Bariloche and lakes

Some brief shafts of sunlight this evening - this is the stunning view from my balcony, over Lago Nahuel Huapi.  But much of the day was grey and bleak and chilly, much like Bariloche city center, or some Scottish provincial town on a bad day (it's the granite that does it, too).  Bariloche is a weird place: properly founded at the beginning of the C20th, although some didn't-end-happily mission activity took place in the region before then, and there were settlers - some British; the first road from/to Buenos Aires was built in 1913 and Theodore Roosevelt visited the same year (and was influential in helping the establishment of National Parks here); then Austrians, and Germans - a lot of Germans in the 1940s, and certainly local myths have it that a number of Nazis fled here (others debunk that, but).  It certainly tries to look like a Germano-Swiss sports town, which means that post-summer watersports and hiking, and pre-ski-ing may not mean that one catches the town at its best, right now.

It's also known for chocolate making - which is seeing the influence, like everything other than LA hotel bookings, of World Cup Fever.

The cathedral church is a pretty magnificent plain structure, made from granite blocks, and with stained glass history "showing local history" - for which, read massacres at the hands of indigenous people.

More interesting to me was the figure of Gauchito Gil, on the back of this food truck: Gil is a folk saint; a nineteenth-century hero who was like the Argentian Robin Hood; wildly popular after the 1990s, in particular, when he became an icon of resistance.

And then I hopped in the car and drove south down Route 40, which runs 5,194 miles down the whole length of Argentina.  No, it's not a big interstate: it's a two lane highway with a lot of potholes (I thought it was ominous when the guy at the car rental showed me where the jack and spare wheel are ...) - but more than that, precious few pull-out places.  So the trouble with driving is despite beautiful view after beautiful view, there are very few opportunities for taking pictures... This is of Lago Gutiérrez;

and the next of Lago Mascardi.  I then went past Lago Guillermo - and shortly after that not only did the string of lakes come to an end, but I was heading uphill, and the Andes looked very cold and inhospitable, and I was out of cellphone reach, so (when I could - probably about 8 miles further on - no houses, no side roads: I've always like bleak landscape but this was pushing it) I turned round.  If I'd carried on for another couple of hours, I'd have got to where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid holed up, which was tempting... but the internet tells me their cabin is closed, and who knows where there may be gas stations??

You'd have thought this was obvious, but maybe there are days when that water looks more tempting than today ...

 

Buenos Aires to Bariloche

First, this morning, the Japanese Garden, including a scultured dead tree;

and lots of fat koi.

En route to the Museum of Latin American Art (which didn't open until noon), many dogwalkers with huge entourages;

and the Museo itself was spectacular, and a crash course in C20th-C21st Latin American art, from Indigenismo

through surrealism (how come I've never taken Remedios Varo on board before?  This is an extract from her self-portrait, but all her work here is wonderful);

to slowly rotating light disks.  I had to flee too soon, to catch my flight ...

Not pictured: the flight to Bariloche, over 1200 miles of nothingness - the very very occasional estancia, which just left me wondering how they made/got power, or how you could ensure that you didn't run out of gas all the time.  Now I see why this country has so few railroads: they would be wildly unprofitable.  I don't think I've ever seen so much emptiness.  It was dark by the time I drove out of the airport in a little Fiat: first past pine trees and then more pine trees, and then into town, which was full of roundabouts - I hate it when my prim English GPS says "take the sixth exit," especially when driving norms are - well, different - and then down a road past some of the lake and eventually found my way into my crazily wonderful hotel (my room has a lake view, yes, but also a jacuzzi, a steam shower, and a sauna - I wish I were staying here a week).  And no, it's not the supposedly truly upmarket place, here ... This is the blurred, for some reason, view from my balcony: more tomorrow, in daylight.  I was, very happily, welcomed by the hotel cat.

 

one more day in BA

I had to start the day by going to El Ateneo Grand Splendid: indeed, a wonderfully situated bookstore, in an old theater (and with a very good selection of books, too) - and then went to La Boca, the touted-up part of which makes a great thing out of what were once immigrant houses down by the old port - largely tenements housing newly arrived, made of corrugated iron, and painted with colors left over from painting ships.  El Caminito was actually unbearably touristy (and remember, it's May! the equivalent of November) - not so much in terms of crowds, but because of hard-on sell (and this doubtless was intensified for me by passing a food pantry just before I got there).

It had something of the would-be cheerful air of modular housing in LA made from shipping containers ...

even if, yes, it was striking.

Even half a street away, however, it felt less ... freshly painted.

As you'd anticipate, I found the 1950s bas relief panels a fascinating carry-over from C19th Italian socialist art traditions: this, La sirga, is by Julio César Vergottini.

I got off the colectivo (#152, this time) at the very beginning of La Boca, however - about twenty five minute's walk north of here, which gave me a much better sense of the decaying nature of the district as a whole - with some lovely examples of early twentieth century/late nineteenth century architecture, all the same - including some houses that could have come straight out of London dockland; and also brought home that this is a barrio completely dominated by soccer.  Deep blue and yellow - the colors of the La Boca team - were everywhere.

Why the side of the La Boca stadium should include a mural of some firefighters rescuing a mermaid rather baffled me.

I was left hoping, at the end of this, that Argentina will win the World Cup: I know the history involving England is a long one (and yes, I did see a Maradona-themed bus painted with the legend "La Mano de Dios")

There was, of course, some non-football-themed wall art, too.

Then there were houses that gave one, I think, a much better idea of what the neighborhood probably looked like.

And the pièce de resistance, waiting, surely, for their lunch.

 

a day in Uruguay

Today, I caught the Buquebus - one of the ferries - over to Uruguay for a peaceful day in Colonia del Sacramento, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and utterly deserving of it.  It was founded by the Portuguese in the late C17th, and then in 1777 captured by the Spanish.  The ruins in the picture below are where the original governor's mansion stood.

So this is what they assume visitors might want to read?  Orwell and Kafka?  It's more of a Joseph Conrad location.

The simple 1810 church is being restored, hopefully to the same quiet elegance as the alcove behind the altar.

Down by the Rio de la Plata, a very pro vegan, or at least pro vegetarian stencil.  Given all the steaks (or maybe because of them), there's a surprising amount of vegetarianism in both Argentina and, evidently, Uruguay.

The lighthouse.

Calle de los Suspiros, supposedly the most photographed street in Uruguay, and it was lovely - the kind of place - the whole little old town was - that makes you vow that next time, you'll spend a night here.  (next time??).

 By the same token, this is probably the most photographed car in Uruguay.

It sits outside a very friendly cafe/restaurant, where I had a wonderful plate of lentil stew, that warmed me up and served as both lunch and dinner.

Walking back to the ferry terminal, an autumnal avenue with the Rio de la Plata at the bottom.

Heading back to the hotel on the bus (one of the beauties of BA is that there are buses - colectivos - everywhere, which makes transportation when one's not walking a dream.  Only there are many competing companies, so somehow I never seem to get the same number bus twice, even on what's more or less the same route ...) - heading back, and not for the first time, I was reminded that this issue is still very much alive ... (maybe not a bad thing to have a US passport ...)

and here's a nighttime view of the Gallerias Pacifo (alas, the Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes isn't illuminated.  It should be).

 

more bits of BA

He gets everywhere ... glad to encounter his bearded face on my walk south from the hotel this morning, down Gascon, to the amazing Basilica Maria Auxiliadora y San Carlos (I might not have known about this if Véronique hadn't posted some photos of it earlier this year - why don't guidebooks make more of it?  But many thanks to her!!).  Pope Francis was baptized here.  And it wasn't just beautiful - it was packed and cheerful; and having a very energetic service for children and their families (which of course provided the opportunity to sit and immerse oneself).  The blue ceiling with gold stars is like the wallpaper on my room when I was little - when I stood in my cot and pulled a little bit that was loose, and pulled, and pulled some more.  The Basilica was built between 1900-1910, by an Italian architect José Vespignani - this was very much at the instigation of a bunch of immigrants from Genova.

How to follow that?  Luckily, Argentinian café culture is strong, and no one seems to mind if one sits with a large cup of coffee and hops onto a Zoom meeting for an hour.

Then to the Ecoparque, a totally surreal place.  To be sure, there was lots of eco information, and I absorbed a lot about Argentinian bees.

There were little lakes, and turtles, and ducks.

But there were also abandoned, decaying structures everywhere, for this had been the city's zoo since the end of the nineteenth century, and there are 40-odd structures scattered through it, from Greek temples to a Russian Orthodox church to rustic cottages to a fortress ... it's like visiting a Worlds Fair site.  And it's also overgrown - and many of the enclosures and cages have creeper growing through them.  The animals who were fit to travel were moved out and into somewhere bigger and kinder by 2016, and only a few are left ...

apart from the mara, who are everywhere,  These are the strangest animals - I've met them somewhere (but where??) before: technically rodents, they're like goats crossed with rabbits, and about the size of a pygmy goat, and usually hang out in Patagonia.

These giraffes din't look elderly (I couldn't tell with the hippo, who was 7/8 submerged), and were happily having tea.

And then, wondrously, a puma/mountain lion, sunbathing.  P-22's Argentinian cousin!

She was incredibly beautiful, self-contained, and had a very good sized enclosure - and then there was a notice explaining that she's been rescued from being a pet - too imprinted on humans to be released - and she is a warning about how Wild Animals are emphatically not pets.

The whole ecoparque is educational, in a quiet way; useful (there's a hospital for injured wildlife); and includes dinosaur models - very Crystal Palace, but bringing home to the young that extinction can happen, and shouldn't ever be allowed to.  And yes, that is a very far from extinct mara just trotting round the corner ...