Cars, Pt. 2

While Villa La Angostura seemed to be teeming with classic sports cars, Mendoza seemed to be teeming with everyday cars from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  I used to hate the automobile stylings from the 80s, but, and I don´t know if this is nostalgia or a more refined design sense, I really enjoyed looking at the clean lines of the cars I saw in Mendoza.  Some examples below (sorry so many of the photos are in shadow – too many damn trees in Mendoza).

I also dug the more curvy lines of this van.

And this classic little Fiat.

And this Renault 4.

It´s hard to see in the above photo, but Renault 4´s remind me of a képi, the hat Charles de Gaulle wore.

Puerto Varas

Well, I´m back in Puerto Varas, the town where I aborted my bike travels and stored my trusty steed for a few weeks.  Made the dash down here from Santiago last night, and am heading back tonight with the bike (ahh, nothing says good times like 14 hours on an overnight bus, followed by…another 14 hours the next night!).  Being in the south it´s a bit colder.  The air was thick with chimney smoke this morning.  I had forgotten that in Chile and Argentina, central heating is a rarity and practically everyone heats their homes with woodburning stoves.  Most houses also have woodburning ranges in their kitchens.  Below is the one that is in the kitchen of the hostal that I stayed in.

They use that stove everyday.  I even saw new ones being sold in a department store in Valdivia!  Who knew they were still being made?

Another thing that I forgot about Puerto Varas was that there seems to be an inordinate number of hot women for a town this size.  It´s quite unbelievable.  Must be something in the water or something.

Cars

I´m not really a car guy.  But I can appreciate them as design objects.  And when I was in Villa La Angostura a while ago a whole bunch of classics came rolling into the local gas station as I was walking by.  I had to take a few snaps.

This is a sleek looking Ferrari in a lovely, understated grey.

This is a more muscle-y looking Ferrari.  I like the sporty stripes.

This is a sexy little Maserati.  It looks like a 1957 200SI.

And this was my favourite.  An Argentine car called the IAME Justicialista.  It looked even cooler in person.

Gender roles

A couple of things I observed recently showed me how men´s and women´s roles are seen differently down here than back home.

The hostel I was staying in at Iguazu Falls was huge and it sort of operated like a resort or cruise.  There were organized sports during the day, sometimes shows were put on in the evening after dinner.  I was hanging out one afternoon and the guy who was in charge of the afternoon soccer game was going through the common areas trying to drum up support.  At least half of the people there were female, but I noticed he didn´t ask one of them if they wanted to play.  When he met a mixed group of people he would only ask the guys if they wanted to play, not the women.  I´m sure if one of the girls piped up that they wanted to join in he would have said ok, but I don´t think it occurred to him that women would play soccer.

And then today, I passed a graduation ceremony for the Carabinieros (the national police – like the RCMP I guess).  There was a parade down the street and the graduates were marching in formation.  The men looked like military, carrying rifles.  The women, while being in uniform, did not carry guns.  Instead they all carried purses.  It was surreal.

Santiago: murals/graffiti

I have no idea what the text in this next one says.  If anyone who can read Spanish wants to give us the gist, you can tell us in the comments section.

The following shots show an official mural on the outside of a metro station.  Can you imagine the TTC having the creativity and vision to do something like this?

Santiago: some interesting ads

Back in Santiago as I finish up my South American travels (I´m back in less than two weeks!). It´s interesting to see how advertising and visual culture differs from what one is used to at home. I snapped a few examples when I was wandering the streets of the Chilean capital

First we have this mannequin from a major department store:

While he does share that universal mannequin talent of looking relaxed and natural, he seems to have been involved in some sort of a catfight. And with that annoying smirk, I´d be tempted to slap him in the face as well. Yes, nothing makes me want to buy clothes more than a bloodied and smirking dummy.

Next we have this charming couple, prominently displayed in the window of a health food/natural medicine store:

Boy, does he look happy and healthy. Maybe he just knocked back some tincture of echinacea or something. Or perhaps this shop was across the street from the above mannequin and he´s getting ready to knock that guy on his keester.

And finally we have this one:

That´s an ad for women´s shoes, by the way. Because nothing says shoes like a crotch shot. I can hear the photographer right now – “that´s it honey, just act natural”.

Cartoneros

Many aspects have improved since the Argentine economic crisis of 2001, but it still remains difficult for many people to make a living.  On my travels I´ve met a few Argentines that were on vacation.  They were employed in white collar jobs such as librarian and economist.  While they made enough money to be able to afford to go away on vacation, they were sleeping in dorm rooms just as I was.

And then there are the others that don´t make as much.  Here in Buenos Aires I´ve seen men in their fifties, obviously well kept and well groomed, probably employed somewhere, but sleeping on the street with all their belongings in a suitcase.  I´ve seen a parent and child hunker down for the night on a traffic island in the middle of the biggest street in the city.  And I´ve seen the cartoneros.

The cartoneros are the people who go through all the trash bags that are put out each evening, looking for cardboard and other materials that they can sell to recycling depots.  They appear all over the city centre when night falls, working hard, hauling huge bags made of tarpaulin, hustling for a few pesos.  Small children often work beside their parents.  It is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.

Check out these great links for more info.

A photo essay on the cartoneros done less than a year after the economic crisis began:

http://www.worldpress.org/photo_essays/cartoneros/

A blog post from a year and a half ago.  The rest of the blog looks really interesting too:

http://www.magicalurbanism.com/?p=149

An article from a couple of years ago.  Talks a bit about the cartoneros organizing politically:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0125/p20s01-woam.html

Addendum to yesterday´s post

I forgot to mention something about the city of Valdivia, Chile, in yesterday´s post.  The city sits a little bit inland from the Pacific coast on a river.  In the river swim seals.  On the bank of the river sits an open air fish market.  This has created the perfect storm for tourist appeal – seals that just hang out all day waiting to have fish scraps tossed to them.  Must be a nice life.  The city has even set up a pontoon platform for the seals to chillout on.

Here´s a photo.  The market is on the left underneath the multicoloured awning.  You can see the pontoon in the water, surrounded by some orange, spherical buoys.

And here´s a closer look at the pontoon.

And here´s a close up of one of the handsome fellows.  He was a little shy.

And here are some birds who were hanging out, watching the festivities, and probably looking for a scrap or two themselves.

Up to date

Ok.  I am VERY behind schedule with this blog.  Actually, I´ve been behind schedule from the beginning.  Trying to keep things chronological meant that I´ve been posting about stuff anywhere from one to five weeks after the fact.  Well, I´m sort of tired of that.  So today we are going to go on a whirlwind trip from Chiloe (my most recent posts) all the way to Buenos Aires, where I´m writing this now.  I know you´re excited.

From Chiloe I made my way a little north to the Lakes District.  Here you will find many…umm, lakes.  And volcanoes.  And mountains.  And Germans.  What?  Yeah, Germans.  And I´m not talking about tourists (although there are a lot of those too, from all over).  I´m talking about people named Schultz who have blonde hair, speak Spanish, and were born in Chile, as were their parents, and their parents´ parents.  You see, in the late nineteenth century Chile needed this area settled, but didn´t seem to have the population to do it.  Enter the Germans.  So that´s why when I was in Puerto Varas – a small resort town – I not only ate some excellent empanadas, but I also had the best apple strudel I´ve ever had.

Puerto Varas sits on Lake Llanquihue, and I set off along it´s southern shore towards the base of Volcan Osorno.  It´s a beautiful ride along the lake shore with the volcano looming in the distance.

But as the pedals cranked away it became increasingly clear that my body was suffering and had not fully recovered from being sick in Santiago.  Once I started getting the heart rate up and breathing a bit heavier I would cough incessantly, spitting up phlegm.  Energy was hard to come by as well.  And after pedalling for only 20 kms and not being able to go any further for the day, I came to the conclusion that the bike trip was just not working out.  This wasn´t supposed to be an extreme sport.  I didn´t have anything to prove to anyone.  I decided that I would pedal back to Puerto Varas, store my bike at the hostel, and continue on by bus.  The decision made me feel incredibly free.

After spending a couple of days in the college town of Valdivia I decided to cross the mountains and head into Argentina.  I spent a few days in the Argentinian Lakes District.  First in the small resort town of Villa La Angostura, a small town popular with Argentines, and then in Bariloche, a more famous resort city known for it´s scenery and chocolate (the chocolate wasn´t that great, but I had some amazing ice cream there).

Here´s a photo of Lake Nahuel Huapi, near Villa La Angostura (that´s a sailboat in the water).

After the lakes I headed north for about 1200 kms and ended up in Mendoza, in the heart of wine country.  It was a nice picturesque city with lots of trees.  The whole place would be a desert if not for the use of an ancient irrigation system that lines the streets with little canals.

After the wine I moved another 1000kms, east this time, to Buenos Aires, a vast metropolis that feels part European and part South American.

In the middle of my BA stay I zipped up to Iguazu Falls (well, zipped as much as you can when you travel 1300 kms).  The falls are huge, covering an area greater than Victoria Falls in South Africa (although Victoria Falls has more water flowing over it).  They span the border between Argentina and Brazil.  The Brazil side is ok, but the Argentine side is spectacular, with access to many points of the falls, both at the base and at the top.  Pictures don´t really do it justice, but here are a couple.

This is a shot of the Devil´s Throat section of the falls.  It was taken from the Brazilian side.  The weather wasn´t too great that day.

And this is of another section of the falls, taken from the Argentine side.

To put the size of the falls into perspective, the surface area of Niagara falls is 600, 000 square feet.  When Iguazu is at peak flow it´s surface area is 1.3 million square feet.

The Bike

As mentioned earlier, the bike I’m riding down here is a Swift Folder.  This is not your typical, hipster, ’70s-era folder that weighs a tonne.  It’s quite a nice bike.

First let’s take a look at some photos of the naked version, so to speak (I mean no luggage, not myself!).

It’s a little unorthodox.  To begin with, the bike folds in half and sports 20″/BMX wheels.  I´ve also got some swept-back North Road style bars with brake levers attached to the ends.  The bars connect to a SoftRide suspension stem.  They don´t make these anymore.  They were around just before suspension forks became the standard front bicycle suspension.  It gives me a bit of cushion without the weight of a full suspension fork (and I don´t think they make suspension forks for 20″ wheels anyway).  The rear wheel is built around an internally geared hub.  That means that all the gear changing mechanisms are actually inside the hub, so a wire just runs from the shifter at the handlebars right into the hub.  Normally this means that you don´t need a derailleur mechanism hanging down at the back.  I do have one, though, because I have two chainrings at the front, so, presto,  my 8-speed hub becomes a 16-speed hub.  The gear shifter for the hub normally goes on the ends of your handlebars, but because I have that space occupied with brake levers I had to jerry-rig something else.  You can see it below in the “cockpit view”.  The bike also sports some homemade coroplast fenders, a la Kent Peterson.

And here are some photos of the fully loaded version.

I probably shouldn´t have taken the picture against a yellow background when one of my bike bags is yellow.

I have noticed a few drawbacks with my set-up.  First, instead of having bars that sweep back towards me, I should have some bars that point away.  I feel a little too hunched.  Different bars would stretch me out a bit, which I think would be a good thing.  Second, I think the 20″ wheels, while being pretty bulletproof, don´t roll over the rocks on the unpaved roads as well as a larger diameter wheel would.  My speed slows right down on the rough stuff.  And finally, because the bike is not specifically designed for touring, attaching all my gear onto the bike is a challenge and is never done in an optimal way.  Everything is a compromise.  Normally you would have two regular racks, one front and one rear, that you could affix some panniers onto.  No problem, easy.  With the Swift it´s not so straight forward.

Nevertheless, we ride.