Argentina page 3
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This tower was built by a lady with an interesting story. She was dating the son of one of the wealthiest people in all of South America at around the turn of the century (and SA was fairly wealthy back then). However, the boy's mum didn't like her... she was Irish and a protestant so she wouldn't let the marriage go ahead. So she was pretty pissed off... she wasn't exactly poor so she asked daddy if she could have some money to build some rental property so that she could support herself because she wouldn't have a husband to do that for her. Her dad was like, "yeah, alright, here you go"... and she built this. A very modern building (completed around 1920) and the tallest in Buenos Aires by a mile (well, obviously not 1609m, but anyway). It had central heating and... get this... central air conditioning. How? Via big fans which blew air past massive blocks of ice!
This tower was a gift from the British for the centenary of Argentine independence. Interestingly, Argentina was nearly a British colony... Britain successfully "captured" (it was a very peaceful occupation) Buenos Aires in the early days and, since a third of the population were British anyway, everything carried on as normal and nobody seemed to mind. In fact, most of the infrastructure was laid by the Brits... Argentines drove on the left side of the road all the way up until the 1940s. Anyway, the British left for a while and came back to try and conquer the rest of Argentina... but this time, they were met with resistance and failed dismally.
...and right across the street from the Britains gift... the memorial to the 600 dead from the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas war... definitely not a coincidence.
an impressive statue of San Martin. The base was designed by a German fellow who won a competition (a base-designing competition, in fact). San Martin is supposed to be pointing towards the Andes... but the people who built this thing stuffed up a little... and, instead, he points in a different direction.
This *was* the Israeli embassy. About 16 years ago, a car bomb (well, a small truck actually) did this and what you see here is actually a fairly close approximation to what was left after the bombing. So far, nobody has been brought to trial...
Some buildings can't afford fancy facades... but they can afford to paint windows and roofs to look fancy.
Many parts of Buenos Aires are such that... if I were to wake up here, I would totally think that I was in Europe (probably Spain... because of the Spanish everywhere)
Argentine congress... at the other end of the Ave de Mayo
Ushuaia (20/5/07 - 23/5/07)
Tierra del Fuego - Land of Fire. The indigenous people of this land (yes, people actually used to live here for reasons other than tourism!) used to keep fires lit 24 hours a day so that they wouldn't freeze to death. Early explorers who didn't get close enough to see the people thought that the fires occurred naturally and so named the Island. (Those explorers who did get close enough to see the people got dashed on the rocks... which is why there is a lighthouse... more on that later). Ushuaia is also a special tax-free zone... and it would have to be, the cost of transporting stuff down here would have made settlment here difficult before the airport was built. Most of the roads here still aren't paved, but the town is now expanding rapidly due to the influx of tourists and because if its importance as a stopover on the way to Antarctica (it is so close to Antarctica, that I wonder why Christchurch is such an important set off point... it is more than twice as far away)
The view of the sunrise from my window on my first day...
A few minutes later...
The beagle channell, named for the ship which first sailed successfully through it. I thought it would be a good starting point... I'm not entirely sure what the bouys were for... Ushuaia and its spectacular backdrop of snow-capped peaks can be seen in the background.
A lighthouse... not the most southern lighthouse is the world... but almost. FYI - red-white-red means "trouble to the west", white-red-white means "trouble to the east", "red-white" (red on top) means trouble to the north and "white-red" means trouble to the south.
These are cormorants... birds who are a little confused as to whether they are sea gulls, albatrosses (albatrossi?) or penguins...
Unfortunately it is not the right time of the year to see whales breaching... but these sea lions were determined to give us a good show.
They eventuall led us to their colony... where there were very cute little baby sea lions.
oohhh... a colony. I wonder when this colony will achieve independence
This is our boat... it is not very big... past the lighthouse, the waves start to get very big... much bigger than the boat...I don't feel too well...
We stopped off at one of the islands to have a bit of a walk around. Most of the vegetation here is very similar to the vegetation that one finds in high mountain passes (like Salkantay for example)... so why do we see this stuff at sea-level? Well... the weather conditions here are such that only things that are designed to live in high mountain passes is able to survive here.
our captain thought it would be a good idea for us to have some of their traditional "coffee liqueur".... mmm... perfect for a seasick Daniel...
Ushuaia is a friendly town... the ship closest to us is Argentine, the one right behind it is Chilean. Maybe it is lost.
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