassy Argentine mainland, is famous for
its sea-run brown-trout fishing. Península Valdés is a special
treat for wildlife lovers, home to large numbers of sea lions, elephant
seals, guanacos, rheas, Magellanic penguins and right whales. Horseback-riding,
glacier-trekking, mountain-climbing, whale-watching and wine-tasting are
among Patagonia's many other offerings. And, of course, there is Argentina's
notorious 'La Cuarenta' (Route 40), the 2,700-mile long highway that runs
from the Bolivian border to its terminus at Río Gallegos. Only one-third
of the road is paved. The remainder, if it doesn't just vanish without notice
for several miles in the grasslands, is covered in tire-eating gravel. La
Cuarenta ties together a string of vast estancias that put any American
dude ranch to shame. The estancias can be visited by those anxious for a
taste of the wild west territory that once harbored Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid.
Tierra del
Fuego In 1520, the Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand Magellan,
gave the name Tierra del Fuego to the island the forms the southern shoreline
of the strait that now bears his name. Tierra del Fuego means 'the land
of the fires,' so called because of the campfires of the Indians, mostly
Onas and Yahgans, that Magellan noticed lining its shores. The most famous
exploration of Tierra del Fuego
Welcome to Ushuaia! (Patagonia, Argentina)
was conducted by Charles Darwin aboard his ship,
the HMS Beagle. The channel that lies to the south of Tierra del Fuego is
today called the Beagle Channel, in honor of Darwin's ship of discovery.
The eastern portion of the island, the Argentine side,
is virtually a continuation of the Patagonian plateau that exists on the
mainland side of the Strait of Magellan. On the island's mountain slopes
facing the wind, essentially the Chilean side of the island, the rain
never stops. Ushuaia, the main town on the Argentine half of the island,
proclaims itself the 'Southernmost Town in the World.' Puerto Williams,
a largely inaccessible settlement on Chile's Isla Navarino, a remote island
lying across the Beagle Channel from Ushuaia, trumps that claim by proclaiming
itself the 'Southernmost Community in the World.' Outside of Ushuaia is
Argentina's only coastal national park, a wild land of rivers, lakes,
forests, glaciers and wind, with great trekking and wildlife-spotting
opportunities. Impressive pinguineras (penguin colonies) can be seen along
the southeastern coastline near Harberton.
People The vast majority of Argentines are descendants
of European immigrants. Sizable minorities of mestizos and Native Americans
comprise the remainder of the population. The population is concentrated
in urban areas, particularly in Buenos Aires, one of the largest urban
conurbations in the world. Despite the country's popular image, only 11%
of Argentines live in rural areas. Many of these rural dwellers are descendants
of the Welsh, Scottish and English settlers that populated the vast sheep
stations of northern Patagonia. Spanish is the official language of Argentina,
although it is spoken with an accent that betrays the country's strong
Italian influences. Ninety percent of Argentines identify Roman Catholicism
as their religion.
Travel Tips Argentina's relatively diversified economy, ranging
from agriculture to manufacturing, has
Hiking in the mountains above Ushuaia. (Patagonia,
Argentina)
traditionally resulted in high levels of prosperity,
at least when judged by South American standards. This prosperity is evident
in the country's low infant mortality rates and 97% literacy rate. However,
in late December 2001, in response to four years of recession, the government
decided to abandon its controversial dollar-pegged currency and to let the
peso float. The country's export problem was exacerbated by Argentina's
location at the end of the world, in an inconvenient location for many trading
partners. The country's neighbor and biggest trading partner, Brazil, was
in the midst of its own economic hardships. The devaluation of the currency
led to a political crisis and the resignation of President Fernando de la
Rua. As a result, many parts of the country were plunged into social, economic
and political turmoil. Looting and rioting filled the streets of major cities.
While the present situation poses no direct threat to foreign visitors,
travelers are advised to exercise extreme caution. For the latest information
on security issues in Argentina, please consult the U.S. State Department's
consular warning.
Temperature/Weather Except for the country's tropical northeastern
corner and the subtropical plains of the northern Gran Chaco, most of
the Argentine mainland enjoys a temperate climate. Much colder conditions
typically prevail in the Andean cordillera, in Patagonia and in Tierra
del Fuego. Any time is a good time to visit Buenos Aires' urban attractions.
The capital city's average temperatures range from 42° F to 57°
F (6° C to 14° C) in July, and from 63° F to 85° F in
January (17° C to 29° C). Patagonian destinations, such as the
Perito Moreno glacier, are best visited in the summertime months of December
through February. Northern destinations, including Iguazú Falls
in the subtropical belt, are best visited in the wintertime months of
May through August, when the heat and humidity are less oppressive. The
ski resorts centered around attractive San Carlos de Bariloche near the
Chilean border flourish during the winter months of June and July.
Reading List In order to make the most of your trip to Argentina,
the following reading lists will help you gain a better understanding
of the landscape, culture and people. Here you can also purchase any books
you might need for your Global Adrenaline trip!
Global Adrenaline, Inc.
25 East Washington Street, Suite 1458
Chicago, Illinois 60602
USA
Tel: +1-866-884-5622 (toll free in USA)
Tel: +1-312-863-6300 (outside USA)
Fax: +1-312-873-4440
Email: info@GlobalAdrenaline.com
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