Devotional Kitsch - An Argentine Update

The Costanera Norte offers river access to the residents of Buenos Aires.

Not far from our Buenos Aires apartment, leading northwest from the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport, the Costanera Rafael Obligado provides direct access to the Río de La Plata shoreline for city residents. It’s a popular spot for walking, fishing and asados (barbecues) and, at its northern end, the Parque de la Memoria is an open-air memorial to the tens of thousands who disappeared under the military dictatorship of 1976-83.

One area “attraction” I’ve always ignored is Tierra Santa, a Disneyland for the devout that displays a kitschy version of ancient Jerusalem and its spiritual legacy (as depicted in the video above). About the only thing I can compare it with is Tennessee’s farcically fake Ark Encounter which, deservedly, appears to be approaching financial collapse. On one level that’s easy for me to say—I’m not a believer—but why would any sensible person spend a single peso to watch an hourly mechanical resurrection when genuine devotional sights are so close at hand?

Carlos Menem renounced Islam for Catholicism in order to become Argentina's president in 1989.

The Catedral Metropolitana is Buenos Aires's most conspicuous religious landmark.

It’s worth noting that, for many Argentines, religion is fungible. For instance, former President Carlos Menem—of Syrian descent—converted from Islam to Catholicism to run for office, since that was a constitutional requirement at the time. Buenos Aires, of course, has many important Christian sites, starting with the classic Catedral Metropolitana and even the handsome Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa of San Telmo. But the Middle East’s other Abrahamic faiths are represented by landmarks such as the Templo de la Congregación Israelita and the Centro Islámico Rey Fahd—both of which are open for free guided tours.

Palermo's Centro Islámico Rey Fahd is the largest mosque in South America.

None of those, of course, is a theme park—for that, visitors to Argentina might be better advised to visit the city of La Plata, whose República de los Niños, where children can explore scale model replicas of diverse structures that even include a mosque. For my part, though, I prefer more offbeat devotional locations that fetishize folk saints.

La Plata's República de los Niños has a scale model mosque for kids to explore.

Rather than a biblical theme park, I would urge visitors to see the syncretic Santuario del Gauchito Gil, where pilgrims pay homage to a Robin Hood figure from the northern province of Corrientes. It also has the advantage of proximity to the Esteros del Iberá, Argentina’s great subtropical wetlands preserve, to view the most diverse concentrations of wildlife within the country’s borders.

Who needs a mechanical Jesus when you can stand before the altar of Gauchito Gil?

Alternatively, in the western province of San Juan—also an underappreciated wine district—the Santuario Difunta Correa memorializes a maternal figure who, according legend, died in the desert while suckling her newborn (who, miraculously, survived to be found by passing muleteers). In truth, she probably never existed, but her story is more plausible—and far more intriguing—than what supposedly happened in the “Holy Land.”

San Juan's Difunta Correa is a legendary folk saint whose infant son supposedly survived at her breast after she died in the desert.

For those unable to visit either the Gaucho Gil or the Difunta, do not despair! Spontaneous roadshrine shrines—some of them quite large—are common on the country’s highways and along some city sidewalks.

Even in sophisticated Palermo, the faithful leave water for the Difunta.

Buenos Aires Wines? History and Novelty in the Vicinity

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned the greenbelt that once surrounded Buenos Aires; in the interim, I set about making some inquiries about it. I asked my wife whether she could recall any vineyards from her youth and she couldn’t, but Andrew Graham-Yooll wrote me that, in his rather longer experience, “there have been many chacras [smallholdings] on the outskirts of BA over the decades.”

Andrew cites the example of Tigre and the Paraná Delta, which was a major fruit-growing area – in fact, the riverside market there is still known as the “Puerto de Frutos” (pictured above). He also notes that there were vineyards, for both wine and table grapes, in southern Buenos Aires suburbs like Florencio Varela and Monte Grande, and western fruit and vegetable-growing areas like Castelar, Moreno, General Rodríguez and Luján (all within 25 to 70 km from Buenos Aires), “but all of that has been wiped out by the urban sprawl. My photograph below would suggest that, though I’m not sure of the its precise location – it was taken from a flight landing at Ezeiza, on the capital's southern outskirts.

I wrote, in my previous piece, that the nearest wine-growing area to Buenos Aires was in Sierra de la Ventana (550 km away), but I was wrong. To the north, parts of the provinces between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers – sometimes known as Argentine Mesopotamia (a section of which appears below, from the air) - were a flourishing wine-growing area, but political pressure from the Cuyo provinces (Mendoza and San Juan) eliminated the practice until recently.

Now, in the province of Entre Ríos, near the attractive riverside town of Colón (about 330 km north of Buenos Aires), Bodega Vulliez Sermet has begun to produce a variety of reds, including Tannat, under conditions similar to those in Uruguay. On the west bank of the Río Uruguay, Colón is considerably closer to Buenos Aires than Sierra de la Ventana, though still farther away than those in Uruguay itself. The photograph below is Colón's municipal tourism office, now housed in the historic riverside customs house.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to that part of Argentina, but it’s potentially a worthwhile stop for overland travelers en route to the wildlife-rich Iberá marshes or the thunderous cascades of Parque Nacional Iguazú. It’s also a possible detour from Gualeguaychú, the hearth of Argentine Carnaval (due to begin Saturday, January 10th).

There’s another winery, Corrales Vier, in the more westerly city of Victoria (about 340 km northwest of Buenos Aires). When a sommelier friend of mine tried to contact Vuillez and Corrales by email, though, neither one responded – although Vuillez makes a point of advertising its cabaña-style accommodations. He hasn’t seen wines from either one for sale in Buenos Aires, but did have a sample of Vuillez's at a tasting event several years ago.

Maybe these are mystery wines but, the next time I visit Colón or Victoria, I’ll make an effort to stop.

The Curious Charm of Paraguay

"Air Paraguay" used to be the cheapest way to get to the Southern Cone countries.

In the 1980s, when I was often on a student budget, the cheapest way to get to and from southernmost South America was with Líneas Aéreas Paraguayas, the now-defunct “Air Paraguay” that required a stopover in Asunción before continuing to Buenos Aires, Brazil or Chile (photograph Creative Commons). At that time, it was still the Paraguay of the notorious dictator Alfredo Stroessner, whose conspicuous portrait hung in the waiting rooms at what is now Aeropuerto Internacional Silvino Pettirossi (at that time, it bore the dictator's name). I was always tempted to take a photograph and, though a certain menace pervaded the atmosphere at that time, I once managed a blurry shot in dim light, surreptitiously.

A portrait of the late General Stroessner in the airport that then bore his name.

In succeeding years, after Stroessner’s overthrow, I spent quite a bit of time in the country in the course of researching and writing an earlier guidebook to Argentina, Uruguay & Paraguay, for a publisher best left unidentified. The country had no world-class attractions – by 1982, the Itaipú hydroelectric dam on the Brazilian border had obliterated the Guaíra falls, which reportedly were no less impressive than Iguazú – but I still found sights to interest me, such as the former Jesuit missions of Trinidad and Jesús (photograph public domain), across the Río Paraná from the Argentine city of Posadas.

Some of Paraguay's colonial Jesuit ruins are remarkably well-preserved or restored. 

What was most noticeable about Paraguay, though, was its reputation (and reality) as – not even arguably – the continent’s most corrupt country. On the Brazilian border, the city of Ciudad del Este (formerly Puerto Presidente Stroessner, pictured below) was and is a chaotic bazaar of knock-off Rolexes and comparable merchandise, smuggled goods and other contraband that occupies almost every storefront. At that time, I recall reading a Wall Street Journal reporter’s interview of a Ciudad del Este “businessman” who, when asked about the potential impact of the Mercosur free trade agreement on Paraguay, responded that “The way I see it, we may have to stop smuggling things, and start producing things.”

The former Puerto Presidente Stroessner is now Ciudad del Este.

He spoke too soon. Several years later, I was crossing into Paraguay from the Argentine border city of Clorinda, in a small pickup truck that I had shipped from California to Chile. Presenting the vehicle’s papers to Paraguayan customs, I was taken aback – though I probably shouldn’t have been – when the customs official asked me “Do you want to sell it?” The fact is that many vehicles circulating on the country’s highways have been stolen in Argentina and Brazil, and surreptitious sales are not unusual. Since then, I’ve always been cautious in taking my vehicle into Paraguay.

Carlos Antonio López was a 19th-century Paraguayan strongman.

Nevertheless, there’s a certain inexplicable innocence in Paraguay’s pervasive corruption, which is something Paraguayans use to get by. Most recently, it’s been on display as residents of Asunción flock across the border to take advantage of favorable exchange rates – according to the Buenos Aires daily Clarín, the Argentine peso was worth 700 Paraguayan guaraníes a year ago, but today it’s worth less than 500. Prices for commodities like gasoline, wine and even basic food items are 30 to 60 percent cheaper in Argentina. Theoretically there are limits to what Paraguayans can take back across the border but, as my earlier encounter with Paraguayan customs suggested, the rules are flexible.