Travel Update 3: Buenos Aires

Our first stop after Uruguay way Buenos Aires; we caught a bus from Punta del Diablo to Montevideo, then transferred to another bus and kept driving west to Colonia del Sacramento, where we cleared customs, boarded a ferry, and rode that across the bay at the mouth of the Uruguay River to Buenos Aires. It was a full day of travel, with all the drivings and all the connections; we set out with our bags around 10:30am and got to our hostel in Buenos Aires around 11:00pm! The landscape of Uruguay we were passing through was very pastoral, with rolling hills, small herds of cattle, the occasional woodlot, and sunshine pouring down over the whole scene.

We only had a few days in Buenos Aires, since we had our flight booked for the morning of New Year’s day. On our first day we set out on a mission for some essential groceries and toiletries, and just as we were about to turn back to the hostel and figure out where to go next we took a spontaneous turn and found ourselves on a boardwalk over a pond, watching some ducks squabble over bread under the watchful eye of a T-Rex statue. Then a turtle swam lazily out from underneath our feet and we started watching that; after a minute there were four turtles, and we gradually realized that the park we had strolled into held all kinds of animals roaming free among the plants and walkways and humans. We had found the old zoo, which had shut down in 2016 and reopened as the Buenos Aires Ecopark; there were spectacular peacocks, giant ducks, turtles, South American rodents called  mara that were about the size of a small fox or a very large cat (or maybe an exceptionally big loaf of bread), and a couple monkeys contained on an island. The large animals of the zoo had gradually died or been moved to more appropriate homes close to their natural habitat, so the only animals kept at the Ecopark were ones that could thrive and be social in the space of the park and intermingled with humans.

The legal landscape of the changes is interesting. The Wikipedia article on the zoo states: “In December 2014, a Buenos Aires court ruled that a 29-year-old female Sumatran orangutang named Sandra living at the zoo was a "non-human person" who was entitled to some basic rights and could be liberated from her enclosure.” An article from Reuters in 2014 about the ruling mentions that the same view hasn’t been held by judges in the United States, in cases where animal rights groups have sought to establish personhood and rights for non-human animals; however, in April of 2024 a group of prominent biologists signed a declaration recognizing that many, many types of animals may experience consciousness, even if that consciousness is significantly different from our own. The article about the declaration has some interesting details, like:

We now know, for example, that octopuses feel pain and cuttlefish remember details of specific past events. Studies in fish have found that cleaner wrasse appear to pass a version of the “mirror test,” which indicates a degree of self-recognition, and that zebra fish show signs of curiosity. In the insect world, bees show apparent play behaviour, while Drosophila fruit flies have distinct sleep patterns influenced by their social environment. Meanwhile, crayfish display anxiety-like states  — and those states can be altered by anti-anxiety drugs.

Our second day in Buenos Aires, we walked to the MALBA — the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires — and took in the exhibits there. There was a curated exhibit from various artists showcasing Latin American art, with themes of home, environment, social commentary, and intimacy; another with hundreds of photographs used in the production of photonovellas — essentially photo-based stories with dialogue drawn in over the photos; another with documentaries and imaginative computer-generated art on the future of digital spaces, cities, and our global culture of production and consumption. The final installation we visited was a sculpture called Tú, Yo Y la Luna that was inexplicably compelling in the way it arranged a fossilized tree trunk, gigantic concrete and resin fingers, metal tripods, alchemical equipment, lenses, and a half dome symbolizing the moon. I can’t find a good way to put it into words, but the energy in the room was like being witness to some puzzle, some mystery, something happening between the pieces of the sculpture even though they were just there in an arrangement that had no obvious pattern.

Tragedy of the Indigenous Worker, 1932

Bolivian painter and engraver Alejandro Mario Yllanes (1913-1960), active since the 1930s, aligned his pursuit with the manifestations of indigenism in Peru and Mexican muralism. In the 1920s, Yllanes dropped out of law school and turned to painting to visually express the social issues of his time, particularly the struggles of the Aymara people. Towards the start of the 1930s he moved to the Lake Titicaca region, where he taught professional training courses at the experimental school of Warisata (which is referenced in his work).

Exiled from Bolivia for political reasons, he spent the later years of that decade travelling around Chile, Argentina and Mexico. In Buenos Aires, he had a solo exhibition in 1938 and, in 1946, he celebrated one of his most important art shows at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, where he exhibited Tragedia del Pongo [Tragedy of the Indigenous Worker]. Lastly, in 1946, Yllanes emigrated to New York, where he was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. However, the artist never collected the funds and and nothing more was heard of him. This abrupt end to his promising career partly explains why he has been omitted from the history of Latin American art.

Tú, Yo Y la Luna (You, Me and the Moon)

We spent longer at the MALBA than we had intended to — which included coffee and a cookie at the very pleasant cafe — so we were saved from a total blood sugar crash by the miracle of shawarma. We found a tango lesson through our hostel and got some instruction and history on the dance, and then we got to go to a professional tango show at El Querandí (although that sadly meant passing up a chance to go do social tango dancing at a nearby club). The show was absolutely jaw-dropping, with six dancers, two singers, a pianist, a violinist, an accordion, and a double bass, and at least five costume changes for each dancer and singer. Sometimes there were all six dancers on stage at once moving and changing partners, and the flow was just incredible; at one point the violinist took a solo and I was left speechless at how much control and expression he had with the instrument. There was an option to arrive early and eat dinner before the show, which might be the way I would do it if I were to go back; the food looked very good and the early tables were seated closest to the dancers.

On our last day, we found a walking tour of Buenos Aires in the city centre, and spent a few hours learning about the history and architecture of the city and politics of the country. Buenos Aires started as a relatively unimportant Spanish colonial capital, but after the country gained independence from Spain there was energy and money to build important government buildings in a variety of European styles, especially French. The house of congress is especially impressive, although there are two empty pedestals where statues could be placed, if the builders hadn’t run short on funds. Whole blocks were demolished for a special avenue from the house of congress to the presidential palace, with European statuary imported and set on pedestals in the parks. The economy and politics of the country have been extremely troubled over the years, plagued by violence and military dictatorships, and the economy has suffered from currency devaluations, extreme inflation, unrest, and high poverty rates. The grand architecture overhead contrasts sharply with the graffiti, broken paving stones, garbage, and armoured shutters at street level; the juxtaposition feels like pent-up frustration, confusion about what is keeping people from coming together to do better. The street vendors clearly have a lot of hustle and initiative, but it doesn’t feel like people have much meaningful work to do in the city centre, and the work that’s on offer is so poorly paid that people are better off getting by on their wits and initiative.

That’s it for now... a lot happened in those three days! I’m writing this update from Puerto Natales, Chile; Kris and I just finished an epic five days on the W Trek (which, against all the advice except for one, we managed to do with no campstie reservations — more on that soon!), and we’ll be heading back to Argentina tomorrow. If you're reading this, I hope you're well, and I look forward to hearing from you! Lots of love from Chile ❤️