Politics and Pesos...

Three Sundays ago, the government of Argentine President Mauricio Macri suffered a serious setback to his re-election campaign, when Peronist opposition candidateAlberto Fernández drew nearly 50 percent of the vote in the country’s presidential primary elections. Discontent with the economic situation, including high inflation and unemployment, propelled a protest vote against the party in power. Fernández is the odds-on favorite in the general election, which will take place October 27th.

Today's official exchange rates against the US dollar.

In the aftermath of the primary, Argentina’s peso plunged from 45 to the dollar to nearly 60 before rebounding slightly into the high 50s. That fueled inflationary fears—though one might argue that’s something Argentines are accustomed to—but the bigger problem appeared to be the Macri administration’s shambolically inconsistent approach toward the issues.

An extensive wine tasting at Aldo's tomorrow will cost about US$10.

In the short term, foreign visitors may benefit—at least until prices catch up with devaluation. For the moment I’ll just note, anecdotally, that a wine tasting tomorrow at Aldo’s—a premium restaurant just a block off Buenos Aires’s central Plaza de Mayo—will cost only about US$10. That includes accompanying snacks, plus discounts on optional wine purchases and dinner itself, if desired (Full disclosure: I have lunched anonymously at Aldo’s and would certainly recommend it).

In 2014, in Puerto Madryn, I changed my dollars at this auto glass repair shop.

Even if there’s a short-term advantage, politics may mean it doesn’t last, especially if the opposition wins in October. Under the previous government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, foreign exchange controls and currency manipulation made travel in Argentina awkward, and encouraged a flourishing black market where tourists and Argentines themselves would change their dollars under the table in cuevas, so-called “caves”—in one case, in the Patagonian city of Puerto Madryn, I changed my cash dollars surreptitiously in an auto glass repair shop.

Meanwhile, in Argentina’s Byzantine politics, the presidential candidacy of Alberto Fernández seems an odd one because the vice-presidential running mate is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (no relation)—a political powerhouse in her own right who’s under multiple corruption indictments from which her current senatorial seat provides her immunity.

In 1973, when Argentines chose Héctor Cámpora as their president, they knew they'd be getting Juan Domingo Perón.

Given that Alberto Fernández served both the late former President Néstor Kirchner and his successor/wife, Cristina could be the power behind the throne, so to speak. This is not unprecedented in Argentine politics—in 1973, when Héctor Cámpora won the presidency with Juan Domingo Perón still in exile, the party’s slogan was “Cámpora al Gobierno, ¡Perón al poder!” (Cámpora to the government, Perón in power!).

Trans-Continental Coda

It’s worth noting that Argentina’s isn’t the only currency Southern Cone currency showing weakness. When I left Chile, in mid-April, their peso was at 660 to the dollar. Today it’s almost 720, nearly a ten percent decline. That may make Argentina’s neighbor somewhat more affordable, but its economy (and politics) are not nearly so volatile.

Visual Baires, From Palermo to La Boca

Over the weekend, I received an unexpected email from my nephew Juan Massolo, whose first public exhibition of photographs will go on display tonight (Tuesday, September 3) in the Buenos Aires barrio of Palermo. I have no first-hand knowledge about the T-Bone Bar & Grill where the exhibition will take place, but the menu looks rather more diverse than the name would suggest, as it also offers tapas, sandwiches, fish and seafood, and a diversity of pastas. Oddly, while wine glasses feature prominently in their own photographs, the website does not include a wine list.

In any event, Juan’s work will adorn their walls until Sunday, October 27 so, if you’re in the Argentine capital, please drop by for a look. So far as I know, no consumption is required.

From the Theater to the Screen? “We Came from Far Away”

One of my favorite Buenos Aires experiences is the Teatro Catalinas Sur, a community theater group in the barrio of La Boca, which has a repertory of works that it sometimes repeats (and updates). One of those is Venimos de Muy Lejos (“We Came from Far Away”), a musical theater take on the Argentine immigrant experience that’s also filled with politically inspired satire (or, alternatively, satirically inspired politics). Still, it manages to avoid overdoing the polemics and topicality to focus on more enduring themes.

Now, apparently, Venimos de Muy Lejos is making the transition to the big screen under the direction of Ricky Piterbarg, about whom I know next to nothing – until now, Catalinas Sur has operated under the professional direction of Adhemar Bianchi, even though the performers themselves are (skilled) amateurs who even collect tickets and usher spectators to their seats. At their own theater, though, Catalinas Sur provides a libretto that lets even monolingual visitors under what’s going on (though they provide plenty of visual cues as well).

If Venimos de Muy Lejos makes it to English-speaking cinema audiences, the libretto obviously won’t work, and rendering the subtitles understandable from lunfardo (Buenos Aires street slang) will be challenge. Again, though, the cast’s sheer joy and skill in performing should cover any possible shortcomings. Several trailers have been posted to YouYube but, unfortunately, when I try to open them I get an error message. I’ll keep trying, though, and suggest that you do so as well.

Fishing the Amazon? There's an App for That

Since I began writing for guidebooks in the late 1980s, I have focused on the area known as the Southern Cone for its shape on the map of South America. It includes Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, parts of Brazil and the Falkland Islands, but I’ve always retained an interest in the rest of the continent and other parts of the Americas. Though my experience in the Caribbean is limited to Trinidad, I have traveled in every South American country except Venezuela, and in every Central American except Belize (which unfortunately refused my Argentine wife entry for lack of a visa) and Panama (though I have changed planes there en route to South America).

In the course of my professional life, I’ve worked mostly with print media, and I still feel most comfortable with traditional guidebooks. That said, I’ve produced my own apps to Argentina and Chile (please refer to the ads in the sidebar) and, in the course of maintaining my interests in the rest of the region, I’ve tried to keep up with other developments in the field. Today I’ll bring one of those to your attention.

Fish Amazon

Nearly four decades ago, I first visited the Amazon Basin on a backpack trip through Ecuador, when I rode a dugout canoe down the Río Napo. Since then I’ve been briefly to the Brazilian Amazon, but do not fancy myself an expert on the area, nor am I a fisherman (though fly-fishing is important in the lakes district of Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, and a few other areas in those countries), but I do eat fish.

Once, in response to charges that he was not a musician, a rock critic asked rhetorically whether “You gotta play guitar to know how to buy records?” While I may not be a fisherman, I like to eat fish and, for that reason, I enjoyed looking through Larry Larsen’s Fish Amazon (link goes to iTunes; also available in Android version), since his knowledge of natural history seems to match his love of fishing. From my point of view, I also found it useful because many of the same fish species inhabit the River Plate drainage, where they can be found on the grills of restaurants along the Paraná and Uruguay rivers in Argentina and Uruguay.

According to Larsen, in an email he sent me recently, “The peacock bass (tucunare) are very small in the Paraná but the suribim (“shovelnose catfish,” pictured above, photo under Creative Commons license) and piranha are very large (30 pounds and much more, and four to five pounds, respectively). Payara, jacunda, trieda, red-tail catfish, pacú (“pigfish”) and the others are in there in relatively large sizes as well.” I don’t know all of these species by their Portuguese common names, but I am familiar with the surubí (as it’s called in Spanish) and pacú.

Not so long ago, the Buenos Aires restaurant Jangada specialized in grilled river fish but, unfortunately, it has closed. Close to my apartment in Palermo, though, diners can still sample pacú and occasional other options at Nemo, which serves mostly seafood. Visitors to the city of Santa Fe, however, will find a much wider selection at El Quincho de Chiquito, which specializes in products of the Paraná.

While I don’t fish myself, two locations along the Paraná come highly recommended for those who wish to test its sediment-laden waters. One of those is Paso de la Patria, about 35 km east of the provincial capital of Corrientes, and the other is Goya, about 220 km south of Corrientes.

Zorro of Recoleta?

When I was a young boy, more decades ago than I care to admit, one of our cultural icons was the TV character of Zorro. Long before I myself moved to California, the Disneyfied serial of an apparently supercilious Spanish nobleman who secretly fought for the underdog was simultaneously exciting and humorous (though some of the humor derived from Latino stereotypes, like the bumbling Sergeant García). Disguised in mask and cape, the figure of Don Diego de la Vega (played by Guy Williams) was a charismatic fighter for justice in colonial Alta California.

"Zorro" fences with Argentine comedian Alberto Olmedo.

My wife, growing up in Argentina, had a similar experience. Even before her own family had television, she would travel to visit her great-aunt in the Buenos Aires province town of Ituzaingó and, rising early in the morning, would spend hours glued to the tube there. Zorro was also one of her favorites, along with The Three Stooges, The Addams Family, and Bonanza (in which Williams briefly played a small role).

As a series, Zorro ended in 1959, though it went through reruns and showed even later than that in Argentina. Williams went on to other roles, none of which I ever really noticed. Nevertheless, I was surprised to learn this week that, after retiring from acting, Williams moved to Buenos Aires in 1973.

In 1973, Argentina was a chaotic country that did not appeal to many American expats, but Williams (given name, Armand Joseph Catalano) was the US-born son of Italian-Catalonian parents. Certainly Zorro’s popularity helped and, perhaps, his ethnic background let him feel more at home at a time when Argentina’s political institutions were unraveling. Three years later, a military coup led to Argentina’s worst-ever dictatorship, which lasted until 1983.

During his retirement, Williams occupied an apartment in the upscale barrio of Recoleta and, on occasion, performed on Argentine television (the photograph at top shows him fencing with slapstick comedian Alberto Olmedo in the 1970s). In May of 1989, though, he dropped out of sight and, shortly thereafter, a police search of his apartment found that he had died, aged 65, of a brain aneurysm. Interestingly, for an actor who played a Spanish nobleman, his ashes spent two years in the elite Cementerio de la Recoleta before being repatriated to California and scattered into the Pacific at Malibu.

Williams continues to be a presence in Argentina, even though he no longer resides in the apartment at Ayacucho 1964, around the corner from the landmark Café La Biela (pictured above), his frequent hangout. There is, in fact, a website devoted to Guy Williams’ Argentina, which even includes the apartment’s floorplan.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Today’s best known US expat may be Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who recently revealed the National Security Agency’s surveillance (over)reach; after fleeing to Hong Kong and then Moscow, he has requested political asylum from the government of Ecuador. In a lengthy tongue-in-cheek analysis, Adrián Bono (a deputy editor at the Buenos Aires Herald) has used his new website The Bubble to suggest that Snowden should reconsider and ask for Argentine asylum, and offers five detailed reasons for his doing so. If so Snowden might, like Guy Williams, be advised to adopt a stage name.

Queen of the Argentines? Máxima of Orange

According to her harshest critics, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner often acts as if she were royalty but, in about three months, her “subjects” will have their own legitimate queen, of a sort, to fawn over. At the end of April, Holland’s Queen Beatrix will abdicate her throne, paving the way for her son Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to become king. As it happens, Willem-Alexander’s wife is Argentine-born Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, who will simultaneously become Queen Máxima.

Máxima (second from left in the above photograph, whose other figures may also be familiar), hails from Buenos Aires. In the decade-plus since her marriage to Willem-Alexander, she has become a popular figure in The Netherlands, and is fluent in Dutch and English as well as her native Spanish. Also the mother of three young daughters, she has become a vocal advocate for immigrants’ rights in her adopted country.

Initially, she was controversial because her father, Jorge Zorreguieta Stefanini, served as agriculture minister under military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla; though Jorge Zorreguieta was apparently not involved in Videla’s Dirty War atrocities, he was not permitted to attend the wedding. Máxima’s rather irregular acquisition of Dutch citizenship prior to the wedding also raised some eyebrows.

I have not met the queen-to-be, and never expect to do so, but I have dined at her brother’s place – in the lakeside resort of Villa LaAngostura (pictured above), Martín Zorreguieta’s Tinto Bistro has acquired a certain fame, or notoriety, obviously not just for a fusion menu based on seasonal Patagonian ingredients. Martín Zorreguieta also operates the Delfina Restaurant, at the eastern approach to town, and the Cientochenta Club Gastronómico de Montaña at the nearby Cerro Bayo ski area.

Moon Chile - New Fourth Edition

Meanwhile, those of you planning a trip to the other side of the Andes should know that the new fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Chile is due out next month. Until it’s out, though, you can content yourself with my recently published iPhone/iPad app Chile Travel Adventures, which makes an ideal complement to the print book. The app is also available in an Android version.