Farewell, Jan Morris...and That Soccer Guy

In the early 1990s, I finished my original guidebook to Argentina for a publisher whose name I will decline to mention here. Shortly thereafter, the same publisher offered me a contract to update their existing guidebook to Chile, which I accepted, and my career as a guidebook writer seemed like destiny.

While those two assignments might sound comparable or almost identical, there were significant differences. The same author—whose name I will also decline to mention here--had done the previous editions of both books. In the case of Argentina, though, the author held copyright and, therefore, I had to start the book from scratch. Given that the book was awful—so bad that the publisher decided to do a new version shortly after the initial publication—on one level that was no big deal.

 

Of course, that meant more work for me (and my wife), who also wrote part of the new title. We had to avoid plagiarizing the previous author’s work but, given its shortcomings, that was never an issue. The downside was that the publisher would claim the copyright to our new book, as it was then eliminating author-friendly royalty contracts.

 

In the case of Chile, the publisher already owned the copyright, so plagiarism would not be an issue—or would it? That came to mind last week when I heard that Jan Morris, famed for her journalism, travel writing and personal life, died Friday at the age of 94. I had once unknowingly plagiarized her.

When Jan Morris visited Puerto Montt, in the early 1960s, it looked different than it does today.

In 1961, Morris had described the southern city of Puerto Montt as filled with “structures in the Alpine manner, all high-pitched roofs and quaint balconies.” Thirty years later, the author of the Chile guidebook wrote that “many houses are of northern-European design, faced with unpainted shingles, high-pitched roofs and quaint, ornate balconies,” without attribution.

 

Updating the book, I was unaware of the flagrant plagiarism until several years later, when I expanded the quotation with appropriate credit to Morris herself. Legally, the publisher would probably have been responsible but, when I was fortunate enough to meet her at the annual Book Passage Travel Writers Conference in 1999, Jan simply laughed it off. That’s a great way to remember her.

 

It Goes to 11, or Is It 60?

In other necrology news, soccer icon Diego Maradona has died at the age of 60. Never able to appreciate soccer’s absence of hand-eye coordination, I'm not a fan of the sport, but there’s still no underestimating the impact this addictive personality had on his native country—which was always willing to rationalize his personal shortcomings.

Maradona shares a mural with tango icon Aníbal Troilo.

Argentine President Alberto Fernández declared three days of mourning, with Maradona’s body lying in state in the Casa Rosada presidential palace, but that turned into a truncated free-for-all as many fans tried to force their way in to view the corpse; earlier, morgue employees at the autopsy site apparently took selfies of that event.

 

In a country where embalming is unusual—the most famous case is that of Eva Perón, whose post-mortem odyssey is a true epic—Maradona apparently requested to have himself put on public display in perpetuity, but the family appears to have overruled that. “El Diego” may never enjoy Evita’s privileged position at the elite Cementerio de la Recoleta, but his tomb in suburban Buenos Aires Province seems likely to  become a pilgrimage site in its own right.

 

Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano may have summed up his legacy best: “Maradona was condemned to believe himself Maradona and obliged to be the star of every party, the baby at every baptism, and corpse at every wake. Success is even more devastating than cocaine. No analysis of urine or blood can reveal that drug.”

Buenos Aires, by Bus & Bike

These days, whenever I’m in Buenos Aires, I prefer to get around on foot—while it’s more time-consuming than the Subte, city buses or taxis (all of which I use on occasion), walking offers the opportunity to view the city at a slower pace and also provides some exercise that can be otherwise hard to find on the unrelentingly flat terrain. During my recently stay, I walked as much as 11 miles (about 17 km) per day, though most of the time I did half that or a bit less. At some point soon, I’m planning to write about Buenos Aires specifically as a walker’s city—both the good and the bad.

Outside Buenos Aires Bus offices, on Diagonal Norte

I rarely take tours but, shortly before leaving Argentina earlier this month, I chose to see the city through two services I’d not known personally—Buenos Aires Bus and Biking Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires Bus is a hop-on/hop-off tourist shuttle that runs two separate routes around the city, between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. (though the northerly recorrido verde operates only between 10 a.m. and 6:50 p.m. Frequencies are 20 minutes on the central and southerly recorrido azul/rojo and 30 minutes on the verde.

The Buenos Aires Bus stop on Avenida Libertador in Palermo, two blocks from my apartment

While the company has its offices downtown, a short walk from the central Plaza de Mayo, it has convenient stops throughout the most visited parts of the city, and it’s possible to purchase tickets online and board near your accommodations. In my case, there’s a stop just a couple blocks from my Palermo Botánico apartment, where I boarded for the ride downtown.

Aboard a roofless Buenos Aires Bus

The buses themselves are double-deckers, sometimes open to the sun and sometimes shaded by a tarp; the lower deck is available when it rains. There are trilingual guides on board—Spanish, English and Portuguese—but there are also audio guides in seven other languages, including German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic. Every passenger receives a pair of headphones to hear the narration.

The iconic Obelisco, from the upper deck of Buenos Aires Bus

Sitting in the upper deck, I got a view of the city that was rather different from that of a pedestrian and I only regret that, as the end of my stay approached, I was not able to take full advantage of the service. For a first-time visitor to the city, though, it’s an option worth consideration, available either for 24 hours at Ar$670 (about US$34) or 48 hours at Ar$850 (about US$43) per person.

Biking Buenos Aires

On another day, though, I was able to indulge myself on a bicycle tour through parts of the city I’ve long known. Based in San Telmo, Biking Buenos Aires offers a variety of excursions, ranging from a five-hour “Heart of the City Tour” to a seven-hour “Ultimate City Tour” and thematic tours on architecture, urban art (including graffiti) and even a combined bike and kayak trip to the northern suburbs.

The Biking Buenos Aires offices in San Telmo

In the last week of my stay, I chose the “Heart of the City” option, which started around 11 a.m. with an orientation meeting, at Biking’s offices, for the eight of us (all Americans except for an English-speaking French couple). Our guides were Cristina Marey, a Galician woman who headed the group, and Olaf Menger, a Dutchman who brought up the rear and directed traffic at intersections where notoriously aggressive porteño drivers might plow into us.

At Parque Lezama, with the Russian Orthodox Church in the background, at right

Our first stop was Parque Lezama, only a few minutes from Biking’s offices, where Cristina spoke about the city’s supposed founding here by Pedro de Mendoza in 1536, and pointed out local landmarks such as the Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa. We then rode on to La Boca for a stop at the traditional Caminito, where I was a reluctant recruit for a tango lesson with Olaf—I have two left feet and no sense of rhythm (at tango’s beginning, men danced with each other in brothels while waiting for a prostitute).

The Caminito is an obligatory stop in La Boca.

Until April, Ai Weiwei's "Forever Bicycles" will occupy the sidewalk outside the Fundación Proa.

The lesson was mercifully brief, followed by a short walk around the Caminito, where I saw two interesting novelties: first, at the Fundación Proa, a bicycle-oriented art installation by Ai Weiwei (here until early April), and then a fresh-squeezed orange-juice cart. Increasing in numbers, the orange juice carts are a welcome phenomenon in the city’s summer heat, are increasing in numbers.

Fresh-squeezed orange juice carts are an increasingly common sight on the city's streets.

Local boy Carlos Tévez is a hero in La Boca.

I heard, in the orientation, that we would see murals in La Boca, but I anticipated the historic paintings on the walls of La Bombonera, Boca Juniors’ iconic soccer stadium. Instead, we proceeded to a part of the barrio I didn’t know, where newly painted murals, such as this one of barrio hero Carlos Tévez—who recently re-signed with his original team—cover the sides of high-rise apartments. La Bombonera is visible in the distance, but in the other direction.

Puerto Madero's Reserva Ecológica is a reclaimed landfill.

Also atop the reclaimed landfill are luxury apartment buildings.

From La Boca, we rode toward the shores of the Río de la Plata and the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, where grasses, shrubs, woodlands and birds have colonized a landfill that was once off-limits. It’s part of the city’s newest barrio, Puerto Madero, which is also the wealthiest but, not so far in the future, its luxury high-rises might require canoe or kayak access as rising seas also raise the river’s level in an already flood-prone zone.

Biking's clients lunch at Puerto Madero, with the Reserva Ecológica in the background.

Emerging from the woods, we lunched at a sandwich stand before continuing to the classic diques (basins) of the old port, now surrounded by the city’s priciest real estate, and the landmark Puente de la Mujer pedestrian bridge. Cristina commented that Puerto Madero is unaffordable for all but the wealthiest porteños, and that’s certainly true, but as Andrew Graham-Yooll once remarked to me, its ample public spaces—not limited to the Reserva Ecológica—are open to visitors of all social classes.

Spanish architect Antonio Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer has become an icon of Puerto Madero.

Puerto Madero's public areas are open to all, for activities like pickup soccer games.

Leaving Puerto Madero, we had our only uphill segment—a short one, but still a bit of an effort on a relatively heavy bike—before reaching the central Plaza de Mayo and its landmark buildings. Unfortunately, the Plaza itself is undergoing a major remodel (at the height of tourist season!), so we soon looped back to Biking’s offices and the conclusion of a satisfying 17-km two-wheel trip.

Shortly after I took this photo, from the balcony of the colonial Cabildo, the Plaza de Mayo closed for a major remodel.

Polynesias of the Americas, North and South

When I was a toddler, my traveling life began when my parents left Minnesota for the

Pacific Northwest, and my earliest memories include crossing the Rockies en route to a suburb of Tacoma, Washington. In later years I became a stamp collector, imagining remote destinations I might someday visit, and I listened to the radio—when, after dark, the signals from remote 50,000-watt stations would boom onto my tiny transistor radio, under the blankets.

In 1961, Hawai'i's Frankie Reveira was starting catcher for the Pacific Coast League champion Tacoma Giants.

Growing up on the West Coast, I heard major league baseball when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, and the legendary Vin Scully helped make me a lifetime Dodgers fan. Locally, though, I was a fan of the Tacoma Giants (Pacific Coast League), and I would lie awake until the bars closed—even though I was nowhere near drinking age—to hear Don Hill’s re-creations when Tacoma played the Hawai’i Islanders in Honolulu (those games started at 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time). In fact, the Tacoma Giants themselves employed a Hawaiian catcher by the name of Frankie Reveira (whom Hill, unfortunately, nicknamed “Johnny Pineapple”), and a number of Hawaiians now play in the majors.

Hanga Roa is the only town on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Oddly, despite its relative accessibility, Hawai’i was not the first Polynesian island I ever visited—that “honor” goes to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), which I’ve visited at least half a dozen times in the course of writing and updating guidebooks to southernmost South America (Rapa Nui, of course, is a Chilean possession, though it’s gained some autonomy is recent years).

Hawai'i, especially the Big Island, has dense forests and rivers that Rapa Nui lacks.

Hawai’i, of course, has a far greater land mass (10,931 square miles, about 28,300 sq km) than Rapa Nui (just 63 square miles or 164 sq km), with a much larger population (1.43 million v. 5,800 or so), but the two still have much in common. While Hawai’i is a literally tropical archipelago (Honolulu’s latitude is 21° N), Rapa Nui (27° S) is a bit farther from the Equator and, with the islets of Motu Iti and Motu Nui, it barely classifies as an archipelago.

Motu Iti and Motu Nui lie a short distance off the Rapa Nui shoreline.

Rapa Nui's Playa Ovahe is far less crowded than just about anywhere in Hawai'i.

Both areas are volcanic, though Rapa Nui has no active volcanism and its handful of beaches is far less crowded than Hawai’i’s. Both have lava tubes, however, that are open for short hikes. Hawai’i retains much of its native forest, while nearly barren Rapa Nui now has only non-native trees. There have been efforts, however, to re-introduce the native toromiro tree, which is extinct in the wild but present at botanical gardens at Kew and Gothenburg.

Hiking through the Thurston Lava Tube, Volcanoes National Park, Big Island of Hawai'i

Rapa Nui's Ana Te Pahu is far smaller than the Thurston Lava Tube.

There are also some links between the Polynesian peoples of the two archipelagos. Educated in the United States, former Rapa Nui governor Sergio Rapu earned an M.A. in Pacific culture and archaeology from the University of Hawai’i, and has helped supervise the restoration of megalithic monuments such as those at Ahu Tongariki and other sites (the term ahu, denoting a memorial altar or shrine, is also common in Hawai’i and other parts of Polynesia). What Rapa Nui really lacks, though, may be its own Frankie Reveira—soccer, sadly, is the prime participant sport here.

Former governor Sergio Rapu, who has studied and lived in Hawai'i, helped restore Rapa Nui's Ahu Tongariki.