An Argentina App Upgrade (Including Uruguay)

As the Southern Cone travel season approaches – though I consider the region is really an all-year destination – I’ve done more than just the new edition of Moon Handbooks Chile, which I featured in a recent post. There is also a new, expanded version of my iPhone/iPad/Android app for Argentina that, I  hope and expect, will be worthy of your attention.

While the cover may be the same, that masks dramatically increased coverage of Buenos Aires in particular, with its arts and entertainment scene, cultural offerings including galleries and museums, the burgeoning restaurant scene, and the best new accommodations (such as the Algodón Mansion, pictured above). As before, there’s a barrio-by-barrio orientation that makes finding your way around the city easy, especially if you’ve done a full download of the maps and photographs (you really don’t want to pay the data charges that can accumulate if you depend on a cellular rather than WiFi connection in Buenos Aires or elsewhere in Argentina, Chile or Uruguay).

Speaking of the Banda Oriental (“Eastern Shore”) of the River Plate, I’ve expanded the app’s coverage to include a “Weekend in Uruguay” itinerary that takes in the nearby World Heritage Site of Colonia (pictured above) – less than an hour from Buenos Aires by ferry – and the capital city of Montevideo before returning to Argentina by the longer ferry. The Montevideo itinerary suggestions include the city’s colorful Mercado del Puerto and its Museo del Carnaval (pictured below) – if you can’t make to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo’s a good Plan B, though Carnaval is also experiencing a renaissance in Buenos Aires.

As a country, Uruguay flies below the radar, but there are reasons that many Argentines take their vacations there. The biggest reason is the beaches of Punta del Este, whose coverage I have chosen to postpone on the rationale that most long-distance travelers prefer the Caribbean or Brazil for their beach holidays, but there are other unexpected reasons to enjoy Uruguay.

One of those is the wine. Next month, in fact, I will attend the Wines of Uruguay US Trade Tour in San Francisco, which will of course feature the country’s signature varietal of Tannat. There are more than a dozen top wineries within an hour of downtown Montevideo, open for tours and tasting, such as Bodega Bouza (pictured above), and several more in and around Colonia.

Another is Uruguay’s cachilas, or antique automobiles. I’m not car-crazy, but I do enjoy seeing what must be the greatest assemblage of them south of Havana, in a country that (unlike Argentina) never really had its own automobile industry. While there aren’t so many on the street as there used to be, there are still great collections at the Museo del Automóvil (pictured above) in downtown Montevideo and, also, at Bodega Bouza (pictured below).

The new Argentina Travel Adventures app costs just US$2.99, available through iTunes or Google Play. Readers who already own the app can upgrade at no additional charge. If you do purchase or upgrade, please review it on iTunes or Google.

Subte Strike Ends; Uruguay's Peso Market

Yesterday, finally, a tentative truce ended a ten-day Subte strike that had paralyzed the city of Buenos Aires. Contentious labor relations are not unusual in Argentina, but this one was more complicated than most, as it involved an ostensible devolution of power from the powerful federal government (which controlled the system) to the city government (a political adversary) without providing sufficient funds to run the system. This obliged municipal authorities (headed by mayor Mauricio Macri) to raise fares substantially to try to reduce the operating deficit.

A good part of that operating deficit involves wages to Subte workers, but that’s more complicated than usual because those workers, seeking wage hikes to keep their living standards from eroding under an estimated 25-percent inflation, are divided among themselves. One group, under teamster leader Hugo Moyano – who can make the late Jimmy Hoffa look like a romantic idealist– was able to come to terms with Macri but alienated a separate group of so-called “Metrodelegados” loyal to President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with whom Moyano and his supporters have fallen out.

The public, meanwhile, grew indignant as they tried to get to their jobs everyday by surface transportation over streets clogged with buses. One of my nephews, who just had knee surgery and is on crutches, found that his usual 20-minute Subte commute from semi-suburban Belgrano to downtown Buenos Aires took him 2-1/2 hours by bus.

For the moment, at least, the blame game has subsided and city commuters are returning, slowly, to the system – though apparently the Metrodelegados left many of the subways cars covered in graffiti and stickers. Given the political stakes, with Macri interested in running for president in 2015 and the president asserting her authority (a constitutional prohibition on re-election hasn’t stopped anybody from trying in the past), the issues involved are not likely to go away.

Peso(s) in Uruguay

As a relatively small buffer state between the giant Brazil and the large-enough Argentina, Uruguay has always had to make compromises with its imposing neighbors (when not being occupied or intimidated by them).  It’s also been a country notable for its political and economic stability in a region that’s been notorious for their absence.

Many visitors to Argentina and Buenos Aires hop across the River Plate to visit Uruguay, whose coastal strip from Carmelo east to Montevideo and Punta del Este gets extensive excursion coverage in my Moon Handbook to the Argentine capital. The official currency is the stable Uruguayan peso, but most local merchants readily accept US dollars, Brazilian reais, and Argentine pesos as well (the photo above is a couple years old, and the rates are no longer current).

The latter, though, is becoming more problematical as the differential between Argentina’s official and black market exchange rates widens. According to the Buenos Aires daily Clarín, restaurants and other services in Punta del Este have said they will accept Argentine credit cards at the official exchange rate (about 4.60 Argentine pesos per US dollar), but will only accept Argentine cash at the black market rate (around 6.20 Argentine pesos per dollar). Even non-Argentines crossing the river to Uruguay this coming summer will find it disadvantageous to try to dispose of excess Argentine pesos there.

Tango by the River

There’s been a change in schedule. I will still give a digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, but it has been postponed until Friday, September 21st, at 6 p.m.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.

Perla: a Novel

A couple weeks ago, I reviewed Roberto Ampuero’s The Neruda Case, about the final days of poet Pablo Neruda around the time of the 1973 coup against Chile’s constitutional president Salvador Allende Gossens. Translator Carolina de Robertis, a fellow Oaklander whom I have not yet met in person, provided me review copies of Ampuero’s book and her own novel Perla, which deals with the aftermath of Argentina’s 1976-83 “Dirty War” against “subversives” who were often brutally kidnapped and executed by coup-mongers such as General Jorge Rafael Videla.

Videla made the news again this week, as a federal court in Buenos Aires sentenced him to 50 years in prison for plotting the theft of babies from political prisoners and their subsequent “adoption” by supporters of the coup. The events in question took place at the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (pictured above), the naval engineering school that was one of the regime’s most notorious detention and torture sites. It is now a museum, open to the public, where visitors can see the cell where pregnant detainees gave birth to children most of them never saw again.

The exact date when the novel takes place is unclear, but the title character Perla, a young woman in suburban Buenos Aires, has a surprise guest – a sopping wet young man who can only nourish himself with water - while her Argentine family (a naval officer and his wife) are on vacation in Punta del Este (Uruguay). As happens, Perla’s parents (whom she is due to join across the River Plate) were directly involved in the trafficking of Dirty War babies.  In the tradition of magical realism, as the ghostly figure’s presence becomes more tangible – it’s also worth noting the naval “death flight” pilot Adolfo Scilingo is a family friend – Perla has to confront truths she’d rather avoid. Just as Argentina has had to confront figures like Videla, who is already serving a lengthy prison sentence for other Dirty War crimes.

Argentina has dealt with this theme cinematically, in the Oscar-winning film The Official Story (1985), and in many non-fiction books, but Perla appears to be the first to grapple with it in fiction. One of the book’s protagonists is Perla’s crusading journalist boyfriend, to whom she eventually returns when the issue of her origins becomes too difficult to face alone. In the end, De Robertis, who hails from Uruguay via Europe, has written an absorbing novel, in elegant language, that leaves an enduring impression on the reader.

On Wednesday: Around the Southern Cone

Today’s entry covers a diversity of topics from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

Fudging the Stats?

For some time, critics have called out the administration of Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for meddling in the state statistics bureau INDEC to make inflation figures less alarming than private economists believe they are. Now, across the River Plate, tourism operators in Punta del Este are questioning whether the Uruguayan government is exaggerating the arrivals of visitors – many of them Argentines – in the peak summer season.

According to official stats, the number of foreign arrivals in Uruguay was 26 percent higher in the first fortnight of 2012 than it was last year. Operators in PDE (pictured above), which is Uruguay’s single most important summer destination, say their numbers are actually down than last year’s, with both hotel occupancy and apartment rentals having fallen significantly. One explanation for the discrepancy may be that, according to the Mercopress article, “many Argentines crossed to Uruguay for the day exclusively to purchase US dollars given the restrictions imposed by the government of President Cristina Fernández.”

The Malvinas Blockade?

For more than half a century now, the United States has enforced a political and economic embargo that keeps US companies from trading with Cuba, and vice versa, and restricts US citizens’ right to travel to the island. The strictness of the embargo has varied from time to time, but it’s hard to call it a success. In fact, it’s probably helped keep Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl in power.

Despite that example, Argentina seems determined to enforce an embargo of its own as the 30th anniversary of the Falkland Islands War, instigated by the military dictatorship of General Leopoldo Galtieri, approaches on April 2. President Fernández’s government has lobbied other South American governments to keep Falklands-flagged vessels from visiting mainland ports, primarily in Chile and Uruguay. It has also threatened to cut the air link between the Falklands (pictured above; Argentines, of course, know them as the Malvinas) and Punta Arenas (Chile). LAN Airlines flights from Punta Arenas cannot avoid flying over Argentine air space.

I have no intention here of arguing the rights or wrongs of Argentina’s claim, which can become a black hole of intemperate rhetoric (for a truly sardonic analysis, read James Neilson’s recent column from the Buenos Aires Herald). What I would suggest is that, as with Cuba, blockades can create their own blowback, and reinforce the determination of those against whom they are directed.

Paine Update: Explora to Reopen

I’m not planning any more full-scale post-fire updates on Torres del Paine, but it’s worth mentioning that the luxury Explora chain has announced that its Hotel Salto Chico will reopen on February 23. Located where the Río Paine drains Lago Pehoé, this “hotel with a view” suffered no direct harm from the fire, but some of its custom furnishings, coming from around the world, suffered smoke damage. Given the level of service to which it aspires, it’s not surprising the Salto Chico would postpone its reopening, and that February 23 date might as well mark the park’s own definitive return. That leaves at least a good two months to enjoy the best Paine has to offer this summer, but for a few trail segments still closed to the public.

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Currency Roulette: Uruguay 2012

It’s the time of year when Argentines start to pack their bags for the beach and, for many of them, the beach means nearby Uruguay. Casinos, such as the one at Punta del Este’s massive Hotel Conrad (pictured below), are a secondary draw, even though everybody knows that the house always wins. Uruguayan officials, though, are a little worried that the whole country will be a casino this summer, and that Uruguay itself will be the loser.

That’s because, especially in summer, this is a country with one official currency, the Uruguayan peso, plus the semi-official US dollar and Argentine peso, which circulate freely alongside local money. Given the recently weakened Argentine currency, whose value that country’s government has managed to maintain by strict exchange controls that may not survive in the long run, Argentines may find that Uruguayan businesses will not accept their pesos at the official rate. This could have the effect of making Uruguay 20 percent more expensive for Argentines this summer.

That’s also a concern for Uruguay’s Banco Central because, at the end of the tourist season, they usually expect Argentina to repurchase those pesos at the official rate. If Argentina declines to do so, Uruguay could be stuck with a gaggle of foreign banknotes whose value is eroding.

Uruguayan-Argentine relations are always a little contentious because, since Uruguay was once part of the Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata, the former Banda Oriental (“Eastern Shore”) values its autonomy against its far larger neighbor. Argentina has more than ten times Uruguay’s population, and the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires is almost as populous as all of Uruguay. Recently, the Argentine government may have suggested that Uruguay was a de facto haven for tax evaders – in effect, a money-laundering country.

Uruguayan President José Mujica refused to blame Argentina for such accusations, and vigorously denies that Uruguay is a tax haven but, in reality, it is. That’s not in the sense of moving large amounts of illicit cash but, because of its traditionally liberal banking laws, it’s long been the destination of choice for Argentines who want to move their money from under their mattress – sometimes literally – to banks that will respect their deposits. Many middle-class Argentines have bank accounts in Uruguay, which they consider far more secure for their savings.

As summer approaches, though, Argentines at the beach will have to watch their pesos and Uruguayans will have to watch the exchange rate. Fortunately, for non-Argentines who can take advantage of the stable exchange rate between the US dollar and the local peso, this should not be an issue.

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Uruguay Update

Today’s entry is a potpourri of items related to Uruguay, about which I haven’t written much lately, but excursions along the country’s scenic coastline figure prominently in the new fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires. The book came out in February; in August and September, I’ll be doing a series of digital slide presentations at various branches of the San Mateo County Library (more details to come in a future post).

Uruguay Means Peace

One thing that makes Uruguay attractive, other than its scenic shoreline along the Río de la Plata, is its placidity. To be sure, like any capital city, Montevideo has its borderline neighborhoods, but this is a country where most people feel safe and secure. In fact, according to the 2011 Global Peace Index, which judges 153 countries according to standards of levels of domestic social conflict, military expenditures, and conflicts with other countries, Uruguay is the most peaceful country in Latin America, and 21st in the world.

Among the other Southern Cone countries, Chile ranks 39th and Argentina 55th. Iceland ranks first, while Iraq and Somalia bring up the rear at 152nd and 153rd. At No. 82, the United States ranks in the lower middle, just below Gabon and just above Bangladesh, because of its elevated military expenditures and overseas conflicts. Of course, such broad ratings oversimplify a complex topic - just as per capita GDP oversimplifies a country’s economic success - but they do provide interesting information for reflection.

Smoke-Free Uruguay under Attack
Uruguay has its international commercial enemies, though, particularly tobacco giant Philip Morris. That’s because, thanks largely to former president Tabaré Vásquez (an oncologist by training), Uruguay has some of the world’s most progressive anti-tobacco legislation. Not only does Uruguayan law prohibit smoking in public buildings, as well as restaurants and bars, but it also bans tobacco advertising and requires large health warnings on cigarette packages. Moreover, it prohibits the sale of any tobacco products bearing the misleading description of “light.”

Philip Morris International, though, has decided that Uruguay should be a test case of the limits to public health legislation. According to Mercopress Noticias, Philip Morris - whose worldwide income of US$27.2 billion approaches Uruguay’s GDP of US$40.7 billion - has brought a claim against the country in the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a branch of the World Bank. On the face of it, the tobacco monster appears to want to establish a precedent against a relatively small country that would make it difficult for other, larger countries to enact similar rules.

Uruguayans to Occupy Chilean Airspace?
Despite its political and social pacifism, Uruguay has made some international commercial incursions of its own. For several years, its flagship airline Pluna has connected Montevideo with Santiago, but now it intends to begin flying to destinations within Chile; there are no specifics, but apparently Pluna would serve some lesser destinations with relatively small planes with a capacity of roughly 90 passengers.

LAN Airlines dominates the Chilean market, with Sky Airlines a distance second and Principal Airlines third. Pluna, which offers low fares but also charges for checked baggage as well as on-board food and beverage service, could find a niche here.

Tannat & Lamb - on Saturday

For those of you fortunate enough to be in Uruguay next Saturday, several wineries from Montevideo to Punta del Este will celebrate the third annual Festival del Tannat y Cordero, celebrating the country's signature wine and the roast lamb with which it goes so well. If you can make it, don't miss it.

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Sipping through Uruguay

About every two years, in the course of updating Moon Buenos Aires, I spend a couple weeks in coastal Uruguay, which figures among the book’s excursions. This year, events in Chile also demanded my attention while I was in Colonia, Montevideo, and Punta del Este, so that I haven’t written much about my most recent forays across the River Plate.

Still, I did manage to visit several wineries that I had never seen before, three of them in and around Montevideo, and one just outside Punta del Este, to supplement some of my earlier coverage of the Uruguayan wine world. Uruguay can’t compete with the South American giants of Argentina and Chile, of course, but its unique red Tannat gives its an opening that it otherwise wouldn’t have, and producers have made the most of it. A few years ago, they united to create the Caminos del Vino route for tourists, mostly but not exclusively in and around Montevideo.

Two of the affiliated Wines of Uruguay members I visited are so close to downtown Montevideo that they’re really urban wineries - since its creation in 1898, for instance, Bodegas Santa Rosa has seen the sprawling capital eventually surround it and it no longer has any vineyards here. Now only about a 20-minute taxi ride from downtown, it’s still run by the founding Mutio family, of Basque origins with several generations actively involved; for visitors, it offers an entertaining visit through a maze of tunnels, lined by oversized barrels that are now only for show, that culminates in a huge open space that serves for weddings and other events. Smaller gatherings, including tastings accompanied by cheeses and cured meats, take place in a quiet alcove.

Barely a bike ride away from Santa Rosa, founded by a winemaker who split off from Santa Rosa to found his own company, Bodegas Carrau has a wine-making history that dates back to 18th-century Catalonia. Most of the vineyards are in Las Violetas, about half an hour west, but there’s a small experimental vineyard here that, in season, means visitors can taste the grapes before sampling the final product in its tasting room, to the accompaniment of cheeses and cured meats. In addition to its Las Violetas vineyards, it also has Uruguay’s highest vineyards at Cerro Chapeu, on the Brazilian border near the northern town of Rivera.

One of the most recent additions to the wine route is Bodega Marichal, where descendents of a family of Canary Islanders have been in the area since planting its first vineyards--now consisting of 50 hectares of Tannat, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Semillón and Sauvignon Blanc about 50 km west of the capital--in 1910. Having only recently switched to fine wines, Marichal has done a fine job of renovating the historic house of its founders (the winery proper dates from 1938) as a tasting room. Its idea is to use tourism as yet another means to promote its wines, rather than as a revenue-generating activity per se, but it also offers snacks and meals on request.

In sheer tourist appeal, the winery most likely to succeed is Bodega y Viñedos Alto de la Ballena, for its proximity to Punta del Este. On Punta’s western outskirts, the low range of hills known as the Sierra de la Ballena disappears beneath the Río de la Plata estuary but, to the north, it forms a rolling landscape that now includes the winery and vineyard planted with new vines of Merlot, Tannat, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and the white Viognier. Owners Álvaro Lorenzo and Paula Pivel, who released their first young wines in 2007, are proudest of their unusual Tannat-Viognier blend; the winery and grounds are ideally situated for sunset tours and tasting from its west-facing deck.

Most of Uruguay's wineries require 24 hours’ notice for a visit, but some can handle tourists on short notice, so it’s worth phoning just in case - on short notice, though, the smallest wineries may not be able to provide English-language guides. Alternatively, Montevideo’s Daniel Reyes is an agency that offers scheduled half-day tours, in Spanish and English every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

From Uruguay to Chile, with Concern

Late last week, I was planning a trip to Uruguay and looking forward to writing about the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Colonia del Sacramento (pictured here), where I’m spending a few days before heading to the capital city of Montevideo and then the fashionable beach resort of Punta del Este. All of these destinations are part of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, which I am currently updating.

Yet, as the smoke and rubble clear from Chile’s historical earthquake, I think it’s still important to provide some additional information - and testimony - from first hand sources there. I can’t report my own impressions until I return to Santiago in a couple weeks, but I can relate what my contacts there are saying.

We have learned that the impact on coastal communities, where the Chilean navy failed to broadcast an alert even though some local port officials did, was devastating, even if the fatalities are a minute fraction of those from the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. According to Todd Temkin, whose work with the Fundación Valparaíso contributed to the city’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, “We came through OK, but there is LOTS of damage in Valpo and the South, as you know, will never be the same. The coastal towns of the 7th and 8th regions (Constitución, Pichelemu, etc) no longer exist as we knew them.” Some landmark Valpo buildings, including the Iglesia Matriz and the Iglesia San Francisco, have suffered damage, but the tourist hill neighborhoods of Cerro Concepción, Cerro Alegre, and Cerro Bellavista have come through well.

Pichilemu (whose beaches and breaks have made it one of South America’s top surf spots) is especially vulnerable to a tsunami. At Constitución, perhaps best known for a classic narrow-gauge railway that runs from the city of Talca, my friend Marializ Maldonado had been lunching only the afternoon before: “Everything, including the restaurant, disappeared that same night. In that town there are already 300 deaths…I’m telling you this, but I can’t comprehend it, it’s as if I were vaccinated against fear, treated for nerves. You know that in Chile we have earthquakes in our DNA, but even then it isn’t easy.” Chilean novelist Alberto Fuguet has expressed similar sentiments in a New York Times op-ed piece.

My Pucón friend Alan Coar was in the countryside north of Santiago, “picking up the pieces in the Río Ligua valley, where I've been trying to help my kid's grandmother with her avocado farm crisis. Lots of damage to old adobe structures generally here. Power and phones coming back on line for the most part.” Things in Pucón itself are fine, except that it’s difficult to travel overland to Santiago.

According to Verónica Araneda of Travel Aid Pucón, “Many tourists just ran away through Argentina, because of the horror stories of the Panamericana on the Chilean side. We still have some shakes everyday, but they are getting farther apart and also less intense than the first two days.” In nearby Villarrica, Glen and Bev Aldrich of Hostería de la Colina tell me that the “worst damage was a carving in the reception that fell off its stand and knocked a small hole in the floor. Other than that, all the whisky bottles were left on their shelves in the bar, glasses in the kitchen remained standing, all is well.”

From the Epicenter
Only a short while ago, I got my first report from someone within the most heavily stricken zone. Franz Schubert of Trekking Chile, a tour operator just outside of Talca (where he also operates the Casa Chueca inn) say that, “Considering the situation of thousands of homeless people and hundreds of deaths in the region, we can’t complain. Casa Chueca and its 30 guests were more than lucky. With water from the pool and vegetables from the garden we had everything we needed. The guests themselves helped us for days, moving the rubble, arranging the furniture, and preparing food. Eventually we got them all to Santiago.” I’ve taken the liberty of including one of Franz’s photos from Talca here.

He was more worried about his employees and others in the region and, at present “We are hauling food, water and mattresses to the coast, where the people have much more serious problems. Today we got the water back and one of our buildings has electricity; the telephones work on occasion. We’ve visited our employees in their houses and everyone’s OK. With or without power, with or without water, we’re not going to close Casa Chueca for one minute.”

Meanwhile, I also heard from Andrea Ilabaca, who works for the MontGras winery in the Colchagua valley north of Talca, who reported that “ all MontGras Properties’ workers and their families are accounted for, and in general, are fine, although some have lost or suffered damages in their homes.” When the quake struck, she was in her 21st floor Santiago apartment and “I honestly thought I was going to die. Luckily, the building resisted, although my apartment does have damages, it can all be fixed! I ran down the stairs so fast I was the 3rd person out of the building!! I’ve been staying at my Mom’s but I just heard that we now have water and electricity... so as soon as clean up is finished by the end of the week, I’ll move back in!”

According to Andrea, “Our wineries are operating and will be able to receive the coming vintage. Our Visitors Center will be working normally from next Monday, March 8th. Regretfully, many neighboring wineries are not that well off... We do hope they recover soon.” Her advice for those who wish to help: “The best way to do so, is by purchasing the products and wines of Chile. This will be of great assistance to our country.” On the surface, that might sound self-serving but, in the long run, economic continuity is one of Chile’s greatest strengths.

Miscellanea

This has been a very full four days so far in Uruguay, and I won't have time to write anything else before my departure for Buenos Aires tomorrow night. Tomorrow, in fact, will be a test of stamina as I'll be visiting four Montevideo area wineries: Varela Zarranz, Pisano, Filgueira, and De Lucca. By the time the day's over, I may not be in shape to do anything but sleep on the boat back to Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile, as I prepared my essay on Argentines and Uruguayans yesterday, I neglected to mention a notable event: the arrival of the cruise ship "Celebrity Infinity" which, according to the Montevideo daily La República, was carrying 2,000 gay passengers. From the look of it, all of them were enjoying themselves yesterday in Punta del Este and today in Montevideo's Ciudad Vieja, the old colonial quarter. Tomorrow they're headed to Buenos Aires.

Finally, a request. In the last two months or so, I've acquired quite a few regular readers and many more sporadic ones. I'd like to know who you are and whether you're planning to travel to the Southern Cone. If you have any questions or suggestions, please direct them to me at southerncone (at) mac.com (I don't want to use a hyperlink here, to avoid getting spammed).

Relatives and Neighbors

A few years, an Uruguayan soldier surprised me--almost shocked me, really--when he said "We should be part of Argentina." On a superficial level, it might make sense, and the two countries are already part of Mercosur, the South American common market that also includes Brazil and Paraguay. Their accents are similar enough that, for a non-native speaker, it's hard to tell them apart. Uruguayans eat as much or more beef than Argentines, and drink as much or more mate.

At the same time, the two countries have often had a contentious relationship. In the mid-19th century, Argentine dictator Juan Manuel Rosas blockaded the port of Montevideo for years. At present, Argentine protestors from Gualeguaychú have blocked the border crossing there because of an ostensibly polluting pulp plant on the Uruguayan side.

All this came to mind today as I visited the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este, the playground for rich and famous Argentines whose primary occupation appears to be posing for papparazzi. In January and February, many of them anchor their boats in Punta del Este's yacht harbor and party until dawn. One of them, Porteño publicist Gabriel Alvarez, is in prison awaiting trial here after his driver killed two Argentine motorcyclists in a high-speed collision on Punta's outskirts (the Buenos Aires daily La Nación keeps a bureau in Punta del Este to report on the doings of Argentines here).

In area, Argentina (the world's eighth-largest country) is about the size of India, while Uruguay is a little bigger than England. Argentina's population (around 39 million) is more than ten times that of Uruguay's 3.4 million or so. For their economic well-being, Uruguayans need Argentines, even if they feel ambivalent about them. In a sense, Uruguayans share the dilemma of Canadians, who also share a long border with a sometimes overbearing neighbor who's also a relative and trading partner.

Argentina and Uruguay will always have differences, but it could be far worse. After I remarked to a Montevideo friend that Argentina was the size of India, we speculated that a similarly densely populated Argentina would mean a billion Argentines--including 300 million Porteños--facing Uruguay's shores.