Buenos Aires Tour With Small Start Up

Our host when we first came to Buenos Aires, Carolina, and her friend Belen have a small business for helping people who visit Buenos Aires and Argentina.  I wouldn’t call it a travel agency or a tour company - it’s more personal than that.  It’s like having a friend in Buenos Aires who will do what is necessary to help you make your trip perfect - even if you don’t even know what you want to do.  

And when we left Buenos Aires a couple of weeks ago, we agreed on a tour of some places we’d missed earlier.  

For yesterday’s tour we jumped into the car and drove to La Boca, one of the oldest parts of Buenos Aires.  

La Boca is the home of La Bombonera stadium, the home of Buenos Aires’ football (soccer) team - Boca Juniors.  This was, and still is, a poor neighborhood.  Lots of port workers lived and worked here.          

 These are low rise living space  compared to the more affluent neighborhoods.  This was the neighborhood that the tango was created in the brothels.






 



And this is part of the famous stadium.  Part of the scoreboard is on the upper right.

And you can see the shape of the stadium better here on the left.  There’s a line for people waiting to tour the museum and stadium.  

There are also lots of tourist shops here.  

Then we walked down to the key streets that lure tourists to La Boca and to the museum created by the famous artist Benito Quelquena Martìn.  

This sign was pointed out as an example of the kind of script that dominated this area in the past.  And then I started noticing it everywhere.

 This one below shows the building above in the past.  The date on it says 1959.  Well before it became a tourist destination.   The picture was in the artist Martín’s museum

    

Martin’s home is at the top of the museum with great views of the port - where he did a lot of his paintings - as well as of Buenos Aires. 

  

These two photos go together.  They’re from the roof of the museum and show the area.  (You can see the colorful  narrow house in the upper right of the picture above and then going to the left of the picture you get to the port.  That loop in the water is made up of recycled plastic bottles and is being used for some sort of water recovery program, but I didn’t get the details.  There are some water plants growing on the right side.

Benito Quinquela Martin is in this picture - I assumed he’s the one on the left.  The picture is from 1909.

And below is one of his pictures of workers in the port.  First a close-up, and then you can see the whole picture below it.   You can learn more about him at this Wikipedia page.  He was an orphan and adopted when he was 8.

 

I was going crazy with my camera - everything was begging to be photographed.  

I  think this is getting to be a very long post, so I’ll end here and  break up the day into two posts.  But here’s a link to ChoiceBuenosAires - the website Carolina and Belin are working on to help publicize their business.  As you can see, it’s a work in progress still.  But we can vouch for these two women’s ability help visitors to Buenos Aires make the best use of their time here.  

If Republicans Don’t Have A Problem With Detention Centers On Human Rights Grounds, Maybe They Will For Wasting Taxpayer Money

CQ reports that the US government is paying contractors over $700 a day to house children in border detention camps.  They cite an NBC report based on information from a Department of Health and Human Services administrator.

“The cost of holding migrant children who have been separated from their parents in newly created "tent cities" is $775 per person per night, according to an official at the Department of Health and Human Services — far higher than the cost of keeping children with their parents in detention centers or holding them in more permanent buildings.”

You can slice and dice the numbers anyway you want, but there are a couple of things that are obvious here:  The government is paying way too much.

This is either because:
A.  They are horribly inefficient
B.  They are making contractors very rich
C.  They have no imagination to figure out better ways to do this
D.  They want the detainees to suffer as much as possible to deter others
E.  They want the detainees to suffer as much as possible because they are sadistic
F.   A combination of some or all of the above

But we could put all these people into decent hotels and feed them well at these prices.  Someone’s getting rich.  Someone who’s probably benefiting from the new tax law.  Someone who probably contributed significantly to the Trump campaign.  (I said probably.  I don’t have the facts.  Let’s consider this a suggestion for a journalist who needs a good story.)

And yes, I agree with anyone who thinks that NBC should have given the name of the person who supplied the numbers.

More Cordoba and French Bike Riders

Here are some more Cordoba shots from the Free Tour as well as a few others.

The building in the middle was pointed out as the narrowest building in South America -  3 meters at the widest.  It had to do with land issues.  It’s got some businesses and apartments.

These folks were standing there, but the tour moved on before I could find out exactly who they were and why they were there.  Are these Anonymous supporters?  Don’t know.

The cabildo is the government building.  It was in a back section of this building wh ere the  detention and torture center was located.

This is the Museo de Marques de Sobremonte. It’s an old building you can find out more (with video) here.

This is a much newer apartment (I think) building we passed a few times.

This is  Paseo de Buen Pastor and  was once, as  described by Lonely Planet  ‘a combined chapel, monastery, and women’s prison.’  That sounds like a strange and suspicious combination of institutions.  Today, though it is a community center with lots of activities for people of all ages.


Below are the leftovers of the tour who had lunch together at the place the tour guide recommended.  It turned out to be us two US folks and four French folks.  The two on the right were wrapping up a year long bike trip that started in Calgary and took them to LA down the west coast.  From there they flew to Ecuador and biked down to Argentina.  They were on their last leg - to Buenos Aires.  They met the two French women, who are studying civil (I think) engineering in Argentina for five months., on the tour.

  

 That’s enough for now.  We’re in the Cordoba airport waiting for our last inside Argentina flight - to Buenos Aires.  We were supposed to leave at 5;m, but the flight is delayed to 6:35pm now.   We’ll have three more full days in Argentina, then we fly back to LA for a couple of days before finally making it home.  I’m ready for an Alaskan vacation.  When we left I told people that while I hated to leave Alaska in the summer, I didn’t wish them rain or a bad summer at all.  But I certainly wasn’t wishing them the record high temperatures and fire  smoke, or the failed veto override.

Though reading the Alaskan complaints about the heat reminded me of how Alaskans scoff at Outsiders who complain about the cold.  True Alaskans should be able to handle heat as well as cold without whining.  (I know, easy for me to say, I wasn’t there.).

Cathedrals, Bank Lines, The Disappeared And Their Killers

I really owe you more than pictures, but it’s hard keeping track of and sorting out my impressions and what I’ve been told.  People I see on the streets - what they look like, what they wear, their constant cell phone use - look exactly like the people I see in the US.  Pizza and hamburguesas and beer are among the most popular foods here in Cordoba. But these folks live among buildings that, in a few cases, go back to the 1500s.  They walk down narrow streets with little shops on every block - at least in this neighborhood - with fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs, and a few other items, that are right next to bakeries with all sorts of decadent sweets.  There’s history here (not counting the original people prior to European conquest) that makes even the US east coast seem young.

Argentina has free health care and free higher education.

US citizens have a way of feeling superior to the rest of the world, but there’s more to culture than military superiority.  Of course, this is what I’ve discovered every time I’ve been to a new (for me) part of the world.  People are people.  And everywhere you go there are very smart, sophisticated people.  People with great common sense and wisdom.  And there are jerks.  When we were surveyed at the airport by someone from a tourism agency, we were asked to rate a number of things.  I asked if we were going to be asked about the people.  No, we weren’t.  Well, I said, you should ask us.  The people were absolutely the best part of our trip.  Tolerant of my terrible Spanish and always wanting to know “De desde son?”  Where are you from?  And Alaska always elicits a smile and ‘frio.’

That said, here are the pictures.  These are two days old.  We walked up to Plaza San Martin, the center of Córdoba, Argentina’s second largest city.  While we were at the Museum of Memories, a group came in with a guide speaking in English and when we listened in we got invited to join.  It’s a company that puts on free tours - it’s up to you to decide what to pay the guide.  The group was mostly Spanish speakers and the English speakers got a much shorter version.  And two dropped out during the two hour plus tour, leaving just us.

But first here’s a picture from our 8th floor balcony.  Airbnb had a two bedroom apartment  for under $50 a night.  It’s by far the most spacious place we’ve stayed.  Well, the Buenos Aires homestay was bigger, but we didn’t have it to ourselves.            

  

I couldn’t pass up the shadows - also from the balcony.

 

This is the inside of the main Cathedral on Plaza San Martin.  If you’ve been reading the blog lately, you’ve  heard this name before.  San Martin, someone said, was the George Washington of Argentina.  But he was more than that.  Besides getting Argentina free from Spain, he did the same in Chile.  Then passed the torch to Simon Bolivar in Peru.

Here’s a view of the plaza. It’s much warmer here in central Argentina.  Up to about 70˚F in the afternoon.

    

Here’s the cathedral from the plaza.

Construction of the Cathedral began in 1582 according to Wikipedia and it was finished in 1709.  For the historically challenged, the Mayflower got to North America in 1620 and George Washington was born in 1732.

If you look closely below, you can see a long line of people at the bank.  We’ve seen shorter lines before and asked.  Someone suggested about a Friday lineup that people were getting money out for the weekend and wanted to get their money in case the ATMs ran out of money over the weekend.  In this case, it was Tuesday after a holiday weekend.  (This is here because it was on the way to Plaza San Martin.)

 

The Museum of the Memories is in a former detention and torture center from the 1970s when the government rounded up suspected opponents.


The Free Tour guide (in the red in the center) said about 30,000 people disappeared.  Tortured to death, shot, and others were  thrown out of airplanes over the ocean.  Children were kidnapped and given to other families.  I knew some of this.  Netflix has The Official Story up - well it’s here in Spanish without English subtitles.  It’s about this period.

 I was going to save this museum for a post all its own, but I have so many backed up photos I should just put it up.  It’s a chilling account.  30,000 people is a tiny fraction of the population.  But if it’s your son or daughter or husband, it’s everything.  And all the relatives and friends and acquaintances of 30,000 people is enough to spread terror among millions of others that they will be next.  Sort of like undocumented Americans waiting for ICE to knock on their doors.
 
Buzzfeed reported in May that over 52,000 people were being held in ICE detention centers.  The vast majority of these are decent, innocent people fleeing violence in their own countries.  But the Trump administration is full of heartless people who easily rationalize the evil they are doing.  Here is a picture of some of their Argentinian colleagues from the 70s and 80s.

.  The guide mentioned that the detention center that houses the museum is right next to the cathedral and part of the cabildo - the main government building of the province.  Both were complicit.  

Here are a few more memories.

This giant (5 or 6 feet high) fingerprint is made up of names of the disappeared. There were several more such fingerprints on the wall.    

A courtyard in the detention center.

A poster about one of the young women who disappeared.

Another victim.

And interrogation room, I think.

The difference between what happened in Chile and what’s happening today is great.  We still have enough accountability that people aren’t being actively and intentionally  tortured or thrown out of airplanes into the ocean.  But it’s not because some of the people in charge wouldn’t do those things if they could.  They did it at Guantanamo.  We still have some safeguards.  But being locked up indefinitely without adequate food and, bad sanitary conditions, having your kids separated from you, is all pretty terrifying by itself.  We’re watching the cold-bloodedness of Mike Dunleavy in action.  He would have gone along with the men in the picture above.  And I’m guessing the 22 legislators who went to Wasilla and refused to vote to override the vetoes  have moral compasses that don’t recognize evil either.         

      

Will Dunleavy’s Budget Lower Alaska’s Carbon Footprint?

Alaskans use more energy per capita than residents of any other US state.*  Much of the total energy use comes from the development of oil and gas, which is part of the total divided by the population to get average/person.  However, Alaskans are also dependent on most food and goods being shipped in from Outside.  So the transportation costs for those goods mean we use more energy than others in the US.

So, with Dunleavy’s massive cuts, there is surely going to be an equally massive out-migration from the state.  For people losing their jobs, an extra $1000 in PFD isn’t going to pay the mortgage, rent, or other expenses.  Most will not find equivalent jobs in Alaska and will find much better opportunities Outside.

So Alaska’s carbon footprint is likely to go down.  

That’s the silver lining, thin as it might be.

While the blog has focused on Argentina lately, I have been paying attention to Alaska’s summer of heat, fire, and dire budgetary actions.

I watch with dismay [unlike a number of politicians and social media agitators, I tend to understate things] as Alaskans throw logic on the Dunleavy fire, thinking that will make a difference to him.  Logic has already turned those Republicans in the legislature who are not immune to it, and the same for everyday Alaskans.


But it’s my sense of all this that logic has no effect on Dunleavy.  Well, not the logic that starts with assumptions that Alaska matters.   He’s solely listening to his Outside financiers whose agenda is to exploit the resources of Alaska (and anywhere else with exploitable resources) with no concern for the impacts on the state, the climate, or people.  Their Ayn Randian beliefs are that their personal self-interest is all that matters.  They assume their wealth can shield them from the worst of the remnants of a once civilized society.

So, destroying the university is a good thing for them.  It means that there is no independent intellectual, scientific base in Alaska that is capable of raising questions about resource extraction policies, or to question industry reports saying that ‘no harm will be done.’

Cutting government watchdog agencies is good too.  The fewer government employees watching over corporate compliance, the more corporations can get away with.  The cruise ship on-board inspector program, which cost the state nothing, was vetoed out of existence.  So cruise lines can illegally pollute all they want without anyone watching.

Today’s Anchorage Daily News says the department that oversees the  development of the natural gas pipeline is cutting half its staff.  Let’s see how well they’ll be able to spot problems down the line.  Remember when Shell included stuff on manatees in their Chukchi Sea environmental impact statements?  They’d just lifted the language from EIS from Florida.  And it got through the first round of regulators as I recall.

The Koch brothers are making a hostile takeover of Alaska.  This is about power.  The ability to get done what they want.  Logic plays no role.  Well, that’s not quite true.  Their logic is about what they can get away with.  It has completely different assumptions than the logic of most Alaskans.  Their logic is about making as much money as they can, with no concerns about Alaska.  The appeals of all the Alaskans hurt by the cuts are irrelevant to them.  They’re reveling in their power a)  to destroy Alaska as we know it and b) to then exploit it freely.  

And as for Alaska’s carbon footprint?  With increased oil, gas, and other mineral extraction, there may well be an increase despite the people who leave the state.


*The assertion that Alaskans have a larger carbon footprint first came to me in an article by a close relative that looked at the alliance of some environmental groups with anti-immigration groups based on the logic that when poor immigrants come from Central American use more carbon in the US than they did at home, and thus they shouldn’t be let into the country.  That, of course, begs the question about US residents’ moral entitlement to use more carbon than their southern neighbors.  The article also raised the issue of Alaskans using even more carbon  than average US residents.   The link unfortunately only goes to an abstract - I haven’t found free access to the whole article.  People with UAA or Loussac library cards should be able to get access to the article.

Santiago Murals And Other Street Art

We flew to Mendoza last night and then to Cordoba this morning.  Airbnb got us a two bedroom apartment (condo?) on the 8th floor with a balcony that’s been in the warm (about 70˚F) (I know, Anchorage that’s cool to you this week, but it’s winter here and after Santiago and Mendoza, this is warm) sun.

We also learned today that I misled you.  The SUBE card which I thought was good all over Argentina for public buses (collectivos) is NOT good in Cordova.  We had to buy a REDBUS card here.  The SUBE was good in Buenos Aires and San Juan.  A Dazzler posts mentions a SUBE is good in 12 other provinces (besides Buenos Aires.)

But this post is about street art - particularly murals in Santiago.  We were only in a small part of the city so this is just a sample by someone who doesn’t know all that much about the topic.  
 

       
   

 
OK, the one above isn’t ‘street’ art.  We went to a Turner exhibit on loan from the Tate at t he Moneda Cultural Center.  It slipped in so I’ll just leave it here.

 

These next photos are on Bandera Street, one of a number of downtown steets that are pedestrian only.  You can read this report on how it became a street of public art.

And then there are these other forms of art.

I’m guessing that this last one is a memorial of some sort, though it looks like it’s been a while.

Crossing The Andes Again, This Time As The Sun Sets. Aconcagua?

Here are some pictures as we leave Santiago and fly back to Mendoza.  We were greeted like old friends by Alberto as we return once again to the Hotel Bohemia.  And we have a morning flight to Córdoba tomorrow.  So just a few pictures.



             

And then, presumably, we were in the Argentina side of the mountains.  When we did the ‘mountain tour’ a week or so ago (don’t think I got around to posting it) we got up into the snow.  In fact it was snowing.  If it had been clear, we would have seen Mt. Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere.  But we didn’t.  So I’m guessing the peak in the next picture could be Aconcagua.  Alberto thinks it could be (and he’s climbed to the top twice over five attempts.). Or maybe he just wants me to feel good.

I also looked on line for pictures to see if there were similarities.  Here’s a picture of Aconcagua from  Unico.

I’m not sure you can enlarge my picture  enough to see the dip on top that’s similar to the picture below it.

I’d also note, that flying over the Andes is a bit like flying over the Chugach as you leave Anchorage, but the mountains look a lot different.  I’m trying to figure out why.  There’s not as much snow.  They seem more jagged.