Iguazu

We are in the jungle now and the feeling is different here to Buenos Aires. As you can see in the entry below I have adopted a junglist pose. We have witnessed a lot of fantastic things in very few days and have a lot of pictures to show but unfortunately time and electronic resources are limited and therefore covarage will be strained. In the jungle it is not possible for me to format the photographs either so please forgive me. We have come to an area called Misiones that borders Brazil and Paraguay and produces Mate. Currently we are in Iguazu, an area blessed by the largest array of waterfalls in the world and it is really increadible. I have only too many cliched tourist photographs to show which will not do justice to the experience. Here are a couple.

Hello Jungle

Goodbye Buenos Aires

La Plata

Here we have the river Plate that Buenos Aires rests upon. It is so large that you cannot see to the other side. People say that it is Lion coloured because that sounds better than brown.

Building

This building stands close to where we are staying. It fills me with terror because it is so large and so empty but we won´t have to look at it for much longer because tomorrow we are going to the jungle.

Stormy Weather

Two Year Old

The daughter is two.

Crocodiles

In this boat the daughter and I sometimes go off sailing through crocodile infested waters. It´s very dangerous and sometimes she nearly falls in but luckily I am able to save her. Today I had to operate her hand were she was bitten by a crocodile. There is a Space Ship in the other room.

Street Scene

Security Upgrade Project

I can´t see why they should be so paranoid.

Mate

Mate (pronounced matae) is a kind of nacional addiction. It is a kind of herbal infusion that one drinks out of a sort of dried out pumpkin through a metal straw that filters of the leaves and twigs. If one wishes it could also be drunk from the hollowed out foot of a cow but the idea doesn´t attract me. It is a very sociable ritual where passed around among friends and refilled each time with hot water by a chosen individual. I however have to drink is alone because Emma went off it completely during her pregnancy. Outdoors in the parks and street everyone appears to be prepared with their thermos and mate. I´ve even been offered a mate while hanging around by shop keepers. Anyway now I have my thermos and I am ready. This is a picture of the daughter´s disgust after trying some the other night at the festival. She percevered but I don´t think she will be my mate friend either.

Folclore

We have been fortunate enough in the last week of our stay here to catch a a very well run folk festivalwhich has been set up by the government Buenos Aires and has featured some very prominant artist for free. It´s been set up really beautifully with an outdoor stage next to an old stable where there are instrument and music stalls along side an increadible barbique. The atmosphere is really fantastic everyone sitting outside in the warmth of the evening listening to music and drinking mate but no alcohol. I am being captivated by a whole new world of folkloric music that has very different sounds and rhythms from what I am used to as a European urbanite with an American influence that is easily taken for granted. Very different even from tango which is ultimately a very urban music and has a little more affinity with European sensibilities. The guys in the pictures are the Luis Carnota Trio. Carnota is reveared as one of the greatest modernisers or reinterpreters of folkloric music forms. He was very good. I look forward to absorbing a lot more of the sounds of the country as we travel inwards to the deserts and mountains that gave birth to these songs.

Roots

As you can imagine I have been seeing a lot of family during this leg of the visit. I have been using this opportunity to talk with elder members of the family and listen to the stories about their descendants and at the same time, draw a picture of an era dominated by mass migration of people from all over Europe to this country in search of a sense of progress that couldn´t be found at home. This is a picture of my great grand mother on my mothers side. Apparently she was a real bitch.

sky

This is the courtyard of an old convent set in from the chaos of the city´s financial district. It is like an oasis. We stopped here to eat our packed lunch while on a break from rushing around trying to book flights and such things. Looking at the clouds rapidly traversing the sky above us, the daughter blessed us with one of those childish obsevations: "look, the sky is coming".

Park Scene

Here we have yet another park scene. The colourful thing in the background is the merry-go-round to which the daughter is completely addicted. Every day she begs us for a fix like some kind of a crack whore. This type of children´s diversion is everywhere which makes life a lot more tolerable when you have kids in a big city like this. It´s a fantastic thing how children´s things feature such in a way that would suggest they are a revelent section of urban society.
The guy on the bench is a typical sight on a hot day in the park. Some what untidily, men seem to lie sprawled all over the place. They often lie there as though they had been hit by a boute of narcolepsy bang in the middle of a important activity like writing in a journal or drinking a mate, utensil still in hand.

Peru

This is a beautiful station on the line described below which exhibits some fascinating old advertisments which have been painted on the station walls.

Underground

The Underground system here is a treat. Here we have some photos of a train on Linea A the oldest line in Buenos Aires. The interiors of the trains are made of wood which combined with the dim light from the tungsten bulbs results in a very emotive atmosphere. I find there is a lot of atmosphere to be found in the harsh flourescent lighting of London´s underground system but it is of a very different kind.
The windows of the carriages can open so you are not cacooned from the tunnel breeze like in London. However the tunnels are much more spacious like in New York. If you sit at the front of the train you can see down the cabled tunnels ahead of you and since the trains run only just below street level you pass through the shafts of sunlight that penetrate through the grills in the street. It´s more like a theme park ride than what a Londoner might associate with an underground journey.
The inset detail of the light best reflects the atmosphere that one experiences on the train.

Park Scene

Ice Cream

The Ice cream here is very possibly the best in the world. This is why my efforts to take on the appearance of an adonis are suffering somewhat although today I shaved and already feel more vitallic. Many of the Capital´s street corners are dominated by Ice cream parlours which make their own Ice cream with real, fresh ingredients. Since competition is high so is the quality, a bit like Indian food in Bradford but more refreshing. The result is an enormous variety of sublime flavours and styles.

Roaches

At night the cockroaches come out to scavange like some kind of people of the evening. I´ve never had the honour of seeing how cockroaches live but they don´t strike me as being the horrificly opportunistic, scuttling monsters that one imagines from their representation in popular culture. They have a sort of humility about them. A piece of bread may lie in the street and when night falls, out comes a cockroach and with a sort of gentle patience takes advantage of this offering. As you walk closer it might acknowledge your presence and turn to move away but more like a cautious old man (or a dog) than in the spidery rush that I would have imagined. On realising that ones intentions are benign it will soon go back to resume its activities at the piece of bread. Sadly, I find myself unable to get a better picture of the little bastards.

Sunny day

I leave you with this nice picture of the park this morning. I guess that the last few pictures express the fact that we have not really been doing a lot of touring around lately. They are really just of life day to day which has been quite simple.

Grandmother

This is a picture taken at one of the lovely family gatherings we have been participating in.

Coffee

I couldn´t resist. Here are some more pics of my favourite cafe. I will miss this place a lot when we head off in two weeks. The toilet is just to the right of the bar.

Beard and Spectacles

It is about 0.00am and I am in the twilight zone. I´ve been in this Internet place for hours since this blog business demands a lot time. It´s stinking hot and there is a man next to me soliciting women in chat rooms. I have sat next to him before. He is only here late at night and he has spectacles and a beard but looks nothing like me.......oh I think he just scored himself a date!

Mother

Here is a picture Emma earlier on in the kitchen though it is not her place. Her place is in my heart. That´s cheesy isn´t it?

Urchin

This is a picture of daughter looking suitably urchin albeit in a very distinguished and English sort of way. I particularly like this picture because of the false perspective on the ground.

Plazoleta

Last night I dreamed that it was night time and I was riding my bike down a very busy road against the traffic manouvering to narrowly avoid the cars. Before long a bus was coming straight for me and I knew that I wouldn´t be able to get out of this one and it hit me head on.

Puente Alsina

This is the colonial facade of an old iron bridge that links the federal capital with some of Buenos Aires´ poorer provinces. It´s a very pretty bridge but the smell is intolerable as one crosses. It is like the vile stench of miasma. It goes over the Riochuelo, a rivulette of the river Plate which has been incredibly polluted by the factories that run along it.

Toilet

If I am having a coffee and I need the toilet I go here. It is a very inspiring toilet.
The other day I was in a very run down old cafe or eating establishment of sorts were everything seemed to be broken and stained and the oily clothed residents lent up against a crooked old bar to watch the television in the corner and eat milanesa sandwiches. As I washed down the last mouthfuls of my lumpy mashed potato with cheap red wine and soda, I realised that there was a kind of spanial under the table (which had been shaved all over except for its head in order to look like a lion) giving me a fixed stare with its one eye. As I got up to leave I thought to my self "this is life".

Daughter

One for the grandparents.

Billboard

Bush

On friday there will be a gatherng off most of the South American leaders at a Summit on poverty at Mar del Plata. Bush is coming down to spread some of his free-trade love.
People here are going nuts over the issue and there isn´t a single soul who wants to see him touch down on their precious land. Some due to dissent over the man himself and his policy and others because of a mildly vain fear of what terrorist activity it might bring. I may end up eating my words and I hope not but it is hard to imagine who here would want plant bombs except for maybe some psychopathic opportunists who would wish to cause chaos for the sake of it (there seem to be plenty of those). Nonetheless everything will close on friday largely for security reasons and protest will ensue.
Also an Anti-Summit meeting which will take place with people like Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Maradonna film maker Emir Kusturica etc.
Hugo Chavez will be at both the protest and the summit, where does he really stand? who knows.
Incase you didn´t notice the top image is of a soldier apparently in Iraq sliding down the banister, laughing. The slogan says: "Mister Bush.....is this the culture that you promise?

Maradonna

Maradonna has achieved an astonishing iconic status here. He even has his own TV Chat show which he presents with Ex-Argentina goally Goycochea. The programme resembles something like the Des O´Connor show but apparently enjoys enormous success and the other day he interviewed Fidel Castro. Everything is a little bit surrealistic.
This fireworks display was for Maradonna´s birthday the other day. It was one of the biggest displays I have ever seen eminating from the Boca Juniors football grounds. The Photo´s were taken from our balcony and in one of them you can see the Boca grounds on the bottom with it bluish flood lights dwarfed by the display.

Dirt

There is a lot of dirt in Buenos Aires and it all seems to end up on the daughter. She often resembles a street urchin these days.