Going Down

If we are hoping that life in Lima has improved since Theroux wrote in the late 70's, the same is true with regards to certain aspects of life in Buenos Aires since Miranda France wrote her book, Bad Times in Buenos Aires. It is a fascinating account of post-war Argentinian politics written by France during a year in which she spent in the country's capital and one which brings vividly to life the complexity and confusion which led first to Peron and onwards to the military dictatorship and the disappearances. All of this is in the past, of course. However, the aspect of life to which I am referring and which I hope has changed for the better is one of France's startling statistics. Not only are there 3 times as many analysts per person as in New York and 300 brands of condoms on sale (although only 8 are said to be effective), according to France there were (are?) two deaths a day in lift accidents in the Argentinian capital. Taking the stairs seems very attractive.

One of the things we have plans to do while we are in Argentina is to visit the Iguasu Falls (accent on the final "u" for the sake of pronunciation), flying there from Buenos Aires since it is at the opposite end of this enormous country. I mention this because the Falls, apparently , are bigger and more spectacular than Niagara but-it seems to me-hardly known at all other than by those who have visited them or plan to do so. Another example, along with the archaeological digs, of South America's status as a forgotten continent? Anyway, we will visit, first from the Argentinian side and then we shall walk across into Brazil and look at them from there. Naomi, who has visited them, tells me you can ride underneath them in a boat. I think I will give that a miss. But we will try and put some photos here.

That was then...

Mind you, you do get an idea of what Theroux means by the fading of Peru's glory (see earlier blog) from Hugh Thomson's Cochineal Red: Travels Through Ancient Peru. Everyone knows about the Incas, Cuzco and Machu Piccchu. We will be doing the predictable tourist route, staying in Cusco, the former Inca capital, and visiting the ruins of Sacsayhuaman, Tambo Machay, Puka Pukara and the temple of Q'enko before taking the train up to Machu Piccchu before heading off to Lake Titiaca. Thomson's aim, however, is to show that the Inca civilsation is only one of many ancient civilisations in Peru, the oldest being that of the Caral who lived on the north coast between 3000 and 1800 BC-so not a "New World" at all!

His account is full of fascinating detail written from the perspective of the archaeologist-but is also a lively account of the difficulties involved in undertaking excavation here (which explains the relatively late development of archaeology in this area when compared with Europe, the East and Africa) and the rivalries between different groups of archaeologists. I guess the scarcity of evidence and the importance of interpretation in making sense of what does remain makes archaeology a field that is especially open to academic rivalry-or, in the past, to mind numbing recitation of such proven facts as there are. Anyway, someone could write a good novel with this as the background.

Some things never change

As those of you who know it must agree, Chiclana must be the world capital of truly appalling local government. Projects are started but never (O.K. hardly ever) finished or, if they are finished it is usually well after the projected completion date. For instance the food market which was due to open over a year ago has now been delayed for another few weeks, leaving those brave souls who have opened shops in the adjoining precinct , presumably with the expectation of passing trade, to continue to twiddle their thumbs. A new health centre which was built last year is now window deep in weeds because no one thought to provide adequate parking for it and, so we have heard, the concrete which was used to construct it was "the wrong kind of concrete" and is now crumbling away. Meanwhile, we discover, a town museum has been ready for two years. It even contains exhibits. But it remains closed and has no staff.

This week's local paper has provided some particularly vivid examples of this "Chiclana syndrome". An article earlier in the week highlighted a number of buildings in the town centre which have been in the process of reformation for more than two years and whose scaffolding and netting (to stop them falling on passing Chiclan(y)eros) have now become "a part of the local scenery". Today, the same paper reported that the webcams set up at various traffic hotspots to help drivers plan their journeys and avoid delays have been showing the same pictures on the town council website for several months!

Such is our exciting life, that we sometimes watch whatever is on the Turner Classic Movies channel, and so it was that we recently came across Rosalind Russell and Alec Guiness in a film version of the stage play A Majority of One. Russell, who won a Golden Globe for her performance, plays a Jewish American widow who, thanks to the posting of her diplomat son in law to Japan, meets and is courted by a Japanese millionaire...played by Alec Guiness! The film, which was made in the early 1960s also won an award for its promotion of international relations. Russell's character, Mrs Jacoby, a Russian emigre to the USA, had lost a son in the war aginst Japan, and the film shows how her prejudices are challenged by contact with "real Japanese people", but since this is mostly in the form of a character played rather well by Guiness there is something exquisitely uncomfortable about watching it from a 21st century perspective. Meanwhile, quite without irony it would seem, one of the acts which has made its way through to the final rounds of the Cadiz Carnaval is a version of the Black and White Minstrel Show. I am not sure what I am saying here, except that Franco means that Spain missed out on a whole segment of 20th century development.

As I was saying

An article in The Economist February 7th-13th supports our feelings about the demise of air travel as the method of choice. Apparently in Spain, which has invested heavily in new high speed train routes, including the link between Sevilla and Madrid on which we will travel in a couple of weeks as we begin our journey to South America, domestic airlines have lost a fifth of their passengers and long-distance trains have gained almost a third. Iberia, the Spanish equivalent of BA, with which it has increasingly close ties, is planning to cut domestic flights by 7% this year and a report from the ESADE business school in Barcelona predicts that within two years trains will carry more long-distance travellers within Spain than airlines. So, not just anecdotal evidence then!

So many books, so little time.......

We are preparing for our adventure in South America with some reading. Although we have our route carefully planned and will be taken care of most of the time by the helpful people at Journey Latin America, apart from our month in Buenos Aires, we want to have at least some idea of what there is to see and where we might look for it. Besides, although the baggage allowance is much bigger than we are used to on short haul flights within Europe, we will have to be selective about the books we take in order to leave space and weight for our boots and much else that we will need (or think we will need!) on this sort of trip. It is a challenge to pack for a journey that will include mountains, deserts, big cities, the Orient Express (to Machu Picchu), lots of movement between places etc.

Part of the key to all this is to bear in mind that it is the journey which is the holiday as much as the arrival. Paul Theroux takes this as the starting point not for his packing (although I suppose that he may have done this as well) but for his book The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas. In it he describes a train voyage- the word trip hardly does it justice and even to describe it as epic would be to collapse all its quirkiness into into a bland cliche-from his home in Boston Mass. to the tip of Argentinian Patagonia. We are not actually going to Argentinian Patagonia (although we have been urged to do so by two of the young Argentianian women who work in Meson de Los Americas down by the beach here) but to its Chilean counterpart, but we follow some of the same route as Theroux, probably in slightly more comfort (we are not looking for good copy) and hopefully with some better results at some stopping points. He arrives in Peru, for instance, to find there is a strike of railway workers. and that, "Peru, once a golden kingdom occupying a third of the continenet, had taken a mighty tumble and in defeat looked incapable of supplying those muttering workers with any hope. Few great cities in the world look more plundered and bankrupt that Lima. It is the look of Rangoon, the same heat and colonial relics and corpse-odours: the imperial parades have long ago marched away from its avenues and left the spectators to scavenge and beg.....Like a violated tomb in which only the sorry mummy of withered nationalism is left and just enough religion to console a patient multitude with the promise of happier pickings beyond the grave, Lima-epitomising Peru-was a glum example of obnoxious mismanagement."

This story of Peru's decline is also the gloomy and distant backdrop to Mario Vargas Llosa's Las Travesuras de La Nin(y)a Mala-translated as The Bad Girl. Although most of the action takes place in Europe, its two chief protagonists are Peruvian exiles and the book provides a commentary on the state of Peruvian politics-failed democracy, military dictatorship, the terrorist activities of los sonderos luminosos-and the nature of exile.

Anyway, Theroux's book was published in 1979 and, although Vargas Llosa's is newer (2006, I think) it is looking down the tunnel into Peru's past. We shall see what we find...and report back.