Vacation report: La Rioja City

Joaquín V. González's house

Well, after Talampaya Canyon little of importance could happen to us. The next day, mid-morning, we got on the bus that would take us to the city of La Rioja, and arrived there about three hours later.

La Rioja is a relatively small provincial capital, and I don't have much to say about it, although I do want to be fair and emphasize that we visited it in a hurry and because we had to, since the return bus to Rosario departed from there rather than from Chilecito. La Rioja is cute, but it has no major remarkable touristic spots, with the exception of a huge palaentology museum and some historical churches. The cathedral is also beautiful, but at this stage of our vacations we were no longer terribly impressed about this sort of things.

There's a house resembling a castle where the famous Joaquín V. González lived (the one who built Samay Huasi in Chilecito as a house of rest), and a fair amount of ample, well cared-for public squares, but no big parks within the urban downtown area.

Parque Yacampis, the public park where the zoo is located, lies almost outside of town, and either because of the drought or sheer carelessness it looks rather decrepit. The zoo itself is surprisingly large and comprehensive for such a small city, and we spent a couple of hours going from one cage and enclosure to another. Among the primates there are caí monkeys (capuchins), a spider monkey, and baboons; also many birds, including a miserable condor which seemed to have too little space to exercise its vast wingspan; llamas and guanacos, too, and less curious animals such as goats and pigs.

The "problem" (note the scare quotes) with La Rioja is that, touristic or not, it's a "deep country" city with a small town mentality, and siesta time is sacred, so even the finest restaurant on the best parts of downtown shoo off customers during the afternoon. The traveller that arrives from Chilecito, for instance, checks in at the hotel and goes looking for late lunch, is in for a bad surprise and will be forced to a hungry pilgrimage around the city before he or she can find a table and a waiter.

We stayed in La Rioja all Friday afternoon and Saturday until sunset, when our bus departed. Again we had the unforgettable experience of an interrupted return trip. In March, you'll remember, we were stopped en route by a picket of farmers near Villa María, Córdoba; now it was a bit earlier, when the engine failed and started losing diesel. Marisa, doubtless because of the fuel vapours, felt sick all night; she couldn't force herself to eat so much as a mouthful of dinner, and the nausea lasted even a couple of days after our return. Fortunately we weren't delayed a lot: we stopped in La Falda, north of Córdoba, and we waited an hour or so until a replacement bus was sent from nearby Capilla del Monte. So in the end we got to Rosario two hours after schedule.

And that's the end of my vacation report.

Vacation report: Talampaya Canyon

Two days after our first, failed attempt, we finally got to see the Talampaya National Park. This was what we'd come to La Rioja for, so we were exhilarating.

The weather had changed. It was cloudy and rather cool, and the tour guide warned us about being so happy, since there was a possibility, if remote, that it could rain. I made the mistake of not taking along more warm clothes than I had already on...

The canyon's walls (there are earthquakes here)

Marisa, frozen, just like me

The trip felt shorter than before. The Cuesta de Miranda wasn't full of splendour under the sun like the previous Tuesday, but dark, with deep colours toned down by the cloud cover. We got to the park's entrance, registered, and then the van kept on going for 12 km. The Talampaya National Park is huge (2,150 km²), but the touristic part, the one you can actually visit, is just the canyon formed by the Talampaya river (which is a dry bed of dust most of the time), with rocky walls chiseled by wind erosion.

We got to the canyon and got off the van to do our trekking. It was bitterly cold and the wind didn't help it, but luckily it hit us from the back. I immediately realized I should've brought at least two more layers of protective warm clothing, plus a scarf, gloves and a wool cap. Marisa was a bit better protected than me and she had a hood over her head; the tips of my ears painfully froze in a matter of minutes.

All this notwithstanding, when you walk for a while at a good pace you forget the cold, even more so when you have such a great spectacle before your eyes. At this point I must let the pictures speak for themselves, because I don't have proper words to describe the immensity of the view. All I was left with was impressions — the clearest one being one the guide made us notice, our inability to grasp the sheer height of the canyon's walls. I don't know how much they were apart; for us, walking along the midline of the utterly dry riverbed, they seemed close enough, but when we tried to get closer we noticed we were never there, it took us a minute or so to get to where your hand could actually touch the reddish rock wall, and then you looked up and it was impossible to see the end of it. The Talampaya Canyon's walls are up to 180 metres high, equivalent to a 60-storey building (there are none so high in Argentina, by the way).

The "chimney"

Our other impression was that of geological age. The wind we felt was dragging and blowing sand and dust; that we could see. But it was hard to relate that to the worn-down, polished, modelled walls. How many millions of years of wind and sand there were on those rocks, I don't know.

The guide showed us petroglyphs, symbols and human and animal characters carved on the surface of the rocks by the ancient natives of the place, who didn't live there but sent their shamans to perform occult ceremonies there (some pictures of petroglyphs can be viewed on my other blog). It's easy to understand how they came to believe the canyon was appropriate for the supernatural; I myself, who don't believe in it, had a perception of concreteness, of such overwhelming solidity that it felt more than sheer material stuff. (Even now my regret is not having touched those rocks with my bare hands a little more. It sounds incredible, but I hardly touched them.)

In a couple of spots, the shape of the rocks and the canyon multiplies the echoes. A cry uttered there rebounds so that you can hear entire sentences repeat themselves four or five times, clearly, all along the walls, at a great distance.

In another spot, a fortuitous combination of factors make the scarce humidity of the place gather and create a natural "garden", with several typical desert tree species. Besides trees and bushes there are maras (wrongly called Patagonian hares — they're cousins of Guinea pigs).

The climax of our experience was looking up and seeing two black shapes gliding among the red peaks, perching on a rock for a while, then flying again. They were condors. There was no way to estimate their size, but we knew a condor can have a wingspan of three metres and these were at high altitude.

A van full of tourists went by and came back after a while. The passengers glared at us, confused. What were we doing outside in this freezing weather, walking miles along the canyon? And just what were looking at so eagerly, up in the sky? Our guide explained that many tourists, instead of hiring the full tour, come by themselves to the park. As they arrive, the management offers them to ride on their vans (it's how they do business). The tour on the van is much cheaper than doing the trip from Chilecito, getting off and hike for two and a half hours with a guide on your side, but it's much more partial. The whole show is reduced to what you can see from the van's windows. Of course you can't see the condors. I don't know what those poor tourists are told, but based on what the guide said, many tourists who came to see the canyon realize only later than they've been sold a very small part of it.

As we walked into the "garden", a shower of tiny, cold things floated down from the sky. It was (barely) snowing. I was happy as a child. Where I live it hasn't snowed since before I was born. Once in my life had I touched snow, when I was 17, in Bariloche.

We took the way back. The wind now blew into our faces. I felt my nose freezing over. Marisa had lost all the healthy colour she'd acquired during the previous days outdoors. Our hands were livid, devoid of blood. It couldn't be much above zero degrees, and there was no shelter. After what seemed like eternity, we came back to the parked van. It took us a while to stop shivering.

In the Cuesta de Miranda, 2,000 metres above sea level, it was snowing with minuscule snowflakes of a white so white it looked fake, like a rain of fine-grained expanded polystyrene; the clouds veiled the peaks. Coming down from those heights, we saw again the already familiar hills of the Famatina, the highest of them subtly covered with snow. It wasn't much, but I hope it helped. In Chilecito, when there's no snow in the winter, there's no water in the summer.

Back from vacations

I'm back from my vacation! I'm trying to summarize all the information and to review all the pictures I took, so it'll take me some time to recount my 1-week experience in Chilecito and La Rioja... but I'll get to it.

Repeating what I wrote on Sin calma, it was a week full of variations — especially weather-wise. First it was sunny spring, which in dry, northern Chilecito means cool nights and blazing-hot days under the sun. Then came the zonda, which is a föhn wind that comes down from the mountains carrying tons of dust and is usually very hot, though this time it was atypically cool. And then there was rain (more like a drizzle, but still extraordinary in this arid land), and then a cold wave hit the whole country and it even snowed a little on the mountaintops. So we got to wear almost all the clothing we'd brought with us, which was nice in a way — because I always pack things just in case which are returned home unused.

The trip to Chilecito lacked any surprises, except the fact that the bus departed and arrived on time. The return trip was a bit bumpy, which makes three of that kind for me since January, and two for Marisa and I as a couple (the first one, you'll remember, took place while the farmers were blocking the roads). If I believed in such nonsense, I'd believe I'm under a jinx of some kind.

I reckon we travelled about 3,000 km total by bus and on a van, plus a few more kilometres on foot, including a few hundred on the vertical axis. I took in a considerable amount of sunlight and sweet honey paste, I ruined an almost brand-new tripod, I submitted to wearing a Mets cap Marisa gave me to prevent sunstroke, I snapped about 1,100 pictures, and I saw llamas, guanacos, maras (Patagonian hares), and condors (three of them for sure, one of them in a zoo cage).

I'm writing a travel chronicle in a more literary, un-blog-like format, in Spanish, which I'll post somewhere else when finished, in case you can read it (and want to try). In the meantime, I'll post my travel stories here. Be patient!

In case you were wondering, I'm having Internet access problems both at home and at work, so the reports may not come smoothly...

Vacations!

I'm going on vacation! Tonight I'm boarding a bus with my girlfriend Marisa and heading for the province of La Rioja, in the northwest of Argentina. We're staying for a week in Chilecito, a town of about 30,000 in an artificial oasis near the center of the province, between two mountain ranges. Although it certainly looks like a lovely place and we'll tour the surroundings, checking out its vineyards and its abandoned mines high up in the sierras, our main goal is to see the marvelous geological formations of Talampaya and Ischigualasto, located south of Chilecito.

Talampaya is a national park; Ischigualasto, better known as Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), is a provincial park and lies in the territory of the neighbouring San Juan Province. Both places are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They feature some weird geological patterns caused by erosion; Ischigualasto is also renowned for the presence of many, well-preserved ancient dinosaur fossils.

I may have time to leave a few scheduled posts ready for publication, but other than that, I don't think I'll be able to check this blog. I'm leaving comments open without moderation for registered users, in case you absolutely need to express yourself while I'm away. I'll be back, hopefully with good stories and many pictures, on Sunday, September 7.

Lament for La Rioja

Argentina is a federal country. Most of the power resides (in theory) in the provincial states, which delegate some functions in the national federal government. The opposite would be a unitarian country. Since its independence in 1816, and until its final unification around 1860, Argentina was torn by civil war led by proponents of these two opposing systems.

In truth, many of the federalists were caudillos, powerful provincial chieftains, and they couldn't care less for the concept of decentralized government as an ideology. They just wanted to be left alone by the central power, residing in Buenos Aires, to continue ruling their lands like feudal lords.

This is still true for most of Argentina outside the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Córdoba, not coincidentally the ones most populated and the most productive. The north of Argentina is, in practice, ruled by hereditary successions of heirs linked by blood ties or lifelong political association; these dynasties are only broken every now and then, when the political establishment is shaken by strange coincidences or major crises.

These days the whole country witnessed, without so much as a mild outrage soon forgotten, the pathetic, dreadful spectacle of such a crisis in La Rioja. Twelve years ago, governor Ángel Maza succeeded his political patron, Carlos Menem, who had stayed in power for several terms before becoming President of Argentina. Maza himself got re-elected three times. In the meantime, the once all-powerful Menem became politically meaningless and Néstor Kirchner's rising star gathered a large following of opportunists. Maza realigned with Kirchner, as expected. In 2005 he ran for Senator of La Rioja against Menem, without resigning as governor. He won and, having beaten Menem as intended, resigned from his senatorial bench and continued ruling as governor. This is absolutely unethical but not illegal.

Now vice governor Luis Beder Herrera had an agreement with Maza: when the time came, Maza forfeit re-election so that Beder Herrera (who's been vice governor of three different governors, totalling 15 years) could run for governor. Something went wrong, however, as Maza ignored the agreement and prepared to run for a fourth term. Beder Herrera turned against him, and the Legislature he presides reformed the provincial constitution and got it to forbid indefinite re-election (which had been introduced years ago to favour Carlos Menem's own appetite for power). Maza protested. Beder Herrar accused Maza of a series of misdeeds, and got the Legislature to vote a suspension for Maza, pending the formal investigation known as juicio político that is reserved for elected officials. This took some time, which Maza employed to cry foul and denounce an "institutional coup". Furthermore, the national government hinted at the idea of federal intervention to La Rioja. Upon hearing of the legislature's decission, Maza formally asked for the intervention.

Last night, Maza, some of his officials and supporters locked themselves up inside the government house. The judicial branch of La Rioja ordered the police to drive them out. Outside, a demonstration gathered to support Maza. The lumpen-for-hire that are usually the majority in these demonstrations started lighting fires and breaking windows. They set a car on fire, destroyed public lights, and attacked the riot police (loyal to Beder Herrera) with sticks and stones. The police finally came into the government house and forced everybody out except ex-governor Maza and some of his companions.

Now the national government is faced with a tough choice. Federal intervention is not a minor thing. It is used in cases where a provincial state's power has been overtaken or dispersed. It means the federal state coming over, ending the local executive's terms and dissolving the local legislature. To fill this political blank slate the president must then appoint an interventor, who will have a certain time (typically 180 days) to re-organize the province and call for elections again. An intervened province is like an open wound in a federal country, and failure to choose a good interventor means a huge political cost for the president.

Worst of all, this is not a mission to repair injustice. When the government intervened Santiago del Estero in 2004, the province was a nightmare: it had been the fiefdom of the Juárez family for 50 years, a half-senile governor and his wife ruling a mass of poor peasants, held by welfare and public jobs granted in exchange for votes, with a police force that had carte blanche to harass and suppress dissidence, and a judicial branch completely subservient to the executive. Santiago was completely rotten, and yet the national government hesitated to intervene a Peronist-ruled province. The intervention at least brought the corruption into the light.

La Rioja is not like Santiago del Estero. The province has a lot of problems, to be sure, but it's not in the hands of a dark evil leader with a secret police. The mess was caused entirely by two ambitious men fighting for power. It's a catch-22 situation: if there's not an intervention, the national government will be validating Beder Herrera's "coup", which was legal but embarrassing and hardly legitimate; if the intervention takes place, it will be seen as the president using an extremely unsubtle approach to come to the rescue, not of a province in chaos, but of one of his protegés.

By the time you read this, the decission may have been made already. It needs to be ratified by Congress. We know how that works, but in any case, legislative debate will only make this look even more disgusting.