- October 17, 1999
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
Hello again from Buenos Aires. A lot has happened since I got back from the mountains. Last weekend was a holiday weekend here in Argentina. Monday we celebrated the D�a de la Raza (Day of the Race), which is what they call Columbus Day now. It seems that a while back the indigenous of the Americas got a bit upset about the celebration of the conquest of their lands so now the day is named after them instead. Mostly every here was just happy because it was a day off of school and work.
I
celebrated by spending the day in the city of La Plata with my Argentine parents. La
Plata, which is about an hour's drive from Buenos Aires, is the capital of the Province of
Buenos Aires and a quite pleasant city. It's cleaner and has a lot less traffic, which was
a wonderful change of pace. We visited the very large cathedral in the center of town. The
La Plata cathedral is very similar to the Washington cathedral in that it's about the same
age and has very similar characteristics, save that it's a hair smaller. After taking a
brief driving tour of the center of town we went out to the La Plata natural history
museum. The museum was very interesting. Although it was no Smithsonian they had an
impressive collection of skeletons, and other natural history type stuff. It was all along
the lines of what you might find in the States, only that all the animals were different,
this being another continent. On top of the fact that I learned lots of new Spanish animal
names it was a cool from a purely naturalist perspective. A sort of Darwin's dreamland you
could say.
This recent past weekend was well was a lot of fun. On Saturday our group got up early in the morning to board a ferry and cross the R�o de la Plata to visit Colonia del Sacramento in the nation of Uruguay. For me this marks the first time I've left Argentina since I've been here. The crossing was smooth, the water calm. Perhaps the most interesting part about the three-hour ride was getting to look at Buenos Aires from a distance. After we were about an hour our into the river (R�o de la Plata is actually the widest river in the world) we could look back at the city and see an obvious brown haze hanging all along the coast. It stretched from La Plata to Buenos Aires, and an equal distance to the west as well. Like many Latin American cities, Buenos Aires suffers a chronic pollution problem. Sorry Al, but I might just have you beat on the "Most Unhealthy City" prize.
Colonia del
Sacramento on the other hand seemed like paradise. The town is only about the size of
South Haven but is almost as old at Buenos Aires. It was founded by the Portuguese who
came down from Brazil but eventually was taken over by the Spanish. For many years it
served as the center for any sort of illegal trade one didn't want the authorities in
Buenos Aires to know about. These days it's just a beautiful get away spot. Indeed, the
city has managed to keep the old downtown in historic, pristine condition. Here are a few
shots of the historic section of Colonia.� On the right is the lighthouse and ruins
of some of the old fort walls.� Below on the left is the old Plaza Mayor and on the
right a one of the typical streets leading down to the sea.
Aside from just spending the day in the downtown, which would have been sufficient in and of itself, we took a short run out of town to visit a small farm which had been owned by a man with the perhaps not-so-rare obsession of collection. His collection of key chains ranks second in the world and covered the walls of two rooms. His collection of pop/soda cans must be up there as well. He had over two thousand used phone cards, a mighty assortment of ashtrays, and enough pencils to write War and Peace ten times over. It was a fun little trip. If you ever find yourself in that part of Uruguay I recommend making the stop.
I hope life finds you well back there in the States. I'm thinking of you all and I'll see you all soon.
Love,
Jon