Rebuilding Chaitén, Rescuing the Fu

As the southern hemisphere spring approaches, the Chilean town of Chaitén remains off limits after the eruption of its namesake volcano in May, and that is likely to affect travel along the northern Carretera Austral for the entire season. Still under tons of ash, most of its buildings severely damaged by flood (as pictured here), the town seems unlikely to be rebuilt at its present location.

Under normal circumstances, Chaitén is the port for auto/passenger ferries from Puerto Montt and the island of Chiloé but, given the volcano's continuing activity and the massive cleanup still necessary, it seems equally improbable that ferry service will be available this season except for the Navimag ferries from Puerto Montt to Puerto Chacabuco. This, of course, deposits travelers at the highway's approximate midpoint, so that it will be impossible to travel the length of the Carretera Austral without backtracking or, alternatively, entering via the Argentine province of Chubut to Futaleufú.

Futaleufú, of course, has its own problems. While not so directly affected by the volcano, it lay in the path of prevailing westerlies that deposited huge amounts of ash even though the town was not completely evacuated. A recent photo essay in the Buenos Aires daily Clarín depicts the accumulations of ash, the need for masks and even respirators to venture outside, and the impact on domestic animals, whose feed and water have been contaminated.

Futaleufú, of course, takes its name from the Río Futaleufú, one of the world's top whitewater rivers, and several international adventure travel companies have camps for rafters and kayakers in the vicinity. In last month's National Geographic Adventure, Jon Bowermaster summarizes the situation in an ecological and economic context in which Chile, a country dependent on mining and desperate for non-petroleum sources of energy, could use the image of a destroyed ecosystem to justify a huge hydroelectric project - similar to the one that drowned the legendary Río Biobío in the 1990s.

Ecosystems, though, can be resilient, and recovery from the 1994 eruption of Volcán Hudson, near the town of Chile Chico south of Coyhaique, was surprisingly quick. Bowermaster quotes whitewater operator Eric Hertz, of Earth River Expeditions, to the effect that if the 4,000 anticipated rafters and kayakers don't show, the "confusion over the river’s actual condition 'will have done a lot more damage to the area than the volcano.'"

The Tango Report

Last February, I wrote about the shifting of Buenos Aires's Festival de Tango to August, creating a "tango month" if you will, with the Mundial de Tango (World Tango Championships) following almost immediately. I wasn't able to go to Buenos Aires this month, but my friend Patricia Thaxter, who lives in BA and brings tango enthusiasts to the city through her Infusions Travel, has sent me a short report from which I will quote liberally.

According to Patricia, Sunday (August 31) "was the last day of the Campeonato; this year they had the two events back to back and at the same place...the exhibits and most activities were at Harrod's, the old department store building on Florida. It was actually a very nice venue, with wooden dance floors. All events there were free. Ariana and I got there just in time to watch an old 40´s movie (b&w) called El Tango Vuelve a Paris, with a famous singer, Rinaldi, and a famous bandoneon player, Anibal Troilo, who later formed his own, very famous tango orchestra. One of our friends who had a booth there said more people attended the festival week than the campeonato week. When we got there about 3pm it wasn´t crowded at all, but by 7pm when we came out of the movie, the place was packed!! There was tango dancing everywhere, in every spot where there was a wooden floor, and then a tango orchestra began playing and they had two couples dancing, the campeonato winners of tango salon of last year and then the ones that won this year! It was too crowded however to properly watch, so I only caught a few glimpses."

Patricia is mistaken about the tango singer, as an Argentine movie data base I consulted shows him to be Alberto Castillo (1914-2002). She is correct about Troilo, however.

Personally, I have been to the Festival de Tango several times and enjoy the diversity of both its participatory and spectator events. It's always struck me as odd, though, to have tango championships - as if they were like a soccer match, even if we acknowledge that some dancers are better than others. In my opinion, the festival should move back to February - when outdoor events are much easier to stage - to spread the tango wealth around the year. I like seeing performers like the casual street orchestra La Furca (pictured above).

Flying to Santiago - and Onward?

We have a winner in the giveaway for the two LAN tickets to Santiago in September, but I had been slow to post it because the original quiz winner was unable to fit his schedule to the limited time frame we had. The runner-up was Gabriel Brammer, an astronomy student presently in Santiago, who is using the tickets to fly his father and uncle to Chile. I will be holding more quizzes in the future, but there's no guarantee I'll be able to offer such a generous prize very often - more than likely it'll be one of my guidebooks.

Many Chileans, meanwhile, may be spending their September patriotic holidays on the other side of the Andes. In today's El Mercurio, Buenos Aires-based Chilean journalist Juan Carlos Meneses offers a guide on what to see and do in BA over the four-day Chilean weekend - and suggests that this new tradition, dating from Argentina's 2001 collapse, "is not antipatriotic." For more on the topic of Chileans spending their holidays in Argentina, see my earlier post on the border city of Mendoza.

Tango, theater, soccer, and cinema are all among the highlights, but it's a safe bet that many Chileans - notorious power shoppers - will spend much of their time malls like the recycled Galerías Pacífico. Here, at least, they'll be able to absorb some culture with their shopping, through the landmark murals that cover its central cupola (pictured here).

Buenos Aires is Cheap?

According to the international consultancy group Mercer, as quoted in Mercopress Noticias, Buenos Aires is getting more expensive for foreigners. That's no surprise - anyone who's spent any time in town the last couple years can tell you that hotels, restaurants, taxis, fuel prices, and other services are all rising rapidly. What's surprising is that Mercer, whose annual cost of living survey for expatriates around the world appears only in part on their website, says that Buenos Aires still ranks 138th out of 143 cities worldwide, making it nearly the cheapest major city in the world (Asunción, in neighboring Paraguay, is the cheapest). The most expensive is Moscow, and São Paulo (25th) is the most expensive in South America.

According to Mercer, the weak dollar partially accounts for increasing costs, but the dollar has been holding its own against the Argentine currency, at just over three pesos per dollar. In reality, domestic inflation that most independent economists calculate around 20 percent (as opposed to government statistics that insist on six or seven percent) is the major factor here. And that makes it hard to believe that Buenos Aires - despite Mercer's assertions - ranks where it does. Having spent extended periods in both Santiago (Chile) and Montevideo (Uruguay) earlier this year, I find it implausible that either of those cities is significantly more expensive than Buenos Aires.

Puerto Madero's Bridge to the Future

One highlight of the Buenos Aires revival has been the reclamation of Puerto Madero, the riverside docklands that was shuttered by the military dictatorship of 1976-83. Since the 1990s, the red brick warehouses that stood empty for decades have come to house lofts, restaurants, shops and offices, its waterfront promenade is a favorite with pedestrians (part of the highly entertaining con-man film Nine Queens was shot here), and a former rubbish dump has become a haven for hikers, cyclists, and wildlife.

New high-rises are also making Puerto Madero one of the costliest and exclusive barrios in the city, but its open spaces make it an inviting destination for porteños of all social and economic classes. One of its welcoming symbols is Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer, a pedestrian suspension bridge that swings open to allow the passage of yachts and other vessels between the northernmost basins of the old port area. This week's New Yorker magazine contains a lengthy profile of Calatrava that's must reading for anyone interested in its background, though the bridge itself gets only a brief mention.

It's the Huaso

At Chile's mid-September independence days, the huaso - Chile's rough equivalent of the Argentine gaucho - is a presence even on metropolitan Santiago's Plaza de Armas, as pictured here. Like the gaucho, today's huaso is more symbol than reality, but still a cornerstone of Chilean identity.

In response to Monday's quiz, I had half a dozen correct responses and, unfortunately, the first correct answerer was unable to take advantage of the trip to Santiago. Thus I've kept a list of runners-up and, if the second person I've contacted can't take advantage of the free flights to Santiago, I'll move on to the next one. It would be a shame if the tickets had to go to waste so, if you answered the quiz, check your mailbox regularly to see if your position has improved.

September in Chile Could Be Yours

Thursday September 18 is Chile's independence day, Friday the 19th is Armed Forces Day, and with the ensuing weekend this will mean a four-day celebration of Chile's nationhood in anticipation of the 2010 bicentennial. For most Chileans it will mean dancing cueca, gobbling empanadas at free-standing fondas in the parks, sipping non-alcoholic mote con huesillo (a drink of barleycorns and dried peaches) , and quaffing chicha (a mildly alcoholic drink fermented from apples or grapes). Symbols of Chilean identity are everywhere.

Being There! - or, Your Chance to Attend
As it happens, I have two standby tickets to Santiago on LAN Airlines, expiring at the end of September, that I will be unable to use. Thus I am holding a contest in which the prize is greater than the guidebooks I've offered before - the winner will get two round-trip tickets from any of LAN's U.S. gateways (New York, Miami, or Los Angeles) to Santiago.

There are some conditions: the principal one is that round-trip travel must be completed by the end of September. Second, it also depends on space available, so the winner may need some flexibility in travel dates. Third, it does not include airport taxes or the Chilean arrival tax. If you can meet those conditions, please answer the question in the following section.

Question of the Day!
In neighboring Argentina, the gaucho is a national symbol, but Chile has its own iconic horseman (two of whom are pictured here at a rodeo in the southern town of Palena). The question is simple: what is the Spanish word for Chile's counterpart to the gaucho?

The first correct answer sent to my email in the header above will win the tickets. In this case, previous quiz winners are eligible, as I want a winner as quickly as possible. If nobody uses them, the tickets simply expire.

Rebuilding Chaitén, Rescuing the Fu

As the southern hemisphere spring approaches, the Chilean town of Chaitén remains off limits after the eruption of its namesake volcano in May, and that is likely to affect travel along the northern Carretera Austral for the entire season. Still under tons of ash, most of its buildings severely damaged by flood (as pictured here), the town seems unlikely to be rebuilt at its present location.

Under normal circumstances, Chaitén is the port for auto/passenger ferries from Puerto Montt and the island of Chiloé but, given the volcano's continuing activity and the massive cleanup still necessary, it seems equally improbable that ferry service will be available this season except for the Navimag ferries from Puerto Montt to Puerto Chacabuco. This, of course, deposits travelers at the highway's approximate midpoint, so that it will be impossible to travel the length of the Carretera Austral without backtracking or, alternatively, entering via the Argentine province of Chubut to Futaleufú.

Futaleufú, of course, has its own problems. While not so directly affected by the volcano, it lay in the path of prevailing westerlies that deposited huge amounts of ash even though the town was not completely evacuated. A recent photo essay in the Buenos Aires daily Clarín depicts the accumulations of ash, the need for masks and even respirators to venture outside, and the impact on domestic animals, whose feed and water have been contaminated.

Futaleufú, of course, takes its name from the Río Futaleufú, one of the world's top whitewater rivers, and several international adventure travel companies have camps for rafters and kayakers in the vicinity. In last month's National Geographic Adventure, Jon Bowermaster summarizes the situation in an ecological and economic context in which Chile, a country dependent on mining and desperate for non-petroleum sources of energy, could use the image of a destroyed ecosystem to justify a huge hydroelectric project - similar to the one that drowned the legendary Río Biobío in the 1990s.

Ecosystems, though, can be resilient, and recovery from the 1994 eruption of Volcán Hudson, near the town of Chile Chico south of Coyhaique, was surprisingly quick. Bowermaster quotes whitewater operator Eric Hertz, of Earth River Expeditions, to the effect that if the 4,000 anticipated rafters and kayakers don't show, the "confusion over the river’s actual condition 'will have done a lot more damage to the area than the volcano.'"