Patagonia 2006

Did you know that if you took your credit cards from home and started using them in a foreign country, you could be subject to having your transactions refused and your card ripped up by a suspicious salesperson?

Before you go, call the customer service number on the back of the credit cards you intend to take with you and notify them:

• What countries you are planning to visit
• The start and end date of your trip
• The type of expenditures you plan to use it for, such as hotels, restaurants, transportation, museum admissions, shopping, etc.

It’s never nice to suddenly lose access to your principal source of funds on your vacation, especially when a couple of phone calls will do the trick.

On a related topic, I usually get an extra ATM card to take with me in case a machine chews up one of them. (By the way, if a machine chews up your primary card, there is a good chance that it’ll do the same to your secondary card: Look for another ATM to be safe.) Several weeks ago, I told an officer at Bank of America that foreign machines sometimes like to chew on American cards (must be the trans-fats), and he readily had an extra one sent to me.

It all started with an article in the New Yorker Magazine more than thirty-five years ago. There was an article about a new crop of South American writers, most particularly a blind Argentinian from Buenos Aires named Jorge Luis Borges. Two new collections of his work, containing some overlapping of content, had just been published: Labyrinths and Ficciones. I bought copies, read them, and was entranced.

In the years following, Borges has been perhaps the most influential guide to literature, philosophy, and history. Because of him, Argentina suddenly became an active place on the world map that resides in my mind.

Next after him came Paul Theroux with The Old Patagonian Express and Bruce Chatwin with In Patagonia.

Now, when I go fly to Buenos Aires in November, my first priority will be to visit the places where he lived and which he talked about in his poems and stories. I will walk around the suburb of Palermo and the area just north of the Microcentro looking for places that remind me of his work. The old working class districts full of knife-fighters and sleazy dives is long gone, but even a little will go a long way.

There is also a Centro Cultural Borges founded by Borges’s widow Maria Kodama, but I am not altogether sure they have any exhibits about the author’s life. Also interesting is a museum dedicated to the painting of Xul Solar, a friend of the author’s who is mentioned by name in some of his stories.

Right now, I have only the most sketchy information to go on, but I am doing some research that will enable me to put together some walks in the city.

If you are interested in learning more about Borges, here are some web references:

• The Garden of the Forking Paths
• The Wikipedia entry on Borges
• The Kirjasto entry on Borges from Finland
• The Borges Center at the University of Iowa

When I reach Buenos Aires, I hope to give you the results of what I have found.

One of the things I always do in preparation for a vacation is to research the public transportation system and create a little “notebook” to take with me with key maps and scheduling information.

While I am in Buenos Aires, I expect to take the Subte, the city’s subway system. As you can see from the map above, the entire system is shaped like a four-tined fork, with the north/south Line C acting to join the four east/west routes. You can see this map on the Metrovia Subte Website.

The rest of Argentina is a tad trickier. Only a few of the long-distance bus companies have their own websites. I am relying heavily on this schedule from Travellersguru.Com and have my fingers crossed that it is relatively up to date—at least somewhat! At the bottom are links to some of the bus companies that go to Patagonia and have their own websites.

Shown here is an overall map of Buenos Aires showing the two airports (Ezeiza and Jorge Newbery), major railroad stations, and a few tourist sights as well. I will be staying near the center, within full reach of the subway system, known as the Subte.

Shortly after joining BootsnAll.Com, I saw a posting in the South American Travel section of the Destination Forums entitled “Meet Friendly Locals in Buenos Aires.” This looked like an excellent opportunity in view of my upcoming visit to Argentina.

According to the text:

We are a group of people who practice English every Friday at a coffee shop in Buenos Aires. It’s an easy going and informal meeting, free, just for pleasure.
We have been meeting every Friday for over 5 years to practice our English.
All are at a level that enables us to speak English fluently, which is a requirement to participate.
We like to chat about ordinary things but traveling is our favorite subject.
Every Friday, foreign travelers who are on holidays in Buenos Aires and are interested in meeting “natives” visit us. This kind of exchange and sharing of cultures and points of view means learning and developing for all of us.
If you are interested in participating and can speak in an advanced level of English,
email us for further details.
grupo_de_ingles@hotmail.com

A couple days ago, I e-mailed the above address and sent along some information about myself, together with a link to my Yahoo-360 site. This morning, I received a courteous response inviting me to the November 10 meeting and giving me directions to the coffee shop where their meetings are held. I look forward to a fun evening.

Their website can be viewed by clicking here.

There is no more enjoyable way to extend your vacation than by spending several months reading about the history, culture, and literature of your destination. Here is a partial list of the books I have read in preparation for my upcoming vacation to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego:

1. Charles Darwin: Voyage of the HMS Beagle. You can see he was thinking about evolution at this point, but he wasn’t there yet. A superb natural writer.
2. W.H. Hudson: Idle Days in Patagonia and Far Away and Long Ago. This Argentinean-born English naturalist is another discovery.
3. Richard Lee Marks: Three Men of the Beagle. Captain FitzRoy, Darwin, and Yahgan Indian Jemmy Button.
4. Antonio Pigafetta: Magellan’s Voyage. The journal kept by an Italian adventurer on Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe.
5. Jorge Luis Borges: The Aleph and Other Stories and Labyrinths, two masterpieces by Argentina’s greatest writer.
6. Félix Luna: A Short History of the Argentineans. A short survey.
7. Gerald Durrell: The Whispering Land. About collecting wild animals in Argentina for the author’s zoo in the Channel Islands. Very entertaining.
8. Eric Shipton: Land of Tempest and Tierra del Fuego: The Fatal Lodestone. Two exciting books by a world-famed mountain climber.
9. E. Lucas Bridges: The Uttermost Part of the Earth. About growing up with the Yahgan and Ona Indians in Tierra del Fuego. A masterpiece.
10. Julius Beerbohm: Wanderings in Patagonia. By the father of British author Max Beerbohm
11. Jasmine Rossi: The Wild Shores of Patagonia. Beautiful photos and well-written text.
12. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Night Flight. Set in Patagonia, about a mail flight between Punta Arenas and Buenos Aires.
13. Luis Chiappe and Lowell Dingus: Walking on Eggs. About searching for dinosaur bones in Argentina.
14. Bruce Chatwin: In Patagonia. A highly recommended introduction.
15. George C. Musters: At Home with the Patagonians. A retired British army officer travels with the Tehuelche Indians of Patagonia. A compassionate and well-written book.
16. Jason Wilson: Jorge Luis Borges. A good short bio of the author.
17. George Gaylord Simpson: Penguins: Here and There, Then and Now. A fun read by the great paleontologist.
18. A. R. Tschiffely: This Way Southward. A long out-of-print narrative by an expert raconteur of a trip of car and horseback all around Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.