Beyond Condé Nast: Shedding Light on Hotels

For someone whose living depends, in part, on writing about travel services, I feel oddly indifferent toward hotels – to my mind, the point of travel is not where you sleep, but what you do. So long as I have a good firm bed and a hot shower, in reasonably quiet surroundings, I’m pretty satisfied. I’ve never been impressed with five-star rankings as such, largely because to my mind they’re pretty meaningless unless you have no intention of ever leaving the building.

That attitude dates from my earliest trips to Latin America, in the mid-1970s. Before then, I had visited Mexico several times, but really only the borderlands, and had never quite placed the country and the region in any conceptual framework. It was in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in the state of Chiapas, that I first really appreciated the contrast between the smug comfort of the First World and the Spartan utilitarianism of the Third.

There, on a truly shoestring budget, I stayed in a six-bed dormitorio with five other gringos for five pesos each - at that time about US$0.40 per night. On one particularly dark and drizzly day, most of us remained in the room reading, with the door shut to keep out the cold, and we switched on the light - a 25-watt bulb (approximately four watts per person) hanging from the ceiling. Soon thereafter, the passing owner noticed the faint light escaping the room, opened the door and flipped it off with the admonition that “Electricity is very expensive!” For many years after that moment, I continued to spend much of my travels in what, later, I came to call “George W. Bush rooms” - they all had dim bulbs. Even though, as I’ve gotten older and appreciate greater creature comforts, I can’t resist rating hotels not by stars, but by wattage.

That’s why, when I read trade magazines such as Conde Nast Traveler, I still cringe when, in their annual “Hot List” of the world’s best new hotels, they boast that some of them cost less than US$300 per night (in the current issue, that comes to 62 of the 154 mentioned). Still, I always look to see how many hotels appear from my region of choice. This year’s list features just one hotel from Argentina, but four from Chile.

The only Argentine accommodations on the list is Recoleta’s Hub Porteño (pictured at top) which, though I have not stayed there, I did pay a visit in December. This 11-room hotel is little unusual in the sense that it’s an all-inclusive facility; Argentina’s all-inclusive hotels, of course, are more often guest ranches and isolated resorts than urban enclaves. As you might guess from its Francophile look and location (adjacent to the similarly exclusive but substantially larger Park Hyatt Palacio Duhau), it’s not in the “Under US$300” category.

In Chile, I have in fact stayed at Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa (pictured above) which, however, was in marcha blanca (roughly translatable as “soft launch”) when I last visited Easter Island a year ago. Unfortunately, when I visited Valparaíso in the same month, the recycled Victorian Hotel Palacio Astoreca (pictured below) was still undergoing its transformation from a crumbling Cerro Alegre mansion to an elegant new boutique hotel. It’s one I would be curious about staying at and, astonishingly, it still falls into Condé Nast’s “budget” category (which the Hangaroa most assuredly does not).

One of the Chilean entries is the Hotel Surazo, a modern seaside hotel in the central coast town of Matanzas which, prior to its listing, I had never even heard of. There is also the all-inclusive Hotel Refugia which, apparently, hopes to turn the city of Castro in a luxury gateway to the Chiloé archipelago. I can’t give any of these star classifications, but they’re all upwards of 100 watts.

On the Road...or on the Screen?

It’s been a slow week as, recovering from my bicycle accident, I can’t sit at the desk more than a few minutes at a time before my broken ribs start aching. Nevertheless, I did manage to get out on Saturday to see On the Road, the Kerouac saga that’s recently been adapted to the screen after being filmed, in part, in Argentina. Having grown up after the Beats, I certainly read On the Road, but I can’t compare my own experiences with the flamboyant Bohemianism of Sal Paradise (Kerouac’s fictional persona), his friend and idol Jack Cassady (“Dean Moriarty” in the book and film), Allen Ginsberg (“Carlo Marx”), and William Burroughs (“Old Bull Lee,” played by honorary Argentine Viggo Mortensen, who grew up on the Pampas).

Partly, in seeing the film, I was hoping to be able to identify specific Argentine landscapes that so closely resemble parts of the western United States (such as the steppe of Neuquén province, in the photograph above). Brazilian director Walter Salles, though, was astute enough not to leave any obvious clues, especially given his experience in filming the Che Guevara epic The Motorcycle Diaries a few years ago.

Argentina, though, has its own history of road movies. I don’t pretend to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the country’s cinema, but there are a couple Patagonian road movies that, in addition to The Motorcycle Diaries, I would recommend. The first is director Carlos Sorín’s Historias Mínimas (Intimate Stories, 2002), three intertwined tales set in the coastal city of Puerto San Julián, in Patagonia’s Santa Cruz province. It’s more a slice-of-life film, available streaming on Netflix in the United States.

The second, director Marcelo Piñeyro’s Caballos Salvajes (Wild Horses, 1995) is a Robin Hood/Bonnie and Clyde bank-robber caper that begins in Buenos Aires but ends in the robbers’ fleeing to Patagonia to avoid both the police and the Mafia. It features two of Argentina’s finest actors, Héctor Alterio and Federico Luppi; while not apparently available on streaming video, it’s worth seeking out on DVD.

In Other News

On Saturday, I did a short radio interview on off-season travel to Chilean Patagonia for Rudy Maxa’s World, a syndicated travel program that is now available on streaming audio at the link indicated. Also, for anyone planning travel to Chile this fall (southern spring), I will be serving as a guest lecturer aboard the Navimag ferry shuttle between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales between November 11 and 18. This covers the southbound segment to Natales and, after a day in port, the northbound return to Puerto Montt. If all goes well, we may do an encore in March.

The Heritage of Brutalism, the Movies and "I Spy?"

There are many things going on in Argentina this week, what with the aftermath of floods in the city and province of Buenos Aires, but I’d sooner take note of someone who left a lasting imprint on the urban landscape. The Italian-born architect Clorindo Testa, who died Thursday at the age of 89, was responsible for two landmark “brutalist” buildings in Buenos Aires: the downtown financial district’s Banco de Londres (pictured above, now under different ownership) and the Biblioteca Nacional (below), which uprooted the Palacio Unzué (the former presidential palace) under the military dictatorship of 1976-83.

Testa's buildings are not for everybody but, having lived most of my life in earthquake country, I'm impressed by someone who can design a structure like the Banco de Londres that, seemingly, defies gravity and seismicity (which, fortunately, is not a big concern in most of Argentina).  Both, apparently, are unaffected by the floods.

BAFICI's Back

Meanwhile, this is the first weekend of the annual Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente (BAFICI, Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema), which showcases independent movies from around the world at various locations throughout the city. Prices are low – some events are even free – with something to appeal to almost everybody’s tastes. The photograph above comes from the 2007 event, at the Mercado de Abasto, one of the festival's main sites.

I Am Not a Spy!

At the risk of paraphrasing Richard Nixon, I have responded to accusations by one Ernesto Benadet, published last week in the Buenos Aires Herald, that I am a CIA agent. You can read my reply in today’s Herald but, since that will disappear behind the paper’s paywall by tomorrow, I hereby publish it separately:

In more than two decades of travel throughout the Southern Cone countries, I have occasionally earned criticism for my judgments on destinations, hotels, restaurants and other services about which I have written. Never before, though, has anybody questioned my ability to review a book because I was, presumably, engaged in espionage.

That, however, appears to be the Ernesto Benadet’s conclusion after reading my review of Graham Bound’s Fortress Falklands. Interestingly, in asserting that my review tells him nothing he did not already know, Señor Benadet apparently disagrees with the Argentine Foreign Ministry’s conclusion that the Islanders are not a people.

Somehow, Señor Benadet assumes that I approved of – and perhaps contributed to  - George W. Bush’s inept invasion of Iraq. In reality, the US invasion was as much in its national interest as the invasion of the Islands was in Argentina’s – that is to say, not at all. Both invasions were disastrous.

Señor Benadet claims to know who I really am. I’m not sure who he really is, but I can speculate that he might become Spinal Tap’s next drummer – they don’t turn it up to 11, but there is precedent for their expiring by spontaneous combustion. On the next tour, we may see him on stage in a flame-retardant jumpsuit.

Chilean Patagonia Podcast

Earlier this morning, I appeared on Rudy Maxa's World, a radio program dedicated to global travel, to talk about Chilean Patagonia and specifically the Carretera Austral. On Monday, the entire program will be available as a podcast at the link indicated here.

A Brief Hiatus: Events Postponed Plus, "Am I a CIA Agent?"

This was to be a busy week, starting with my upcoming digital slide lecture on Chile at the Los Altos Library, and I was also due for an appearance on Rudy Maxa’s World, successor to The Savvy Traveler, to talk about visiting Chilean Patagonia in the autumn. I was anticipating both events with relish when the unexpected put them on hold.

While bicycling on Wednesday, I somehow crashed while descending Claremont Canyon in the Berkeley/Oakland Hills, even though I had already passed the most difficult segments of this steep road, which has vertiginous curves. I don’t remember the crash, but only being wheeled into the Trauma Unit at Oakland’s Highland Hospital for a CT-scan where, fortunately, the machinery detected only minor internal bleeding and some small facial fractures, one of which may need surgery. Externally, there was a lot of superficial bleeding and scabbing, but somehow I managed to talk my way out of hospital on Thursday night, and slept comfortably at home.

By that time, though, it had become apparent that I was in no condition to speak on the radio today, nor to give a talk in person on Tuesday (now on heavy painkillers, I wouldn’t even consider driving to Los Altos).  I expect to spend most of the next few days recuperating while watching baseball on TV after which, hopefully, Rudy Maxa will be able to reschedule my radio appearance soon. The Los Altos library talk will take place in June or July and, in the interim, I’ll continue to be on this blog.

That’s not to say the week has been utterly uneventful. After my book review of Graham Bound’s Fortress Falklands in last Monday’s Buenos Aires Herald, one Ernesto Bernadet of Buenos Aires has accused me of being on the CIA payroll. For the next Spinal Tap tour, perhaps, Señor Benadet might be a suitable drummer, if he doesn’t spontaneously combust before then (Señor Benadet, I know who you are too!).

On the Rains, Argentine Ants and Other Invaders

Yesterday, even as Argentine president Cristina Fernández launched yet another irredentist diatribe on the British-ruled Falkland Islands from the Patagonian coastal city of Puerto Madryn, some of the heaviest rains in more than a century inundated Buenos Aires and surrounding communities. Residents in neighborhoods like Belgrano were knee-deep or deeper in floodwaters, thanks to an antiquated drainage system whose modernization is decades behind schedule, as the TV footage below shows (skip through the first few minutes to get to the street scenes). It’s not quite Hurricane Katrina, but it’s a relief to know that our Palermo apartment is two stories up from street level, where many dwellings are underwater.

Eight Argentines have died in Buenos Aires, plus 46 more in the Buenos Aires province capital of La Plata. For the federal government, though, scoring symbolic points against the British appears to be a higher priority than disaster relief or infrastructural improvement in the low-lying cities or the adjacent Pampas. That parallels the disinterested response to a different sort of disaster just over a year ago, when 51 people died in a notorious rail crash at Estación Once.

Even if yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the disastrous Falklands invasion, other unwelcome Argentine invaders, which have infested much of the world, continue to get less attention than they should. Here in California, our winter rains aren’t quite so severe, but we have to keep our kitchen antiseptically spotless to try to avoid the plague of Argentine ants, whose colonies stretch underground for hundreds of miles here and in other parts of the world. With the tiniest opening, thousands of the tiny critters will find the slightest trace of grease or sweets, and we can spend hours trying to clean them up – only to have to do so again the following morning.

Finally, someone appears to be tackling the invaders, but the cure may be worse than the disease. According to the New York Times, an office park in North Carolina has seen a different invasion of Asian needle ants, which are displacing the Argentines. While the Argentine ants may be a pest, the Asian species appears to be a danger – they have a poisonous sting that can make humans ill and, in some cases, can even be fatal. In this case, I guess, I’ll have to resign myself to the relatively innocuous Argentine invaders.

Moon Handbooks Chile Visits Los Altos

Next week – Tuesday April 9 at 7:30 p.m., to be precise – I will offer a digital slide presentation on travel in Chile at the Los Altos Library (13 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos 94024, tel. 650/948-7683). Coverage will also include the Chilean Pacific Islands of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Juan Fernández (Robinson Crusoe), as well as southernmost Argentina (Tierra del Fuego and the vicinity of El Calafate) that appear in the book. I will also be available to answer questions about Argentina and Buenos Aires. The presentation is free of charge, but books will be available for purchase.