Recently, Condé Nast
Traveler used its Readers’ Choice Awards to produce a list of the Top
5 Cities in Central & South America. In principle, I’m averse to such listicles but, nevertheless, I
can’t look away completely. Thus, I’ve decided to comment on the survey and,
then, produce a list of my own that will, hopefully, provided a credible
corrective or supplement. I subscribe to the magazine – at about US$12 per
year, that’s no big sacrifice - but the survey itself appears online.
Condé Nast’s No. 1 city is Buenos Aires (pictured above) which, of course,
I cover in my own city guide and in guides to Argentina and Patagonia (additional comments
below). No. 2 is Cusco which,
though I haven’t visited Peru
for many years now, is certainly a credible choice for its Inka and colonial heritage,
and as a historic gateway to Machu
Picchu. I got to know it in my backpacker days and, though it’s certainly
changed now, it’s hard to dismiss it from such a list.
No. 3 is Cartagena,
Colombia (pictured above and below), for which I have a special affection as the first memorable city I
ever saw in South America (flying from Costa Rica, I landed in the grubby
Caribbean port of Barranquilla,
which I’d sooner forget, but nearby colonial Cartagena’s walled city was
unforgettable). Fortunately, I was able to return a few years ago, and it was
better (though notably more expensive) than I remembered it from my backpacker
days. I’m bewildered, though, that the magazine would even have to suggest visiting
“the old part of the city, as well as the newer areas…” since the old part is
the only part worth visiting. In the newer part, you might as well be in Miami.
No. 4 is Paraty,
Brazil, a surprise choice that
I really know nothing about. Personally, in my limited Brazilian experiences, I
would choose Bahía (Salvador).
No. 5 is Antigua Guatemala, the
colonial capital ironically saved by an earthquake that forced the movement of
the political capital 30 miles east to present-day Guatemala City. Antigua,
which I covered in an early edition of Moon Handbooks Guatemala, has a
remarkable critical mass of colonial architectural treasures, even if some of
them are ruins or semi-ruins, and the presence of a rich Mayan culture in and
around it.
My own Top 5 differs significantly from Condé Nast’s, but
then it’s not crowd-sourced like theirs, which relies on polling based on vague
standards of culture, friendliness, atmosphere, restaurants, lodging and
shopping. I take a different approach which, though still subjective, has
parallels with the standard I use to evaluate restaurants: “Would I go eat here
again?” This reflects my own experience and, over the course of three decades
experience, it covers the places I most look forward to returning to. The order
that follows below is random.
BUENOS AIRES
In this I concur with Condé Nast readers, even if I detest the
“Paris of the South” cliché – which needs to be retired sooner rather than
later. Buenos Aires is not a European metropolis, but rather a New World
immigrant city that’s more analogous to New York. For my part, it helps that I
own property there, so I have all the benefits of travel while still being
able to sleep in my own bed.
VALPARAÍSO
From my East Bay home, San Francisco is less than 20 minutes
away by the Transbay Tube,
but I rarely go there except en route to SFO
for a flight to Argentina or Chile. I prefer to spend time in Valparaíso, the first major
Pacific port on the Round-the-Horn route to the Gold Rush and, with its steep hills,
cranky funiculars, brightly painted houses and cool summer fogs, “Valpo” is
South America’s San Francisco. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it also has
longstanding historical links with California, as Isabel Allende (now a California
resident) showed so vividly in her historical novel Daughter of Fortune.
COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO
Barely an hour from Buenos Aires by ferry, the walled city
of Colonia del Sacramento was a
buffer between Portugal and Spain, and then between Brazil and Argentina, until
Uruguay became an independent country. Towns of its antiquity, with its cobbled
streets and low-slung houses, are unusual in southernmost South America. It’s a
walker’s delight.
MENDOZA
At the base of the Argentine Andes, Mendoza is a
commercially driven world wine capital whose downtown street trees form, in
the words of the late Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, a “roof of leaves woven
together like the fingers of a huge circle of inseparable lovers.” Its park and
plazas are a delight, while its backcountry can boast the “Roof of the Americas”
in Cerro Aconcagua, the
Western Hemisphere’s highest summit.
PUNTA ARENAS
Stretching along the Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas was Ground
Zero for the “wool rush” that transformed the Patagonian steppes, in both Chile
and Argentina, into massive sheep ranches that clothed Europe and made a
handful of entrepreneurs rich and influential (more so in Argentina than in
Chile, however). They left some memorable architecture, and the city’s also the
gateway to the Fuegian
fjords (pictured below).
