February, on closing

I've had this impression that February has passed too quickly. True, it's only the 25th, and even though this is a leap year it still has four days to go, but that's mostly done.

This February has been a slow photo month, in large part due to the sun and the heat. I just can't bear doing my picture-seeking rounds in 30+ degree heat with humidity almost visible, least of all when that kind of temperature persists after sunset. (For practical reasons, also, on weekdays I can't stay up and far from home hours after sunset — because the sun goes away at 9 PM and I've got to go to bed at 11 PM to wake up for work the next day.) I guess photographers who don't mind the sauna-like weather, or who can sleep during the day, might be OK with this state of affairs and content themselves with fascinating night pictures of the city. I'm not.

Might it be that February is intrinsically slow? There are no public holidays in February, except Carnival. When I was a little child I remember the beginning of the Carnival season was a huge party — you'd get little water balloons and chase your mates around, or launch the balloons at the girls, and play with your friends and your parents, ideally beside the pool, throwing water around with your garden hose or with buckets. Not only was it funny, it was a public holiday — two days off for everyone, if I remember correctly.

That all seems to have vanished. There are huge Carnival celebrations in some places in Argentina, such as Gualeguaychú, but they're local traditions, not official celebrations. I hear that Buenos Aires City public employees get Carnival days off, but no-one else does. Children are still not going to school, but nowadays when children chase one another in the street, it's commonly with rocks or kitchen knives, and if you throw a water balloon at a random child, you'll probably get beaten by one or both parents, no matter how truly festive your Carnival spirit was.

February also seems to be somewhat deprived of interest to the majority of us who, for whatever reason, see it as a "sandwich month". February is short and stays between the excitement of the New Year, vacations, the fullness of the summer, and the coming of the first cooler spells of March and of the "serious" part of the year — when people start showing less skin, everybody deserts the beach, and children begin wearing school uniforms and filling the early buses. As I said, no holidays, even though February 3 is the anniversary of the Battle of San Lorenzo and February 27 should be the true Flag Day. It seems no-one wants to celebrate in February...

... Except the Rosarigasinos, of course! The photo group decided to gather at the door of the Museum of the City in Parque Independencia to hit the amusement park. The idea, proposed by one of the guys, was doing what he dubbed a "Don Fulgencio Tour", Don Fulgencio being an old comic cartoon character known as "the man who had no childhood". Grown-ups enjoying children's games was definitely a good idea... with some reservations.

First I wanted to try the Ferris Wheel, only to learn that the ride was out of service for some unspecified reason. So we went and rode on the Caterpillar (the local version is known as the Gusano Loco, or Crazy Worm), which was a lot of centrifugal-powered simple fun. I remembered it being my favourite ride when I was a child, and realized I must be getting old when I felt the brief, but cold, bite of fear during the first few turns.

Then some wanted to check out the Mambo. Marisa and I decided that the Gusano had gotten us as much adrenaline as we wanted, so we and a few others stayed while the rest took their place in this round platform that revolved and rocked to the rhythm of cumbia and reggaeton, its passengers facing inward and pressed into their seats by centrifugal force, screaming and clinging frantically to the metal bars, a few heroic photographers trying to snatch pictures of the game from the inside.

Next the children wanted the Bumper Cars. I didn't feel like it; the cars were too many and so there was no room for anybody to bump into anybody as it should be done. Finally, we used our remaining tickets to ride the Loco Bus, a small, slow-moving pendulum ride with one big gondola in the shape of a bus with a cute face painted on the front. Harmless, childish even for an amusement park, good for grown-ups who don't really want so much excitement — so we thought. Wrong! The sensation of falling down backwards while your guts obediently stay behind owing to inertia was powerful enough. The swinging only looked slow from the ground. I got away from it unscathed, but others were not so lucky, and let's leave it at that. All I could say was, thank you thank you thank you for leaving the Ferris wheel out of service!

So this was, in a way, my celebration of February, my Carnival. This week is bound to be gray and rainy, and next Saturday begins March. Let's see what the serious part of the year has in store.

Vacations: Walking with people

I realize I've so far written more about the landscape and the accomodation than about people. That's not right, since I met a lot of very nice people in the way. Marita and Aldo in Junín de los Andes, of course; but also Ana behind the counter in Malargüe's hostel, who got us one more day of stay by juggling with reservations; a certain backpacker and his girlfriend in Lake Huechulafquen, who gave me useful pointers and pleasurable conversation after a whole day of walking alone; a couple of guys from Buenos Aires, another couple of guys from somewhere else; a biologist from Córdoba named Gonzalo who taught me a couple of things about those curious birds I was trying to get pictures of; a girl from Quilmes (Carina) who pushed my lazy ass around in San Martín de los Andes and got me to see the Mirador Arrayán and Chapelco, as well as handing me the pamphlet that led me to my last hostel; Patricia, a girl from Spain, residing in Ireland, who must be still traveling around South America after three months away from home; a guy named Raúl and a girl named Josefina in San Martín de los Andes, who walked with me to Mirador Bandurrias on my last day there; Esteban, a guy from San Lorenzo (a mere 20 km from Rosario) who made and cooked pizza and empanadas from the basic ingredients, just for fun, while in the hostel; and others that I can't remember or whose names I can't recall.

I need to say this, because otherwise I might give the impression that it's OK for me to walk around shooting pictures and do nothing else. But the novelty of marvelous sceneries eventually wears off, and in the end it's often more satisfying to come back to wherever you're staying and have something for dinner while chatting about your adventures with people who may not have been there, and trying to describe what you saw to them, or with others who were there before and don't mind comparing notes, so to speak. Even better if you join others, or get others to join. Conversation for the time being, contacts for the future, at the very least; and the joy of sharing those things you (re)discover when you're on a trip.

I had so much fun during this trip. I also found myself, as they say, a couple of times — and as usual it wasn't a pleasant finding, but one always learns from these.

On Wednesday, January 23, I said goodbye to the people at Ladera Norte, and took a cab to the bus terminal. With me went Esteban ("Esteban the Cook"), who by sheer coincidence had not only bought his return ticket on the same day and the same bus as me, but also on a seat on the same row as mine, and along came Josefina, one of my trekking pals of the previous day, who had to exchange a ticket and wanted to wave us bye-bye in person. We departed San Martín de los Andes at 1:45 PM.

I slept long stretches, stared at the changing landscape, ate cookies, drank water, read and re-read Susan Sontag's On Photography (that Marisa had lent me), chatted with Esteban when we were both awake, got off the bus on every stop to stretch my legs. The trip to Rosario lasted almost 25 hours. When the bus entered my home city, I realised I'd missed it. At the same time, I saw it briefly as it was under the summer sun — large, sprawling, sun-scorched concrete; dirty sidewalks, very green trees; kids on wooden carts pulled by horses, sweaty joggers along the avenues. I stepped down from the bus, spent. It was asphyxiatingly hot, not nearly as hot as it had been while I was away, they told me later. I took a bus home. I felt weak, a bit sick. Maybe it was the heat, humidity, air pressure. I slept and slept, even though I'd slept maybe 16 of the last 24 hours.

I think I came back, truly, a week later.

Vacations: A view of Junín de los Andes

As promised, I'll summarize the rest of my vacations in Junín de los Andes, and then on a different post I'll try and do the same with San Martín de los Andes, and be done with it (I kinda want to start writing about local news again!).

After our visit Lake Huechulafquen, the only other thing we did outside Junín was a couple of visits to San Martín. There are buses every other hour that take you there in about 50 minutes. We walked around the city a lot, and I visited Cerro Chapelco and its ski resort (obviously in the low season), but I'll speak of San Martín's main features later.

In Junín we took advantage of the river, which runs only a block and a half from Marita's. There's a little bridge that spans the river and takes you to the banks on the other shore.

The Chimehuin, as expected of Patagonian rivers, is shallow, with a pebbly bottom, very cold, and very fast. I tried to swim in it — but to my dismay I caught a strong current and had to surrender to it, until I was left on a bed of pebbles about 30 meters away.

My embarrassment was compounded by the sight of many children and teenagers who repeatedly jumped into the river, ignoring the certain danger of hitting the bottom, and then proceeded to maneuver easily following the swirls and eddies of the river, and getting (it seemed to me) exactly where they wanted. Needless to say I didn't try swimming again. Of course, these guys were all local people, so they knew the river from long experience; and being young and restless, they weren't afraid of anything.

The other thing we did in Junín was visiting the Via Christi, which is a kind of Via Crucis with sculptures and plaques representing and describing Jesus Christ's path to the place where he was crucified according to the Christian myth.

The special thing about this Via Christi is that it combines images and motifs of the Passion with local spirituality, focused on the Blessed Laura Vicuña and the (also recently Blessed) Ceferino Namuncurá, the latter being the first member of a native Argentine tribe to be on the road to Catholic Church-declared sanctity... plus a lot of ecumenical, or syncretic, references to aboriginal spirituality, a vindication of the indigenous tribes, and a retelling of the Spanish Conquest (which didn't reach Patagonia) and the so-called Conquest of the Desert in the late 19th century. The "desert" was Patagonia, which was indeed the frontier of European-Argentine civilization at the time, although it was by no means uninhabited. The Argentine Army, under the command of a typical plutocratic government, advanced over Patagonia and systematically drove away or slaughtered the native tribes it found, or turned the natives into virtual slaves, who were forced into military conscription or sent to work as servants of wealthy families of Buenos Aires; after the land was cleared of its original inhabitants, it was divided in huge fiefdoms and given away to ranchers belonging to the oligarchy who (directly or indirectly) ruled the country.

The Via Christi had elements of this story, as seen from the point of view of modern revisionist history and by recent popular Catholic leaders such as Bishop Jaime de Nevares (1915–1995). I found the whole mix quite funny in its heterogeneity, not because the story was funny in any sense, but because the story of liberation theology is so pathetic — educated folks, with the best of intentions, trying to reconcile modern views about human rights and the struggle of oppressed peoples with the teachings of a church that is fiercely hierarchical and misogynistic, that has supported oppressive governments and countless massacres in the name of its god, and is even today a major obstacle to certain basic human rights in large parts of the world. You have to admire and pity these people for the effort of weaving their version of history into Christian doctrine, even as their own Church stops short of calling them heretics.

The Via Christi also had certain obvious, and to me, rather distasteful hints of anti-abortion propaganda, with abortion compared to the genocide of the natives, and figures looking like small children or late-term fetuses embedded into the beam of Christ's cross.

This funny/creepy tour was very well kept, anyway, and it served as good exercise. When we reached the top of the hill, we could see most of the urban area of Junín de los Andes. The pictures were no good, unfortunately, due to the harsh lighting, but I managed to rescue some.

Our last days in Junín de los Andes were relaxed and festive. We had asado once, and the last night, after spending the afternoon by the river, my friend Gabriel pulled out his finest tricks and made us matambre a la pizza, which is a massive slab of flank steak with cheese and tomate sauce on top, cooked on a grill over charcoal embers (like asado, but not for so long). After that we went out to a noisy bar, and drank just enough to make fools of, but not so much as to endanger, ourselves. No pictures of that, thank you.

Sunday came. Mauro and Gabriel had bought tickets for a direct trip back to Rosario, a bit tired of vacations. I decided to make the most of my time and booked a place in a hostel in San Martín de los Andes. Somehow we woke up after 4 hours of sleep, and after some light breakfast, the guys escorted me to the bus terminal and waited until I left. Their bus departed later that day, at 2 PM — but by that time I was already in my next, and last, destination.

The Volunteer Firemen tour

Retelling the weekend will take more than usual, since I was touring several places and barely touched down at home to eat (twice) and sleep (once). So I'll do it in two installments.

After a Friday night partly spent on a graduation party for a photographer friend of mine, Saturday started with a tour to the headquarters of the Rosario Volunteer Firemen (with the Rosarigasinos). These guys are truly awesome. While one of them patiently explained to us a myriad details about their job and their equipment, another one put on full firefighting gear and demonstrated the gas mask. A 18-year-old female cadet (the daughter of the first one) gave us even more inside information and anecdotes, both funny and not so.

We took hundreds of pictures of the whole place, the rooms, the equipment, the tools. I was delighted to discover an ancient Isuzu truck with the old Isuzu logo in Japanese (featuring the [nowadays almost unseen] hiragana iteration character), and an old R. E. Dietz 211 gyrating lantern. One of my fellow photographers' children and one of their friends came along, and had non-stop fun climbing on the fire trucks, ringing the alarm bell, and spraying us all (and our cameras, alas) with a high-power hose.

(I'll be uploading more pictures soon enough.)

The Volunteer Firemen receive very little monetary help from anyone, and they occupy old facilities that aren't really appropriate; you can tell that they're passionate about what they do, and they strive to do the most and the best under the circumstances. Considering they have families and day jobs, their efforts are laudable.

We are seriously thinking about turning the whole photo group thing into something with a solidary, social goal — for example, making Rosario-themed calendars with our pictures and donating the money (or the rights) to people like the Volunteer Firemen. Some legal juggling is needed, as well as contacts, and lots of patience to deal with bureaucracy. And of course, this is almost holiday and vacation season, so it's difficult to plan anything until March next year. But we're on it.

Culture and fun weekend

It's a good thing that you can have a culture weekend any time here in Rosario. On Friday I was alerted of an exhibition of photos by Joaquín Chiavazza, a photojournalist of the old La Tribuna newspaper: stunningly well-done black and white pictures from the late 1950s and early 1960s. There were people all dressed up at the then-popular horse track, with horses racing past the camera; images of car and bicycle races, no longer held in the city; picturesque traffic accidents, milkmen and their horse-pulled carts, women in a queue outside a school, waiting to vote for the first time...

This was at the Bernardino Rivadavia by Plaza Montenegro, and I'm told the rest of the photos (many more) are on display at the Museo de la Ciudad, which is not so conveniently placed, but I have a month to check them out (some samples online).

Then on Saturday I went again to the Museo Estévez. I think I didn't explain this before, so just in case, I'm doing a photo workshop there. The people of the museum are trying to expand their activities, and this includes extending their guided tour from the inside of the museum to the surroundings. The Estévez building is possibly the oldest house in Rosario that remains in more-or-less its original condition, and it's located in front of Plaza 25 de Mayo, the main town square of old, so just by walking around you're treading on the very historical core of Rosario. The Estévez decided to join this activity with a photo workshop with a downtown area theme. They'll collect pictures and do an exhibition of a selected group in April 2008.

So we walked a few blocks and learned a few bits of history and took some pictures. I had this nasty problem with my camera's memory card again, which seems to be unfortunately common, judging from the hundreds of complaints I've read about in web forums. Sony must have the worst quality control system in the world. So I took out the card and used the camera's internal memory. It's very weird, this thing when you can't capture any really good image even if you walk around shooting without concern for the space left in your card, and then when you have room for only a dozen shots, you get a few very satisfying pictures.

Cyclists near the stairs leading to the Flag Memorial

On Saturday evening there was a free show by El Choque Urbano at the Flag Memorial. El Choque Urbano are a group of guys who make percussion music using industrial objects, à la Stomp or Mayumana. Their budget's limited compared to Stomp, but they make up for it with very good acting. The show began at sunset before a crowded Flag Memorial courtyard, and lasted about two hours. I sat there with some of the Rosarigasinos and a few thousands of other people and enjoyed it very much.

I need to tell you that I'm madly in love with the Sony H7's hyperzoom. I was like 100 meters away from the stage and I could see El Choque's guys quite clearly. I took a lot more video but I was fearing the battery would die at any moment, and then at home couldn't be bothered to wait for it to upload on my faltering DSL connection.

We had a late dinner after the concert, and there was much rejoicing and dark beer and coffee and then some more coffee. I staggered back to the bus stop and got home at about 4 AM, where I promptly collapsed, only to wake up six hours later to prep an asado for a couple of friends. This kind of full-day fun marathon used to be easy for me to endure. I'm getting so old...

Old Year's balance

I can gratefully say that, of all the important things that happened to me during 2006, most are good things. In roughly chronological order:

1. I spent 10 days in Mendoza (you have to know the place to understand how much this means) and I made a true friend of one who had so far been only a funny acquaintance.
2. I got changed from one office to another — farther from my boss, and closer to good workmates, who remember your birthday and spoil you with medialunas.
3. I got myself a broadband connection!
   
4. I turned into a manic amateur photographer right after getting my digital camera, and I loved it.
   
5. I travelled to Córdoba City for Easter's long weekend with friends and noticed a few nasty things about myself (yeah, learning hurts but it's good).
6. I went to lovely little Colón, Entre Ríos, and though I arrived alone, I didn't feel alone at any time while I was there, thanks my host and several wandering folks like myself.
7. I started this blog, and several interesting people actually read it!
8. I went to a wedding party in Concordia, Entre Ríos, and because of someone else's bad planning I ended up having a whole day to walk around the city.
9. I got a salary raise and was finally taken out of a bizarre "temporal employee" category where I'd been for 3 years.
10. I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 3, in Buenos Aires, and it felt quite easy, plus the bus trip was funny.

In general, I went to new places, and I did the social circle dance — made friends, said good riddance to some. In comparison, the bad things were few and scattered and mostly they didn't happen to me, but around me. The really bad things had to do with ideas that have been rotting inside my brain for years, and I'm taking care of them (I think). Bad things that did not happen to me were:

1. I didn't get mobbed because I don't care for football.
   
2. I didn't get ripped off because I refused to.
   
3. I didn't get forbidden from smoking because I don't smoke.
   
4. I didn't get blacked out much.
   
5. I didn't get blockaded though I may have.
6. I didn't get preached.
   
7. I didn't get hailed on out of sheer luck.
8. I didn't get pesoificated because I've never had dollars in the bank.

The bad thing right now is the heat, almost 34 C and it's only ten minutes to 8:00 PM. That will be solved in time... Everybody, have a nice New Year.