After the guided tour I walked to the Recoleta, a very swank ‘hood, which has a famous cemetery where all the elite—of both BA and the country as a whole—have been entombed for years (I think it is long since closed, but I could be wrong about that.) It’s a city of the dead, arranged in avenues and streets, and the monuments and mausoleums, packed as tightly like huge knick-knacks in an antique store, are fantastically extravagant, those from the 20^th Century no less so than those of two hundred years before. These attempts to immortalize a life and its achievements have a terrible pathos: Inside these huge elaborate confections in marble, granite and bronze are just boxes of bones or ashes.

But, as in the case of the famous bone-yards in Paris, Pere Lachaise and Montparnasse, this is a huge tourist attraction, and people come here to see the resting places of the rich and famous and powerful. I got to see the tombs of all these men—they were almost all male—whose names have been given to streets in cities all over Argentina: Lavalle, Avellano, Balcarce, Rivadavia, Sarmiento, Belgrano, San Martin, etc. And then there’s the one woman who is as famous but much more beloved: it didn’t take me long to find the tomb of the Duarte family, whose most famous daughter, Eva Peron—or Evita—is STILL mourned by Argentines, who seem to be very enamoured of and nostalgic about their past. There were many bouquets wedged into the grill of the door of the mausoleum, which is surrounded with all the plaques to Evita’s memory and accomplishments; these were considerable given than she only made it to thirty-three before dying horribly of cervical cancer. While it is true that she and Juan Peron ruled as dictators, they were at least of the benevolent sort, and were absolutely—from what I can tell—dedicated to improving the lives of working people. And it was Eva Peron who got women the vote, which didn’t happen till 1947, I believe.

This was Flag Day, a holiday, so the Recoleta street fair was in full swing, with every kind of craft and artisanal object you could think of for sale. And the sun was shining—a rare occurrence here lately. I walked back to the hotel through the swank Recoleta neighbourhood, which has the same feel as NYC’s Upper East Side; lots of whiskey-voiced older women with bleached hair, tons of jewellery and great clothes. (It’s remarkable how you can see money in clothing—it has this unmistakable look about it, even if, like me, you know absolutely nothing about fashion.) Beautiful old buildings, expensive cars pulling into high-end hotel driveways.

Yesterday I went to the brand new Puerto Madero ‘hood, which is also all pricey condos and high-end hotels and restaurants, but brand-new, kind of like Vancouver’s Coal Harbour, or the high-rise waterfront in Toronto. I was planning to go to the Fortabat Museum, a fantastic collection—housed in a remarkable building constructed for the purpose—and all of it owned by Argentina’s wealthiest woman, Amalia Lacroze Fortabat, who is still kicking at 90. But it didn’t open till noon, so I thought I’d take in the MALBA first. I walked A VERY LONG WAY—I hadn’t really got it through my head where it was located, and had only a general idea—and got horribly lost in the tangle of the Retiro train and bus stations—only to find that I had not checked the hours, but just assumed it would be open, as most museums are closed on Mondays, but THIS one is closed on Tuesdays. Felt like a complete idiot as I took the bus all the way back to Puerto Madero and the Fortabat, which by now was open!

But, once again, a day threatened with perdition by tourist idiocy is saved by art! A number of times when I’ve been feeling depressed, anxious, lonely—all that bad stuff—my mood has been completely transformed once I’ve entered a gallery or museum and begun to absorb the meanings carried in paintings, sculpture, craft objects, etc. One’s sensibilities are rescued from gloom, anxiety and loneliness, and one’s spirits lift; it’s one of the many things we treasure about art, isn’t it?

The Fortabat museum is a long barrel-vaulted building at the northern end of Puerto Madero, and is on three levels: you go down one level to a mezzanine gallery, most of which has Argentine art from the colonial period, not terribly interesting. You then take an escalator—and they speed up when you stand on them—down to a sub-basement, which is the longest rectangular room I can recall being in that has no vertical supports of any kind; it’s like being in a long thin gym that is full of art. Some of the highlights here are a Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Census in Bethlehem, two Dali works on paper, a Rodin bronze and two watercolours, and a beautiful Turner, called Juliet and her Nurse, who are unaccountably looking out over St. Mark’s square in Venice.

But the most impressive work, in my opinion, is that by the Argentine artists of the last century, and the most remarkable of these surely must be Antonio Berni, whose range and versatility made me think of Picasso. He made these huge canvasses in a social activist style of workers on strike, their massive faces full of grief and anger, as well as wacky surrealist sculptures and collages, and everything in between.

The building has two more levels above the street, mostly featuring contemporary Argentinian art, but also objects from the collection, including ancient Egyptian bas-reliefs and sculptures, and a Byzantine mosaic. The galleries are beautifully long and airy, and open onto outdoor decks the length of the building with great views of the downtown and the refurbished dock area of Puerto Madero. What a great pleasure to visit, and what a collection: The woman at the reception told me that the building is only able to show 40% of the total at any given time. And the ticket price was only 15 pesos; when you added the audio guide, which was more than the price of admission, the total was only 40 AR$, which is less than 10 CDN. (The museum admissions are incredibly cheap, as is the public transportation: the crappy old noisy speeding buses are only 1.25 and the subway is 1.10. In our dollars that is 29 and 26 cents respectively. Of course, I have no idea what most Argentines make per annum.)

Yesterday I went to the MALBA, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, which is kind of like BA’s Guggenheim. What a wonderful building, with an atrium from below street level all the way to the roof, three levels up, and beautifully built in a cream-coloured stone like marble.

I saw some superb work here, in all kinds of media, as well as a lot of stuff that was dull, or mediocre or completely inexplicable. There were four shows: contemporary art from Buenos Aires from 1989 to 2010, which was too full of great stuff for me to attempt to describe it all; work of South American artists from the permanent collection, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and some more powerful and varied work Antonio Berni; abstractions by another Argentine favourite son, painter Emilio Pettoruti; and perhaps the most powerful of all, a show of work called Braided Flesh by an extraordinarily talented and courageous woman named Christina Piffer.

This artist creates objects and installations that force the viewer to confront the largely ignored narrative of Argentine history, one that is overwhelming violent. These pieces all use in various ways cow flesh, fat, hide and blood, and therefore the narrative of human-to-human violence is conveyed through the physical evidence of the country’s renowned meat industry, one that in the artist’s eyes entails a daily holocaust of animals. When I found out what I was looking at, and what the imagery and objects referred to, I was amazed, disgusted, awed in about equal parts.

• Lonja is piece of raw cow hide stretched between two stainless steel hooks mounted on a steel plaque. (This refers to the partial flaying of a man that actually took place in the course of one of Argentina’s many rebellions and uprisings, violently suppressed by the colonial forces.)
• A piece called Lose Your Head: five acrylic plaques of pressed cow’s flesh, upon which are engraved the names of Argentine men—mostly rebels of one sort or another—all of whom were beheaded.
• A large acrylic tray about two inches deep on a steel table packed tight with dried cow’s blood, and printed with the words 41 MILLIONES DE HECTAREAS. (41 MILLION HECTARES) This refers to the campaign to exterminate the troublesome indigenous peoples of Patagonia, and capture the land, undertaken in a campaign called Conquest of the Desert in 1879, and carried out under General Julio Argentino Roca.
• A number of large plaques made of paraffin and beef fat printed with text excerpts from a letter describing the mass execution by beheading of captured rebels.
• Two glass cases of water and formaldehyde in which are placed braided cow’s intestines; the piece, called Trenzados, refers both to Spanish word for braid, and to the braiding of leather thongs in traditional handicrafts.

And for something completely different, yesterday I went to see the whimsical work of one of Argentina’s favourite eccentric sons, Xul Solar, whichwas the adopted name of Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari (December 14, 1887 – April 9, 1963), a painter, sculptor, Theosophist, writer, and inventor of imaginary languages, AND—shades of Harry Partch—musical instruments! It’s housed in a building that used to be four separate apartments, which he owned, and which, when it was left to the foundation that supports his work and legacy, was gutted and rebuilt as this amazing Cubistic interior, with interconnecting staircases with echoes of M.C. Escher. Solar worked mostly in watercolours on paper, and created scores of fantastical images of zodiacs, spiritual landscapes, mystical symbols, pyramids with eyes, flying villages, figures ascending mountains, and any number of other indescribable things.

I also took tours of the fabled Teatro Colon, whose interior is astoundingly opulent, and whose auditorium is a delicious meal for the eyes, the second biggest Italian-style, horseshoe-shaped theatre——in the world, after the Liceu in Barcelona. The house apparently has an impeccable acoustic, given its size and when it was built.

This is a big deal: I marched in the singing, chanting demo around the circle that surrounds one of the monuments on the Plaza de Mayo, behind the Mothers of the same name—las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. (By the way, “Mayo” refers to the month of May, to May 25, 1810, to be exact, when the revolution that led to independence began.)

They began marching during the terrible days of the military dictatorship to protest the “disappearance” of their sons and daughters: the generals oversaw the kidnapping, torture, murder and anonymous disposal of, many claim, up to 30,000 people: trade unionists, leftists of all stripes, anyone who was critical of the regime, and could be painted as a “terrorist.”

The word “disappear” has been reconfigured to be both a passive and a transitive verb: one can be “disappeared” by a regime that in turn “disappears” one. It is assumed that most of the bodies were disposed in ways—such as being dropped into the sea from helicopters—that means they will never be recovered, and while the mothers know this, they seek accountability for every death. I heard from our tour guide that the monsters responsible for all this horror WERE put on trial, and that many of them died while in custody. But the Mothers say that up to 9,000 cases have never been looked into. They also want investigations into the fate of many children abducted along with their parents, or born in prison, and then taken illegally by military families; this is the subject of a renowned film called The Official Story.

The mothers are very aged now, and have become an institution, with their own website (www.madres.org), and their iconic white scarves, that are also painted all around the circular part of the plaza where they march every Thursday afternoon at exactly 3:30, at which time they descend from one of the mini-vans painted with their name and logo to much applause. The crowd, holding blue banners with the slogan Ni Un Paso Atras—Not One Step Back—then marches behind the elderly women, who hold a banner before them with a huge slogan in blue on a white background. These now very aged women have been protesting this way since April 1977, shortly after the dictatorship commenced.

The group has long since gone split into different factions—way too long a story to go into here—but the OTHER group is called the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Founding Line, and they also were marching, revolving around the statue—whatever it is, I never bothered to look—with images of the disappeared children, at a discreet distance from the main demo.

I'm doing a countdown to when I can get out of here, and I hope the volcanic ash is not going to turn around and cause flight cancellations. (I also got sick—AGAIN—this time both top and bottom—what was it I ate?! Tomorrow I have a very long flight back to TO— goes to Santiago, Chile first— and THEN a flight to Van, and THEN the bus-ferry-bus to Vicksy. I'll believe it when I get back there. 

But I am SO looking forward to being in my own place, sleeping in my own bed, AND NOT EATING IN GODDAM RESTAURANTS ANYMORE! I am so sick of that: feeling like a loser because I'm there alone; negotiating with the waiter— the servers here tend to be older career waiters, not like back home where it's all students— when I don’t speak Spanish; then feeling that I'm not really into what's on the bill. And I find that it's as though they ALL USE THE SAME MENU! There are the same starters— hearts of palm, Russian salad, mixed salad (lettuce, tomatoes and raw onion), fried Provolone, beet salad, marinated peppers, eggplant— but no soup! Not one has any soup, which I find really weird. Then there's all the horrible meat stuff— bife de chorizo, which is sirloin, and lomo, which is tenderloin— plus all kinds of horrible things like tripe and bull balls.

Did not go to a gay bar; did not go to a tango party— a milonga— cause I just didn’t feel like being there alone; I really can't handle it. And I'm going to re-think this travelling alone thing altogether. What IS the point if you're not having any fun? Of course I HAVE had tons of fun, and seen amazing sights, but it’s all been too long being a stranger in a strange land.

Now, where to next? Australia? Vietnam? Indonesia?

PUERTO IGUAZU/IGUAZU NATIONAL PARK: “Please do not pull paper on the toilet.” (June 15)

There is something alive and making noises in the wall of my cabin here at the Hotel Boutique de la Fonte, where I am lying on my bed full of beef and potatoes. (Loma a la Portuguesa. I decided to cave and eat what the Argentines do, which I plan to continue doing in BA—why not?) The creature in the walls, whatever it is, was quiet last night, butvery noisy on the first night. I was a bit alarmed: is it a rat? A coati? What? I realize I should have told the owners about it, but completely forgot—oops.

The hotel, which is very chic, is in a walled compound, and each suite is in a brick out-building set against the enclosing wall. The suites surround the main house in the middle, where the reception area, dining room and the family’s home are located. There is an outdoor eating area and bar, pool and hot tub, a fish-pond with a bridge surrounded by banana palms, and the whole area is mostly terraced with various kinds of bricks, connected by paths and furnished with seating areas and a whole variety of charming fountains, hence the name. An Italian couple, originally from the Genoa area, own and run the place, and they are wonderful: he’s the chef and she’s the tour specialist and people person, who, trained as an architect, also designed and supervised the building of the place. I think I may be the only guest here—this is low season—and so I get my flawlessly presented breakfast all to myself and have wonderful service, especially from the padrona, Simona, who has figured out my upcoming bus transportation, and found me what seems like a very nice hotel in San Telmo in BA, after I decided to abandon the apartment I was going to rent. (They wanted me to show up with $815 US in hand, 400 of which was to be a damage deposit, and for various reasons this proved to be way more trouble than it was worth. So, they get to keep my reservation deposit.)

One of the worst things that can happen to a nervous flyer is that the plane starts down the runway, and you feel that big push on your lower back, and then suddenly the pilot pulls back on the throttle—or whatever you call it—aborts the take-off, turns the plane off the runway and back onto the taxi-way, and makes an announcement which you can’t understand. WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT’S WRONG? ARE YOU GOING TO TRY THAT AGAIN? SHOULD YOU? SHOUDN’T WE GET OFF THIS THING ‘CAUSE THERE MUST BE SOMETHING THE MATTER WITH IT? I think that what happened is that air traffic control made a wee mistake, that had it not been caught, might have resulted in a disastrous runway collision, cause shortly after our aborted take-off a plane landed on the same runway. (There IS only one runway at the downtown airport, called the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, where I had had a three-hour layover after arriving from Salta.) Or maybe this was all under control the whole time. Yikes. But whatever the problem was, we took off shortly after—my heart rate was fairly high—and had an uneventful flight up the Rio de la Plata to Puerto Iguazu. (Given how uncertain the bus ride was to San Ignacio—where are we? How long will this REALLY take? Is my suitcase secure down there in the luggage bin?—air travel seems like a much better idea.)

As we were landing all I could see were trees, trees, trees, because this is the jungle. Iguazu is at the border of Argentina and Brazil, and not far from that with Paraguay. The falls are part of a national park of the same name, which people visit from both sides of the border. They were formed by a huge flow of basaltic lava forming a plateau that interrupts the Iguazu River just before its confluence with the Paranà. As the Lonely Planet guide says, “where the lava flow stopped thousands of cubic meters of water now plunge down as much as 80m into sedimentary terrain below. Before reaching the falls the river divides into many channels with hidden reefs, rocks and islands separating the many visually distinctive cascades that together form the famous cataratas (waterfalls). In total the falls stretch for more than 2km.” It’s like a huge capital P: the bulge of the P is the Upper River, which then divides into a whole series of falls, each of which has a name, two of which are called Adam and Eve. The biggest one is called Salto San Martin, and it is mighty impressive.

Sidebar: I think the same word in Spanish is often used for two things linked by their opposite meanings. I believe that “salto” is the word for “jump” as well as “fall,” because it’s a lot like sauter in French. This may be the origin of the mistake about not “pulling” toilet paper in the toilet—and more on the actual reason for this later—when the word that was wanted was “throw,” because tirer means the same things, “pull” and “throw.” I may be full of shit here, and will have to wait to check this as I have no internet connection right now.

The upright of the P flows much more directly, but on the way it has to tumble over the biggest drop in the whole system, at a truly astounding canyon shaped much like a uvula—or an oriole’s nest—and called the Garganta del Diablo, or Devil’s Throat. The LP guide says to save this for the end of your visit because “this amazingly powerful and concentrated torrent of water, a deafening cascade plunging to murky destination, [is] a place of majesty and awe.” Advice taken. You can see the plume of vapour formed by this massive washing machine of nature kilometers away, and indeed I think I saw it from the plane as we were descending to land.

My first full day there I pretty much saw the whole thing, but was glad of a second day as I go to on a drenching boat ride and to re-visit parts of the falls that were particularly breathtaking. There are two main paths, an Upper Circuit and a Lower Circuit: you see the tops of the series of falls along the bulge of the P from the first and some of the bottoms from the second. I found the sights got more and more astounding as I progressed through the various sites in the park, which is very spread out, and full of overpriced fast-food places, souvenir shops, information kiosks, and sales outlets for Jungle, the company that runs various boat and jeep trips. There is a little train that takes you from the Estacion Central, near the park entrance, to the Estacion Cataratas, and then on to the Garganta del Diablo.

To reach the Garganta from where the train stops you take a kilometer-long catwalk that leap-frogs from rocky protrusion to small island, turning as it goes, and that terminates in a delta-shaped viewing platform that truly is perched right at the edge of that terrifying canyon of falling, raging water. The only thing to do is to look at the pictures I will be posting on Facebook, because this thing beggars description completely. It is terrifying. The weird thing is that to me all that falling water looked like millions and millions of tons of shattered bridal lace falling away to oblivion, like a vast condemnation of the institution of marriage—how odd. The eye never tires of looking at all the various component parts of each fall: their endlessly changing features exercise a hypnotic power.

Next day I took Simona’s advice and the did the touristic thing: I paid my 220 pesos—about $52 CDN—for the combo jeep-ride in the jungle—which is so noisy no animal would stick around to be seen and photographed—and the drenching hovercraft ride up the river rapids, which are truly terrifying, and into the spume and shower of both the main falls, the San Martin and del Diablo. You put your stuff in a water-proof bag—mine was defective along the bottom seam, and some clothing got wet—and then the best thing to do is to wear your bathing suit. This did not occur to me, even though I brought a suit, as I thought they’d be handing out waterproof clothing along with the life-jackets, so while I put my shirt in the bag, my shoes, socks and shorts got pretty drenched. It was fun until we got to the Garganta del Diablo, when the air was so saturated with water I thought I was going to drown, and I started hyperventilating, as you do when you are in a high wind; was glad to get the hell—pardon the pun—out of there.

After the ride I went back to the Devil’s Throat to ponder the mystery of all that water falling apart on the way to the rocks below: ineffable and awe-inspiring. This visit formed a great counter to my trip to Hawaii last year: that was all about the power of the fire from inside the earth bursting out, while this was about the power of water in motion. The ensemble of waterfalls at Iguazu makes Niagara Falls look like a one-trick pony.

Puerto Iguazu is a nice enough town that caters very much to the tourist trade, and so the restos are quite expensive. (I loved the red earth everywhere, which reminded me of the island of Kauai, and also PEI.) I’d walk into town each night looking for one of the places recommended in the guide, and found the food to be okay, but not great. And once again I found that it is nearly impossible to get the bill when you want to go; you have to get up and wave your arms about like Krista Erickson being rude to Margie Gillis on Sun TV. Also, I keep thinking I’m going to have a great wine experience, esp. of the Malbec variety, because I’m here in a country that produces superb wine; but you can’t get the good stuff in the half-bottles, only the kind of thing you could find at the BCL store at Foul Bay and Fort in Victoria. I’ve managed to make this mistake twice now; when I get to BA I’m going to buy proper bottles of wine from a proper wine shop and have my own wine-tasting in my room, dammit.

 As to why you are not supposed to “pull paper on the toilet”: it’s because many places in S. America use septic fields that can only accept organic waste, and cannot degrade paper products. So, there you are: the reason for this disgusting practice!

Today at the bus station I got my overnight ticket to BA for Friday in advance, taking Simona’s advice and paying more to get “Cama Suite,” the highest level of comfort available, which is equivalent to sleeper car accommodation on a train. I have heard for years about the legendary buses of Argentina, and they really are something to see: all of them are these huge, swank, double-decker affairs, even the local buses, like the one I took to get here to San Ignacio. In Spanish a local bus is called a colectivo, because it’s constantly collecting and releasing people along the way, including at places on the highway where folks just flag it down; we stopped at every chicken coop along the way, as the late Eugene Cherniak once remarked of any train or bus that is truly local.

It was a bit stressful as they were playing horrible violent Steven Seagal action movies the whole way, full of swearing and appalling acts of torture and murder. What, are we supposed to like this? (I tell you I’m not putting up with this on my overnight run to Buenos Aires.) When we first left P. Iguazu they showed this thing called Machete, which featured this terrible thug of an actor called Danny Lejo, who is actually the good guy. Robert de Niro was also in it, which shows you how far he has sunk. At least it had some redeeming content, as it dealt powerfully with the issue of illegal immigration in the US, and it had a very progressive take on it, remarkably enough.

When I got here I found that the Hostel El Jesuita had no private room available for me because they were repairing the bathroom, so the very nice woman who runs the place drove me here to the Hotel San Ignacio, where I get my own, very humble, private room and bath for roughly the same price. It’s very small, rather like a cell, and has ghastly yellow towels. But it’s fine, the problem being not with the hotel, but the shit-burg itself—see below. Like my other hotel rooms in Argentina it has a bidet—another thoroughly European touch! A totally crap shower curtain, but it has a bidet. (I confess I don’t really know how to use those things; or if men even use them—are they only for vulvas?)

Speaking of weird cultural collisions: my last night in the Hotel de Fonte I spent a good deal of time watching a thriller about a serial wife-killer based on a true story from the Eastern States. It had all these well-known Vancouver actors I know, such as Eric Keenlyside, Vince Gale, Susan Hogan, Annabel Kershaw, Charlie Siegel, AND my former boss at VFS, Bill Marchant! Wild. And then today at the Hostel the radio was playing Amy Winehouse singing how she won’t go to rehab, even though everyone says she ought to. (Has she died yet?)

Here in this dirt-bag town the young men have nothing to do but drag race their motorbikes and scooters up and down the various dusty streets; the noise is deafening, and it’s much noisier here than it was in Puerto Iguazu, which is a much bigger town. And this is only Wednesday night: what is it like here on the weekends? Glad I’m leaving overnight on Thursday. As usual, I’m watching my favourite station, Poli-Sat, or whatever it’s actually called. I love the sexy-voiced man who does all the announcements.

June 16: San Ignacio

I slept really well last night—I have been since coming to NE Argentina, for some reason—but woke at one point to hear the nasty whine of a mosquito very close to my head; and this morning I killed a skitter with blood it in—I assume that was MY blood. I realized that no one advised me before coming here to get a vaccination for yellow fever, which is endemic in jungle areas of Africa and South America, including Brazil, Paraguay and the northeast corner of Argentina, where I am right now. The Lonely Planet strongly advises vaccination, because the fever is a viral infection for which there is no cure, and it’s very bad if you get it. Symptoms include severe headache, high fever, aches and pains, and nausea and vomiting. One out of six patients goes on to develop life-threatening hemorrhagic symptoms that are truly horrific, and from which up to half die. Even if you survive you are debilitated for months afterwards. Hmmmm… went and looked it up on the Centers for Disease Control web site on one of the crap computers at the front—which cost pesos, unlike in every other hotel, where the internet is free, grrrrrr. It says that between 1970 and 2002 (what, no more recent stats?) nine unvaccinated travellers to S. America contracted yellow fever, and eight died. Wow, very low incidence, but very bad survival rate.

The subject came up today on the wonderful private tour of the Jesuit ruins of San Ignacio Mini given me by this very attractive, agreeable and knowledgeable young man named Fernando, who spoke very good English. He said it’s almost unheard of around here, and not to worry about it. I still wish I’d gotten that damn vaccination. It takes three to six days for the symptoms to show up, so, we shall see if I just won a lottery ticket no one wants.

So, the ruins: “For a century and a half from 1609, one of the world’s great social experiments was carried out in the jungles of South America by the Company of Jesus (the Jesuits). Locating themselves in incredibly remote areas, priests set up reducciones (missions), where they established communities of Guarani whom they evangelized and educated, while at the same time protecting them from slavery and the evil influences of colonial society. It was a utopian society that flourished and led Voltaire to describe it as ‘a triumph of humanity which seems to expiate the cruelties of the first conquerors.’” (Lonely Planet guide to Argentina, 2010 edition.)

The Guarani, who were semi-nomadic, were persuaded first to build the settlements and then to live in them. They gained all kinds of undeniable advantages: they learned how to engage in agriculture, enjoyed greater security—esp from the marauding Portuguese slavers called bandeirantes who were looking for a new source of forced labour to work on the sugar plantations, as most of the African slaves brought to the New World had died out)—and they found new prosperity, as well as a much higher life expectancy. They also learned all kinds of trades, such as stone- and wood-carving, and metalwork. The missions grew rapidly, and at their height there were thirty towns spread out across an area that included parts of modern-day Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, with a total population of about 100,000. While the whole project was a scheme of the Spanish crown to shore up the border territories against the Portuguese, and part of the Jesuit plan to convert the entire world to their brand of Catholicism, in practice the missions became a phenomenon unlike anything that existed anywhere else in the Christian world.

The secret of the Jesuits’ success—and these towns of thousands of inhabitants were generally run by only TWO priests—was twofold: they spoke Guarani, which was the official language of the reducciones, and while they Christianized the natives they also allowed the chiefs to retain their power, as well as many other cultural practices. It was by thoroughly co-opting the rulers of the tribes, educating their sons like the children of aristocracy back in Spain, and offering them all sorts of privileges, that allowed them to maintain successfully the situation of two very different cultures in equipoise. And it really was a meeting of cultures: the priests forbade polygamy and, um, cannibalism, but otherwise the chiefs were in control of their people in concert with the Jesuits, and a synthesis of two hierarchical systems was realized: Jesus Christ, the Guarani chiefs, the priests, the Supreme Being, the council of elders, and the people, who had very little say in anything, which is the norm everywhere.

The settlements were massive, centred around a huge plaza dominated by lavish, ornately carved and decorated churches of red sandstone. A grid-like pattern of streets ran between the great longhouses built of stone, and divided into nuclear-family-sized dwellings to discourage polygamy. There was a council hall, atrium, cloister, workshops, garden plots, kitchen and dining area for the priests, a library, pharmacy and cemetery. There was also a compound for widows and women with children abandoned by their husbands, all of whom were engaged in spinning and weaving, and who were supported by the community as a whole. In fact, the place was run according to the principles of primitive communism: the Guarani had no concept of private property, and all worked for the good of the whole, and all was shared in common. The Jesuits respected this fundamental component of Guarani culture, and incorporated it into the missions, which were highly productive agricultural units.

While the women raised the children, the men farmed the fields and worked in the shops, creating not just utilitarian goods, but also decorative works of a very high order. These combined elements of both European-Christian and Guarani concepts and iconography, and came to be known as “the Guarani Baroque.” The priests also supported and presided over creative experiments in dance and theatre, two art forms that have never been sanctioned as part of the celebration of the Christian mystery. This must have been unique in the Christian world at the time. In fact, the Jesuits used the arts as a principal part of their program of evangelization. “Indeed, the missions’ most enduring achievement was perhaps artistic. The Guarani embraced the art and music they were introduced to (sic), interweaving European styles with their own… it was perhaps the Jesuits’ religious music that most attracted the Guarani to Catholicism” (LP)

Of course it all had to come to an end: although the Jesuit/Guarani armies fought off the Portuguese slavers they couldn’t win when their own people turned against them. The colonial authorities and settlers were envious and fearful of their growing power, and mistrustful of many of their practices, and the king suspicious that the priests were more loyal to their own order than to the Spanish crown. Following the lead of Portugal and France, Carlos III of Spain ordered that the missions be disbanded in 1767; they were gradually abandoned, and then destroyed outright in the many wars of the 19^th Century. Covered by thick jungle vegetation, they were only rediscovered, excavated and restored in the last century. About fifteen restored missions may be visited today in the three countries.

Every time I walk into a store or restaurant in the small towns of another country, or come into contact with people on the street, I feel as though I ought to say, “Yes, I know, I have two heads, but I was born this way and I can’t help it. Will you serve me/acknowledge I am human/treat me with respect anyway?” It gets to be really alienating; every social interaction leaves one feeling bruised in some fundamental way. While I’ve experienced this many times in many countries—Greece, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Spain, France, and now here in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina—it doesn’t get any easier to take.

All over South America you have to buy drinking water: this is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. As Maude Barlow says, “Water is a natural resource and a human right.” No corporate interest should be acquiring and selling water for profit. Try telling this to municipal governments in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina; and also that all those plastic bottles, if they MUST be used, ought to be recycled. Go into any restaurant in Canada, the US, and—I THINK—in most of Europe, and you will get lots of ice water offered to you gratis(I often have to ask for no ice.), because it is your right to have it; you do not have to BUY your water in order to feel it is safe to consume. The first thing all these gov’ts in Latin America ought to do is to ensure that the populace has clean, safe tap water to drink. DO IT NOW!

Salta, Argentina:

I’m in Argentina—is it possible? It really feels a lot like being in Spain: ethnically the people are much more clearly of European stock, but also all kinds of details of habits and practices align with those of the Old World.

To get here I took two flights on Aerosur—never again!—one from La Paz to Santa Cruz, a domestic flight, and the next here to Salta. The gal at the Rosario told me that as I was connecting to an international destination I ought to show up the prescribed two hours ahead of time, so I got up at 4 to get my cab. This proved to be completely unnecessary: never let people tell you that you have to get to the airport TWO HOURS ahead of your flight, unless there are special circumstances; it’s a huge waste of time. I don’t know about you, but I can’t read well at airports, so I mostly sit there in a bit of an anxiety-infused trance. When I got to the airport in the pitch black there was no one at the Aerosur counter.

Question: is the rear of an engine on a 737-200 SUPPOSED to be all black and sooty and cindery? I don’t recall seeing that on WestJet planes—hmmmm.

Arriving in Argentina from Bolivia you can tell right away you are in a much more prosperous country, and the whole procedure is easier, more friendly and more relaxed, with only one person going doing each job instead of three, and maybe one less form to fill out.

The very nice cab driver—who changed my US dollars into AR pesos—and I tried to communicate given my sprinkling of Spanish: it’s amazing how much you CAN communicate with limited means, but it’s still awkward and embarrassing. It makes you realize how much we depend on language to establish the features of our identity, our capacities and abilities, our distinctive responses to the world, and maybe most important, our sense of humour; you feel at once misrepresented and disabled when you can’t speak the language, and it feels suffocating. But I was not going to spend six months learning Spanish before coming to S. America.

I checked into this very nice hotel and went exploring. Salta is a very agreeable mid-sized city established by the Spaniards in 1582 as a support to the fantastically profitable mining operations up the way in Potosí, Bolivia. It has a beautiful main square, an impressive cathedral, attractive shops and a thriving café scene, just like what you would find in any European city. It also has that insane raging traffic that one finds in Peru and Bolivia: most of the intersections HAVE NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS. News flash: these prevent accidents and save lives. I am getting very tired of running for my life every time I cross a street.

I tried to find some of the restaurants recommended in the Lonely Planet, and found that, just as in Spain, they don’t even open for dinner until 8 or 9 PM. The streets were packed with hordes of people: What do Argentinians do before that late supper? They go shopping!

Had a massive beer—they give you about a liter—at this friendly, family-run greasy spoon, then a really good dinner at this old style resto—the kind with all these middle-aged career waiters who have been there for years. Just as in Italy, they bring you bread, breadsticks and antipasti as part of the service, and you order everything separately: salad, vegetables, mains, etc. I ate it all up like a good boy, as I’d had nothing all day and was starving from the huge dark beer.

Next day was my ride on the renowned Tren a las Nubes—the train to the clouds—that I’d heard so much about. It’s considered the most famous train ride in Argentina, going up into the high Andes with spectacular views, and finishing off at this massive trestle 64m high and 224m long. You have to book it weeks in advance, and it’s not cheap. You show up 50 minutes in advance of your 7:05 departure, and return at 23:00. I don’t quite know what I had in mind about this, but it was NOT what I experienced. This may have had something to do with the truly awful state in which I found myself.

Was it that one bit of raw tomato at supper on my last night in La Paz? Something in the water at the Hotel Rosario? Could it have been the delish empanadas I had at that hole-in-the-wall place here in Salta? But the bug takes one to two days to take effect, so it must have been something in La Paz. Dammit!

At about 23:00, lying on my bed here at Los Altos de Balcarce watching some movie with subtitles, I felt the first urgent call; woke up at 1:30 to answer another. I promise not to go into details, but I must say it’s appalling what the body can get up to. The early Christians were right about the corruption in the flesh. Yeecchhhh.

What the hell to do? I had my famous train ride a few hours later. I got sick just before Machu Picchu as well—was this part of a pattern?

Tottered off up the street at the crack of dawn to the train station and got in line, ticket in hand. When I got up to the door to the tracks the gal—all the employees have these smart Tren a las Nubes uniforms with a nifty logo—told me I had to go to the wicket to check in: why was there not someone to greet people at the door to tell them that? How HARD is it to do that?

So, the Tren a las Nubes is, in my humble, intestinally diseased opinion, a vastly overrated, agonizingly protracted, corporate rip-off bore. It’s a train ride to hell, and then very slowly back. You sit for hours and hours and hours—I was worried about getting bedsores—looking at variations on the same combination of bone-dry mountains and valley. (This part of the Andes is a desolate high-altitude desert, not at all like the beautiful verdant peaks you see in Peru.) On the way you are forced to watch videos, listen to folkloric music, and this bilingual blather about the track, why it was built and when, including info about Richard Fontaine Maury, the crazed and obsessive American engineer credited with designing the railway, which was built for economic reasons but is now only used by this tourist train. (The train passes through the town of Campo Quijano where his body is buried beside the tracks.) I tried to talk to my three seat-mates—the pairs of seats all face each other—who were very nice people, a man and two women, who may have been sisters, and who were on a huge road trip through Argentina, but, as in the case of the cab driver, little communication took place.

At various places along the route there were cars and tour buses parked—or driving alongside—with scores of people taking pictures of the train! “Look, you are famous!” said Florencia, one of the staff members for our coach. Wild. There were also at least two “security” SUVs with the TALN logo painted on accompanying the train all the way, along with an ambulance. (It occurred to me more than once that I ought to request to be transferred from the train to that ambulance and taken back to Salta, preferably to a clinic where I could receive antibiotics.)

The TALN is run by a company called Ecotren, which is really funny as I got to see the bags of garbage they were throwing out, mostly the plastic containers and wrappings from the horrible dried-up pound cake that was “breakfast,” and that looked a lot like what they served for the “snack” at 17:00, which I did not eat.

At one point I had to get up and go to the baño to vomit, which scared me because 1) on the other two occasions this disorder was only lower down, and was therefore controllable with Immodium, and 2) I had only had some water and the dried-up pound cake so far. Question: is it worse to be sick from the bottom or the top end when in a public place? Also: What is the point of travelling if you get sick all the time?

When we got to the highlight of the trip, the huge trestle over the Polvorilla desert we all got out to take pictures and subject ourselves to the exhortation of scores of indigenous people to buy their trinkets. Took two pics and got back on the train just as it was announced they were going to play the anthem of the Republic of Argentina on the PA system. Surreal.

Requested to see the on-board nurse, who told me via Florencia that I should keep things moving and NOT take Immodium or Gravol, but who DID give me something for the cramps; I don’t know what it was. Ate nothing, felt horribly sick; my water bottle leaked into my bag, soaking part of my Lonely Planet guide and my opened baggie of Ibuprofen and Aspirin; the seat-mates got up to eat in the dining car while I stayed put.

When it got dark at 18:00 I was amazed and appalled that we STILL HAD SIX HOURS PLUS to go before returning to Salta. I finally fell asleep at around 20:30 or 21:00, but was awakened by a Flamenco guitarist and some singer chick got up in traditional gaucho gear (I THINK) with the wide-brimmed hat and kiss curls singing VERY LOUDLY into the mike. WTF?! She was belting up a storm, bantering with the crowd, sashaying up and down the aisle, and promoting her show at one of the peña restaurants here in town. Great, girlfriend, but wrong time and place: here you have all these exhausted people on this endless fucking train-ride trying to sleep and you are belting out folkloric favourites and shilling for your act. I avoided making any eye contact, but if she had hit me up as to why I wasn’t having any fun I was going to call her a perra de mierda, a shit-bitch, which is the worst thing I can say in Spanish. She and the plump, long-haired guitarist finally left, and then we got—a MAGICIAN. Help! Help! Help me! Get me off this fucking train! THE TRAIN RIDE TO HELL!

We finally got back at exactly the promised hour of 23:00. I said goodbye and buen viaje—is that right?—to my seat-mates, and tottered back down the street to Los Altos, which is on the same street as all the bars and clubs, many of which had peñas in full, noisy swing—and all this on a Thursday night?

Ate white flour bickies, drank purified water, watched some TV and went to bed.

Had a good sleep and thought I was better, and so ate a substantial breakfast—nowhere near as good as the Rosario—but I’ve discovered I’m not. Thank god for Immodium and electrolyte-enhanced sports drink tabs. Maybe I should get to Buenos Aires, change my flight and go home??

On the way out of La Paz to go sight-seeing on a smoke-belching tourist bus you have to ascend back the way you came from the airport and go through this suburb—or rather, super-urb?—called El Alto, which means “The High.” I have never seen such dusty, gravelly squalor: the crappy cinder block or mud brick buildings, unpaved streets, garish advertising, cramped shops with stuff spilling out onto the crumbling sidewalks; hordes of poor scruffy mutts scavenging scraps, and the stoic-seeming Aymara women everywhere, squatting on the ground selling everything from street-meat, as I’ve heard it called, to woven handicrafts, or walking purposefully with children in tow. They are amazing to look at: long black braids, no matter what their age—we were told they just don’t go grey for some reason—shawls with tassels worn over sweaters, flounced skirts, leggings, scuffed sandals, and, perched on their heads, these very stylish hats that are a cross between a bowler and a Stetson—what the French call a melon hat, chapeau melon, I believe. They are very droll: way too small to be good for anything but decoration, and apparently worn on one side if the wearer is looking for a mate. I guess they kind of say “Bolivia.”

GAP added a guided tour for us to make up for the loss of the last part of our trip. We went to the famous archeological site of Tihuanaco (also spelled Tiwanaku), the ruined remnants of the culture that maintained a vast empire before the Incas, and that lasted much longer than the former people, thriving all up and down the coast and into the valleys and high plains from about 400 BCE till about 1100 AD. No one knows why they died out. The Incas revered them, and tried to hide and preserve the huge carved figurative monoliths they made. The Spaniards tried to cut the heads off the statues.

Small, ill-kept and COLD museum; you can see how the Incas inherited Tihuanaco beliefs, practices and techniques; out on the dusty and melancholy plain between arid hills the ruins of three distinct temples, each with huge carved monoliths, and each addressing the three zones of life: the sky, the earth and the underworld; a more modern museum featuring the famous Bennett monolith, named for the archeologist who deciphered its complex bas-relief carvings; stunning and spooky, and very sad: the massive figure has ovoid formations on its cheeks that are said to be tears, and the theory is that this huge statue was carved when the culture was in a state of crisis—perhaps massive crop failures due to drought—and the figure of the priest was configured in this way as a plea to the gods for salvation. (To whom shall WE pray?)

In 1920 they dynamited the main temple pyramid for its stone. Hot sun, cold in the shade, huge snow-capped peaks named for gods, can’t recall the names, reddish-brown dust, fallen stones, bored Canadian gals from Thunder Bay, but at least they had voted NDP, who won in their riding—but I digress—guide with heavy accent. Many guides have very little English, but call themselves guides anyway—there is no accreditation that one must acquire to be hired in this capacity. The results can be very funny, and/or very frustrating.

The next day all four of us—Norman, Kay, Milan and I—booked a bus tour to Copacabana—yes, it is ACTUALLY called that—which is basically on the south shore of the sacred Lake Titikaka—and then to take a boat to Sun Island, yet another famous Inca site. Bus full of young tourists from all over the place. (Did I mention that there are tons of Israelis travelling these parts?—they come here after their military service because, one of them told me, it’s really cheap in S. America, and there also seems to be a large Jewish community in the city. Milan and I met a bunch of gals buying stuff in a store and I got talking to them about it. I refrained from getting into what I would have LOVED to talk about, which was how great it would be if Palestinians could travel as they do, and what they think of their ghastly gov’t—which even the former head of the Mossad has denounced—and about the illegal occupation of which they may have been a part, and whether the two-state solution really is dead; and if it IS, what would a ONE-STATE solution be like?! I bet they’d go nuts on me. I was very friendly as I didn’t want to cause an international incident, LOL. In general I have refrained from discussing Palerael/Isestine with anyone on the tour.)

From Copacabana we took a launch with two outboard motors to get to the Island of the Sun. On the way one of these broke down, and the dude was trying to get it going by hauling on the starter-rope-thing, which just caused clouds of blue smoke to full the cabin— more fossil fuel bad times. Contrary to my expectations, it was not fixed hours later when we all showed up to get back, so we limped all the way to Cpc-bana on one engine.

Kay and Norman got a SUPERB guide, a lovely woman who claimed to be descended from pre-Inca antecedents, who gave them tons of info, and performed, um, ceremonies with them at various sites. On the Island of the Sun, which is gorgeous, she “baptized” them in one of the beautiful springs on the island—whose different streams are supposed to taste different—and she baptized me as well, which was very kind of her. Milan and I, and this German girl who had joined us, got a nice enough guy, but he had almost nothing to say, and was right at the back of our little hiking group, even though he was supposed to be the, um, GUIDE.

The Sun Island is stunningly beautiful, esp the view from the hill above the place where the boat drops you off, and you can see all the terraces, the scoop of the bay, and these massive, jagged-toothed, snow-covered mountains off in the distance. In the sun temple there is ample evidence that the ancient religion is alive and well: there are remnants of burnt offerings of coca leaves and other material in the little rooms of the temple. And our guide himself, in the one speech he made for us, described the rituals that he regularly practices. News flash: the indigenous religion the Spaniards tried to wipe out is alive and well!

Today, after moving to this much nicer hotel, I managed to reach the Ethnological Museum without getting killed, and had a good time looking at amazing contemporary dance masks, a show of objects and clothing made with feathers—plumeria—but I kept thinking of how many birds had to be killed to make them—an exhibition of ceramics both ancient and new, and also a show about the parade of cultures across Bolivia, including a sequence about the Tihuanaco culture. I found to my delight I could get the gist of the exhibits by reading the Spanish—thanks to my high school Latin training—even though if someone spoke the same text I’d be lost.

In the middle of this visit I realized that I had a new case of the trots developing with more and more insistence; must have been all those raw peanuts I ate as an excuse for supper on the LONG bus ride home from the Sun Island. Oh-oh. I went to the baño only to find that there was no toilet paper—one had none, while the other had no dispenser for same; I thought, Is it not inhuman and uncivilized not to supply toilet paper in a public washroom, esp. one in a state museum? I hung on for a while, trying to be a good soldier, and then had to leave to get back to the very nice Hotel Rosario, which was a feat downhill, uphill, across terrifying streets and on crowded narrow sidewalks. On the way I saw some poor guy selling a roll of TP from a shrink-wrapped bundle to a tourist—what, you have to bring your own TP to this country?!

And when I got back to the Rosario I was reminded—yet again—of this bizarre practice they have here of placing used toilet paper in a covered wastepaper basket rather than flushing it down the toilet—WTF? This hotel, because it is more high-end, even goes to the trouble of explaining why: they don’t use biodegradable TP like the USA, Canada and the countries of the EU, so you are therefore advised not to flush it away. Well, I think that is utterly disgusting, and that Bolivia and Peru—and whoever else—should switch to the kind of TP we use in the privileged West, which you can FLUSH DOWN THE GODDAM TOILET! Don't you agree?