Clearing the Air: Pollution in the Southern Cone

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization released a report on air pollution in 1,100 cities around the world, which it says contribute to respiratory problems and 1.34 million premature deaths per annum. Unsurprisingly, it’s cities in densely populated Asian countries, specifically Iran, India and Pakistan, that have the world’s worst air quality, due largely to dirty fuels that include firewood and coal, and poorly monitored motor vehicles.

The WHO calculates its rankings on the basis of airborne particles smaller than ten micrometers, with a recommended upper limit of 20. By that standard, the Iranian city of Ahvaz has the world’s worst air quality, at 372 grams micrograms per cubic meter. At the other extreme, Santa Fe, New Mexico, registered only six micrograms per cubic meter and Washington DC measured 18.

By these standards, Southern Cone cities, particularly those in Chile, come off not so good but less than catastrophic – at least compared with their Asian counterparts. Chile, of course, is a mining country and, on top of that, its geography is unfavorable: like Southern California, Santiago and other heartland cities lie in a basin between a coast range and the high Andes, which traps particulate matter. This gives Santiago (pictured above, after a winter storm has cleared the air) the country’s second-highest figure, with a reading of 69. Only Rancagua, about an hour south, has a higher reading, at 74; Rancagua not only has a similar geography to Santiago, but suffers from its proximity to the huge El Teniente copper mine in the Andean foothills to the east.

Most heartland cities are in a similar plight: Talca (pictured above) registered 49 and Chillán 52. Of the northern mining cities, the port of Antofagasta (pictured below) was the most polluted, with a reading of 55, while Calama measured only 50 – despite the presence of the gigantic open-pit copper mine at nearby Chuquicamata. The southern city of Temuco had a surprisingly low figure of 49, given that its residents use so much firewood for heating and cooking.

While all these figures are higher than desirable, they’re not alarmingly high like the Asian and all are below the global average of 79. The figures also can be misleading because they are not geographically specific – the air quality in Santiago’s poorer western neighborhoods, for instance, is worse than the richer eastern barrios. While that’s deplorable in terms of environmental justice, at best, it also means it will not affect most visitors. It’s those who have to live there that suffer most.

Across the Andes, things are a bit better. I’ve long argued against the clichéd depiction of Buenos Aires (pictured above) as the “Paris of the South,” but in one sense that’s true – according to the WHO, its reading of 38 is identical to the French capital. Across the Río de la Plata, Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo (pictured below) checked in only a little worse, with a reading of 39.

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this space for details.

Saturday Summary: Pesos & Embargoes

Today’s entry covers a recent decline in the Chilean peso’s value, and an ominous development in the South Atlantic controversy between Argentine and Britain.

Follow the Money: Mini-Devaluation Means Cheaper Chile

On a macroeconomic level, Chile is one of Latin America’s most prosperous and stable countries. For the past couple years, its peso has appreciated dramatically against the US dollar – after bottoming out around 670 pesos in late 2008, its steep trajectory carried it under 500 within a year. In July, the rate fell to nearly 450, and the once-strong euro has suffered similarly.

It’s mostly stayed in that range until very recently, but that’s caused problems because Chilean exports, such as wine and fruit, have become more expensive. Likewise, foreign travel in Chile – a sort of export in that in brings in dollars or other non-Chilean currency – became more expensive than neighboring Argentina in particular.

This is always a concern for me because, getting paid in dollars but with many expenses in pesos, it affects my earnings. When I wrote the current edition of Moon Handbooks Chile, whose in-the-field update I will begin by November, the rate was around 600 per dollar and travel there was economical. At the beginning of this month, when I had last looked, it was 459, and I had been dreading an expensive research trip.

That was before Chile’s central bank (pictured above, courtesy of Wikipedia) started selling off pesos so that, on Friday, the rate was 518 to the dollar – a devaluation of nearly 13 percent in just three weeks. According to Business Week, bank president José de Gregorio undertook the policy because rising Chilean interests rates made exports uncompetitive. Though constantly monitored, the program is expected to continue until December.

For foreign visitors, meanwhile, it looks as if this southern summer could be cheaper in Chile than it was last year.

Is Stanley the New Havana?

Next month, I will be conducting a series of digital slide presentations to promote the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia, which covers the Argentine and Chilean sides of southernmost South America, plus Buenos Aires and Santiago as gateway cities, plus the Falkland Islands as “Insular Patagonia.” Since 1999, when the Argentine government agreed to let LAN Airlines flights from Punta Arenas, Chile, to fly over its airspace, the British-governed Islands have been increasingly integrated into the region.

The current Argentine administration, though, has put this integration at risk by restricting foreign vessels sailing to and from the Islands, which it claims as the “Malvinas,” without its permission. It has also prohibited additional LAN services, including charter flights, from traveling between Chile and the Islands.

In a speech to the United Nations last Wednesday, President Cristina Fernández went a step further by threatening to suspend the existing link because of disagreements with Britain. This is an election year in Argentina, Fernández is a leading candidate for re-election, and no Argentine politician has anything to lose by waving the flag on the Falklands/Malvinas issue.

Whether this will affect the upcoming travel season, I don’t know – it could be just empty symbolism, which is a symptom of Argentine politics. But has it occurred to anyone else that the blockade of the islands, which could get worse, is precisely what the United States has done to Cuba over the last 52 years?

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this space for details.

In Patagonia: a Poorly Planned Road Trip

Last Sunday’s New York Times travel section featured Latin America and, but for a piece on Panamá and brief mentions of Belize and Nicaragua, it’s almost entirely on South America. It goes from the top (Colombia) to the tip (Patagonia), and even included a two-page spread on Suriname, an underrated destination that I once covered for a rival guidebook company whose name is best left unmentioned.

I almost always appreciate coverage of a region that gets so little attention from the mainstream press but, that said, an account of a so-called “road trip” through Argentine Patagonia was a botched opportunity. Author Brienne Walsh planned to drive the legendarily desolate Ruta 40 – which I have described as “Patagonia’s loneliest road” - south from Bariloche to El Calafate. In the article, she claims that a well-known international car rental agency would not allow her and a friend to take their vehicle down the route because of safety concerns, specifically “black ice and potholes.”

That’s not totally unreasonable. While I’ve driven this route at least ten times, I’ve never done so in winter. At the same time, it’s not so much the road conditions – much of Ruta 40 is now well-paved and potholes are fewer even in the remaining gravel sections – as the shortage of services.  Beyond Esquel, about 300 km south of Walsh’s starting point, fuel, food and accommodations are even scarcer than in summer.

Thus, Walsh and her companion had to make the long drive southeast across the steppe from Esquel to Comodoro Rivadavia. Even though they did take advantage of the route to visit the remarkable Bosque Petrificado Sarmiento (pictured above), a fascinating petrified forest, before heading south of Comodoro, they wasted much of the limited winter daylight.

In fact, poor planning caused them to miss at least one major attraction. Their hotel porter in Bariloche suggested they visit Puerto San Julián, which they finally skipped in favor of continuing south to Río Gallegos and El Calafate. I can’t disagree with that, especially in winter, but they totally missed the route’s most appealing destination, the dramatic headlands of wildlife-rich Parque Nacional Monte León (pictured above), midway between San Julián and Río Gallegos. While the wildlife is less abundant in winter, the scenery on this brief detour is still rewarding.

Certainly Walsh and her companion deserve credit for visiting the Moreno Glacier in winter, when there are far fewer visitors. But their trip would have gone much better had they started in Puerto Madryn – gateway to the whale-watching site of Península Valdés (pictured above) – and avoided the long drive across the Patagonian steppe. They could still have detoured to the petrified forest and had time to visit Monte León as well. As it was, poor planning led to lost opportunities.

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this space for details.

Buenos Aires for Hindus?

In the 1970s, when I started traveling through South America, nearly all my peers were Americans, Canadians, British and Northern European – Germans, Dutch and the occasional Frenchman. Once, in Ecuador, I was surprised - nearly shocked, in fact - to run into a Spanish backpacker on the so-called “Gringo Trail.” At that time, when Spain was an ill-regarded backwater whose authoritarian government set the tone for the dictatorships of its former colonies, it was almost unheard of to encounter a freewheeling Spaniard abroad.

That changed, of course, with expansion of the European Union and the fall of Communism, so that it’s become more common to meet travelers from all around the world, with some exceptions. Africans, Middle Easterners and South Asians are still rare as tourists, though some have immigrated to South America – many Nigerians, for instance, work at Buenos Aires hotels.

Still, as prosperity reaches the rest of the world – however unevenly – even that’s starting to change. It became more apparent this week when I received an email from the New Delhi-based newspaper The Sunday Indian, which asked whether I would write 500 words on Buenos Aires as one of the “five most vibrant cities in the world” for its Gypsies & Billionaires travel supplement. After a few more back-and-forths, I agreed to do so, but on reflection I realized I had overlooked a few details.

This was writing for a different audience. For instance, the assignment asked about “the most vibrant restaurants” in a city where the default choice is beef, and much of The Sunday Indian’s readership is Hindu - a religion that prohibits the consumption of Argentina’s signature dish. This was something that had never occurred to me before.

Likewise, would Indians take offense at being called hindúes (Hindus) – a common practice throughout Latin America - whatever their religion? Would they feel as conspicuous in Buenos Aires as an Argentine would feel in New Delhi? Should I mention the Argentine capital’s own small Indian community and restaurants such as Katmandu, where basmati rice and naan bread are on the menu, despite my own prejudice that we should not seek out the familiar when we travel?

Without revealing the outcome of my queries to editor – and without yet knowing what the final form of the article – I’ll just say that I’m comfortable with what I wrote. And despite the publicity about “outsourcing” to China and India, I’m satisfied with what they’re paying me to do so. When it finally appears, I will post a link in this space.

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this space for details.

More than Language: Saving Kaweskar Culture?

Several years ago, I spent five days and four nights aboard the Skorpios III, a cruise ship that sailed from Puerto Natales on the “Ruta Kaweskar,” which paid symbolic homage to the so-called “Canoe Indians” of the intricate waterways of Chile’s southern fjords. While visiting the sea-level glaciers of the Campo de Hielo Sur, the Skorpios III made a brief stop at the remote Isla Wellington settlement of Puerto Edén (pictured above and below).

Ironically, today’s revised Ruta Kaweskar – which I have not taken - is a four-day, three-night itinerary that no longer stops at Puerto Edén, home to the last remaining population of Kawésqar-speaking Indians. Once maritime hunter-gatherers, today’s Kaweskar (a word with several variant spellings; they are also known as the Alacaluf) are few. According to the 2002 census, there are only about 2,600, most of them based in living in Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas. Just 24 live in Puerto Edén, and only nine of them speak the language.

Nevertheless, according to the online Santiago Times, the Chilean government’s Consejo Nacional de Desarollo Indígena (Conadi, Indigenous Development Corporation) has joined with the Universidad de Magallanes and the Kaweskar community to preserve the language and, by extension, the local culture. Conadi director Jorge Retamal has described the issues at stake as “cultural rescue, language rescue, health and current issues like energy.” The Kaweskar also need, he added, “an economic model to preserve an ethnicity that is at the border of extinction.”

This will not be easy. Puerto Edén might not even exist but for a small naval base and, while the remaining Kaweskar no longer paddle around in bark canoes, their existence is a marginal one. Alcoholism is sadly common, and their only reliable outside contact is the Navimag ferry that operates between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales; it stops in each direction, and local residents (some of them pictured above, boarding the ship) get subsidized fares for their trips north and south. Whenever the ferry passes, the locals come aboard to sell their souvenirs, such as miniatures of the canoes that they once used for fishing and gathering.

For anyone interested in learning about the Kaweskar first-hand, it’s possible to disembark at Puerto Edén, and accommodations and food are available. At the same time, it will require staying at least three days, until the ferry returns from Puerto Montt or Puerto Natales, or a week if continuing in the same direction.

Meanwhile, Conadi, the university, and the community, which is an active participant in the new initiative, have set worthwhile goals. Whether they will be successful in overcoming centuries of neglect is open to question.

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Patagon Journal Proposing to Launch

For some time now, Puerto Varas-based journalist Jimmy Langman has been developing the bilingual website Patagon Journal, whose mission is to “build a greater appreciation, understanding and environmental stewardship of Patagonia.” Langman, whom I have known for many years, has a long resumé as South American correspondent for various US and UK media, including Newsweek, the Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, and The Times of London - as well as a competing guidebook publisher whose name I will decline to mention.

With the intention of turning it into a bilingual print magazine, Langman has begun a fund-raising campaign through Kickstarter, which helps raise money for creative projects. Between now and October 6th, Patagon Journal needs pledges totaling $15,000 to put the project on a solid financial footing. Depending on the amount, donors will be eligible for awards ranging from simple subscriptions to a two-night stay at the Aisén region’s Puyuhuapi Hotel & Spa (pictured below).

What I particularly like about Patagon Journal is its goal to “show all facets of Patagonia’s natural and cultural landscape, and at the same time help contribute to its long-term protection.” The magazine will also be “published on FSC-certified paper as well as on the iPad with additional content such as video” and “abundant and beautiful photography on diverse environmental, cultural, scientific and other topics. In addition, a travel section provides a close look at the best destinations and excursions in the region, and top experts in Patagonia for fly fishing, trekking, mountaineering, the environment and other topics are featured through regular departments. Ten percent of its subscription revenues are to be shared with non-profits working to protect Patagonia's environment and culture.”

This is a worthwhile independent journalism project that deserves to get off the ground. Any readers with the resources to contribute, even on a modest level, would be rewarded by doing so.

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this spaces for details.

Juan's Night on the Pampas

This past weekend, my nephew Juan Massolo and a couple friends traveled to the city of Junín, in the Pampas of Buenos Aires province, to see the Argentine rock legend Indio Solari, formerly of Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricotta. According to Juan, who’s a 20-something professional at an economics consulting firm, it didn’t go quite as planned.

I’ve translated Juan’s account of his adventure here, partly for what it shows about how things can go wrong in Argentina – though not all rock concerts end like this one. But it’s also worth reading because of his attitude that, even when things go wrong, not all is lost, and bad trips can be the most memorable ones.

While it’s relatively long, the video above (which is not Juan’s) helps visualize last Saturday’s experience, from the departure through the concert. It does not, however, tell the story of what went on outside the walls. I recommend sampling it rather than watching the whole thing.

A Pilgrimage Without A Mass
Well, yesterday I went on a seven-hour pilgrimage and never got to hear Mass! So that you understand the metaphor, I’ll explain the details: We left Buenos Aires by car at 3 p.m., to hear a concert by Indio Solari in Junín. The route was pure hell because there was a fatal accident that morning, so we had to detour via San Antonio de Areco. To drive the 260 km from Buenos Aires to Junín, it took six hours!

We got there at 9 p.m., left the car where they suggested, and started walking toward the raceway. Then we realized it was a ten-km walk! It took us an hour and a half in the midst of the scenario that seemed like a march of zombies in the dark, or that could have been appeared in The War of the Worlds, when everybody climbs out of their cars and starts walking on the freeway. Tired from the walk, we arrived and realized that the ticket booths had closed some time before and there were no more tickets.

For doofuses like us who arrived without tickets because the brokers in Buenos Aires told us that the Junín racetrack (pictured above) had an almost unlimited capacity, we had no alternative but to try to get in with the crowds that were pushing against the gates because the show was starting. Things started getting ugly and, after two unsuccessful tries, we realized it wasn’t meant to be, but it was hard to resign ourselves to having spent all day in the car and screwed up so badly.

While we were figuring out what to do, we walked about 50 meters from the mess and ordered ourselves some choripán sausages. As we were paying, there arose a tremendous commotion and the security guards, along with the police, came running with their nightsticks trying to push the people away from the gates that they were trying to force open. In just a few seconds we were in the crossfire, as luxury spectators, open-mouthed with choripán in hand and a spoonful of chimichurri sauce in the air, as one side was throwing bottles and anything else they had, and the other was shooting rubber bullets (into the air, as far as we could tell).

When we started seeing some people get bloodied nearby and the sausage salesman yelled “Everybody under the table!” we realized we weren’t watching Telenoticias and that if we didn’t get out of there quick it could turn out bad. We took shelter behind a pickup truck. Full of adrenaline, but without dropping our choripanes, we watched the situation for a while and saw how the “people” (I use quotation marks because at this point they seemed like remote zombies beyond the reach of reason) started fighting back against the security (who seemed to be enjoying themselves and inciting them!).

This happened a couple times, they came, they collided, they “pushed them back.” At our first opportunity we sneaked along the fence on one side and started walking the ten km back to the car even faster – in just an hour twenty. With no desire for anything else, we got into the car and started back to Buenos Aires, which took us only two hours less than the trip out. At 3 a.m., 12 hours after starting out, I fell into bed, but satisfied with having spent an entire day with friends chatting and chortling in the car! I’m not being ironic - to everybody’s surprise, none of us got upset or returned in a bad mood.

Was that too long a story? Well, I enjoyed writing it and explaining the metaphor.

Quality of Life: An Austral Update

Today's post deals with a survey on the quality of life in southernmost South America, plus a commentary on a surprising air accident in Chile.

Quality of Life: Buenos Aires & Santiago Measure Up

Every year, the Mercer Consulting group prepares a survey of the world’s best places to live, rated according to standards of air quality, traffic congestion, personal safety and the like. I last commented on this in 2008, when Montevideo came in 76th of 215 cities in the survey. Buenos Aires (pictured above) then came in 78th and Santiago de Chile (pictured below) 88th.

This year, Mercer has completed a similar survey for The Economist Intelligence Unit. It consists of just 140 cities, of which Melbourne (Australia) topped the list, with seven Australian and Canadian towns in the top ten. Paris came in 16th and London 53rd; the highest-ranking US city was Honolulu, at 26th. Harare (Zimbabwe) came in dead last.

In the new survey, Buenos Aires comes in 62nd, Santiago 63rd and Montevideo (pictured above) 65th. By that standard, the three Southern Cone capitals would appear to have fallen in the rankings, relatively speaking, but the rankings alone are a little misleading. To quote from the report summary, “The performance of the most livable cities reflects minimal variation between the scores of the top locations…In this context, some 63 cities (down to Santiago in Chile) are considered to be in the very top tier of livability, where few problems are encountered.” Given relative small statistical differences, says the EIU, “both cities can lay claim to being on an equal footing in terms of presenting few, if any, challenges to residents’ lifestyles.”

One can quibble, certainly, with the methodology of such studies, which may be skewed toward the needs of foreigners who work in these cities or travel to them for business reasons. That said, the difference between the best of the so-called “developed” world and the often underrated metropolises of the south is far smaller than many people – mostly those who have never been there – appear to believe.

Juan Fernández Plane Crash a Surprise

Every three years or so, while updating Moon Handbooks Chile, I spend about a week on Isla Robinson Crusoe, in the Juan Fernández archipelago, about 670 km off the coast of Valparaíso. Only small commercial aircraft (20 seats or fewer) serve the island, where I expect to return in November, landing at an airstrip on the dry southern side of the island.

The only larger planes that land here are C-130 transports belonging to the FACh, Chile’s air force, which perform special medical missions (with a population of barely 600, Robinson Crusoe has no hospital, doctors or dentists, though it does have a clinic). Yesterday, though, a FACh plane crashed into the Pacific, apparently killing all 21 persons aboard. Among the victims were five members of a TVN television crew planning to document the island’s recovery from the earthquake and tsunami of February 2010.

Frankly, the crash surprises me greatly. Every time I have flown to Robinson Crusoe, the airline has issued a warning that, if high winds or other weather conditions are too risky, they will return to the mainland. That’s never happened to me but, in one instance, I did have to wait an extra day in San Juan Bautista because the conditions – even though clear and sunny - were considered too precarious for that day’s flight from the mainland.