Tag Archives: Argentina

16-17 November 2017:
Buenos Aires, Argentina:
Fair Winds, Blue Skies, Purple Jacaranda

By Corey Sandler

We have completed our passage down and around on our counter-clockwise circumnavigation of South America and are arrived at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

To guests leaving us here, we wish Fair Winds (buenos aires) and safe travels. And to new guests heading north with us, welcome (benvenuto.)

Yes, I know benvenuto is an Italian greeting, and that we are in mostly Spanish South America. But I do have a purpose.

Argentina is an extraordinary place, the second largest country in South America (after Brazil) and eighth largest in the world.

But Argentina has only about 43 million residents, a very low population density, with about 92 percent living in and around cities.

Argentina is the largest (by size) Spanish-speaking country in the Americas.

But here in South America, in a country whose origins are Spanish, the largest single ethnic group—about 60 percent—are people of Italian ancestry.

Perché tanti italiani?

Why so many Italians?

Argentina has been a country of immigration for most of its history, welcoming waves of Europeans after its independence in the 19th century.

About 2 million Italians arrived between 1880 and 1920, with more coming between the rise of Mussolini and the outbreak of World War II. Another wave arrived after the end of the war, as Italy lay in ruins.

In recent decades, some of the immigration has picked up again as a strong Argentine economy demanded more workers.

AROUND BUENOS AIRES

We arrived in Buenos Aires on a beautiful day, at peak season for the purple Jacaranda trees that demark the city.

I went with a group of guests on a tour that visited some of the Belle Epoque masterpieces of the city including the beautiful Teatro Colon of 1904, where an orchestra was rehearsing for a concert later in the day.

TEATRO COLON

Teatro Colon. Photos by Corey Sandler

In the city, we also saw some spectacular modern sculptures and one of my favorite buildings, the Centro Navale, now repurposed as a concert hall.

And in town, the former home of Harrod’s on Florida Avenue.

Centro Navale and Harrod’s. Photos by Corey Sandler.

TANGO ON SHORE AND ON BOARD

The African influence here would seem to be much less than in much of the rest of the Americas, except when you consider what may be the most identifiable and memorable cultural icon of Buenos Aires: The Tango.

The distinctive sultry, suggestive, passive-aggressive (you pick your favorite adjective) dance and its accompanying music began in the working-class port neighborhoods of Montevideo, Uruguay not far away and arrived a bit later in Buenos Aires.

Silver Muse was host to a world championship set of tango dancers. (How exactly do you win such an honor? An intriguing subject for future investigation.)

Here is a bit of the show:

Tango Aboard Ship. Photos by Corey Sandler

HEADING NORTH

We’ll be here for two days, and then head out to sea for calls in some lesser-known ports of Brazil, three days at the very-famous port city and beach of Rio de Janeiro, and then across the mouth of the Amazon on our way to an arrival (and departure) from Devil’s Island in French Guiana and from there to Bridgetown, Barbados in the Caribbean.

Here’s our plan:

All photos and text Copyright 2017 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

————-

Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

If you would like to purchase an autographed copy, please see the tab on this page, “HOW TO ORDER A PHOTO OR AUTOGRAPHED BOOK”

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IA9QTBM

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS,  PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

9 November 2017:
Ushuaia, Argentina:
Crossing the Continent Once Again

By Corey Sandler

Just about one month ago Silver Muse departed Fort Lauderdale in the Atlantic Ocean and proceeded to cross the Continental Divide through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean.

Yesterday we wound our way through the fjords and waterways that carve the bottom of South American continent into thousands of islands and rocks, heading from Punta Arenas toward the Northwest Arm of the Beagle Passage and on to Ushuaia, our first port of call in Argentina.

Our passage was southward and then east, a recrossing of the American continent that will lead us once again to the Atlantic.

USHUAIA: The Southern Place 

At the Dock in Ushuaia. Photos by Corey Sandler

We arrived at Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, commonly regarded as the southernmost city in the world.

Except that it really isn’t.

Punta Arenas, Chile, our port of several days ago, is the largest municipality in the region, with a population of more than 130,000. It sits 53 degrees 10 minutes South, which is north of Ushuaia, but here’s the fine print: Punta Arenas is on the mainland of South America while Ushuaia is on the island of Tierra del Fuego.

Ushuaia, Argentina, with about half the population, is at 54 degrees 48 minutes South, which by my calculations is about 95 miles closer to the Geographic South Pole.

But if your sole measurement is latitude, then you have to consider Puerto Williams, Chile, at 54 degrees, 56 minutes south, 6 miles closer to the South Pole. But it, too, is on an island: Isla Navarino in the Beagle Channel. And does a place with about 2,874 people have the right to call itself a city?

However you do the math, there are no cities or towns or other municipal entities further south than these three…unless you want to include research stations in the Antarctic.

Ushuaia. Photos by Corey Sandler

THE SOUTHERNMOST DUNGEON

On this visit, I went with guests on a tour that began at the Ushuaia Prison, a foreboding place that was the core of the community beginning about 1902. It was an effort by Argentina to plant its flag here near the bottom, and the prison held as many as 600 men at its peak.

Some called it the Southernmost Dungeon.

In a few weeks we will see a different, awful version when we visit Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana.

Conditions were harsh and the men were guarded closely, although it was also understood that there was little chance that many would attempt to escape into the cold and unforgiving nothingness all around.

The men were forced to work harvesting timber from the cold land of Tierra del Fuego, at first pulling the logs back to town on sledges. Eventually, though, the men worked to build and maintain the southernmost railroad in the world, cut through the forest to haul the logs back home.

The prison was shut in 1949, and the railroad stopped in the 1960s. A portion of the train track has been restored, with vintage steam locomotives brought from as far away as South Africa for the narrow-gauge track.

The height of the tree stumps in the “cemetery of trees” indicates when the cutting was done; stumps cut close to the ground were hand sawed or axed in summer, while those standing taller were cut down when snow was deep.

MAGELLAN BEFORE THE CHANNEL BORE HIS NAME

Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Spain, was the first known European to visit the islands, in 1520.

He wrote that he saw many fires (fuego in Spanish) from his ship, and he believed they were signals by the natives hiding in the forest and waiting to ambush his armada.

Modern historians make a more benign judgment.

The fires, they say, were lit by the Yamana because it was cold.

Three hundred and ten years after Magellan came the first of two visits by the British Naval survey ship, HMS Beagle.

HMS Beagle in Tierra del Fuego, as painted by the ship’s draftsman, Conrad Martens

On his first voyage, in 1830, British commander Robert Fitzroy captured four native Fuegians after they stole a small boat from his ship. The abducted men included Orundellico.

Orundellico’s family was given a mother of pearl button; it is unclear whether they agreed to the exchange or if he was merely abducted.

He was given the name Jemmy or Jeremy Button, and he was brought back to England as a trophy, a “noble savage”. Jemmy Button eventually was brought home to Tierra del Fuego, and his name still has a strong effect amongst the dwindling number of indigenous people in the area.

All photos and text Copyright 2017 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

————-

Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

If you would like to purchase an autographed copy, please see the tab on this page, “HOW TO ORDER A PHOTO OR AUTOGRAPHED BOOK”

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IA9QTBM

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS,  PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

8 November 2017:
Garibaldi Glacier and the Avenue of Glaciers:
The Grand Procession

By Corey Sandler

All day today, under fair winds and blue skies, Silver Muse passed from Punta Arenas, Chile into the Ballenero Channel and the the Brazo Noresta (Northwest Arm) of the Beagle Channel enroute to our next port of call, Ushuaia, Argentina.

In doing so we made a side journey into the Agostini National Park to take a peak at Garibaldi Glacier.

And then we returned to the Beagle Channel for a grand procession alongside the Romanche, Alemania, Francia, and Italia glaciers.

The good news is that this is one of most spectacular places on the planet.

The less-than-good news is that everywhere we looked we could see how much the glaciers have retreated and shrunk. And the relatively warm weather and sparkling blue skies we experienced were nice for us, but not so much for the health of the glaciers.

The last of the major glaciers, much to the satisfaction of our Italian captain Marco Sangiacomo, was the most attractive of them all and in relatively good shape. Putting on a Bella Figura, you might say.

The Italia Glacier saluted us with a large calving of ice, sending a boom across the channel.

All photos copyright 2017 by Corey Sandler. All rights reserved.