What, vacations again?

Folks, I'm going to Córdoba for the long weekend, so you won't be hearing from me until next Wednesday (at least). I leave this evening at 2 AM, and should be arriving in Córdoba at 8:30.

On principle, I oppose the commemoration of the Easter weekend, a religious holiday, as a public national holiday. But this is a minor issue, really, and I don't mind taking advantage of it for a short trip. What else am I going to do, stay home and medidate on my sins while I watch the two hours of torture of The Passion of the Christ? I'd rather relax somewhere else.

Monday, March 24, is the Day of Memory: the 32nd anniversary of the last coup d'état. This is a serious holiday. Right after Easter, no less!

Córdoba City was founded by Jesuits, and the shadow of the Church are everywhere. Two years ago I went to this same city on Easter weekend, and saw the swarms of priests, monks and nuns in old-style garb, and the flocks of the faithful, going about the imposing building of the Cathedral at the time of mass. This is the seat of the oldest diocese in the country, the same Cathedral where people heard the sermons of Cardinal Raúl Primatesta, Primate of Argentina at the time of the coup, who blessed the military, made a list of domiciles of Catholic teachers and workers available to military intelligence, and delivered "Marxist" priests (who worked with the poor) into the hands of the terrorist state. So it will be interesting to see what events are planned in Córdoba, and whether the two celebrations — the myth of death and resurrection, the true story of hopelessness and ruin of a whole country — interact and influence each other.

Besides Córdoba City, where Marisa and I are going to be greeted by a group of local photographers, I'll be visiting Alta Gracia, the childhood home of Ernesto Che Guevara, and Quebrada del Condorito National Park, where we're told you can have condors fly within reach of your hand.

I'm off now. See you next week!

In the midst of oblivion

OK, the title is pretentious... but I'm enjoying a four-day extra-long weekend, courtesy of Argentina's Catholic heritage, and I haven't felt like writing, really. Things haven't changed much.

It rained again, and a few dozens of people are still waiting to get back to their flooded homes. It also rained north of here, where the situation is much worse. April tends to be rainy, unfortunately, so this emergency will probably carry on for some time.

Back here, I started jogging again. My right leg is definitely feeling funny, but not in a painful way. I'm doing my usual circuit along the north-central coast of the city (6 km total, with a pause in the middle) and I hope I'll regain by breath soon... The heat is much less than it was only a month ago, and the mosquitoes are slowly disappearing. We do have bugs — in fact, we're being visited by a species I'd never seen before:


This guy is a member of the same genus (Diptera) as the common mosquito, though it's technically not a mosquito but a fly. Its actual color (in daylight) is grey-greenish. The darker stripes are clearly visible, but only in the picture it's possible to see some faint plumes along the antennae. It doesn't bite. These things were so strange for us here that even the newspaper devoted a short article to them. They are Chironomidae or chironomids, aka non-biting midges.

On an unrelated note, there was some horrible police repression of a demonstration in Neuquén; a teacher participating in a peaceful protest demanding for a salary raise was shot with a tear gas capsule practically at point blank and died within hours. Neuquén is ruled by a rightist proponent of trigger-happiness who is (was?) also running for president. As significant as this is, it's all in the media, and it's not finished yet, so I'll wait a bit to comment on it.

Happy New Year

I hope my loyal readers had a great New Year. Over here it was so hot that we went relatively light on food and focused on cold beer... which didn't stay cold for long. We ate outdoors (a round of sandwiches around 10 PM, main course starting 11 PM) but the air was absolutely still.

The first day of 2007 was even worse. Amidst the constant feed of non-news that fills TV from mid-December until March, great headlines warned us that the temperature was above 35 °C and the sensación térmica (lit. "thermic sensation", a kind of heat index, only it takes the wind into account as well) was almost 42 °C. With the sun hanging high and unmitigated by clouds, the streets were deserted. The media from Buenos Aires reported a catastrophic scenario of empty avenues and the usual massive exodus of porteños towards the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province..., a nightmarish migration of millions of middle-aged men with beer bellies and fat suntanned women carrying along screaming little children and bored teenagers pouring into the very same places they visit and get ripped off at every year since the 1980s. (Who endures a 4-hour traffic jam on a hot road to stay in a hotel room and go to a casino?)

Not that rosarinos don't do the same, of course. The less favoured, however, turn to the public pools, the beach of La Florida, or the islands. I read the other day that Rosario has the largest amount of public pools in the country, where you just get a physical, pay a small fee (AR$5 tops), and stay as much as you want; plus there are more than a few clubs with such facilities. La Florida is a barrio that stretches along the river in the north of Rosario, east of Barrio Alberdi proper, and La Florida is also the name of the beach — which has two parts: a beach resort where you pay, and a free area. La Florida is lined with pubs and bars; at night they tend to get full, since boliches (discos, disco-bars) move to the coast. Finally there's the islands in front of Rosario, which have always been popular but have been greatly developed in the last few years. Boats leave at regular intervals from a few piers taking eager passengers equipped with summer gear.

I'm not a fan of going elsewhere for the day just to keep cool; you have to have equipment and you have to spend a significant time going to and back from the place, all the time sweating while you carry your backpack or whatever. I'm just patiently waiting to get away from Rosario for two weeks. Mendoza is not necessarily cooler (in fact it's hotter at times) but it's much less humid; you can get by just drinking lots of water and staying in the shadow.

I'm wondering whether I should stick to a less-than-daily posting rhythm in this blog. I've been having less visitors lately, probably because they're on vacation. I'll be away for two weeks anyway, and I don't think I'll be posting much (if anything) from Mendoza. I have interesting plans for after the summer, though. Just wait!