A JOURNEY INTO THE MALARIAL JUNGLES OF MISIONES

THE LAST FERRY TO PARAGUAY, ROTISSEUR GAUCHESQUE, A WATERFALL ON THE IGUAZU AND OTHER OCCURRENCES

What did you do this weekend?

Gentle reader, I write to you now through the thick fog of the last stages of a very nasty reaction to a completely unnecessary vaccination against the jungle malady known as yellow fever. The reason for this unpleasant adventure in prophylactic medicine? A direct order from Global Student Experiences HQ in Irvine, California, where the dope smokers and hacky-sack champions turned millionaires organizing my exchange decided that no students would be allowed to Iguazu Falls without the vaccine. Never mind, of course, that there hasn't been a single confirmed case anywhere near Iguazu in years, the almost complete absence of the mosquitos that spread the disease at this time of year, and the near impossibility of healthy white people with health insurance dying from the disease. Anyway, I guard the bastards no rancor; Iguazu was the most amazing place I've been in years and a little yellow fever is just the price I'll have to pay. 

Ready to leave civilization behind - Jorge Newberry Departure Lounge

Before leaving, I was overcome by the desire to take advantage of the fact that Iguazu lies at what is known as "la triple frontera," where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet at the confluence of the Parana and Iguazu rivers. The region is as famous for its lawlessness than it is for the striking beauty of the waterfalls straddling the Argentina/Brazil border. For comparison, it is estimated that 1 million tourists visited the national parks in Brazil and Argentina last year, and I personally estimate that 1 million pirated DVD players were sold in Paraguay in the same period.  I wanted a slice of the pie. I wanted to buy stolen goods in Paraguay. Americans cannot legally enter Brazil without a consular visa, so I had decided to leave that for some other time and head to "Latin America's Mexico," Paraguay.   I became obsessed with Paraguay, and if I had to get some pointless vaccine on the whims of some birkenstock wearing post-feminists back in California, so be it. 

The people behind the organization of my exchange down here, to be fair, are giving me a lot more than the other programs with students at Belgrano, but all the same they tend to try to keep us in a very touristy sort of bubble. Iguazu, granted, is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world. Really, people only go there to see the waterfalls, and the national parks very complete network of Jungle catwalks and narrow gauge railways do most of the work in taking some of the adventure out of seeing the waterfalls. The thing about the falls, of course, is that they are too magnificent to really diminish with a few catwalks, or the presence of a few other gawking tourists. 

I wasn't going to let GSE screw up the rest of my time at the Tri-Frontier, though, so I decided to get straight to Paraguay where no tour groups dare to go. I didn't want a regular tourist experience with a bunch of clueless Americans being lead by the nose by our program director to pre-approved frippery (It took something of a revolt, for example, to keep Alfredo from taking us to an American chain restaurant in Mar del Plata). Everyone I asked told me the same thing, though.

"It is impossible for you to go to Paraguay." 

I had arrived on a Friday. To go to Paraguay by Taxi, you need to cross though Brazil and it was already too late in the afternoon to catch the last ferry back until Tuesday. 

I was despondent. I was outraged. Upper middle class young white men like me are not used to having the law apply to us, and this rude assertion of Brazilian sovereignty was killing me. There was no Paraguay in the cards for me, it seemed. I resigned to do what the tourists do. I hopped into a cab with a few friends whom I had severely let down after talking up Paraguay to them the whole week before, and asked the driver to take us to see the three frontiers. 

On the way to the river port he put on a DVD in a little flip down screen about the history of some hydroelectric dam. I asked him for some local music instead. This seemed to spike his interest somewhat. I confessed to him that Americans of a certain class and disposition have an obsession with authenticity. He looked authentic enough to me, and I wanted to get as much about the reality of the region out of him as possible in three days.

My fried Anastasia put to him that instead of the port, he should take us to some kind of bar where the locals would be eating. He thought it over, and then he asked the question that made the weekend.

"How about a an asado in the jungle tonight?"

Matt Fox of Baltimore and our driver, Miguel, at dinner later that night.

Miguel, our driver, it turns out, is part of a smaller, weirder and better tourist industry in Iguazu. He took us to the port all the same, and while we waited for a futuristic catamaran tour down the Parana, he went off to talk to a friend of his. That's how we met Fabricio. Anastasia and her friend Natasha thought he was dreamy. Matt and I thought he was awesome. In short, Fabricio is a gaucho, and he was going to host us at his humble home in the Jungle after our catamaran cruise returned. 

Fabricio and I talked a little about literature, which he used to study before he became a gaucho/tree husbander. We made a deal for the dinner, and he went off to prepare while we watched the sun go down over the confluence of the rivers and the triple frontier. The last ferry to Paraguay, loaded with the boxy vans that move the third world, set steam without us, but I didn't mind so much anymore.

The catamaran tour was strange. We cruised down the river aways in this very futuristic boat (if the future hadn't been properly serviced in a few years, anyway) until we came to this beach on the Paraguayan side of the river. We beached. Finally I was in Paraguay, even if it was just for a few minutes. What were we doing here in Paraguay? We had come to observe an ancient Guarani ritual, carried out twice a day on the banks of the river in exchange for bags of food and medical aid from the catamaran company. Everyone went out to the front of the boat to watch the dancing of the indians, which was, to say the least, somewhat uninspired. The scene was starting to give me a bad feeling. Tourists from all over (mostly from Spain and Buenos Aires) were staring wide eyed. It was as if space aliens paid me to go back to church so they could observe homo sapiens' capacity for spiritual feeling.  We left the Guarani behind to be treated to a selection of everyone's favorite songs from all over the Spanish speaking world.

Miguel came to get us at the hotel that night, and we set off into the jungle for the most delicious barbecue that I've ever had. We left the town behind, passing some indigenous houses, a half built schoolhouse, the carwash and then we were in the jungle, going up a mountain. Miguel played with us once we were out of town, shutting off the lights and showing us how pitch black it was out there. Then we got lost. We stopped to get our bearings for a minute.

Then we saw a lantern light coming out of the Jungle. Fabricio had seen the lights from the car and come out to find us. We followed him on foot back to his place, a patch of land with a small shack for sleeping, a lean-too for cooking and a bunch of seedlings growing out of cut up soda bottles. 

Mostly, when we got there, we were speechless (unusual for me). Fabricio had set up everything beautifully. He told us all about his home, what he did out there, living in the Jungle. It was wonderful. Fabricio had been a literature student before he ran off to become a gaucho. He had worked a few years artificially inseminating pigs and cows before he visited Iguazu on a vacation five years ago. He fell in love with the place, and decided to stay.

The dinner he made us was fantastic. We ate like kings out under the stars. Everything was perfect. The meat of Argentina is known to be the best, and the meat in the countryside is even better. Meat cooked over a wood fire is better than charcoal, and the meat of Misiones grows out the famous red soil of the province, giving everything a special flavor. Fabricio had arranged everything  wonderfully. For desert we had fresh bananas, straight from the jungle, and special hand rolled gaucho cigars from Paraguay.

Of course, our authentic Jungle barbecue is only so different from paying Guarani to come out and dance. That was an authentic Guarani dance, after all. What does it mean to be a tourist? Does paying to see a waterfall make it less of a waterfall? Who knows, really. I like to think Miguel, Fabricio and I got on well, but the truth is that I still paid them. I got what I wanted, I got to get away from my program, hang out with a gaucho, smoke paraguayan cigars and eat a ton the best meat I've ever had in my life. They got what they wanted, and it's too base to say that they just wanted to make money. Fabricio is digging another well, and trying to start a business raising indigenous trees. Was I saving the rain-forest?  Maybe. My point is this - you can only get so authentic in one afternoon. 

A TRIP TO THE FALLS

They've got all these catwalks set up that take you through the jungles and over the rivers so you can get to the falls without damaging the rain-forest ecosystem. 

This is called the "Devil's Throat" waterfall. It's biggest one of the falls at Iguazu. Everybody in the crowd here was talking about death. This photo does not capture how epic it is to look down into the Devil's Throat. No joke, everybody was talking about death. So many people probably kill themselves here.

There are a million rainbows all over the place.

This boat took us right underneath the falls. Like, they just drove the boat straight into the waterfall. It was awesome. Everyone got so soaked, and everyone else was wearing jeans. The fools.

My mom just came back from Egypt. A lot of her pictures from the temples have "orbs" in them, that are allegedly the spirits of the Pharaohs or something. The spots in this picture are drops of water. 

Some photos come courtesy of Traci Fortier. 

SOME PHOTOS FROM THE FOOTHILLS OF THE ANDES

I've finally got around to having this pictures developed onto a CD. I took them on my trip to Salta before the start of this semester. 

I really wish you all could have seen what's in the left quarter of this picture. You wouldn't even believe it if I tried to describe it. It was so cool. The coolest thing I've ever seen, ever.

This is the boarding area for the cable car to the top of the mountain in the city of Salta, Cerro San Bernardo. Keep your eye on the married couple buying tickets.

Here they are again! A lovely French couple from the city of LeMans. They spoke neither English nor Spanish, and I relished this opportunity to be more cultured than a couple of snooty French people. Where do they get off, anyway?

Anyway, I was nice enough to them long enough for them to take my picture.

Do you see the cloud in this picture? That's how high up this cable car goes. I would have been terrified, but I saw a plaque that said the thing was made in Switzerland.

There it is, the city of Salta, Argentina. It's a nice town. The people are friendly, the streets are pretty convincingly paved (downtown), and they've got some beautiful colonial buildings (not pictured). The top of this mountain turned out to be kind of a bust, though. There were lots of bees, and some people selling the same Artesanal bric-a-brac available in tourist traps the length of the continent. Also, they had stopped making lunch by the time I got up there. I was starving. The lemonade was good, but a bee flew into it. 

Anyway, this is Stan, from Hong Kong. He was staying in my Hostel, and we decided to hit up the tour to the mystic city of Cachi. This tour was definitely the highlight of my trip to Salta. Stan and I were laughing it up in the back of the bus, because he's a pretty rad guy. He doesn't speak Spanish, he barely speaks English, and he decided to quit his job as an electrical engineer to travel all over South America doing landscape photography. 

This was our tour guide (Check out the super-official khaki outfit). Once these two old ladies stopped paying attention he started hitting on the two girls from Buenos Aires in the front. I took this picture right after he said, "The Black Widow is a small spider, but so dangerous." 

We'd stop every once and a while to hop out and take pictures. Some of the road was flooded out from the rains the night before, so every time I got out of the van alive I felt like I had accomplished something. This is another friend of mine from the Hostel.

Here's a little cemetery we passed on the way up the valley. 

That sign says "Put your batteries in me," which is a play on words in Spanish. It doesn't mean what you think it does. Also, when we were having coffee here the tour guide and I got to talking about studying German. When it turned out that we had both taken it in high school he said to me (not about the woman in the picture), "This chick has a totally nice ass." 

This is a FUCKING GAUCHO. This photograph is not staged. That's how much I keep it real. 

The road in the background is called "La Cuesta del Obispo." It was built by Indian slaves in order for an extremely fat Bishop to cross the hills and proselytize to the people on the other side. In addition to having to build the road, they had to carry the Bishop, who couldn't walk too far because of his gout.

Here's a monument to the simple faith of these decent country people. Painstakingly constructed on the top of this mountain. Note the clouds are actually lower than the chapel. Nobody lives up here. 

Anyway, we finally made it up the valley and into the high deserts of Salta. I bought a bottle of wine on the side of the road, guaranteed to have been stamped by genuine artesanal peasants. This is me with Argentina's national cactus, the Cardon. 

Cachi, principal street, noon. 

Llama. 

BREAKING NEWS

STRIKE IS TEMPORARILY LIFTED FOR "NEGOTIATIONS"

ARGENTINE STRIKE ENDS, SHORTAGES PERSIST

ARGENTINA FARMERS SUSPEND STRIKE

"I HAVE ANOTHER SIN - BEING A WOMAN" - C. F. de K.

MEAT STRIKE: DAY 21

"To the client: We inform you that for reasons beyond the control of this business, we find ourselves with a deficiency of meat products"

First off, allow me to wish all my readers a very happy Argentine Malvinas Islands day. In the grand tradition of politics in this country, yesterday President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner reaffirmed Argentina's inalienable sovereignty  over the tiny, sheep-rich islands just as she managed to send the country straight to hell with a 40 percent tax increase on soy exports. Although global prices for agrarian exports are at their highest level in years in years, La Presidenta's glorious leadership has resulted in a general strike across the farm industry. Gauchos are burning bails of hay on the highways at roadblocks every few miles to prevent any agrarian products from going anywhere, and millions of cows, pigs, sheep and chicken are enjoying a stay of execution. Instead of enjoying an enormous influx of foreign currency, the country is at a complete standstill. 

Why are these Gauchos enjoying an afternoon drive instead of killing me some steaks?

More pressing to me than the fate of the country, though, is that there is no meat anywhere. I don't want to say that I came here to eat steak, but I certainly didn't come here to not eat steak. Rather large numbers of the locals seem upset as well, and protests have taken place all over the city. Unfortunately, these protests have gone from extremely annoying to violent in a rather short span of time. It began with large middle class protests against the government that saw thousands taking to the street (or simply hanging out the windows) banging pots and pans. I was willing to endure this cacophonic outburst of popular sentiment as I thought that the nonstop clanking might encourage the government to reconsider is position.  The Peronists, however,  already know that they do not enjoy major support in the capital, and have decided to play to their base by not appearing weak in front of the effete citizens of Buenos Aires. Instead, Kirchner's government has brought in the nations number one rabble-rouser to create the appearance of grassroots support by whipping up a mob. Some of the counter demonstrations organized by Luis D'Elía (pictured below) have already erupted into brawls, largely ignored by the federal police.  

Mr. D'Elía supplies thoughtful commentary to representatives of the fourth estate.

To a crowd of thousands bused in from the slums and suburbs of the city, La Presidenta delivered an impassioned speech about how the nebulous and fascistic powers behind the current strike have conspired to undermine her government because they fear the mob (not Cristina's words) and because she is a woman. Then, in a masterstroke of political double or triplethink, she changed the topic from the present situation paralyzing the country to the 1976 military coup and then on to Argentina's specious claim to the windswept Falkland Islands.  

 La Presidenta opens the roads with ruthless efficiency. 

Allow me to attempt to enter the mind of her excellency: This strike is being perpetrated against me by fascists because I am a woman, these same fascists are responsible for the last coup, the fascists want to keep the country weak, the country needs the Falkland Islands, do not look at the man behind the curtain. That the 1976 coup just so happened to oust the other woman president to occupy the Pink House allows Cristina to distract the audience from the issue of the unjust tax increase and create sympathy for herself by portraying herself not only as the victim of sexism, but also by assuming the unassailable mantle of a martyr of the dictatorship.

Instead of focusing on the government's exorbitant tax hike on small farmers, the audience is left with the impression that Cristina - sanctified by the blood shed in the dirty war - is defending the country from the criminals of the oligarchy. That the claim to the Falklands was by and large manufactured by these same criminals (Nicolás Francomano himself, probably) when their own incompetence was becoming readily apparent matters little. Even though it was the fascists whom Kirchner decries that had the idea to invade the Falklands in the first place, the president seems content to manipulate the mob with the feverish sloganeering of irredentism rather than addressing the problems she has created. 

All things being equal, I suppose that this sort of political duplicity exists in every country of the world (except in Scandinavia), and that Argentina is still better off with Peronism's duplicity than Bolivarian Socialism's totalitarian inclinations. Maybe someday they will get the Falkland's back, but until then I'd like somebody to do something about the steak situation.

WHO IS GAUCHITO GIL?

Your correspondent at a shrine to the popular saint known as Gauchito Gil

The altars to the folk hero and popular saint known as Gauchito Gil are hard to miss. The faithful paint them bright red, fly red flags, leave red wine, marlboros and roses. A shrine to Gil on the Pampa is a bright spot on the immense open plain. But who is Gauchito Gil? How did a simple Gaucho come to be venerated as a saint across the entire country? 

Gauchito Gil is, of course, first and foremost a gaucho. It is not difficult for me to imagine a doctoral thesis gathering dust in the library of the University of Buenos Aires, "Gauchito Gil as Homo Faber: Proletarian Ideology in Argentine Popular Religion." He was a simple countryman from the province of Corrientes, though, and most likely never got around to reading Arendt or Frisch. He most likely would have received his education from the fiery songs of the traveling payador (traditional Gaucho minstrel). Given this upbringing in the folklore of love, loss, betrayal and bloodshed, it seems appropriate that the story of Gauchito Gil's life begins with a star crossed love between the humble Gaucho and a beautiful widow. 

The widow's brothers, little pleased with the rumors circulating in the small town of Pay Ubre regarding late night serenades and other such latin follies, decided that Gauchito Gil had become an unacceptable nuisance. The brothers gathered up the decent citizens of the town and put Gauchito Gil to the chase. He escaped by the skin of his teeth, disguising himself in the rawhide of a young calf and roaming out of town after dark. 

Gauchito Gil serves with distinction (bottom right)

Unable to return to his natal lands, he decided to join the Army of the republic and fight in the wars against the Paraguayans. Gauchos take naturally to warfare, given their hearty constitutions and penchant for violence, and Gil served with distinction in a Gaucho army. At the battle of Tuyutí,  Gil's battalion was ambushed by a group of elite Paraguayan indian scouts. As the other soldiers in of the unit were on the point of turning and running in the face of Paraguayan savagery, Gauchito Gil wiped the blood from the blade of his dagger and used it to signal General Mitre that the flank was about to crumble. He then animated the retreating soldiers to stand and fight until the reinforcements arrived. Thirteen thousand Paraguayans died at Tuyutí.

Needless to say, Gauchito Gil returned to the village in triumph, the opinion of the townsfolk regarding him being considerably swayed by the row of medals across his chest. He was able to resume his affair with the lovely widow, but their affair was cut short again by the scheming of the brothers. In spite of Gauchito Gil's exemplary conduct on the field of battle, and the inestimable service he had rendered to the fatherland, the brothers could not bear the sight of the peasant with their widowed sister. They conspired to have Gil drafted into service again, this time in the Federalist Army of the future dictator Rosas. 

Note the red sash - the color of the federalists would become part of the symbolism of Gauchito Gil

Gauchito Gil was no stranger to bloodshed after his service in the Paraguayan War, but the violence of the civil war was simply too much for him. After months of constant bloody skirmishes, Gauchito Gil had had enough. He had reached the breaking point, and when pushed to fight again he just snapped. Versions of the story differ, but all agree that Gauchito Gil stripped all his clothes, killed his horse and anointed himself in the blood, covering himself from head to foot. "Here is your federalist uniform!" he is reported to have screamed before running off onto the Pampa. 

No one knows what happened to Gauchito Gil during the months that he was pursued across the countryside. When they found him the horse's blood had dried onto his skin. He had tamed a wild stallion and rode him without saddle or tack. The Federalistas chased him into the desert until he collapsed from the exhaustion of riding naked without food or drink under the hot sun of the blazing Chaco. As they hanged him by his ankles from the branches of the only tree around for miles, Gil began to speak to one of his tormentors.

"You do not know, but your only son is very sick. If you bring me to him, I will heal him."

"Your fate is to die a  traitor's death here, Gil," the Federalista replied.

"Very well, but when I am dead, pray to me that the boy might live."

They left him there to die, but that Federalista did discover his child to be sick. He prayed as Gauchito Gil had instructed, and surely enough the boy was healed. The body of Gauchito Gil was cut down and properly entombed, and the story of his miracle spread across the country. Today, the devoted travel from shrine to shrine, carrying some red object as a symbol of their promises to god.