Judgment in Chile

Outside Santiago's Palacio de la Moneda, a larger than life monument to the late President Salvador Allende stands at the southeast corner of the Plaza de la Constitución. Only a decade ago, before the arrest and detention of former dictator General Augusto Pinochet in London changed Chilean politics so dramatically, this would have been unthinkable.

About a month ago, I reviewed a book by Chile's United Nations ambassador Heraldo Muñoz on his experiences during the Pinochet dictatorship of 1973-1990. I generally don't like to dwell on topics like Pinochet, if only because he is such an infamous stereotype of the region, which deserves to escape the stigma of brutal military strongmen. The other night, though, I watched a PBS documentary called The Judge and the General, by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco, that adds something new to the debates.

Farnsworth and Lanfranco's film focuses on a single individual, the relatively conservative but open-minded judge Juan Guzmán, and his painstakingly incorruptible investigation into Pinochet's culpability for deaths and disappearances after the 1973 coup that overthrew Allende. By the time Pinochet died, two years ago, Guzmán's indictments had so discredited the dictator that, after Pinochet's funeral, the dictator's family had to cremate him and hide his remains instead of building a monumental crypt - making Pinochet, in a sense, the last disappeared person. Allende, by contrast, has a conspicuous public monument.

The film will also screen this weekend at the Santiago International Film Festival, followed by the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival from September 12-19, and the Festival of Liberties in Brussels, October 16-26.

In the interests of full disclosure, I know Patricio Lanfranco slightly, as he owns a lodge called Refugio Tinquilco at Parque Nacional Huerquehue, in the vicinity of Pucón. I have an even more tenuous link to Elizabeth Farnsworth, as I once batted against her son Sam in a pickup baseball game. Against Sam, who is 30 years younger than I and throws upwards of 80 mph, I was lucky to make any sort of contact.

Steppe-ing Across Patagonian Borders

A couple months ago, I wrote a post about the near-war between Argentina and Chile in 1978. Last week, in a sort of followup, I finally watched the DVD of Chilean director Alex Bowen's film Mi Mejor Enemigo (My Best Enemy), based on a real incident in which Argentine and Chilean patrols come face to face on the featureless Patagonian steppe, unsure of which side of the border they're on.

In pointing out such absurdities, the film is a comedy of sorts - in one scene, the Chileans think they've spotted the enemy, only to peer through the binoculars at a troop of guanacos like the one pictured here. When the two groups finally do encounter each other, it's still not a shooting war and, when one Chilean soldier is injured in an accident, the Argentine commander provides him penicillin to treat the infection. With that starting point, they reach a tenuous but respectful modus vivendi, sharing a barbecued lamb, the Argentines showcasing their tango steps and the Chileans dancing cueca.

In fact, the film's very title is playful - a pun on mi mejor amigo (my best friend). That said, even though a last-minute papal settlement avoids war, the movie is not without tragedy. Still, it's a measure of how much matters have improved in the last three decades that, as the final credits roll, we see that both countries' armies collaborated on the film.

Argentina's Political Disneyland

Cynics might suggest that all of Argentina is a political amusement park, but this post's starting point is the República de los Niños (pictured here), a children's theme park near the Buenos Aires provincial capital of La Plata. The park opened in late 1951, less than a year before the death of Eva Perón, who was one of its major promoters.

Erected on the site of an expropriated British golf course, República de los Niños was a political project from the first, and Peronist governor Domingo Mercante carried it out. Its concept was that any underprivileged child could participate in the scale model legislature and other institutions, and aspire to visit the Taj Mahal and other global landmarks. In the process, of course, that child would become a committed Peronist.

I've visited República de los Niños several times and, while reviewing the park's website and other online information for a new Argentina guidebook that I'm preparing for National Geographic Traveler, I noticed several references to a visit by Walt Disney in 1953. According to these accounts, Disney used the park as at least a partial template for Disneyland, which opened in 1955.

In 1941, Disney and a group from his studio had taken a ten-week goodwill tour of southern South America, as a part of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy. I had never heard of any 1953 visit, and it seemed improbable that such a visit could have affected a large project that must have been well underway by then. To clarify matters, I phoned Disney archivist Dave Smith in Burbank, who checked the records and told me that Walt's only other Latin American visits had been to Mexico, in 1953 and 1955. He never returned to Argentina, though Argentine gaucho caricaturist Florencio Molina Campos did work on several Disney cartoons and, says Smith, gave one of his paintings to Disney.

Smith also surprised me with the news that Disney's 1941 trip to the Southern Cone is now the subject of a documentary, Walt & El Grupo, by Theodore Thomas - son of pioneer Disney animator Frank Thomas. The movie has been shown at film festivals in San Francisco and Seattle, and is due to screen at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival late next month.

Update: Shortly after I posted this, director Ted Thomas informed me by email that the film will have commercial release after the Rio festival.

We Have a Winner!

In response to Thursday's quiz, Roger Emanuels of Santa Cruz, California, correctly identified the characteristic wines of Argentina: the red Malbec (from Mendoza province) and the dry but fruity white Torrontés (from Salta province). He wins a copy of Moon Handbooks Argentina.

A minor grape in its Bordeaux homeland, where it's usually used in blends, Malbec has become Argentina's signature wine export. Mendoza's dry climate and high heat bring it to perfection.

Torrontés, by contrast, is a high altitude grape that benefits from warm days and cool nights to reach its peak, so to speak - at Bodega Colomé, near the hamlet of Molinos, the vines thrive at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, though one Uruguayan grower cultivates them only slightly above sea level. Most of the best Torrontés comes from slightly lower altitudes near the town of Cafayate. One enthusiastic French grower I met there suggested that consuming Torrontés was like "drinking the grape." At home, it's our preferred white.

In North America, Malbec is now pretty easy to find, Torrontés rather less so, but both are worth seeking out. Meanwhile, be on the lookout for future contests and giveaways on this blog.

From Chile, with Carménère

In the 19th century, the red varietal Carménère virtually disappeared in its Bordeaux homeland due to phylloxera, an aphid-like insect that fed on the roots of the grapevine. In the early 1990s, though, a French enologist inspecting Merlot plantings around Santiago discovered that, for over 150 years, Chilean growers had been confusing the two varietals and that, in Chile's biogeographical insularity, phylloxera had never been a problem.

Since then, Chilean growers have turned to Carménère as their signature varietal, a unique wine that's grown in much smaller quantities in just a few other areas: Italy, California, and Washington state. Still, it's often undervalued, as three articles in the wine section of last week's San Francisco Chronicle suggest. The longest piece is a summary of Carménère's history and current status; the second is a review of various Chilean vintages; and the third provides recipes with which Carménère would be an ideal pairing.

Carménère is almost always in our own home wine supply, but it's good to see this underappreciated wine getting some well-deserved respect. It's both good and affordable.

Win This Book!
Several weeks ago, I held an online contest to give away a copy of Moon Handbooks Chile. In conjunction with today's post, I have a another quiz in which the prize is either MH Chile or, alternatively, Moon Handbooks Argentina.

This is a two-part question: 1) name Argentina's two signature varietal wines, one red and one white; 2) name the Argentine province or locality best known for each. Please send your answer to the address in the header above. The previous contest's winner is not eligible this time, sorry.

Mars, This is Atacama

Last week, according to the Washington Post and many other reports, NASA scientists detected water vapor on Mars. Almost simultaneously, NASA personnel exploring the Cordillera de la Sal (pictured here), near the Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama, also announced the discovery of water while exploring a cave in one of the world's driest deserts. The latter expedition is in fact intended to have Martian applications - if water can support life here, so goes the thinking, it might also do so in Martian caverns.

According to expedition scientist J. Judson Wynne, the Atacama water was utterly unexpected: " Why was water there? Is this merely a phenomenon related to these caves in particular? Is there some sort of moisture sink that results in the water concentrating in certain caves and not others in the Atacama Desert?" I'm surprised, though, that Wynne was so surprised - in such a vast, thinly populated place as the Atacama, where settlements have always concentrated at oases, the water table is uneven, and distribution of the Pleistocene fossil water is irregular. There are likely other similar sites, but with access too poor to support human settlement. The Atacama still holds many more secrets than any single expedition is likely to discover.

Aerolíneas by the Numbers

Everyone knows Aerolíneas Argentinas has serious problems, but now we have statistical confirmation of it. Until yesterday, I had never heard of the Asociación Argentina de Derecho de Turismo (AADETUR, Argentine Association of Tourism Law), a self-described travel consumer advocate, but it's published an interesting study of airline arrivals and departures. Unfortunately for English monolinguals, it's in Spanish only, but its tables are pretty easy to follow.

Not all of the study is online, but other parts appear in an article in yesterday's Clarín. Last year, only 24 percent of Aerolíneas flights departed on time, compared with 73 percent for LAN Argentina, though it's fair to add that Aerolíneas has much more extensive routes. Still, given the fact that Aerolíneas' delays often affect other airlines, it's remarkable that LAN could maintain its schedules in such a timely manner.

So far this year, Aerolíneas has almost doubled its ontime record, but it's barely half the flights and, after a shaky start to the winter holidays, that figure might drop dramatically. On the other hand, AADETUR ranks Aerolíneas and its domestic affiliate Austral as 81st and 82nd of 90 airlines around the world in ontime performance. Only a few airlines ranked worse, and most of those came from countries such Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Libya and Algeria.

Waiting for the Colectivo

Coming from the United States, where public transportation often keeps limited hours even where it's supposedly the best in the country, I've always appreciated that in Buenos Aires, I can walk out onto the street at 3 a.m. or later and, in no more than a few minutes, be riding back to Palermo on a reasonably comfortable colectivo (city bus). Despite late hours, through nearly 30 years I've never felt threatened or even uncomfortable aboard a colectivo (except when they've been so crowded it's almost impossible to move, but that rarely happens at non-peak hours).

These past several days, though, there's been no night bus service since the Thursday stabbing murder of a driver on the No. 96 bus in the provincial suburb of González Catán, a route that starts from the city neighborhood of Constitución. Demanding better security, drivers from the UTA transportation union have stopped service between 10 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., with no suggestion when they may lift the strike.

Bus routes in Buenos Aires, like that of the No. 15 bus pictured here, tend to be very long ones from the central city to the suburbs; in this case, it's a roughly 50-kilometer route that, in heavy city traffic, can take more than two hours in each direction. Unlike in much of North America, though, travel through the prosperous city tends to be safer than in the suburbs, which have many marginal shantytowns. This is what the UTA drivers see as risky, and they are appealing to provincial Governor Daniel Scioli for help.

For my part, I rarely take city buses to distant suburbs, and few other visitors should find it risky once nighttime service resumes. That doesn't mean the city is crime-free, but it won't deter me from taking the bus at any hour.

Meanwhile, as Argentines start their winter vacations, there's chaos at the city airport of Aeroparque and international airport at Ezeiza. According to the daily Clarín, more than 60 percent of flights from Aeroparque have departed late in the last 72 hours; several delays exceeded 12 hours. Most of the problems are with the recently nationalized Aerolíneas Argentinas and its close affiliate Austral, and whether they'll improve by the coming summer season is the looming question.

By then, though, you should at least be able to get a bus to the airport.