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Where to go

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Argentina has many sites that could claim the title of natural wonders of the world: the majestic waterfalls of Iguazu , the spectacular Perito Moreno Glacier , whose towering sixty-metre walls calve icebergs into the lake below, fascinating whale colonies off the Peninsula Valdes , or the quintessential Argentine mountain holiday-resort of Bariloche - indeed Patagonia and the south in general. Yet many of the country's most noteworthy sights are also its least known, such as the Esteros del Ibera , a huge reserve of swamps and floating islands offering unforgettably close-up encounters with cayman, monkeys, capybara and hundreds of brightly plumed birds; or Antofagasta de la Sierra , an amazingly remote village close to the biggest crater on the Earth's surface, set amid frozen lagoons mottled pink with flamingos; or Laguna Diamante , a high-altitude lake reflecting a wondrous volcano straight out of a Japanese woodcut. In any case, weather conditions and the sheer size of the country will rule out any attempt to see every corner or even all the main destinations. If you do want to see each region, air travel will be the only way of fitting them in, unless time is no object. But climatic restraints make it far more sensible and rewarding to concentrate on a particular section of the country, and that's where the excellent network of long-distance buses comes into its own.

Other than if you're visiting Argentina as part of a South American tour, Buenos Aires is likely to be your point of entry, as it has the country's only bona fide international airport. Only inveterate city-haters will resist the capital's charm. Not a place for museum fans - though several of the city's art collections are certainly worth a visit - BA is one of the world's greatest urban experiences, with its intriguing blend of French-style architecture and a vernacular style that includes houses painted in the colours of a legendary football team. From the city, also Argentina's unrivalled transport hub, the various regions fan out to the north, west and south.

Due north stretches El Litoral , a region of subtropical riverine landscapes sharing borders with Brazil and Paraguay. Here are the photogenic Iguazu waterfalls, and the much-visited Jesuit Missions whose once noble ruins are crumbling into the tangled jungle, with the notable exception of well-preserved San Ignacio Mini set among manicured parkland. Immediately to the west of El Litoral stretches the Chaco , one of Argentina's most infrequently visited regions, a place for those with a dogged interest in wildlife , especially birdlife and endangered species of mammals; but be prepared for often fiercely hot conditions, a poor tourist infrastructure and a long wait if you want to see some of its rarer denizens. Tucked away in the country's landlocked Northwest , the historic cradle of present-day Argentina, bordering on Bolivia and northern Chile, is the polychrome Quebrada del Toro which can be viewed in comfort from the Tren a los Nubes , one of the world's highest railways. Even more colourful is the much photographed Quebrada de Humahuaca , a fabulous gorge winding up to the oxygen-starved Altiplano, where llamas and their wild relatives graze on straw-like pastures. In the Valles Calchaques , a series of stunningly beautiful valleys, high-altitude vineyards produce the delightfully flowery torrontes wine.

West and immediately south of Buenos Aires is pampa, pampa and more pampa. This is where you'll still glimpse signs of the traditional gaucho culture , most famously celebrated in the charming town of San Antonio de Areco . Here, too, you'll find some of the classiest estancias , offering a combination of understated luxury and horseback adventure activities. On the Atlantic coast are a string of fun beach resorts, including long-standing favourite Mar del Plata . While the farther west you go, the larger the Central Sierras loom on the horizon: the mild climate and bucolic woodlands of these ancient mountains have attracted Argentine tourists since the late nineteenth century, and within reach of Cordoba , the country's vibrant second city, are some of the oldest resorts on the continent. Both the city and its hinterland contain some wonderful colonial architecture , including the well-preserved Jesuit estancias of Alta Gracia and Santa Catalina . In the Cuyo , farther west still, with the highest Andean peaks as a splendid backdrop, you can discover one of Argentina's most enjoyable cities, the regional capital of Mendoza , also the country's wine capital . From here, the scenic Alta Montana route climbs steeply to the Chilean border, passing Cerro Aconcagua , now well-established as a dream challenge for mountaineers from around the world. Just to the south, Las Lenas is a winter resort where a lot of skiers end up on the pages of the continent's glamour magazines, but the nearby black-and-red lava-wastes of La Payunia , one of the country's hidden jewels, are all but overlooked. Likewise, San Juan and La Rioja provinces are relatively uncharted territory, but their marvellous mountain-and-valley landscapes will reward exploration, along with their less known but often outstanding wineries. Their star attractions are a brace of parks: Parque Nacional Talampaya , with its giant red cliffs seen on many a poster, and the nearby Parque Provincial Ischigualasto , usually known the Valle de la Luna on account of its intriguing moonscapes.

Whereas neighbouring Chile takes up a mere sliver of the continent's Southern Cone, Argentina, like a greedy bedfellow hogging the blankets, has the lion's share of the wild, sparsely populated expanses of Patagonia and the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego . These are lands of seemingly endless arid steppe hemmed in for the most part by the southern leg of the Andes, a series of volcanoes, craggy peaks and deep glacial lakes. An almost unbroken chain of national parks along these Patagonian and Fuegian cordilleras make for some of the best trekking anywhere on the planet. Certainly include the savage granite peaks of the Fitz Roy sector of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in your itinerary but also the less frequently visited monkey-puzzle forests of Parque Nacional Lanin or the trail network of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi . These regions exert an irresistible lure on many visitors, and in addition to the fabulous scenery, they offer excellent opportunities for fly-fishing and adventurous horse-riding, with the famous sheep estancias as a base. For wildlife enthusiasts the Peninsula Valdes is a must-see: famous above all else as a breeding ground for southern right whales, it and the nearby coast also sustain enormous colonies of elephant seals, penguins and sea-lions. If you have a historical bent, you may like to trace the region's associations with early seafarers such as Magellan and Drake in the Bahia San Julian or Fitzroy and Darwin in the beautiful Beagle Channel off Ushuaia. Ancestors of the Tehuelche, one of the many remarkable indigenous cultures wiped out after the Europeans arrived, painted the wonderful collage of handprints and animal scenes that adorn the walls of the Cueva de las Manos Pintadas in Santa Cruz Province. Finally, you might like to track down the legacy of outlaws like Butch Cassidy who lived near Cholila, or of the Welsh settlers whose influence can still be felt in communities like Gaiman and Trevelin .

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Insurance

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A typical travel insurance policy usually provides cover for the loss of baggage, tickets and - up to a certain limit - cash or cheques, as well as cancellation or curtailment of your journey. Most of them exclude so-called dangerous sports unless an extra premium is paid: this could mean scuba-diving, white-water rafting, windsurfing and trekking, though probably not kayaking or jeep safaris. Read the small print and benefits tables of prospective policies carefully; coverage can vary wildly for roughly similar premiums. Many policies can be chopped and changed to exclude coverage you don't need - for example, sickness and accident benefits. If you do take medical coverage, ascertain whether benefits will be paid as treatment proceeds or only after you return home, and whether there is a 24-hour medical emergency number. When securing baggage cover, make sure that the per-article limit - typically under ?500/$700 equivalent - will cover your most valuable possessions. If you need to make a claim, you should keep receipts for medicines and medical treatment, and in the event you have anything stolen, you must obtain an official statement from the police. Bank and credit cards often have certain levels of medical or other insurance included and you may automatically get travel insurance if you use a major credit card to pay for your trip.

Travellers from Britain and Ireland would do well to take out an insurance policy before travelling to cover against theft, loss and illness or injury. Travel agents and tour operators are likely to require some sort of insurance when you book a package holiday, though according to UK law they can't make you buy their own (other than a ?1 premium for "schedule airline failure"). If you have a good all-risks home insurance policy it may cover your possessions against loss or theft even when overseas. Many private medical schemes uch as BUPA or PPP also offer coverage plans for abroad, including baggage loss, cancellation or curtailment and cash replacement as well as sickness or accident.

American and Canadian citizens should also check that they're not already covered. Canadian provincial health plans usually provide partial cover for medical mishaps overseas. Holders of official student/teacher/youth cards are entitled to meagre accident coverage and hospital in-patient benefits. Students will often find that their student health coverage extends during the vacations and for one term beyond the date of last enrolment. Homeowners' or renters' insurance often covers theft or loss of documents, money and valuables while overseas, though conditions and maximum amounts vary from company to company.

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Information and maps

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Since Argentina has very few tourist offices abroad, and embassies don't seem to see tourism as a priority, the two main sources of information before you go are the Internet ( www.turismo.gov.ar ) and private tour companies and operators. Your best bet for brochures or factsheets is one of the companies specializing in Latin America, such as South American Experience or Exodus. Nearly every aspect of life in Argentina seems to have its own Web site, with an incredible number dedicated to polo. You might like to buy maps before you go, but a wider selection is on offer in Argentina itself.

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Opening hours, public holidays and festivals


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Most shops and services are open Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm, and Saturday 9am to 2pm. They may close at some point during the day for between one and five hours - as a rule the further north you go, the longer the midday break or siesta, sometimes offset by later closing times in the evening, especially in the summer. Supermarkets seldom close during the day and are generally open much later, often until 8 or even 10pm, and on Saturday afternoons. Large shopping malls don't close before 10pm and their food and drink sections ( patios de comida ) may stay open as late as midnight. Many of them open on Sundays, too. Banks tend to be open only on weekdays, from 10am to 4pm, but casas de cambio more or less follow shop hours. However, in the Northeast, bank opening hours tend to be more like 7am-noon, to avoid the hot, steamy afternoons.

Museums are a law unto themselves, each one having its own timetable, but most close on Mondays. Legally, they are supposed to be free of charge at least one day a week; since that day varies you might like to plan your visits to different museums accordingly. Several Buenos Aires museums are closed for at least a month in the summer. Tourist offices seem to be forever adjusting their opening times, but the trend is towards longer hours and opening daily (some still close on Sundays). Don't bank on finding them open late in the evening or at weekends, especially off season or off the beaten track, though some have surprisingly long hours. Post offices' hours seldom vary from the standard 8am to 8pm on weekdays, with siestas in the hottest places, and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, but check individual listings for exceptions. Government offices keep to an 8am to 5pm schedule, with a few variations.

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Outdoor pursuits

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Argentina is a highly exciting destination for outdoors enthusiasts, whether you're keen to tackle radical rock faces or prefer to appreciate the vast open spaces at a more gentle pace, hiking or on horseback. World-class fly-fishing, horseriding, trekking and rock climbing options abound, as do opportunities for white-water rafting, skiing, ice-climbing, and even - for those with sufficient stamina and preparation, expeditions onto the Southern Patagonian Icecap. The Patagonian Andes provide the focus for most of these activities, most particularly the area of the central Lake District around Bariloche and El Calafate/El ChaltA©n, but Mendoza and the far northwest of the country, around Salta and Jujuy, are also worth considering for their rugged mountain terrain. If you're keen on any of the above activities (bar fishing, of course), ensure you have taken out appropriate insurance cover before leaving home

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Spectator sports


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Argentina suffers an incurable addiction to sport: its males go cold turkey at the thought of even one week without football, and you'll hear informed and spirited debate in bars on sports as diverse as rugby and the uniquely Argentine equestrian sport of pato. The country has few exports as prestigious and reliable as its polo and football players, but other sports have produced stars that have risen to conquer the world stage, typically delighting spectators with their flamboyance in the process - people such as Guillermo Vilas and Gabriela Sabatini in tennis, who reached their peak in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively; Carlos MonzA?n in boxing; and the legendary motor-racing driver, Juan Manuel Fangio

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National parks and reserves


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The national parks of Argentina are one of the country's principal lures, encompassing the gamut of ecosystems and scenery that exist here, from arid dry chaco thornscrub to subtropical jungle, from high Andean peaks to Atlantic coastline. Though some parks were established purely for their fabulous scenery, many others - especially the more recently established ones - were created to protect examples of different ecosystems. In addition, some protect important archeological or geological sites. The parks vary in size from the minuscule botanical reserve of Colonia BenA­tez in Chaco Province, less than a tenth of a square kilometre in size, to the grand and savage Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Santa Cruz, which covers some six thousand square kilometres.

These national protected areas fall into four different categories - Parques Nacionales, Reservas Naturales, Reservas Naturales Estrictas , and Monumentos Naturales - but the distinctions between them have little relevance to the tourist, although it is as well to be aware that a monumento natural is used to refer to individual species, such as the native Patagonian Andean deer, the huemul , as well as to places. More relevant to the tourist are the different degrees of protection that exist within the parks: strict scientific zones ( zonas intangibles ) that are not open to the general public, zones with routes of public access that are otherwise under full protection, and buffer zones where locals engage in certain limited forms of sustainable exploitation (such as forestry and the hunting of introduced species). The situation is complicated by the presence of indigenous communities in some parks, while in others there are enclaves of privately owned land which even guardaparques (rangers) must ask permission to enter.

The most famous parks of all are the subtropical IguazA? in the northeastern province of Misiones, with its famous waterfalls, and the great Patagonian parks that protect the lakes and subantarctic forests of the mountainous border with Chile - most notably Nahuel Huapi , by Bariloche in RA­o Negro Province, and Los Glaciares , near El Calafate in Santa Cruz, with its twin attractions of the Perito Moreno Glacier and the Fitz Roy trekking sector. LanA­n , with its famous volcano and monkey puzzle forests, Los Alerces and Perito Moreno (distinct from the glacier) are two other mighty Patagonian Andean parks, and in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego the Andes meet the Beagle Channel. One of the easiest national parks to access from Buenos Aires is El Palmar , in the province of Entre RA­os, a savannah plain studded with graceful native palms. Famous for its cloudforest are the northwestern mountain parks of BaritA?, Calilegua and El Rey . Geologically fascinating are the spectacular canyon of Talampaya in La Rioja Province, and the Bosques Petrificados (Petrified Forests) in Santa Cruz.

In addition to the national parks, Argentina has an array of provincial nature reserves and protected areas, the most exceptional of which is the PenA­nsula ValdA©s , on the coast of Chubut near Puerto Madryn. ValdA©s is one of the country's leading tourist attractions and the most reliable of all destinations for seeing wildlife. Its marine mammals are the star attraction, principally the southern right whales which come to breed here. It is also one of the finest places to see the animals of the Patagonian steppe. Another good place for spotting this wildlife is at Punta Tombo , also in Chubut Province. This reserve is most famous for sheltering the largest colony of Magellanic penguins on the continent. The Esteros de IberA? swampland in Corrientes Province, is good for spotting cayman and capybara as well as a remarkable variety of birdlife. In Mendoza, the Parque Provincial Aconcagua was set up to protect South America's highest peak, while Ischigualasto in San Juan protects a famous, desertified lunar landscape with bizarrely eroded geological formations.

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Directory

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ADDRESSES These are nearly always written with the name only followed by the street number - thus, San MartA­n 2443; the only exception is with avenues, where the abbreviation Av. or Avda. appears before the avenue name - thus, Av. San MartA­n 2443. Pasajes (Pje.) and Bulevares (Bv.) are far less commonplace. The relatively rare abbreviation c/ for calle ("street"), is used only to avoid confusion in a city which has streets named after other cities: thus c/TucumA?n 564, Salta or c/Salta 1097, TucumA?n. If the name is followed by s/n ( sin nA?mero ), it means the building is numberless, frequently the case in small villages and for larger buildings such as hotels or town halls; we do not include the s/n abbrevation in the addresses we list. Sometimes streets whose names have been officially changed continue to be referred to by their former names, even in written addresses. In most cities, blocks or cuadras go up in 100s, making it relatively easy to work out on a map where house no. 977 or a restaurant at no. 2233 is located.

BARGAINING There is no real tradition of haggling, although you can always try it when buying pricey artwork, antiques, etc. Expensive services such as excursions and car rental are obvious candidates for bargaining sessions while hotel room rates can be beaten down, off season, late at night or if you're paying cash ( efectivo ). But try and be reasonable, especially in the case of already low-priced crafts or high-quality goods and services that are obviously worth every centavo.

CONSULATES A very large number of countries from all five continents have embassies in Buenos Aires, mostly in the Barrio Norte, but in the provinces few countries maintain consulates. In the big provincial capitals you'll find diplomatic missions representing some other South American countries, along with those European countries with large communities in Argentina, especially Italy, Spain, Germany and Switzerland, plus the Netherlands.

EARTHQUAKES Seismic activity is very much a reality in western and, to a lesser extent, in northwestern Argentina, since the Andes lie along one of the world's most unstable fault lines. Some of the planet's strongest ever quakes have hit the cities of San Juan and Mendoza over the last hundred and fifty years. Since then all buildings have been quake-proofed. It's unlikely that you'll find yourself in a violent tremor but, if ever you do, the first rule is not to panic. Don't use lifts or rush out into the street, whatever you do - this is how most injuries and fatalities are caused. Electricity supplies are programmed to go down if the quake is over five on the Richter scale.

ELECTRICITY 220V/50Hz is standard throughout the country. The sockets are two-pronged with round pins, but are different to the two-pin European plugs. Adapters will probably be needed and can be bought at a string of electrical shops along Calle Talcahuano, in Buenos Aires; some but not all of the multi-adaptors on sale at airports will do the trick, so check the instructions.

HOMOSEXUALITY The word that best sums up the attitude to gay men and lesbians in Argentina is ambivalence. Discreet relationships are quite well tolerated, but in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation any "deviance", including any explicit physical contact between members of the same sex (let alone transvestism or overtly intimate behaviour) will be almost universally disapproved of, to say the least. Violent manifestations of homophobia are rare, however, especially now that the Church and the military have less influence on mores. Gay and lesbian associations are springing up in the major cities, notably in Buenos Aires, where nightlife and meeting places are increasingly open, but rural areas still do their best to act as if homosexuality doesn't exist. The same goes for even the most liberal-minded parents and, in this country where psychotherapy has become a pseudo-religion, don't be surprised to see analysts and "parapsychologists" advertising their "cures" - even in gay magazines. Arbitrary decisions by the mysterious but powerful National Media Commission in recent months have resulted in raids at the offices of NX , the main gay and lesbian magazine (on sale in kiosks in downtown Buenos Aires and other big cities), because it printed pictures of "two men dangerously close to each other".

LAUNDRY Most towns and cities have a plentiful supply of laundries ( lavanderA­as or lavaderos ), especially since not everyone has a washing machine. Laverap is a virtually nationwide chain of laundries and is mostly dependable. Some of them also do dry-cleaning, though you may have to go to a tintorerA­a . Self-service places are almost unheard of; you normally give your name and leave your washing to pick it up later. Laundry is either charged by weight or itemized, but rates are not excessive, especially compared with the high prices charged by hotels. Furthermore, the quality is good and the service is usually quick and reliable. One important word of vocabulary to know is planchado (ironed).

PHOTOGRAPHY Photographic film is not cheap and black-and-white and fast films, especially slides, are not always easy to lay your hands on, though standard film, of all brands, is widespread and reliable. Since fast film is recommended in places like the altiplano, bring a plentiful supply with you, and the same goes for all camera spares and supplies, which sell for exorbitant prices here even in the rare duty-free zones. Developing and printing are usually of high quality but are also quite expensive; slides aren't processed in that many places and black-and-white film won't always be accepted - outside Buenos Aires the situation is extremely erratic. A constant, how ever, is that you should watch out where you take photos: sensitive border areas and all military installations, including many civilian airports, are camera no-go areas, so keep an eye out for signs and take no risks.

STUDENT CARDS These are not as useful as they can be in some countries, as museums and the like often refuse to give student discounts. Some bus companies, however, do give a 10-15 percent discount for holders of ISIC cards, as do certain hotels, laundries and outdoor gear shops, and even one or two ice-cream parlours. ASATEJ, Argentina's student travel agency, issues a booklet that lists partners throughout the country. The international student card often suffices for a discount at youth hostels in the country, though membership of the Youth Hostelling Association may entitle you to even lower rates.

TELEPHONE JACKS Argentina uses international standard telephone jacks (the same as those used in the USA), compatible with all standard fax and email connections.

TIME DIFFERENCES After some confusing experiments with daylight saving and even different time zones within the country, Argentina now applies a standard time throughout the year, nationwide: three hours behind GMT.

TIPPING Apart from the odd rounding up of taxi fares, for example, tipping is not common in Argentina. Restaurant bills increasingly include a percentage for service but any extra gratuity ( propina ) is discretionary. That said, PorteA±os have always traditionally tipped when eating or drinking out - recent austerity seems to have killed that custom off, or at least curtailed it.

TOILETS Occasionally central city squares include public toilets among their facilities, but otherwise public toilets or baA±os (men: caballeros, hombres, varones or seA±ores ; women: damas, mujeres or seA±oras ), are very few and far between. The toilets in modern shopping malls tend to be spick and span and are often the best place to head for. In bars and cafA©s the toilets are usually of an acceptable standard and not all establishments insist that you buy a drink, though you may be made to feel you should (the legal position is unclear). It's worth knowing that toilet paper (carry your own), hot water and soap ( jabA?n ) are often missing. In bus stations, airports and large shops there is often an attendant who keeps the toilets clean and dispenses toilet paper ( papel higiA©nico ), sometimes for a small fee, usually $0.50. Note that, in rural areas or small towns, toilet paper must often be left in a bin rather than flushed down the pan, to avoid blocking the narrow pipes.

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Nature

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Argentina's natural wonders are one of its chief joys. Its remarkable diversity of habitats, ranging from subtropical jungles to subantarctic icesheets, is complemented by an unexpected juxtaposition of species: parrots foraging alongside glaciers, or shocking-pink flamingos surviving bitter sub-zero temperatures on the stark Andean Altiplano. However, despite the protection afforded by a relatively well-managed national park system and several highly committed environmental pressure groups, many of the country's ecosystems are under threat.

Argentina is one of the world's leading destinations for ornithologists, with over a thousand species of birds - ten percent of the world's total - having been recorded here. It also has several destinations where you can reliably spot mammals and other fauna, notably the Esteros de IberA? swampland in Corrientes and the PenA­nsula ValdA©s coastal reserve in Chubut, although for the most part you'll require patience and luck to see the country's more exotic denizens. Though the divisions are too complicated to list fully, we've covered Argentina's most distinctive habitats, along with the species of flora and fauna typical to each.

The country's precious environmental heritage is under threat on numerous fronts, however. Illegal hunting is often hard to control but, as ever, by far and away the most pressing issue is habitat loss . The chaco is a good case in point. Whereas environments such as the wet chaco have long felt the strain of population and land clearance, pressures have increased at an alarming rate in the dry chaco. Previously, the lack of water in the Impenetrable was the flora and fauna's best asset. Nowadays, climate change has seen rainfall levels increase, and irrigation projects are fast opening up areas of the Impenetrable to settlement and agriculture, with a continued, desperately poorly controlled exploitation of mature woodland for timber or charcoal and land clearance ( desmonte ) for crops such as cotton. This comes on top of a century of ruthlessly exploitive forestry by companies such as the British owned El Forestal, which completely transformed the habitat of entire provinces - Santiago del Estero, for example, saw the export of an estimated 240 million railway sleepers of quebracho colorado in the space of seventy years. Forestry in other areas of the country - notably in Misiones and Tierra del Fuego - is also giving cause for alarm. Hydroelectric projects in the northeast of the country have destroyed valuable habitats along the Urugua'A­ and ParanA? rivers, and overfishing has severely depleted stocks in the latter and in the ocean, where controls are notoriously lax.

Fortunately, though, the outlook isn't completely bleak. Environmental consciousness is slowly gaining ground (especially amongst the younger generation); the national parks system is expanding with the help of international loans; and committed national and local pressure groups such as the FundaciA?n de Vida Silvestre and AsociaciA?n OrnitolA?gica del Plata (both based in Buenos Aires), Proyecto LemA? (based in EpuyA©n), Finis Terrae (based in Ushuaia) and Proyecto Orca (based in Puerto Madryn) are ensuring that ecological issues do not get ignored

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Music

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With the obvious exception of tango, the music of Argentina has a fairly low international profile. True to its image as the continent's "odd man out", the country has a tradition which doesn't quite fit the popular conception of "Latin American" music: there are none of the exhilarating tropical rhythms of say Brazil or Cuba, and very little of the Andean pan pipe sound popularized worldwide in the Seventies by Chilean group Inti-Illimani. Within Latin America, however, Argentina is famed for its rock music, known simply as "rock nacional" - a term which embraces a pretty ecletic bunch of groups and musicians from the heavy rock of Pappo, through the sweet poppy rock of Fito PA?ez to the ska and punk influenced Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. You'll hear "rock nacional" throughout Argentina and it's well worth checking out a concert - attended with a fervour similar to that provoked by football - if you can. Folk music, known as "folklore" in Argentina, is popular throughout the country and provides a predominantly rural counterpoint to the essentially urban tango. The genre has also produced two internationally renowned stars; Mercedes Sosa and Auhualpa Yupanqui

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Literature


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Argentina's 95 percent literacy rate is one of the highest in the world and its many bookshops, especially the splendidly monumental ones in Buenos Aires, are a reflection of the considerable interest in what is written in both Argentina and the outside world. While Argentine nationals have won the Nobel prizes for chemistry, medicine and peace, none of the country's outstanding writers has ever been rewarded with the prize for literature - all the more galling for Argentines, given that two Chileans have been. Borges is the giant of Argentine literature, but he by no means dwarfs the country's other extremely original novelists and poets, many of whose works have been translated into English and make for highly readable companions during a visit to the country.

For much of the twentieth century Argentina's rich and varied literary production was dominated, for the outside world at least, by the country's greatest ever writer, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Borges is inextricably linked with Buenos Aires - a kind of anthropomorphic protagonist in much of his highly original prose and poetry. Like many of his compatriots, he was both fascinated and frustrated by the notion of the Argentine identity as a kind of extension of Europe, apparently incapable of throwing off the shackles of its immigrant past. Even now Argentine literature - mirroring general social concerns - often seems obsessed with the dichotomy between an archaic, thinly populated rural economy and one of the continent's biggest, most densely populated and modern cities, Buenos Aires. Ever since the country's independence in the early nineteenth century, there has been an ongoing civil war of sorts, between the provinces seeking more and more decentralized power, led in the early days by General Rosas and later by PerA?n, and a sophisticated metropolis apparently more interested in what is going on in Paris, London and Madrid, or more recently in New York, Miami and San Francisco, than in its vast and seemingly primitive hinterland.

The writer who first seems to have grasped this phenomenon is nineteenth-century Renaissance man Domingo Sarmiento (1811-88), Rosas' arch enemy and president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. A no-nonsense autodidact from San Juan, he was almost obsessed with the idea that Argentina was condemned to backwater status and economic ruin unless it invested in education, overthrew the Federalists like Rosas (which he helped to bring about) and introduced elements of North American society, including what he saw as a proper democracy. His classic Facundo, or Civilization and Barbarism , written while he was exiled in Chile in 1845, is a compendium of impressions about Argentina in the form of the romantic biography of a gaucho thug named Facundo Quiroga. A leitmotiv of the novel-cum-essay is the fact that Argentina's size is a curse rather than a blessing, hampering communications and making it possible for local strongmen like Quiroga (and Rosas) to flourish.

An even greater classic, regarded by many as Argentina's national literary work, is JosA© HernA?ndez 's MartA­n Fierro (1872), a novel in verse of epic proportions and traditionally learned by heart by many Argentines. Written as a protest against the corrupt authorities, it features a highly likeable gaucho outlaw on the run, who rails against the country's weak institutional structures and dictatorial rulers. One of the highlights is a lurid description of the hero's visit to an encomienda . HernA?ndez (1834-86) published a second part, The Return of MartA­n Fierro , in 1879 but it lacked the drama of the earlier work. Written just before MartA­n Fierro , in 1870, is the equally gripping A Visit to the Ranquel Indians , by Lucio Mansilla (1831-1913). Taking the form of letters home to Buenos Aires, its anthropological descriptions are mingled with personal insights of a PorteA±o exposed for the first time to the realities of the country's far-flung outposts and indigenous peoples.

JosA© Marmol's (1818-71) rambling Amalia: a Romance of the Argentine (Gordon Press, New York, 1977), written in exile, is a love story centred on the young heroine Amalia, while dealing with political intrigues under Rosas in the 1850s; while The Slaughter House (Las AmA©ricas, New York, 1959), was also written in exile and published posthumously in 1871 by an opponent of Rosas, the socialist poet Esteban EcheverrA­a (1805-51) is a parable of the unspeakable brutality exacted by Rosas and his henchmen on a sensitive young man.

These preoccupations did not go away in the twentieth century. In 1926 Ricardo GuA?raldes (1886-1927) was still writing about the gaucho way of life and the remoteness of rural Argentina in his elegiac Don Segundo Sombra: Shadows on the Pampa , whose eponymous hero is a guru-like figure and whose narrator is initiated in a range of manual and ethical skills to help him survive in the outback.

Argentina's Edgar Allen Poe, Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937), wrote some vivid and at times lurid short stories set in Misiones province - The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories (University of Texas Press, 1976). More recent still is leading writer Manuel Puig's (1932-1990) Heartbreak Tango: A Serial (1982), a mordant anatomy of a provincial mind seduced by the apparent glamour of Buenos Aires, with more musings about living in Argentina's extensive flat wilderness. Puig is best known for his superb Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1984), a convincing albeit surreal portrait of a political militant sharing a prison cell with a homosexual obsessed with Hollywood starlets and romantic movies, itself turned into a brilliant film directed by Hector Babenco in 1985, starring William Hurt and RaA?l Julia. Set during the military dictatorship of the 1970s, the novel shows how the two forge an ever-closer relationship, exploited ruthlessly by the thuggish authorities. Juan JosA© Saer (born 1937) has written a number of modernist works set in and around his native Santa Fe, such as The Event (Serpent's Tail, 1998), in which the light and landscape condition the minds of his aimless characters.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the phenomenal urban explosion in the capital had sparked off some of Argentina's most intriguing and original fiction. Several writers vie for the accolade of the city's bard. Leopoldo Marechal (1900-70) self-consciously titled his mock epic of daily life in PorteA±o suburbia AdA?n Buenosayres (1948), with a gallery of bohemian poets and larger-than-life story-tellers as its cast. Until his tragically early death, Roberto Arlt (1900-42) captured the lot of the poor immigrant, with his gripping if idiosyncratic novels about anarchists, investors, whores and other marginal characters in the mean streets of 1920s Buenos Aires, most pleasingly portrayed in The Seven Madmen (1972). Published in 1933, X-ray of the Pampa by essayist and poet Ezequiel MartA­nez Estrada (1895-1964) again examines, in a quirky way, the mutual ignorance of the capital and the cattle-country stretching for hundreds of kilometres to the west. His contemporary Eduardo Mallea (1903-82) wrote somewhat ponderous fiction along similar lines, of which the best example is his 1941 novel All Green Shall Perish . Buenos Aires in the 1950s was conjured up poignantly by Ernesto SA?bato (born 1911) a physicist by profession whose writings explore the city's nostalgia and feeling of utter alienation in three seminal works, The Tunnel (Cape, 1980), On Heroes and Tombs (Cape, 1982) and The Angel of Darkness , (Cape, 1992). Julio CortA?zar (1914-84) spent much of his career in Europe, but his 1966 novel Hopscotch , albeit manifestly influenced by the French existentialist movement led by Sartre and Camus, features unmistakably PorteA±o characters; his later short stories, some of them collected as Bestiary: Short Stories , continue to dramatize the tense relationship between the Europe of Argentina's human origins and the construction of a new country on an alien continent - his stories are one of the highpoints of twentieth-century literature.

While Borges' friend, confidante and collaborator Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914-99) should not be overlooked - seek out his weird novella The Invention of Morel (1985) or the equally off-the-wall The Dlary of the War of the Pig (1972) - it is Borges himself who put Argentine letters on the world map. Born in Buenos Aires, he spent his youth in Europe, mostly in Switzerland (where he died and is buried), and "rediscovered" Buenos Aires and its barrios upon his return in the 1920s. He started out as an avant-garde poet, translator, journalist and literary critic, but soon turned to quirky parables, with sardonic or provocative overtones and unexpected twists that had him described as a magic realist. His early poetry turns Buenos Aires and many of its sights - like La Recoleta cemetery and the Botanical Gardens - into semi-mythical beings, but his work as a whole sets up the city as a perplexing labyrinth. Another recurring theme is the idea of (national) identity as illusory, and he used his subtly allegorical style to criticize PerA?n's chauvinistic demagoguery - he had nothing but loathing for the president and the deified Evita. His teasing and certainly baffling Fictions and The Aleph are as good an introduction to his oeuvre as any; start with his own favourite story, The South .

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Painting and sculpture

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The comprehensive catalogue published in 1994 for the exhibition of "Art from Argentina 1920-1994", held at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, claimed to be the first book on twentieth-century Argentine art ever to appear in Europe. The exhibition organizers put this down to the fact that, while Argentina is the Latin American country that appears to be most like Europe, the reality is more alien: that of a new, fast-growing but isolated nation, searching for a modern identity against a background of permanent insecurity, political violence, entrenched conservatism and generalized chaos. Surprisingly little has yet to be written in English-speaking countries, even the United States, about the plastic arts in Argentina, despite the country's massive, sometimes innovative and often fascinating production over two centuries of nationhood

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Language


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To get the most out of your trip to Argentina, you'll need to have a decent smattering of Spanish . Though you'll frequently come across English-speakers who'll be more than keen to try out their language skills on you, you can't rely on there always being someone there when you need them. In general, Argentinians are appreciative of visitors who make the effort to communicate in castellano - a great confidence booster for those whose language skills are limited. Any basic Spanish course will give you a good grounding before you go. A good pocket dictionary , such as Collins, is a vital accessory, while of the bigger dictionaries Collins, Oxford and Larousse are all good - make sure your choice covers Latin American usage. If you really want to refine your grasp of the subtleties of the language, a comprehensive grammar such as the excellent A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish by John Butt and Carmen Benjamin (Edward Arnold, London 1988) is a good investment.

Argentinian Spanish is one of the most distinctive varieties of the language. Dominating the country's linguistic identity is the unmistakeable PorteA±o accent , a seductive blend of an expressive, almost drawling intonation, combined with colourful colloquialisms. Linguistically speaking, the capital's sphere of influence spreads out for several hundred kilometres around Buenos Aires; beyond this, subtle regional variations begin to take hold, though certain grammatical constructions and words hold for the whole country. If you've learnt Spanish in Spain, the most obvious difference you will encounter (true for the whole of Latin America) is the absence of the th sound for words like cielo (sky, pronounced SIE-lo in Argentina). In Buenos Aires, in particular, you will also be struck by the strong consonantal pronunciation of "y" and "ll", as in yo and calle , a completely different sound to the weaker vowel-like sound used in Spain and much of Latin America. Another notable difference is the use of vos as the second-person pronoun, in place of tA? , with correspondingly different verb endings. As in the rest of Latin America, ustedes is used as the third-person pronoun instead of vosotros . In general, Latin American speech is slightly more formal than Spanish, and usted is used far more commonly. A good guideline is that vos is always used for children and usually between strangers under about 30; though within circles who regard themselves as politically progressive vos is used as a mark of shared values.

Argentinian vocabulary is often quite different to Spanish, too and the use of " che " (a vocative used when addressing someone, very loosely it approximates to something like "hey" or "mate" or "oi" in British English, used at the beginning of a phrase; A?che, quA© decA­s? - "hey mate, how's it going?") in particular is so much identified with Argentina that some Latin Americans refer to Argentinians as "Los che". The word was, of course, most famously applied as a nickname to Ernesto Guevara, popularly known as Che Guevara.

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Glossary

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ACA (AutomA?vil Club Argentino) National motoring organization (pronounced A-ka)

ACAMPAR To camp.

ADUANA Customs post.

AEROSILLA Chairlift.

AGRESTE Wild or rustic (often used to describe a campsite with very basic facilities).

ALERCE Giant, slow-growing Patagonian cypress, similar to the Californian redwood.

ALMACA?N Small grocery store, which in the past often functioned as a bar too.

ALTIPLANO High Andean plateau.

AA?NIK'ENK The Southern Group of Tehuelche (q.v), the last of whose descendants live in the province of Santa Cruz.

ARAUCARIA Monkey puzzle tree.

AROBA The @ sign on a computer keyboard.

ARROYO Stream or small river.

ASADO Barbecue (either on a parrilla or on the spit); tira de asado is beef ribs.

AUTOPISTA Motorway.

BACHE Pothole.

BAILANTA Dance club, where the predominant sound is cumbia .

BALNEARIO Bathing resort; also a complex of sunshades and small tents on the beach, often with a bar and shower facilities, for which users pay a daily, weekly or monthly rate.

BAA?ADO A type of shallow marshland, often caused by a flooded river, and common in the Chaco region.

BANDA NEGATIVA Airline tariff bracket, where a percentage of seats are sold at heavily discounted rates.

BAQUEANO Mountain or wilderness guide.

BARRIO Neighbourhood.

BOFEDAL Spongey Altiplano wetland.

BOLEADORAS BOLAS Traditional hunting implement, composed of stone balls connected by thick cord, thrown to entangle legs or neck of prey. Traditionally used by gauchos, who inherited it from Argentina's indigenous inhabitants.

BOLETERA?A Ticket office.

BOLETO Travel ticket.

BOMBACHA Wide-legged gaucho trousers.

BOMBILLA Straw-like implement, usually of metal, used for drinking mate from a gourd.

BONDI Colloquial term in Buenos Aires for a bus.

BOTIQUA?N Medicine kit.

C/ The abbreviation of calle (street); only rarely used.

CABILDO Colonial town hall; now replaced by Municipalidad.

CABINA TELEFA?NICA Phone booth.

CACIQUE Generic term for the head of a Latin American indigenous community or people, elected or hereditary.

CAJERO AUTOMA?TICO ATM, cashpoint machine.

CALAFATE Type of thorny Patagonian bush, famous for its blue berries.

CAMIONETA Pick-up truck.

CAMPESINO Country-dweller; sometimes used to refer to someone with indigenous roots.

CAMPO DE HIELO Ice cap or ice-field.

CAA?A COLIHUE Native Patagonian plant of the forest understorey, which strongly resembles bamboo.

CANCHA Football stadium.

CANTINA Traditional restaurant, usually Italian.

CARACTERA?STICA Telephone code.

CARAGUATA? Sisal-like fibre used by the WichA­ for weaving yica bags.

CARPA Tent.

CARRETERA Route or highway.

CARTELERA Agency for buying discounted tickets for cinemas, theatres and concerts.

CASA DE TA? Tearoom.

CASCO Main building of estancia; the homestead.

CATARATAS Waterfalls, usually used to refer specifically to IguazA? Falls.

CAUDILLO Regional military or political leader, usually with authoritarian overtones.

CEBAR MATE To brew mate .

CEIBO Tropical tree with a twisted trunk, whose bright-red or pink blossom is the national flower of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

CERRO Hill, mountain peak.

CHACO HA?MEDO Wet chaco habitat.

CHACO SECO Dry chaco habitat.

CHACRA Small farm.

CHAGUAR See CaraguatA? .

CHAMAMA? Folk music from the littoral region, specifically Corrientes Province.

CHANGO Common term in the northwest for a young boy; often used in the sense of "mate"/"buddy".

CHAQUEA?O Someone from the Chaco.

CHATA Slang term for pick-up truck.

CHE Ubiquitous, classically Argentinian term, tagged onto the end of numerous statements and generally meaning "mate" or "buddy". From the Mapuche for "person".

CHOIQUE Common term, deriving from Mapudungun, for the smaller, southern Darwin's rhea of Patagonia.

CHURRO Strip of fried dough, somewhat similar to a doughnut, often filled with dulce de leche .

COLECTIVO Urban bus.

COMBI Small minibus that runs urban bus routes.

COMPARSA Carnival "school".

CONFITERA?A CafA© and tearoom, often with patisserie attached.

CONVENTILLO Tenement building.

CORDILLERA Mountain range; usually used in Argentina to refer to the Andes.

CORTADERA Pampas grass.

COSTANERA Riverside avenue.

COUNTRY Term for exclusive out-of-town residential compound or sports and social club.

CRIOLLO Historically an Argentinian-born person of Spanish descent. Used today in two ways: as a general term for Argentinian (as in comida criolla, traditional Argentinian food) and used by indigenous people to refer to those of non-indigenous descent.

CUADRA The distance from one street corner to the next, usually 100 metres (see also manzana ).

CUCHILLA Regional term for low hill in Entre RA­os.

CUESTA Slope or small hill.

CUMBIA Popular Argentinian "tropical" rhythm, inspired by Colombian cumbia.

DEPARTAMENTO Administrative district in a province; also an apartment.

DESCAMISADOS Term meaning "the shirtless ones," popularized by Juan and Evita PerA?n to refer to the working-class masses and dispossessed.

DESPENSA Shop (particularly in rural areas).

DA?A DE CAMPO Day spent at an estancia where traditional asado and empanadas are eaten and guests are usually given a display of gaucho skills.

DIQUE Dock; also dam.

E/ The abbreviation of entre (between), used in addresses.

EMPALME Junction of two highways.

ENCOMIENDA Package, parcel; also historical term for form of trusteeship bestowed on Spaniards after conquest, granting them rights over the native population.

ENTRADA Ticket (for football match, theatre etc).

ESTANCIA Argentinian farm, traditionally with huge areas of land.

ESTEPA Steppe.

ESTERO A shallow swampland, commonly found in El Litoral and Chaco areas.

FACA?N Gaucho knife, usually carried in a sheath.

FEDERALIST Nineteenth-century term for one in favour of autonomous power being given to the provinces; opponent of Unitarist.

FERIA ARTESANAL DE ARTESANA?AS Craft fair.

FERRETERA?A Hardware shop (often useful for camping equipment).

FERROCARRIL Railway.

FICHA Token.

FOGA?N Place for a barbecue or campfire; bonfire.

FONDA Simple restaurant.

GALERA?A Small shopping arcade.

GASEOSA Soft drink.

GAUCHO The typical Argentinian "cowboy", or rural estancia worker.

GENDARMERA?A Police station.

GOMERA?A Tyre repair centre.

GOMERO Rubber tree.

GRINGO Any white foreigner, though often specifically those from English-speaking countries; historically European immigrants to Argentina (as opposed to criollos), as in pampa gringa, the part of pampa settled by European immigrants.

GUANACO Wild camelid of the llama family.

GUARANA? Indigenous people and language, found principally in Misiones, Corrientes and Paraguay.

GUARDAEQUIPAJE Left-luggage office.

GUARDAFAUNA Wildlife ranger.

GUARDAGANADO Cattle grid.

GUARDAPARQUE National park ranger.

GA?NA?NA'KA?NA The northern group of the Tehuelche (q.v.), now extinct.

HACER DEDO To hitchhike.

HUMEDAL Any wetland swampy area.

IGM (Instituto GeogrA?fico Militar) The national military's cartographic institution.

IMPENETRABLE Term applied historically to the area of the dry chaco with the most inhospitable conditions for white settlement, due to lack of water; the name of a zone of northwestern Chaco Province.

INTENDENCIA Head office of a national park.

INTENDENTE Administrative chief of a national park.

INTERNO Telephone extension number.

ISLETA DE MONTE Clump of scrubby mixed woodland found in savannah or flat agricultural land, typically in the Chaco and the northeast of the country.

IVA (impuesto de valor agregado) Value-added tax or sales tax.

JACARANDA? Tropical tree with trumpet-shaped mauvish blossom.

JUNTA Military government coalition.

KIOSKO Newspaper stand or small store selling cigarettes, confectionery and some foodstuffs.

KOLLA Andean indigenous group predominant in the northwestern provinces of Salta and Jujuy.

LANCHA Smallish motor boat.

LAPACHO Tropical tree typical of the littoral region and distinguished by bright-pink blossom.

LEA?A Firewood.

LENGA Type of Nothofagus southern beech common in Patagonian forests.

LICUADO Milkshake.

El LITORAL Littoral, shore - used to refer to the provinces of Entre RA­os, Corrientes, Misiones, Santa Fe and sometimes Eastern Chaco and Formosa.

LITORALEA?O Inhabitant of El Litoral.

LOCUTORIO Call centre, where phone calls are made from cabins and the caller charged after the call is made.

LOMO DE BURRO Speed bump.

LONCO Head or cacique of a Mapuche community.

MADREJA?N A swampy ox-bow lake.

MALLA?N Swamp, particularly in upland moors.

MANZANA City block; the square bounded by four cuadras .

MAPUCHE One of Argentina's largest indigenous groups, whose ancestors originally came from Chilean Patagonia and whose biggest communities are found in the provinces of Chubut, RA­o Negro and especially NeuquA©n.

MAPUDUNGUN The language of the Mapuches.

MARCHA Commercial dance music.

MATACO See WichA­.

MATE Strictly the mate gourd or receptacle, but used generally to describe the national "tea" drink.

MENA? DEL DA?A Standard set menu.

MENA? ECECUTIVO Set menu. More expensive than the menA? del dA­a (q.v.), though not always that executive.

MESOPOTAMIA The three provinces of Entre RA­os, Corrientes and Misiones, by analogy with the ancient region lying between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in modern-day Iraq.

MICRO Long-distance bus.

MICROCENTRO The area of a city comprising the central square and neighbouring streets.

MILONGA Style of folk-guitar music usually associated with the pampa region; also a tango dance and a subgenre of tango, more uptempo than tango proper.

MIRADOR Scenic lookout point or tower.

MONTE Scrubby woodland, often used to describe any uncultivated woodland area. Also used to refer to the desertified ecosystem that lies in the rainshadow of the central Andes around the Cuyo region.

MOZARABIC Spanish architectural style, originally dating from the ninth to thirteenth centuries and characterized by a fusion of Romanesque and Moorish styles.

MUELLE Pier or jetty.

MUNICIPALIDAD Municipality building or town hall.

A?ANDA? A common name, derived from GuaranA­, for the greater rhea, but also used to refer to its smaller cousin, the Darwin's rhea.

A?IRE Type of Nothofagus southern beech tree common in Patagonian forests.

A?OQUI Argentinian spelling of the Italian gnocchi, a small potato dumpling. Used to refer to phoney employees who appear on a company's payroll but don't actually work there; also slang for a punch.

NOTHOFAGUS Genus of Patagonian trees commonly called southern beech (includes lenga and A±ire q.v.).

OMBA? Large shade tree, originally from the Mesopotamic region and now associated with the pampa where it was introduced in the eighteenth century.

PAISANO Meaning "countryman"; sometimes loosely used as equivalent to gaucho and often used by people of indigenous descent to refer to themselves, thus avoiding the sometimes pejorative indio (Indian).

PALMAR Palm grove.

PALO BORRACHO Tree associated especially with the dry-chaco habitat of northern Argentina; its name (literally "drunken stick") is derived from its swollen trunk in which water is stored.

PALOMETA Piranha/piraA±a.

PAMPA The broad flat grasslands of central Argentina.

PARQUA?METRO Parking meter.

PARRILLA Barbecue grill or restaurant.

PARRILLADA The meat cooked on a parrilla .

PASAJE Narrow street.

PASEAPERRO Professional dog walker.

PASTIZAL Grassland, often used for grazing.

PATO The Argentinian national sport; similar to handball on horseback.

PAYADA Traditional improvised musical style, often performed as a kind of dialogue between two singers ( payadores ) who accompany themselves on guitars.

PEAJE Road toll.

PEATONAL Pedestrianized street.

PEHUA?N Mapuche term for monkey puzzle tree.

PEA?A Circle or group (usually of artists or musicians); a peA±a folklA?rica is a folk-music club.

PEA?N Farmhand.

PICADA A roughly-marked path; also a plate of small snacks eaten before a meal, particularly cheese, ham or smoked meats.

PLANTA BAJA Ground floor (first floor, US).

PLAYA Beach.

PLAYA DE ESTACIONAMIENTO Parking lot; garage.

PLAZOLETA/PLAZUELA Small square.

PORTEA?O Someone from Buenos Aires city.

PREFECTURA Naval prefecture for controlling river and marine traffic.

PUESTO Small outpost or hut for shepherds or guardaparques .

PUKARA? Pre-Colombian fortress.

PULPERA?A A type of traditional general-provisions store that doubles up as a bar and rural meeting point.

PUNA High Andean plateau (alternative term for altiplano ).

PUNTANO Someone from San Luis.

QUEBRADA Ravine, gully.

QUERANDA? Original indigenous inhabitants of the pampa region.

QUINTA Suburban or country house with a small plot of land, where fruit and vegetables are often cultivated.

QOM An indigenous group, living principally in the east of Formosa and Chaco provinces. The word means "people" in their language.

RANCHO Simple countryside dwelling, typically constructed of adobe.

RASTRA Gaucho belt, typically ornamented with silver.

RC (Ruta Complementaria) Subsidiary, unsealed road in Tierra del Fuego.

RECARGO Surcharge on credit cards.

RECOVA Arcade around the exterior of a building or courtyard, typical of colonial-era buildings.

REDUCCIA?N Jesuit mission settlement.

REFUGIO Trekking refuge.

REMISE/REMA?S Taxi or chauffeur-driven rental car, booked through a central office.

REMISE COLECTIVO Shared cab that runs fixed interurban routes.

REPRESA Dam; also reservoir.

RA?O River.

RIPIO Gravel; usually used to describe an unsurfaced gravel road.

RN (Ruta Nacional) Major route, usually paved.

RP (Ruta Provincial) Provincial road, sometimes paved.

RUTA Route or road.

SALTO Waterfall.

SAPUCAY Bloodcurdling shriek characteristic of chamamA© .

SELK'NAM Nomadic, indigenous guanaco-hunters from Tierra del Fuego, whose last members died in the 1960s. Also called Ona, the YA?mana (q.v.) name for them.

SENDERO Path or trail.

S/N Used in addresses to indicate that there's no house number ( sin nA?mero ).

SOROCHE Altitude sickness.

SORTIJA Display of gaucho skill in which the galloping rider must spear a small ring hung from a thread.

SUBTE Buenos Aires' underground railway.

TANGUERA?A Tango club.

TASA DE TERMINAL Terminal tax.

TAXA?METRO Taxi meter.

TEHUELCHE Generic term for the different nomadic steppe tribes of Patagonia, who early European explorers named "Patagones".

TELEFA?RICO Gondola or cable car.

TENEDOR LIBRE Eat all you like buffet restaurant.

TERERA? Common drink in the subtropical north of the country and Paraguay, composed of yerba mate served with wild herbs ( yuyos ) and ice-cold water or lemonade.

TERMINAL DE A?MNIBUS Bus terminal.

TERRATENIENTE Landowner.

TIPA Acacia-like tree often found in northern yungas.

TOBA See Qom.

TRUCO Argentina's national card game, in which the ability to outbluff your opponents is of major importance.

UNITARISTS Nineteenth-century centralists, in favour of power being centralized in Buenos Aires; opponent of Federalist.

VILLA Short for villa miseria , a shanty town.

WICHA? Semi-nomadic indigenous group, living predominantly in the dry central and western areas of Chaco and Formosa provinces, and in the far east of Salta. Sometimes referred to pejoratively as Mataco.

YAHGANES See YA?mana.

YA?MANA Nomadic indigenous canoe-going people who inhabited the channels to the south of Tierra del Fuego, and whose culture died out in Argentina in the early twentieth century. Called Yahganes by later nineteenth-century missionaries.

YERBA MATE The leaves of the plant, used to brew mate .

YPF (YACIMIENTOS PETROLEROS FISCALES) The principal Argentinian petroleum company, now privatized. It is usually used to refer to the company's fuel stations.

ZONA FRANCA Duty-free zone.

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Rough Guides travel insurance

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Rough Guides now offer their own travel insurance, customized for our readers by a leading UK broker and backed by a Lloyds underwriter. It's available to anyone, of any nationality, travelling anywhere in the world, and we believe it is the best-value scheme you'll find.

There are two main Rough Guide insurance plans: Essential , for effective, no-frills cover, starting at ?11.75 for two weeks; and Premier - more expensive but with more generous and extensive benefits. Each offer European or Worldwide cover, and can be supplemented with a " Hazardous Activities Premium " if you plan to indulge in sports considered dangerous, such as skiing, scuba-diving or trekking. Unlike many policies, the Rough Guides' schemes are calculated by the day , so if you're travelling for 27 days rather than a month, that's all you pay for. You can alternatively take out annual multi-trip insurance , which covers you for all your travel throughout the year (with a maximum of sixty days for any one trip).

For a policy quote, call the Rough Guides Insurance Line on UK Freefone tel 0800/015 0906, or, if you're calling from outside Britain, tel (+44)1243/621046. Alternatively, get an online quote at www.roughguides.com/insurance .

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Local tourist offices

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Mar del Plata , Av. Corrientes 1660 (tel 011/4384-5658).

Pinamar , Florida 930 (tel 011/4315-2680).

San Clemente del TuyA? , BartolomA© Mitre 1135 (tel 011/4381-0764).

Villa Carlos Paz , Lavalle 623 (tel 011/4322-0053).

Villa Gesell , BartolomA© Mitre 1702 (tel 011/4374-5199).

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Rugby

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Argentina has come to enjoy increasing levels of success on the rugby field. Rugby was introduced to Argentina in 1873, and the Argentine Rugby Union was founded in 1899. The country's national squad, the Pumas (founded in 1965), has gone from strength to strength in recent years, achieving their first defeat of England in 1990, and managing to secure fourth place in the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Although the game is popular in Buenos Aires city and province, many of the burliest figures come from TucumA?n

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Pampas grasslands and the espinal


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The vast alluvial plain centred on Buenos Aires Province, and radiating out into eastern Cordoba, southern Santa Fe and the northeast of La Pampa Province, was originally pampas grassland, essentially treeless and famous for its clumps of brush-tailed cortadera pampas grass. However, its deep, extremely fertile soils has seen it become the agricultural heart of modern Argentina, and this habitat has almost entirely disappeared, transformed by cattle grazing and intensive arable farming, and by the planting of introduced trees such as eucalyptus. It's still possible to find a few vestiges of marshlands and grasslands, such as the area of tall stipa grassland around Medanos, to the southwest of Bahia Blanca.

Bordering the pampas grasslands to the north and west, across the centre of Corrientes, Entre Rios, Santa Fe, Cordoba and San Luis provinces, is a semicircular fringe of espinal woodland , a type of open wooded "parkland" scenery. Common species of tree include acacia and, in the north, the nandubay and ceibo , Argentina's national tree, which in spring produces a profusion of scarlet, chilli-pepper-like blooms. In the north, espinal scenery mixes in places with the swamps and marshes of Mesopotamia, and intermixes with Monte Desert in the south.

The only type of habitat endemic to Argentina is the narrow strip of so-called monte scrub that is found in the arid, sunny intermontane valleys that lie in the rainshadow of the central Andes. They run from northern Patagonia through the Cuyo region and northwards as far as Salta Province, where in some places they separate the humid yungas from the high-mountain puna . Monte scrub is characterized by thorny, chest-high jarilla bushes, which flower yellow in spring. In the Andean foothills and floodplains of the Mendoza region, much of this desert monte has been irrigated and replaced with vineyards. It's an interesting habitat from a wildlife point of view, for a high number of endemic bird species, such as the carbonated sierra finch , the sandy gallito - a wren-like bird with a pale eye-stripe - and the cinammon warbling finch ( moneterita canela ).

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Birds and animals

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Commonly associated with dry-chaco habitat are birds like the black-legged seriema ( chuna de patas negras ), which is rather like an Argentinian roadrunner or secretary bird; and the chaco chachalaca ( charata ). A pair of charatas can make a cacophony to put a flock of geese to shame.

More excitingly, it holds forty percent of Argentina's mammal species (143 types). The edges of patches of woodland are usually the best places to see wildlife. A few jaguars hang on, despite trapping and trophy hunting, as do a handful of ocelots . Less threatened are the puma and the Geoffroy's cat ( gato montes ). One of three species of native Argentine wild pig, the famous Chacoan peccary ( chancho quimilero ), was thought to be extinct until rediscovered in Paraguay in 1975, and later in a few isolated areas of the Argentinian dry chaco.

Another high-profile living fossil is the nocturnal giant armadillo ( tatu carreta ). Up to 1.5m long and weighing as much as 60kg, a full-grown one is strong enough to carry a man, but its huge claws are no real defence against capture, as they're designed for digging, and impoverished campesinos know it makes good eating. Smaller but equally interesting are the coatimundi ( coati ) and the crab-eating raccoon ( aguara pope or osito lavador ). One of the most frequently sighted animals is the brown brocket deer ( corzuela pardo or guazuncho ).

Of the Chaco's numerous types of snake, the venomous (but generally unaggressive) coral snake ( coral ) and the innocuous false coral snake ( falsa coral ) are often confused. Both are similarly patterned in bands of red, black and white, and are best left alone. For the curious, the poisonous species has two white bands between a group of three black bands, and the imposter has only a single white band between two black bands. More dangerous are the vipers : the diamond-back rattlesnake ( cascabel ), the yarara de la cruz , and the yarara comun , all of which have an extensive range in northern and central Argentina.

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Tango

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The great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was a tango enthusiast and something of a historian of the music. "My informants all agree on one fact," he wrote, "the Tango was born in the brothels." Borges's informants were a little presumptuous, perhaps, for nobody can exactly pinpoint tango's birthplace, but it certainly developed amongst the Portenos - the people of the port area of Buenos Aires - and its bordellos and bars. It was a definitively urban music: a product of the melting pot of European immigrants, criollos, blacks and natives, drawn together when the city became the capital of Argentina in 1880. Tango was thus forged from a range of musical influences that included Andalucian flamenco, southern Italian melodies, Cuban habanera, African candombe and percussion, European polkas and mazurkas, Spanish contradanse, and, closer to home, the milonga - the rural song of the Argentine gaucho. It was a music imbued with immigrant history.

In this early form, tango became associated with the bohemian life of bordello brawls and compadritos - knife-wielding, womanizing thugs. By 1914 there were over 100,000 more men than women in Buenos Aires, thus the high incidence of prostitution and the strong culture of bar-brothels. Machismo and violence were part of the culture and men would dance together in the low-life cafes and corner bars practising new steps and keeping in shape while waiting for their women, the minas of the bordellos. Their dances tended to have a showy yet threatening, predatory quality, often revolving around a possessive relationship between two men and one woman. In such a culture, the compadrito danced the tango into existence.

The original tango ensembles were trios of violin, guitar and flute, but around the end of the nineteenth century the bandoneon , the tango accordion, arrived from Germany, and the classic tango orchestra was born. The box-shaped button accordion, which is now inextricably linked with Argentine tango, was invented around 1860 in Germany to play religious music in organless churches. One Heinrich Band reworked an older portable instrument nicknamed the "asthmatic worm", which was used for funeral processions as well as lively regional dances, and gave his new instrument the name "Band-Union", a combination of his and his company's names. Mispronounced as it travelled the world, it became the bandoneon.

In Argentina, an early pioneer of the instrument was Eduardo Arolas - a man remembered as the "Tiger of the Bandoneon". He recognized its immediate affinity with the tango - indeed, he claimed it was an instrument made to play tango, with its deep melancholy feeling which suited the immigrants who enjoyed a sentimental tinge in their hard lives. It is not, however, an easy instrument, demanding a great deal of skill, with its seventy-odd buttons each producing one of two notes depending on whether the bellows are being compressed or expanded.

Vicente Greco (1888-1924) is credited as the first bandleader to standardize the form of a tango group, with his Orquesta Tipica Criolla of two violins and two bandoneons. There were some larger bands but basically the instrumentation remained virtually unchanged until the 1940.

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ChamamA©, cuarteto and folk

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Tango aside, Argentine music is mostly rooted in the rural dance traditions of the countryside, an amalgam of Spanish and immigrant Central European styles with indigenous musics. Many of these dances - rancheras, milongas, chacareras and more - are shared with the neighbouring countries of Chile, Peru and Bolivia - while others, like chamame are particularly Argentinian. This short article focuses on the urban musics of chamame and cuarteto, and on rural folk music. Argentina, however, also has Amerindian roots, a music explored from the 1930s on by Atahualpa Yupanqui, which grew new shoots in the politicized nueva cancion (new song) movement.

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ChamamA©


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Chamame is probably Argentina's most popular roots music. It has its origins in the rural culture of Corrientes in the northeast - an Amerindian area which attracted nineteenth-century settlers from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria and Germany, including many Jews. These immigrants brought with them middle-European waltzes, mazurkas and polkas which over time merged with music from the local Guarani Amerindian traditions, and African rhythms from the music of the region's slaves. Thus emerged chamame, a music of poor rural mestizos , many of whom looked more Indian or than European, and whose songs used both Spanish and the Indian Guarani languages.

Chamame's melodies have a touch of the melancholy attributed to the Guarani, while its history charts the social, cultural and political relationships of mestizo migrants in a new environment. Until the 1950s, it was largely confined to its Corrientes home, but during that decade many rural migrants were moving into Buenos Aires to work in new industries, bringing their music and dances with them to local dance halls and cultural centres. Chamame began to attract wider attention - in part, perhaps, because it was a rare folk dance in which people dance in cheek-to-cheek embrace.

The essential sound of chamame comes from its key instrument - the large piano accordion (on occasion the bandoneon). It sweeps through tunes which marry contrasting rhythms, giving the music an immediate swing. Its African influences may have contributed to the music's accented weak beats so that bars blend and swing together. The distinctive percussive rhythms to the haunting, evocative melodies are the unique, compelling feature of this music.

Argentina's reigning King of Chamame is Raul Barboza , an artist who has had particular success in Europe in the 1990s. He followed in the footsteps of his Corrientes-born father Adolfo, who founded his first group in 1956. Barboza's conjunto features a typical chamame line-up of one or two accordions, a guitar (occasionally two guitars whose main job is to mark the rhythm) and guitarron (bass guitar).

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History, politics and society

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Lucas Bridges , Uttermost Part of the Earth (o/p). The classic text on pioneering life in Tierra del Fuego, related by the remarkable son of the famous missionary to the Yamana, Thomas Bridges. Its genius lies less in its literary attributes than in the extraordinary tales of an adventurous young man's relationship with the indigenous Selk'nam, and the invaluable ethnographic knowledge he imparts about a people whose culture was set to disappear within his lifetime. Well worth scouring secondhand bookstores to try to locate a copy.

Jimmy Burns , The Hand of God (Bloomsbury/Lyons Press), The Land that Lost its Heroes (o/p). The Hand of God is a compelling read in which Anglo-Argentine journalist Burns charts the rise and fall of Argentina's bad-boy hero of football, Maradona. The Land that Lost its Heroes is a considered and thoroughly researched account of the build-up to the Falklands/Malvinas conflict - and its aftermath. Burns was the only full-time British correspondent (for the Financial Times ) in Argentina during the conflict and his knowledge of both Argentina and Britain shines through.

Nick Caistor , Argentina in Focus: a Guide to the People, Politics and Culture (Latin America Bureau, UK). A highly accessible and concise introduction to the country, with chapters dedicated to the economy, culture, society, history and politics, and land and people.

Alicia Dujovne Ortiz , Eva Peron: A Biography (Warner/St Martin's Press). A biography of Argentina's most famous female icon from an Argentine author, who places her subject firmly within the context of national culture. A book which is as colourful as its subject, mixing fact, gossip and rumour to let you judge the woman for yourself.

Martin Honeywell and Jenny Pearce , Falklands: Whose Crisis? (o/p). A slim book, published in the immediate aftermath of the South Atlantic War, which takes the thorny issue of the Falklands/Malvinas by the scruff of the neck and strips it of the misinformation and propaganda that surrounds it. It savages both sides for jingoistic militarism, exposes shenanigans at the British Foreign Office and outlines potential solutions that haven't much changed since: essential reading for a background to the problem.

Daniel James , Resistance and Integration . Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946-1976 (Cambridge UP, UK). One of the most respected treatments of the complex subject of Peron's ambiguous relationship with the working class and the unions, examining the real improvements instigated by Peron, as well as his clampdown on dissent.

Simon Kuper , Football Against the Enemy (Orion/Trafalgar Square). A collection of essays on how politics is all too frequently the unwelcome bedfellow of football across the globe, including an entertaining and insightful chapter on the murky 1978 World Cup campaign in Argentina, with wonderful revelations about ex-president Menem's priorities in government: football comes first.

Richard Llewellyn , Down Where the Moon is Small (o/p). The concluding part of a trilogy that started with his famous How Green Was My Valley , this book examines the themes of faith, righteousness, exile and toil in the pioneering Welsh community of Trevelin around the end of the nineteenth century. Well-researched and evocative, it examines Chilean-Argentinian tension over the Andean border dispute, the failure of the early Welsh dream to be masters of their own land, the realities of incorporation into a nation state and the supplanting of the earlier indigenous culture. Although it over-romanticizes the local Mapuche, it offers a sympathetic insight into how these people - the real losers of the period - viewed the developments.

John Lynch , Massacre in the Pampas, 1872: Britain and Argentina in the Age of Migration (University of Oklahoma Press, US). A well-researched examination of nineteenth-century immigration to Argentina, and of its unsettling influence on sections of the criollo population, culminating in the bloody Tata Dios revolt in the town of Tandil.

Colin McEwan (ed), Patagonia: Natural History, Prehistory and Ethnography at the Uttermost End of the Earth (British Museum Press). A series of accessible, scholarly essays on aspects of Patagonian indigenous life and religion up to the disintegration of these cultures in the early twentieth century. It gives intriguing insights into the unwitting impact that these people had on developing key aspects of European thought such as Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and on the lack of real communication and understanding between dramatically distinct cultures. Released to coincide with a major exhibition, it is a beautifully illustrated volume that is the first port of call for anyone interested in the subject.

Greta MacKenzie , Why Patagonia (ISBN 0903960-12-5). A gentle and personal little work of social history, published by the author herself, tracing the emigration of Scottish crofters to Patagonia during the boom years of the early twentieth century. They came to work as shepherds or domestic servants and, though not as famous as the Welsh colony, many prospered in this harsh environment and put down roots.

Lucio V. Mansilla   A Visit to the Ranquel Indians (University of Nebraska Press). An account of a military colonel's dealings with the Ranquel Mapuches in 1870, apporting much useful ethnographic material and giving insight into the Pampas frontier conflict. Though clouded in places by self-obsession and frustrated political ambition, it nevertheless provides an interesting contemporary counterpoint to the dominant theme of the day, the "Indian problem", questioning the assumptions that lay behind Sarmiento's narrow definition of civilization and inexorable progress. Eva Gillies' translation is excellent, with informative footnotes and a handy historical introduction.

Carlos Martinez Sarasola , Nuestros Paisanos: Los Indios (Emece Editores S.A., Argentina). A sizeable and diverse volume, in Spanish, that aims to reassess the role of Argentina's indigenous populations throughout the region's history. Replete with maps and statistical charts, the book also contains a synthesis of indigenous issues in today's Argentina, and tries to dispel some of the ignorance that surrounds them, espousing the need for pluralism and tolerance.

Tony Mason , Passion of the People? Football in South America (Verso, UK). An analytical account of the developments and popularity of football in South America, largely concentrating on Brazil and Argentina. An interesting read that manages to interweave sport, culture and politics.

George Chaworth Musters , At Home with the Patagonians (o/p). The amazing 1869 journey of Musters as he rode with the Aonik'enk from southern Patagonia to Carmen de Patagones, becoming in the process the first outsider to be accepted into Tehuelche society and the first white man to traverse the region south to north. This book is our prime source for knowledge of the Tehuelche, and represents a snapshot of a nomadic culture that was about to be exterminated.

Alicia Partnoy , The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina (Virago, UK). A sometimes harrowing account of the time spent by the author in one of Argentina's most notorious detention centres during the 1970s. A bleak tale, though leavened by its portrayal of the ability of the human spirit to survive the greatest adversity.

Hernan Pisano Skarmeta, Alfredo Prieto, et al , Patagonia: Introduction to Ethnographic Photography (Patagonia Comunicaciones, Chile). A fine collection of early photographs of Patagonian and Fuegian indigenous groups, presented alongside bilingual text that examines the questionable motives and stereotypes of those who took the photos. Though the translation is sometimes weak, the subject and images are fascinating.

David Rock , Argentina 1516-1987 (o/p). The seminal history work on Argentina in English; a vast and comprehensive book covering the country's development from the first European incursion until the end of the Alfonsin period. Rock attempts to tackle the eternal question of Argentina's failure to realize its potential, concentrating on political and economic issues.

Domingo F. Sarmiento , Facundo, or Civilization and Barbarism (Penguin Books). An often rambling, multilayered essay defining Argentina's cultural peculiarities and attacking the arbitrary, uncivilized rule of the provincial strongmen or caudillos .

Nicholas Shumway , The Invention of Argentina (University of California Press). A sterling treatment of nineteenth-century intellectual impulses behind the formation of the modern Argentine nation state and the development of a national identity, with analysis of key debates such as that between Unitarists and Federalists. Though the subject matter would seem weighty, the book reads extremely well, with rich cultural detail throughout, and is invaluable in shedding light on the country we see today.

Jacobo Timerman , Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number (Vintage). A gruelling tale of detention under the 1976-83 military dictatorship, as endured by Timerman, then the editor of leading liberal newspaper of the time, La Opinion . The author is Jewish, and his experiences lead to a wider consideration of antiSemitism and the nature of totalitarian regimes.

Horacio Verbitsky , The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior (New Press). A respected investigative journalist, Verbitsky tells the story of Francisco Silingo, a junior naval officer during the Dirty War, involved in the horrific practice of pushing drugged prisoners out of airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean and the River Plate. A meticulously researched account of a dark episode in Argentina's history, long common knowledge but only recently officially brought to light.

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Colloquial speech and lunfardo

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Colloquial speech in Argentina, particularly in Buenos Aires is extremely colourful and it's good fun to learn a bit of the local lingo. There's a clear Italian influence in some words. Many colloquial expressions and words also derive from a form of slang known as lunfardo , originally the language of the Buenos Aires underworld (hence the myriad terms in lunfardo proper for police, pimps and prostitutes). There's also a playful form of speech, known as vesre , in which words are pronounced backwards ( vesre is reves - reverse, backwards) - a few of these words, such as feca have found their way into everyday speech. Though these sometimes very colloquial expressions will sound very odd coming from the mouth of a less than fluent foreigner, knowing a few of them will help you get the most out of what's being said around you. Lunfardo is also an important part of the repertoire of tango lyrics .

Words that are marked with an asterisk (*) should be used with some caution; those marked with a double asterisk (**) are best avoided until you are really familiar with local customs and language.

afanar to rob
bancar to put up with; no me lo banco "I can't stand it/him"
barbaro/a great
la barra brava hardcore of football supporters; each club has its own barra brava
la birra beer
el boludo/pelotudo idiot**
el bondi bus
la bronca rage, as in me da bronca, "it makes me mad"
el cana police officer*
canchero sharp-witted, (over)confident
el chabon boy/lad
el chamuyo conversation/chat
el chancho ticket inspector*
el chanta braggart, unreliable person*
el chorro thief
chupar to drink (alcohol)*
copado cool, good
el despelote mess
estar en pedo to be drunk*
el faso cigarette
el feca coffee (from cafe)
la fiaca tiredness/laziness, eg tengo fiaca
el forro condom/idiot**
el gil idiot*
la guita/la plata money*
el hinchapelotas irritating person**
laburar to work
el luca one thousand (pesos)
el mango peso/monetary unit, as in no tengo un mango, "I don't have a penny"
manyar to eat
una maza something cool, good, as in es una maza, "it's/he's/she's really cool'.
el milico member of the military*
la mina woman/girl
morfar to eat
onda atmosphere/character, as in tiene buena onda "it's got a good atmosphere" or "she's good-natured"
el palo one million (pesos); thus un palo verde is a million US dollars, in reference to the original colour of the bank notes.
la patota gang
el pendejo kid (also used derogatorily)*
petiso small, thus also small person
el pibe kid
pinta "it looks good"
la pinta appearance, as in tiene pinta or tiene buena
piola cool, smart
el pucho cigarette
el quilombo mess*
el tacho taxi (thus tachero, taxi driver)
el tano/la tana Italian
el telo short-stay hotel where couples go to have sex*
trucho fake, phoney
la vieja/el viejo mum/dad
zafar to get away with*



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Tourist information


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The only European countries with official Argentine tourist offices are Germany and Italy; in the USA three overseas delegations can give you the lowdown: 12 West 56th St, in New York (tel 212/603-0443, fax 212/315-5545); 5055 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 210, Los Angeles (tel 213/930-0681, fax 213/934-9076); and 2655 Le Jeune Rd, Ph. 1, Miami (tel 305/442-1366, fax 305/441-7029). The main national tourist board is, of course, in Buenos Aires, and you should go there for maps of the country and general information about getting around. Piles of leaflets, glossy brochures and maps are dished out at national, provincial and municipal tourist offices across the country, which vary enormously in quality of service and quantity of information - from the extremely professional, with all the latest computer equipment, to dingy offices with a couple of rusty filing-cabinets. Don't rely on staff speaking any language other than Spanish; nor on the leaflets or lists of accommodation, campsites, museums and other facilities being translated into foreign languages. In smaller towns you may find that the oficina de turismo is attached to the municipalidad or town hall, and can provide nothing more than some basic advice.

Every province maintains a Casa de Provincia in Buenos Aires, where you can pick up information about what there is to see or do, prior to travelling. The standard of information you'll glean from them varies wildly, often reflecting the comparative wealth of a given province. Some of the casas have fairly in-depth archives and the busier of them should be able to provide you with detailed printouts of accommodation and transport to various destinations under their jurisdiction. Notably helpful ones are Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Salta, Mendoza and La Pampa. Many also have a shop selling locally made arts and crafts. Getting the information you need can sometimes be a question of finding the right person - the Casas de Provincia are staffed by people from the various provinces and if you persist you may well be rewarded with some real insider knowledge. As well as the casas de provincia there are also several shop-window tourist offices in Buenos Aires run by major resorts, mostly those on the Atlantic seaboard.

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Websites

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Buenos Aireswww.buenosaires.gov.ar Tourism in the capital, with details of hotels, events and where to dance or watch tango.

Buenos Aires Heraldwww.buenosairesherald.com Condensed but interesting overview of local, national and international news in English and plenty of articles on culture and eating out.

ClarA­nwww.clarin.com.ar This site operated by one of the country's main newspapers is painfully slow to download but is full of info on everything from politics to sport, or the two combined.

Disappeared personswww.desaparecidos.org/arg Speaks for itself: this site is an interface for finding out more about the human side of this harrowing episode in Argentina's history.

Entertainmentwww.xsalir.com All the places to go out to in and around the capital: bars, discos, restaurants, concerts, sports meetings.

General informationwww.grippo.com Excellent and eclectic site with a variety of information on art, sport, current affairs, tourism (especially adventure or alternative tourism) and PerA?n and Evita.

Greenpeacewww.greenpeace.org.ar Ecology campaigns in and around Argentina with special emphasis on whales.

Historical information www.geocities.com/Heartland/Park/6037/links.html History, geography, culture, literature and more on this excellent site.

Link-upwww.wam.com.ar/tourism/homepage.htm Multilingual site putting you in touch with tour operators catering for foreigners in Argentina.

La NaciA?nwww.lanacion.com.ar Extremely well-executed site set up by the country's leading conservative daily with up-to-date news, weather and information about the arts and media.

Pagina 12www.pagina12.com Tries to beat ClarA­n for having the slowest site to download, but worth persevering for the outspoken news paper's alternative and at times caustic opinion of national politics.

South American Explorers' Club www.samexplo.org Very useful site set up by the experienced non-profit-making organization aimed at scientists, explorers and all travellers in South America. Includes travel-related news, descriptions of individual trips, a bulletin and indexed links with other websites.

Tourism escapeartist.com/argentina6/tournet.html Tourism-oriented Web site covering mountaineering, Buenos Aires restaurants, eco-tourism and all kinds of other issues of topical interest.

Tourist infowww.mercotour.com Reliable region-by-region site full of information on a variety of tourism-related issues from skiing to spas and adventure tours to farm holidays.

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Fishing

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As a destination for fly-fishing ( pesca con mosca ), Argentina is unparalleled, with Patagonia drawing in professionals and aficionados from around the globe. Trout, introduced mainly in the early twentieth century, form the mainstay of the sport, but there is also fishing for landlocked salmon and even Pacific salmon. The most famous places of all are those where the world's largest sea-running brown trout ( trucha marrA?n ) are found: principally the RA­o Grande and other rivers of eastern and central Tierra del Fuego, and the RA­o Gallegos on the mainland. The reaches of the RA­o Santa Cruz near Comandante Luis Piedra Buena have some impressive specimens of steelhead trout (sea-running rainbows or trucha arco iris ), and the area around RA­o Pico is famous for its brook trout. The Patagonian Lake District - around JunA­n de los Andes, San MartA­n de los Andes, Bariloche and Esquel - is the country's most popular trout-fishing destination, offering superb fishing in delightful scenery.

The trout-fishing season runs from mid-November to Easter. Regulations change slightly from year to year, but permits are now valid countrywide. They can be purchased at national park offices, some guardaparque posts, and at fishing equipment shops, which are fairly plentiful - especially in places like the north Patagonian Lake District. Permits cost $50, with permission to troll from boats $20 extra. With your permit, you are issued a booklet detailing the regulations of the type of fishing allowed in each river and lake in the region, the restrictions on catch-and-release, and the number of specimens you are allowed to take for eating. Argentine law states that permit holders are allowed to fish any waters they can reach without crossing private land. You are, in theory at least, allowed to walk along the bank as far as you like from any public road, although in practice you may find that owners of some of the more prestigious beats try to obstruct you in this.

For more information on fly-fishing in Argentina, contact the AsociaciA?n Argentina de Pesca con Mosca, Lerma 452, (1414) Buenos Aires (tel 011/4773 0821; aapm@cvtci.com.ar ). Full details of fishing regulations are listed in an excellent illustrated booklet , Nuestros RA­os y Peces (in Spanish only), which is available from the Chaco tourist board.

In the north of the country, sport fishing for the powerful dorado is also very popular, and an international competition, the Fiesta Nacional de Pesca del Dorado , is held in mid-October off the Isla del Cerrito in Chaco Province (tel & fax 03722/441033; $150-200 entrant's fee). You do not need a permit to fish in salt water



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Skiing


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Argentina's ski resorts , though not on the same scale as those of Europe or North America, attract mainly domestic and fellow Latin American tourists (from Chile and Brazil), as well as a smattering of foreigners who are looking to ski during the northern summer. Infrastructure is constantly being upgraded in the main resorts, and it's easy to find rental gear. The main skiing months are July and August (late July is peak season), although in some resorts it is possible to ski from late May to early October. Snow conditions vary wildly from year to year, but you can often find excellent powder snow. The most prestigious resort for downhill skiing is modern Las LeA±as , which offers the most challenging skiing and once hosted the World Cup; followed by Chapelco near San MartA­n de los Andes (where you also have extensive cross-country options, plus views of LanA­n), and the Bariloche resorts of Cerro Catedral and Cerro Otto , which are the longest-established in the country, and which are still perhaps the classic Patagonian ski centres, with their wonderful panoramas of the Nahuel Huapi region. Bariloche and Las LeA±as are the best destinations for those interested in aprA?s ski, while Ushuaia is an up-and-coming resort, with some fantastic cross-country possibilities and expanding - if still relatively limited - downhill facilities. One of the advantages of skiing at Ushuaia is that the experience is enhanced by the wonderful scenic views of the rugged, forested Fuegian sierras and the Beagle Channel. Other, more minor resorts include the mountain bowl of La Hoya near Esquel (traditionally a late-season resort and good for beginners); the tiny Cerro Bayo near Villa La Angostura; and isolated ValdelA©n near RA­o Turbio, with gentle runs on wooded hillsides right on the Chilean border. For updates on conditions and resorts, check out the Andesweb Web site ( www.andesweb.com ).

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Pato


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The most curious of all Argentine sports is pato ("duck"), a sport that has its origins in the seventeenth century. The name comes from the original "ball": a trussed duck that the mounted teams would wrestle each other for, trying to secure possession and, with it, the honour of eating the unfortunate bird. It had to be banned in the nineteenth century due to the fact that the duck was rarely the only casualty: few holds were barred, and fierce gaucho brawls or horse accidents left many contestants dead. The sport was revived in the 1930s, but the duck is now symbolic: it has been replaced by a leather ball with six strap handles, and two teams of four riders compete to hurl it through a basket at either end of the 180-metre-long pitch. If you don't catch a live match, you may catch a televised game on one of the otherwise eminently missable rural farming channels. In November of each year, the national tournament is held in Palermo, Buenos Aires.

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Diego Armando Maradona


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The 1986 World Cup success was the defining moment in the career of Diego Armando Maradona , Argentina's most famous living sporting legend. Short, stocky, and blessed with a footballing genius that consensus places in the realms of that of PelA©, Maradona followed up his infamous "Hand of God" goal in the 1986 quarter-finals against England with a sublime goal that many regard as the greatest ever to bless the tournament, and did it wearing two different-sized boots since his right ankle was greatly inflamed by an injury he'd picked up earlier. Regrettably, his exquisite skills as a player were never matched by a corresponding ability to deal with the tectonic pressures of life at the top. During a spell playing in Italy, he became the darling of Napoli, but his time there ended in scandal, with a year's ban for cocaine abuse. Worse was to come, and he was expelled from the 1994 World Cup held in the USA, after a cocktail of ephedrine stimulants were detected in a urine sample. Many Argentines were outraged at the humiliation of their hero, and talked darkly of CIA conspiracies. For a large segment of the population, Maradona's skill excuses him all excesses, which are overlooked or forgiven as the behaviour of an archetypal pibe (a cheeky street rogue), and loyalty to the man runs deep, especially amongst those who support Boca, the Argentine team with which he is umbilically associated. For them, he represents a man of the people, who rose from the poor Villa Fiorito barrio to conquer the world.

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Subtropical ParanA? forests


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Subtropical Parana forest ( Selva Paranaense ) is Argentina's most biologically diverse ecosystem, a dense mass of vegetation that conforms with most people's idea of a jungle. The most frequently visited area of Parana forest is the Parque Nacional Iguazu, but it is found in patches across lowland areas and upland hill ranges of the rest of Misiones, with small remnant areas in the northeast of Corrientes Province. It has over 200 tree species, amongst which figure the palo rosa (one of the highest canopy species, at up to 40m); the strangler fig ( higueron bravo ); the lapacho , with its beautiful pink flowers that have made it a popular ornamental tree in cities; and the Misiones cedar ( cedro misionero ), a fine hardwood species that has suffered heavily from logging. Upland areas along the Brazilian border still preserve stands of Parana pine , a type of rare araucaria monkey puzzle related to the more famous species found in northern Patagonia. Lower storeys of vegetation include the wild yerba mate tree, first cultivated in plantations by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century; the palmito palm, whose edible core is exploited as palm heart; and endangered prehistoric tree ferns . Festooning the forest are llianas, mosses, ferns and epiphytes, including several hundred varieties of orchid .

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The yungas


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The yungas is the term applied to the humid, subtropical band of the Argentinian northwest that's squeezed between the flat chaco to the east and the Andean pre-cordillera to the west, dropping south from the Bolivian border through Jujuy and Salta, Tucuman and into Catamarca. Abrupt changes of altitude in this band give rise to radical changes in the type of flora, creating wildly different ecosystems arranged in tiers. All are characterized by fairly high year-round precipitation, but have distinct seasons, with winter being the drier. The lowest altitudes are home to transitional woodland - no longer the thorn-scrub of the Chaco but retaining some varieties typical of the plains to the east - and lowland jungle ( selva pedemontana ), rising up to about 600m. Most of the trees and shrubs in these lower levels are deciduous and have showy blossoms: jacaranda , fuchsia, pacara, palo blanco and amarillo, lapacho (or tabebuia ), timbo colorado (the black-eared tree), palo borracho ( chorisia or yuchan ), and Argentina's national flower, the ceibo . Much of this forest has been hard-hit by clearance for timber and agriculture, especially sugar-cane plantations.

Above 600m starts the most famous yungas habitat, the montane cloudforests ( selva montana or nuboselva ) - one of the country's most diverse and interesting ecosystems, and best seen in the national parks of Calilegua in Jujuy, and Baritu and El Rey in Salta. The selva montana is split into two categories: lower montane forest ( selva basal ), which rises to about 1000m; and true cloudforest, which is found as high as 2200m and depends for its moisture on winds blowing westwards from the Atlantic. These forests form a gloomy, impenetrable canopy of tall evergreens - dominated by laurels and acacia-like tipas at lower levels, and yunga cedars, horco molle, nogal and myrtles higher up - beneath which several varieties of cane and bamboo compete for the scarce, mottled sunlight. The tree trunks are covered in thick moss and lichen, lianas hang in a tangle, epiphytes and orchids flourish, while a variety of bromeliads, heliconias, parasites and succulents all add to the mysteriously dank atmosphere. On the tier above the cloudforest, you'll find typically single-species woods of alder, nogal or mountain pine form the bosque montano at 1500-2400m, where temperatures at night and in winter can be very low. Above this begins the pre- puna highland meadows ( prados ) of stunted quenoa trees, reeds and different sorts of puna grasses.

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The Atlantic seaboard

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Argentina has 4725km of Atlantic coastline, which comprises three main types of habitat. From the mouth of the estuary of the Rio de la Plata to just beyond the southern limit of Buenos Aires Province, the shoreline is mainly flat, fringed by dunes, sandy beaches and pampa grass. South of Viedma begin the endless stretches of dessicated Patagonian cliffs ( barrancas ) such as those you see fronting Peninsula Valdes, broken in places by gulfs and muddy or shingle river estuaries, but almost entirely devoid of vegetation. The most beautiful of these cliffs are the porphyry-coloured sandstone ones near Puerto Deseado. The third section of coastline is that found south of Tierra del Fuego's Rio Grande, where you find, in succession, patches of woodland, the bleak moorland tundra of the Peninsula Mitre, and the rich southern beech forests of the Beagle Channel, exemplified by those in the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.

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First tango in Paris


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Before long the tango was an intrinsic part of the popular culture of Buenos Aires, played on the streets by organ grinders and fairground carousels, and danced in tenement courtyards. Its association with the whorehouse and low-down porteno lifestyle, plus its saucy, sometimes obscene and deeply fatalistic lyrics, didn't endear it to the aristocratic families of Buenos Aires, who did their best to protect their children from the corrupting new dance, but, like rock'n'roll in America, it was a losing battle.

A number of rich, upper-class playboys, such as poet and writer Ricardo Guiraldes , enjoyed mixing with the compadritos and emulating their lifestyle from a "debonair" distance. It was Guiraldes who, on a European grand tour in 1910, was responsible for the spread of the dance to Europe. In 1911 he wrote a famous homage, a poem called "Tango" in honour of the dance: "… hats tilted over sardonic sneers. The all-absorbing love of a tyrant, jealously guarding his dominion, over women who have surrended submissively, like obedient beasts … ".

The following year Guiraldes gave an influential impromptu performance in a Paris salon to a fashionable audience for whom tango's risque sexuality ("the vertical expression of horizontal desire" as one wag dubbed it) was deeply attractive. Despite the local archbishop's admonition that Christians should not in good conscience tango, they did, and in very large numbers. Tango was thus the first of the many Latin dance crazes to conquer Europe. And once it had been embraced in the salons of France its credibility back home greatly increased. Back in Argentina, from bordello to ballroom, everyone was dancing the tango.

And then came Rudolph Valentino . The tango fitted his image to a T and Hollywood wasted no time in capitalizing on the charisma of the superstar, the magnetism of the tango and the attraction they both had on a huge public. Valentino and Tango! Tango and Valentino! The combination was irresistible to the moguls, who swiftly added a tango scene to the latest Valentino film, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1926). The fact that in the film Valentino was playing a gaucho (Argentinian cowboy) son of a rancher - and gauchos don't dance the tango - didn't deter them for a moment. Valentino was a special gaucho and this gaucho could dance the tango. And why not? The scene really was incredible: Valentino, dressed in the wide trousers and leather chaps of a gaucho in the middle of the pampa, holding a carnation between his lips, and a whip in his hand; his partner, a Spanish senorita, kitted out with headscarf and hair comb plus the strongest pair of heels this side of the Rio de la Plata.

Predictably enough, the tango scene was the hit of the film and, travesty though it was, it meant the dance was now known all over the world. Tango classes and competitions were held in Paris, and tango teas in England, with young devotees togged up as Argentine gauchos. Even the greatest tango singer of all time, Carlos Gardel , when he became the darling of Parisian society, and later starred in films in Hollywood, was forced to perform his tangos dressed as a gaucho.

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Travel

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Bruce Chatwin , In Patagonia (Vintage/Penguin). For many travellers, the Argentine travel book; really a series of self-contained tales (most famously of the Argentinian adventures of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) strung together by their connection with Patagonia. An idiosyncratic book which has inspired a "Chatwin trail", though his rather cold style and literary embellishments on the region's history have their detractors too. Read it and make up your own mind.

Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux , Patagonia Revisited (Picador), published in the US as Nowhere is a Place (Sierra Club Books). The two doyens of Western travel writing combine to explore the literary associations of Patagonia. Wafer-thin and thoroughly enjoyable, this book throws more light on the myths of this far-flung land than it does on the place itself. With glorious photos by Jeff Grass.

Che Guevara , The Motorcycle Diaries (Verso, UK). A lively counterpoint to the weighty biographies of Argentina's greatest revolutionary, this is Che's own account of his epic motorcyle tour around Latin America, beginning in Buenos Aires and heading south to Patagonia and then up through Chile. Che undertook the tour when he was just 23 and the resulting diary is an intriguing blend of travel anecdotes and an insight into the mind of a nascent revolutionary.

Miranda France , Bad Times in Buenos Aires (Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Ecco). Despite the title and the often downbeat tone, this whimsical journal brings Portenos to life, and you can't help feeling the author secretly loves the place. Highlights include a near-miss encounter with Menem's toupee.

Eric Shipton , Tierra del Fuego: the Fatal Lodestone (o/p). An involved and passionate account of the discovery and exploration of the southernmost archipelago, recounted by a hardened adventurer and mountaineer who had more insight into these lands than most. A superb achievement that makes for a riveting read.

Paul Theroux , The Old Patagonian Express (Penguin/Cape Cod Scriveners Co). More tales about trains by the tireless cynic, but in the four chapters on Argentina, which he passed through just before the 1978 World Cup, he waxes lyrical about cathedral-like Retiro station and has a surreal dialogue with Borges.

A.F. Tschiffely , Tschiffely's Ride (o/p). An account of an adventurous ride - described as the "longest and most arduous on record ever made by man and horse" - from Buenos Aires to Washington in the 1920s. The first forty pages deals with his trip up to the Bolivian border in Jujuy and, though his style is rather pedestrian, it provides an insight into rural Argentina of the time and includes a spot of grave robbing at the Tilcara ruins.

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Contemporary Argentine art: Back to square one

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The 1970s and early 1980s saw many Argentine artists leave the country, out of justifiable fear for their lives as dozens of artists disappeared during the brutal Proceso. Some preferred to stay, using indirect means of criticizing the Philistine barbarians who governed the country. In 1971 the Centro de Arte y Comunicacion was founded by art critic Jorge Glusman (now director of the MNBA), and took over where the disbanded Centro de Artes Visuales and Romero Brest had left off - though Glusman was less dictatorial in his approach. Two key figures stand out during this period: Pablo Suarez (born 1937) whose La terraza (1983) at the MNBA is typical of his black humour and anti-Argentinidad credo, being a sardonically cruel pastiche of the Sunday asado; and his contemporary Victor Grippo (born 1936), whose Analogia I (1970-71) at the MNBA comprises forty potatoes in pigeonholes with electrodes attached, seen retrospectively as a horrific premonition of the military's torture chambers. Suarez had first had to rebel against his aristocratic estanciero family, which he did as an adolescent by fashioning erotic sculptures only to destroy them at once. Much of his later work is also sexually provocative, while poking fun at sacrosanct aspects of the Argentine way of life. His grotesque Monumento a Mate (1987) hits a raw nerve of the Argentine psyche, the national drink of mate , while his oyster-shaped sculpture La Perla: retrato de un taxi-boy (1992) depicts a naked adolescent reclining in the place of a pearl - taxi-boy is the Porteno term for a rent-boy, so-called because male prostitutes in the capital demand the "taxi-fare home" rather than payment for their services. As for Grippo, his most famous work is Analogia IV (1972), again featuring potatoes, highly symbolic as they are native to South America and successfully imported into North America, Europe and the rest of the world. In this seminal work a white table-top is laid with a china plate, metal cutlery and three potatoes, while another, black in colour, is laid with identical crockery and cutlery in transparent plastic - this mirror image of "real" and "fake" apparently represents military puppet President General Alejandro Lanusse's humiliating invitation to recall Peron from his Spanish exile in 1972. Another contemporary of theirs, Antonio Segui (born 1934), is also out on an artistic limb: his comic-like paintings, such as the untitled acrylic (1987) on show at the MNBA, depict a somewhat sinister, behatted figure in countless different poses, representing urban alienation. Younger artist Alfredo Prior (born 1952) - whose En cada sueno habita una pena (1985) at the MNBA, is one of the most horrific yet beautiful Argentine paintings produced in recent years - deliberately kept himself apart from artistic circles, rarely exhibiting his work. Minimalism and Japanese art are strong influences on his work along with Turner in his use of colour, as in Paraiso (1988). The style of Ricardo Cinalli (born 1948), who lives in London, has been described as postmodern Neoclassicism, and his Blue Box (1990) is a prime example of his original use of layers of tissue paper upon which he colours in pastel. Monica Giron (born 1959) takes her inspiration from her native Patagonia and her environmental concerns to produce innovative works like Trousseau for a Conqueror (1993) which features a pullover specially knitted for a buff-necked ibis, putting her undeniably in the same school, despite her different style, as Marta Minujin.

Guillermo Kuitca (born 1961) is without a doubt Argentina's most successful contemporary artist - his paintings sell for over $100,000 at New York auctions - and in many ways he encapsulates what Argentine art has become, the way it has turned full circle. Argentina remains a country of mostly European immigrants and their descendants who, however hard they try, cannot sever the umbilical cord that links them culturally to their parents' and grandparents' homelands. Above all, Kuitca's work is highly original and makes no attempt to create something nationally Argentine - as witnessed by his beautiful painting at the MNBA, La consagracion de la primavera (1983) - but it is no coincidence that his series of maps, such as those printed onto a triptych of mattresses (1989) are almost exclusively of Germany and central Europe where his own roots are. The 1986 novel The Lost Language of Cranes , by David Leavitt, in which the son's favourite pastime is drawing maps of non-existent places, was the main inspiration for this theme, while the choreography of German creator Pina Bausch is another source of ideas for the artist. Argentine artists seem finally to have given up trying to forge the Argentinidad that Borges and his colleagues were set on inventing in the 1920s, and have acknowledged instead that, in the global village of constant interaction, personal styles and talent are more important than an attempt to create an artificial national identity through art.

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Consonants

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Consonants not covered below (eg CH, F, M, N) are, for all practical purposes, pronounced as in English.

B and V are pronounced identically in Spanish. At the beginning of a breathgroup (eg Vino a casa - he came to my house) or after m or n (eg envidia , envy) it is a hard sound, equivalent to English b ell. In all other positions, it is a much softer sound, pronounced by murmuring through barely open lips. There is no English equivalent, so the best way to learn the sound is by listening carefully to native pronunciation of phrases such as soy de Buenos Aires or me gusta el vino .

C has two pronounciations; before e and i , it is pronounced as an S, as in cero (zero, pronounced SE-ro). Before a, o and u , it is pronounced as an English "k".

D follows more or less the same pattern as B/V: at the beginning of a breathgroup or after l or n , it is a hard sound, similar to the English d of d og. In all other positions it is a soft sound, very similar to English th is. Between vowels and at the end of words it is pronounced very softly and sometimes not at all (check out the cartoon strip Inodoro Pereyra on daily paper Clarin' s back pages for phonetic transcriptions of this tendency, associated in Argentina with the gaucho).

G follows a similar pattern to C: before e and i it is pronounced in a similar fashion as English h , though with a hint of a more guttural sound, rather like the ch in Scottish lo ch (note that this is much less strongly pronounced in Latin America than in Spain). Thus general is pronounced he-ne-RAL. Before a, o and u , G has two possible sounds: at the beginning of a breathgroup or after n (eg in tan g o), it is pronounced as in English g one. In other positions, G is pronounced as a soft fricative (meaning that the position of the tongue and throat are as for the hard G but that no closure takes place). As with soft B/V, there is no English equivalent, and this sound is best learnt through observation of words like lago (lake).

H is silent

J is pronounced in all positions in the same way as G before e and i.

L is pronounced as English l eaf. British speakers should avoid the tendency to produce a "w" sound at the end of words (imagine a cockney pronouncing the Mexican beer "Sol" and you'll get the idea): the Spanish L sound is always "clean".

LL is pronounced in Buenos Aires and much of the rest of the country rather like the j in French j our, or the g in bei g e, or sometimes as a softer sound, almost like "sh"; thus calle (street) is pronounced KA-je or KA-she. In parts of the country, notably the north, it is closer to the "y" sound used in the rest of the continent. In Corrientes, it is often pronounced as a "ly" sound.

N is a palatalized sound, pronounced with the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth. Try pronouncing an "n" followed very quickly by a "y", in a similar way to the "n" sound in the word "onion"; thus manana is something like ma-NYA-na.

Q only occurs before ue and ui, and is pronounced like English K.

R is prounced in two ways; at the beginning of a word, and after l, n or s it is rolled as for RR, below. Between vowels, or at the end of a word it is a single "flapped" R, produced by a single tap of the tongue on the roof of the mouth immediately behind the teeth. This is actually quite difficult for English speakers to master; the tendency is to use a retroflex R (meaning that the tongue curls backwards), a very common sound in English. This pronunciation in words like pero and cara is probably the single biggest mark of a gringo accent.

RR Written "rr", or as "r", the Spanish RR is a strongly trilled sound, produced in the same way as R, but with several rapid taps of the tongue. Some people (native Spanish speakers included) find it impossible to produce this sound, but it is important for differentiating words such as pero (but) and perro (dog), or the potentially embarassing foro (forum) and forro (slang word for condom, or idiot). There are regional variations: in La Rioja, for example, it is commonly pronounced as a fricative, something similar to a heavy "s" sound: the speech of ex-president Carlos Menem is a perfect example of this tendency.

S between vowels or at the beginning of a word is basically as in English s un. Before consonants it is commonly aspirated in Argentina; meaning that it sounds something like a soft English H: thus las calles (the streets) sounds like lah-KA-jes. You don't need to worry about replicating this sound yourself, but familiarizing yourself with this pronunciation will make it easier to understand what's being said around you. In some regions, S at the end of a word is weakened or even dropped.

Y between vowels; at the beginning of a word or after a consonant is pronounced as LL. Otherwise it is pronounced as I, as in y , the Spanish word for "and".

Z is pronounced as an S.

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Argentinian vocabulary

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As well as the voseo and various different pronunciations, those who have learnt Spanish elsewhere (particularly in Spain) will need to become accustomed to some different vocabulary in Argentina. In general, Spanish terms are recognized but - as for all the other differences - a familiarity with Argentinian equivalents will smooth things along. Though few Spanish terms are not understood in Argentina, there is one major exception, which holds for much of Latin America. The verb coger , used in Spain for everything from "to pick up" to "to catch (a bus)" is never used in this way in Argentina, where it is the equivalent of "to fuck"). This catch-all verb is replaced in Argentina by terms such as tomar (to take) as in tomar el colectivo (to catch the bus) and agarrar (to take hold of or grab) as in agarra la llave (take the key). Less likely to cause problems, but still one to watch is concha , which in Spain is a perfectly innocent word meaning shell, but in Argentina is usually used to refer to a woman's genitalia: Argentinians find the Spanish woman's name Conchita hilarious and the words caracol or almeja are used for shells.

Also note that some words which are feminine in Spanish are more often masculine in Argentinian; eg vuelto - change, llamado - (phone) call.

el almacen grocery store
el auto car
la birome biro
el boliche nightclub; also sometimes shop in rural areas
la cartera handbag
la carpa tent
chico/a small (also boy/girl)
el colectivo bus
el durazno peach
estacionar park
la lapicera pen
el living living room
la manteca butter
las medias socks
el negocio shop (in general)
el nene/la nena child
la palta avocado
la papa potato
la pollera skirt
el pomelo grapefruit
la remera T-shirt
el sueter sweater
el tapado coat (usually woman's)
la vereda pavement
la vidriera shop window



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Hiking


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Argentina offers some truly marvellous hiking possibilities, and it is still possible to find areas where you can trek for days without seeing a soul. Trail quality varies considerably, but many are difficult to follow, so always get hold of the best map available and ask for information as you go. Most of the best treks are found in the national parks - especially the ones in Patagonia - but you can often find lesser-known but equally superb options in the lands bordering the parks. Most people head for the savage granite spires of the Fitz Roy region around El ChaltA©n, an area whose fame has spread so rapidly over the last ten years, that it now holds a similar status to Chile's renowned Torres del Paine, not far away. Tourist pressures are starting to tell, however, at least in the high season (late-Dec to Feb), when campsites are packed and can become strewn with litter. The other principal trekking destination is the mountainous area of Nahuel Huapi National Park which lies to the south of Bariloche, centring on the Cerro Catedral massif and Cerro Tronador. This area has the best infrastructure, with a network of generally well-marked trails and mountain refuges. Though some trails become very busy in summer, there are plenty of them and you will always be able to find some less well-trodden ones. In the north of the country, some of the best trekking can be found in Jujuy Province , especially in Calilegua, where the habitat ranges from subtropical and cloudforest to bald, mountain landscape. Salta Province also offers a good variety of high mountain valley and cloudforest trails.

You should always be well prepared for your trips, even for half-day hikes. Good quality, water-and windproof clothing is vital for hiking in Patagonia and all other mountain areas: temperatures plummet at night and often with little warning during the day, and you put yourself at risk of exposure or hypothermia, which can set in fast, especially if you get soaked and the wind is up. Keep spare dry layers of clothing and socks in a plastic bag in your pack. Boots should provide firm ankle support and have the toughest soles possible (Vibram soles are recommended), as many types wear out with alarming rapidity on the stony trails. Gore-Tex boots are only waterproof to a degree: they will not stay dry when you have to cross peaty swampland. A balaclava is sometimes more useful than a woollen hat. Make sure that your tent is properly waterproofed and that it can cope with high winds (especially if you're trekking in Patagonia). You'll need a minimum of a three-season sleeping bag, to be used in conjunction with a solid or semi-inflatable foam mattress (essential as the ground will otherwise suck out all your body heat). Also bring high-factor sunblock and lipsalve, plus good sunglasses and headgear to cope with the fierce UV rays. Park authorities often require you to carry a stove for cooking. The Camping Gaz models that run on butane cylinders (refills are fairly widely available in ferreterA­a hardware shops) are not so useful in exposed areas, where you're better off with a high-pressure petrol stove such as an MSR, although these are liable to clog with impurities in the fuel, so filter it first. Telescopic hiking poles save your knees from a lot of strain and are useful for balance. Miner-style head torches are preferable to regular hand-held ones, and gaffer tape makes an excellent all-purpose emergency repair tool. Carry a first-aid kit and a compass , and know how to use both, especially for the more isolated treks. And always carry plenty of water - aim to have at least two litres on you at all times. Pump-action water filters can be very handy, as you can thus avoid the hassle of having to boil suspect water.

Note also that, in the national parks, especially on the less-travelled and overnight routes, you should inform the park ranger of your plans , not forgetting to report your safe arrival at your destination - the ranger ( guardaparque ) will send a search party out for you if you do not arrive.

You'd be advised to buy all your camping equipment before you leave home: quality gear is expensive and hard to come by in Argentina, and there are still relatively few places that rent decent equipment, even in some of the key trekking areas

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Mesopotamian grassland

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Found across much of Corrientes and Entre Rios provinces, and extending into southernmost Misiones, are the humid Mesopotamian grasslands . Here you will find yatay palm savannah and some of Argentina's most important wetlands , most notably the Esteros de Ibera and the Parque Nacional Mburucuya, which make for some of Argentina's most productive nature safaris .

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The Patagonian steppe


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Typified by its brush scrub and wiry grassland, the Patagonian steppe ( estepa ) covers the greatest extent of any Argentine ecosystem. This vast, grey-brown expanse of semi-desert lies to the south of the pampas grasslands, to the east of the Andean cordillera, and as far south as Tierra del Fuego, and includes areas of genuine desert and cracked, dessicated meseta. Vegetation is stunted by the poor, gravelly soils, high winds, and lack of water, except along the few river courses, where you find marshlands ( mallines ) and startlingly green willows ( sauces ). Just about the only trees apart from the willows are the trademark, non-native Lombardy poplars, planted to shelter estancias. The habitat itself can be broadly grouped into brush steppe , which frequently forms part of the brief transitional zone between the more barren lands to the east and the cordillera forests; and grass steppe , typified by tussocks of yellowy-brown coiron grass, usually closely cropped by sheep.

Much of the scrubby brush is composed of monochrome mata negra , but in places, you'll come across the resinous, perfumed mata verde , or the manicured ash-grey mata guanaco , which blooms with virulently orange flowers. You'll also see spiky calafate bushes, and the duraznillo , which has dark green, tapered leaves. One of the largest bushes is the molle , covered with thorns and parasitic galls. The adhesive qualities of molle sap was once utilized by indigenous peoples to fix arrowheads and scrapers to their wooden shafts, but nowadays the most common use for this bush is as firewood to prepare an aromatic asado . Smaller shrubs include the silver-grey senecio miser ; compact, spiky neneo plants; and the lengua de fuego , a dull-grey shrub with bright-red flowers when in bloom. In moister areas, you'll find the colapiche , whose name ("armadillos' tail") comes from the appearance of its smooth, leafless fronds.

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Birds and animals

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Your best chance of sighting some of the key species of the steppe is in places such as Chubut's Peninsula Valdes and Punta Tombo. Guanacos , the graceful wild cousin of the llama, abound in these places. Look out too for the mara (Patagonian hare), the largest of Argentina's endemic mammals, and of the same family as the capybara. Sadly, this tremendous long-legged rodent, the size of a small dog, is becoming ever rarer, and its range has shrunk, thanks to competition from the ubiquitous European hare ( liebre ), introduced in the late nineteenth century.

The zorro gris (grey fox) is regularly to be found around national park gates, waiting for scraps thrown by tourists - try and resist. The only time you're likely to come across its larger, more elusive cousin, the zorro colorado (red fox), is on a barbed-wire fence - it having bitten something altogether less savoury, by way of poisoned bait or a bullet. Grey foxes regularly suffer the same fate at the hands of their foes, but are rather more astute at distinguishing friends.

Pichi and peludo   armadillos are often seen scampering across the plains at surprising speed, like overwound clockwork toys. Even more regularly, they are spotted at the side of the road, forming the diet of a natty southern crested caracara ( carancho ) or a dusty-brown chimango caracara ( chimango ), the two most frequently sighted of Patagonia's scavenging birds.

Another characteristic bird of prey is the black-chested buzzard eagle ( aguila mora ), a powerful flier with broad wings and splendid plumage. The classic bird of the steppe, though, is the lesser or Darwin's rhea ( nandu petiso or choique ), best described in English by the seventeenth-century sea captain, Sir John Narborough, as "much like a great Turkey-cock … they cannot fly; have a long Neck, and a small Head, and [are] beaked like a goose". These ashy-grey birds lay their eggs in communal clutches, and in spring you'll see them with their broods of young.

The brightly coloured Patagonian sierra finch ( fringilo patagonico ) is an attractive yellow and slate-grey bird which is often found in proximity to humans, as is the crested rufous-collared sparrow ( chingolo ). On lagoons and lakes of the steppe, you'll find the black-necked swan ( cisne de cuello negro ), a bird that suffered from severe overhunting in the early twentieth century to supply the demand from the European fashion industry for its feathers. Also look for Chilean flamingos ; the beautiful, endangered hooded grebe ( maca tobiano ), only discovered in 1974 and endemic to Santa Cruz; the great grebe ( huala ); all four types of chorlito   seedsnipes ; upland geese ( cauquen or avutarda ), which migrate as far north as southern Buenos Aires Province and are shot for meat and sport; buff-necked ibises ( bandurrias ), who amble around in small bands, honking, as they probe wetland pastures with their curved bills; and the southern lapwing ( tero ), a bird that mates for life and whose eerie, plaintive cries and insistent warning shrieks are familiar to all trekkers.

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Rock nacional

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Listened to passionately throughout the country, Argentina's homegrown rock music - known simply as rock nacional - is something of an acquired taste, though amongst its numerous charismatic performers there's something for just about everyone.

Rock nacional first began to emerge in the 1960s with groups such as Almendra , one of whose members, Luis Alberto Spinetta , went on to a solo career and is still one of Argentina's most successful and original musicians and Los Gatos , who in 1967 had a massive hit with the eloquent La Balsa and two of whose members - Litto Nebbia and Pappo - went on to solo careers. From a sociological point of view, though, the significance of rock nacional really began to emerge under the military dictatorship of 1976-83, usually referred to simply as El Proceso. At the very beginning of the dictatorship, there was an upsurge in rock concerts, during which musicians such as Charly Garcia , frontman of the hugely popular Seru Giran and now a soloist, provided a subtle form of resistance with song titles such as No te dejes desanimar (Don't Be Discouraged), which helped provoke a collective sense of opposition amongst rock fans. It wasn't long, however, before the military rulers clamped down on what it saw as the subversive atmosphere generated at rock concerts - one of the few opportunities for collective gatherings under the regime. In a famous 1976 speech, Admiral Massera referred to "suspect youths", whose immersion in the "secret society" of clothes, music and drugs associated with rock music made them potential guerrilla material. The clampdown began in 1977-78, with tear gas used at concerts, police repression and government-issued recommendations that stadium owners should not let their premises be used for rock concerts. Attempts to move the rock scene to smaller venues were equally repressed, and by the end of the 1970s many bands had split up or gone into exile.

In 1980 cracks began to appear in the regime: a growing recession saw powerful economic groups withdrawing their support, whilst the military leaders themselves were riven by internal conflict, and a subtle freeing up of the public sphere began, followed by the slow resurgence of rock concerts. In December 1980, a concert by Seru Giran attracted 60,000 fans to La Rural in Palermo: led by Charly Garcia, the fans began to shout, in full view of the television cameras "no se banca mas" (We won't put up with it anymore).

Without abandoning their previous repressive measures, the military regime, now under the leadership of General Viola, began to employ different tactics to deal with rock's subversive tendencies, producing its own, non-threatening rock magazine, and inaugurating a "musical train" which travelled around the country with some of Argentina's most famous rock musicians on board. Under Galtieri, however, there was a return to a more direct, authoritarian approach - though by now it was proving increasingly difficult to silence the opposition to the military. Rock concerts had begun to attract mass audiences again; together with religious pilgrimages to Lujan, they provided the only significant gathering of young people during this dark period of Argentinian history. By 1982, the rock movement was a clearly cynical voice in society, creating massively popular songs such as Fito Paez 's self-explanatory Tiempos dificiles (Difficult Times), Charly Garcia's Dinosaurios , whose title is a clear reference to the military rulers and Maribel by Argentina's finest rock lyricist, Spinetta, dedicated to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. When the Malvinas conflict broke out, Leon Gieco 's Solo le pido a Dios clearly expressed antiwar sentiment and a commonly held suspicion of the government's motives in lines such as "I only ask of God/ not to be indifferent to war/ it's a giant monster and it stamps hard/ on the poor innocence of the people".

After the dictatorship ended, rock returned to a more apolitical role, typified by the lighthearted approach of 1984's most popular group, Los Abuelos de la Nada . However, one of the founding members of Los Abuelos, Pappo , went on to a solo career, making heavy rock and appealing to a predominantly working class section of society who felt that their lot had improved little with the coming of democracy; Pappo's music seemed to sum up their frustration with the system. One of the most popular groups of the 1980s was Sumo , fronted by the charismatic Luca Prodan , an Italian who had come to Argentina in an attempt to shake off his heroin addiction (an uncharacteristically sensitive recording of Sumo's is a version of the Velvet Underground's Heroin ). Sumo made sometimes surreal, noisy, reggae-influenced tracks, expressing distaste for the frivolous attitudes of Buenos Aires' upper-middle-class youth on tracks such as Rubia tarada (Stupid Blonde). Luca Prodan died of a heroin overdose in 1987, but is still idolized by Argentinian rock fans. Like Sumo, the strangely named and massively popular Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota (lit: Patricio Rey and the little balls of Ricotta) - who first began playing together in La Plata in the 1970s, though didn't record until the 1980s - made noisy, though slightly more serious, tracks with enigmatic titles such as Aquella vaca solitaria cubana (that solitary Cuban cow), often touching on the dissatisfactions felt by many young Argentines in the aftermath of the dictatorship. Another success story of the 1980s and 90s - albeit in a very different vein - was Fito Paez , whose 1992 album El Amor despues del amor , with its sweet melodic tunes - one of them inspired by the film Thelma and Louise - sold millions throughout Latin America. Paez also made an anthemic recording Dale alegria a mi corazon (bring happiness to my heart), inspired by Diego Maradona. One of Argentina's most original bands also emerged in the 1980s - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs , with their diverse and often frenetic fusion of rock, ska, dub, punk and rap. An irreverent and ironic sense of humour often underlies their politicized lyrics, all belted out by their charismatic, astringently-voiced lead singer, Vincentico, and backed up with a tight horn section and driving Latin percussion. Their classic album is El Leon (1992), on which you'll find their most famous anthem, Matador (a savage indictment of the military dictatorship of the 1970s). Their follow-up, Rey Azucar (1995), is also vibrant, including songs like Mal Bicho (Bad Critter), another with a guest appearance from Mick Jones, and a tongue-in-cheek Spanglish version of the Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever , sung in duet with Debbie Harry.

Though countless new groups have sprung up in the last ten years or so, rock nacional 's most enduring figures are still Charly Garcia - whose wild exploits fill the pages of gossip magazines - Fito Paez, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Leon Gieco, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Pappo and rosarino songsmith, Litto Nebbia , who has also made some excellent tango recordings.

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Discography

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Argentine: Musical Patrimony of the North-West Territories (Playasound). A compilation of the country music of this vast area: from bagualas to carnival dances.

Raul Barboza   Raul Barboza (La Lichere). Born in Buenos Aires but absorbing the musical influences of his father's Corrientes background, Barboza is known as the King of Chamame - a popular, deeply nostalgic music with percussive melodies. Barboza won the endorsement of Astor Piazzolla: "He's a fighter who deserves my respect and admiration." With guitar, bass, harp, percussion and second accordion, Barboza leads a compelling concert set of quintessential chamame on this recording: typical rasguido dobles and polkas that sound like nothing you've ever heard in Europe.

Before The Tango: Argentina's Folk Tradition 1905-1936 (Harlequin). A fascinating collection of recordings which map the folk music of the country from the beginning of the twentieth century. It moves from improvising verses of payadores, through blind harpists to pasodobles, to cuecas and a Galician muineras : music from the interior of the country brought by immigrants from Spain, Italy and other parts of the world.

Chamame (Iris Musique). A compilation featuring a number of small bands playing chamame instrumentals and songs or poetic texts. Includes Los Zorzales del Litoral, Hector Ballario, Grupo Conviccion and pick of the bunch, singer and accordionist Favio Salvagiot in a band with two dynamic accordions. However, none of the performances are equal to the recommended chamame discs by Barboza and Flores.

Rudy and Nini Flores   Chamame - Musique du Parana (Ocora). The Flores are two young brothers from Corrientes Province playing instrumental chamame: Rudy (born 1961) on guitar and Nini (born 1966) on accordion. This superb collection of their work is an intimate disc of great artistry. A sharp, poignant and mischievous accordion sound that sustains the interest in nineteen chamame duos.

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Fiction

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Cesar Aira , The Hare (Serpent's Tail, UK). A witty novel about an English naturalist in nineteenth-century Argentina by Borges' literary heir, a truly prolific and original writer at the forefront of contemporary Argentine literature.

Roberto Arlt , The Seven Madmen (Serpent's Tail, UK). A new English translation of a classic novel by the incomparable Roberto Arlt, perhaps Argentina's first unmistakeably "modern" twentieth-century writer. Arlt weaves a dark and at times surreal tale of life on the margins of society in early twentieth-century Buenos Aires, filled with images of the frenetic and alienating pace of urban life as experienced by the novel's tormented protagonist, Remo Erdosain.

Jorge Luis Borges , Labyrinths (Penguin/W.W. Norton & Co). A good introduction to the short stories and essays of Argentina's most famous writer, with selections from various of his major collections, including the seminal Ficciones , first published in 1945. Includes many of his best known and most enigmatic tales, including the bizarre Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius - a typically scholarly incursion into an imagined culture; the archetypal Borgesian Library of Babel , an analogy of the world as a never-ending library; and Death and the Compass , an erudite detective story set in an unnamed city which Borges claimed to be his most successful attempt at capturing the essence of Buenos Aires. Borges is sometimes regarded as the founding father of magic realism, but his complex, highly original works are really in a class of their own.

Julio Cortazar , Hopscotch (Harvill Press/Pantheon). One of world literature's major twentieth-century works, published in Spanish in the 1960s as Rayuela and currently being reappraised as the first "hypertext" novel. In this fantastically complex work, Cortazar defies traditional narrative structure, inviting the reader to "hop" between chapters (hence the name), which recount the interweaving of lives of a group of friends in both Paris and London. Cortazar is also well regarded for his enigmatic short stories; try the collections Bestiary: Selected Stories (Harvill, UK) and Blow Up and Other Stories (Random House).

Tomas Eloy Martinez , The Peron Novel (Anchor/Vintage) and Santa Evita (Anchor/ Vintage). In a compelling book which darts between fact and fiction, Tomas Eloy Martinez intersperses his account of the events surrounding Peron's return to Argentina in 1973 with anecdotes from his past. Peron emerges as a strange and manipulative figure, pragmatic in all his relationships and still irked by Evita's popularity 30 years after her death. The companion volume to The Peron Novel , recounting the fascinating, morbid and at times farcical true story of Evita's life and - more importantly - afterlife, during which her corpse is hidden, hijacked and smuggled abroad. Even after death, Evita continues to inspire devotion and obsession, most notably in her guardian, the anonymous Colonel.

Graham Greene , The Honorary Consul (Penguin/Simon & Schuster). A masterful account of a farcical kidnapping attempt which goes tragically wrong. Set in the litoral city of Corrientes and dedicted to Argentine literary doyenne Victoria Ocampo, with whom Greene spent time in San Isidro and Mar del Plata.

Ricardo Guiraldes , Don Segundo Sombra (University of Pittsburgh Press, US). A tender evocation of past life on the pampas, chronicling the relationship between a young boy and the novel's eponymous gaucho. A key text in the placing of the gaucho at the heart of Argentina's national identity.

Manuel Puig , Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Vintage, UK). Arguably the finest book by one of Argentina's most original twentieth-century writers, distinguished by a style that mixes film dialogue and popular culture with more traditional narrative. This is an absorbing tale of two cellmates, worlds apart on the outside but drawn ever closer together by gay protagonist Molina's recounting of films to his initially cynical companion, left-wing guerrilla Valentin.

Horacio Quiroga , The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories (University of Texas Press, US). Wonderful, if sometimes disturbing gothic tales of love, madness and death. Includes the spine-chilling "Feather Pillow", in which the life is slowly sucked from a young bride by a hideous blood-sucking beast, found engorged after her death within her feather pillow.

Ernesto Sabato , The Tunnel (o/p). Existential angst, obsession and madness are the themes of this supremely accomplished novella which tells the story of tormented painter Castel's destructive fixation with the sad and beautiful Maria Iribarne.

Colm Toibin , The Story of the Night (Henry Holt). A moving tale of a young Anglo-Argentine trying to come to terms both with his sexuality and existential dilemmas in the wake of the South Atlantic conflict, and getting caught up in an undercover plot by the CIA to get Carlos Menem elected president.

Luisa Valenzuela , Open Door (Serpent's Tail, UK). A collection of short stories from one of Argentina's most talented writers. Written with a feminist and surrealistic slant, with a keen sense of Argentina's fascinating foibles and mordant black humour.

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All eyes on Europe

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Nearly all of the ground floor at the MNBA is taken up by paintings and sculpture from France (mostly), Italy, Holland and Spain, plus later works by artists from the United States - Jose de Ribera, Tiepolo, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, Sisley, Pollock and Rothko are all given pride of place. Virtually every Argentine artist worth his or her salt studied in Europe and slavishly imitated European styles, such as naturalism and Impressionism - and their work has been "relegated" to the upper floor. They include Prilidiano Pueyrredon (1823-70), Un alto en la pulperia ( c . 1860); Eduardo Sivori (1847-1918), El despertar de la criada (1887); Martin Malharro (1865-1911), Las parvas (1911); Fernando Fader (1882-1935), Los mantones de Manila (1914); and Valentin Thibon de Libian (1889-1931), La fragua (1916), all masterpieces in their way. One of the country's greatest-ever sculptors, realist Rogelio Yrurtia (1879-1950), heavily influenced by Rodin, was chosen to create a number of rather bombastic monuments across Buenos Aires, and his house in Belgrano is now a fascinating museum.

Apart from Xul Solar, who wanted South America to find its own artistic feet, the overwhelming majority of Argentina's artists continued to fix their gaze relentlessly on Europe throughout the 1930s - the so-called " decada infama ", a period of political repression, economic depression, immigration controls and general melancholy - and increasingly on the United States, for inspiration, following trends and joining movements. Two of the greatest Argentine artists active in that period were Antonio Berni (1905-81), whose Primeros pasos (1937) is on display at the MNBA, and Lino Enea Spilimbergo (1896-1964) - seek out his Figura (1937) hanging nearby. Both were taught by the now much-overlooked French Surrealist Andre Lhote, as shows clearly in their paintings, which aimed to depict the social reality of an Argentina in economic and political turmoil without espousing any political cause, whether left or right - Berni was hailed as the leader of the so-called Arte Politico . His incredibly moving La Torre Eiffel en la Pampa (1930) singlehandedly seems to sum up the continuing dilemma among Argentine artists - are they nostalgic for Paris while in Argentina or for Buenos Aires and the pampas when in Europe?

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The voseo

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The use of vos as the second-person pronoun, a usage known as the voseo , is common to nearly the whole of Argentina. Though you will be understood perfectly if you use the tu form, you should familiarize yourself with the vos form, if only in order to understand what is being said to you.

Present-tense verb endings employed with vos correspond approximately to those used in European Spanish for the vosotros form. Thus, European tu vienes (you come) becomes Argentinian vos venis . Imperative forms are again derived from vosotros , though without the final "d": European ven! ("come here!") becomes Argentinian veni! Past, conditional, subjunctive and future forms used with vos are the same as the European tu forms.

Some examples
queres salir? do you want to go out?
hablas ingles? do you speak English?
donde vivis? where do you live?
toma take (this)
come eat
segui carry on



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Vowels


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Spanish vowel sounds do not exactly correspond to any sound in standard British or American English, though approximate sounds exist for all of them. In general, English vowel sounds are less "pure" than Spanish, tending to be formed by a combination of two vocalic sounds: English "cl o se", for example, is really a combination of "o" and "w". Spanish has no such tendency, representing such sounds with two written vowels.

A is pronounced somewhere between the "a" of f a ther and that of b a ck.

E is similar to English g e t or t e n, pronounced with some of the openness of English d ay (though without the final "y" sound and much shorter).

I is similar to the sound in m ee t, though much shorter and without the final "y" sound.

O is a more open or rounded sound than English h o t, though shorter than d o se, and without the final "w" sound.

U is similar to the "u" of sch oo l, though again, much shorter and without the final "w" sound. A close equivalent is the French pronunciation of coup . In the combinations gue (as in guerra or war, pronounced GE-rra); gui ( guiso or stew, pronounced GI-so); que ( queso or cheese, prounced KE-so) and qui (Quito, pronounced KI-to), U is silent. A diaresis (like the German umlaut), preserves the U, producing a "w" sound in words such as nicaraguense , pronounced ni-ka-ra-GWEN-se.

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Basics

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yes, no si, no
please, thank you por favor, gracias
where, when donde, cuando
what, how much que, cuanto
here, there aca, alla or aqui, alli (the former two are more common in Argentina)
this, that esto, eso (when referring to a general, unspecified thing; otherwise este/esta and ese/esa are used, according to the gender of the object referred to)
now, later ahora, mas tarde/luego
open, closed abierto/a, cerrado/a
with, without con, sin
good, bad buen(o)/a, mal(o)/a
big gran(de)
small chico/a or pequeno/a
more, less mas, menos
a little, a lot poco, mucho
very muy
today, tomorrow, yesterday hoy, manana, ayer
someone alguien
something algo
nothing, never nada, nunca
but pero
entrance, exit entrada, salida
pull, push tire, empuje
England Inglaterra
Great Britain/ United Kingdom Gran Bretana/Reino Unido
United States Estados Unidos
Australia Australia
Canada Canada
Ireland Irlanda
Scotland Escocia
Wales Gales
New Zealand Nueva Zelandia




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Hotels and transport


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Is there a hotel/bank nearby? Hay un hotel/banco cerca (de aqui)?
How do I get to…? Como hago para llegar a…?
Turn left/right, on the left/right dobla/doble a la izquierda/derecha, a la izquierda/derecha
Go straight on segui/siga derecho
one block/two blocks una cuadra, dos cuadras
Where is … ? ?Donde esta … ?
the bus station la terminal de omnibus
the train station la estacion de ferrocarril
the toilet el bano
I want a (return) ticket to… Quiero un pasaje dos (de ida y vuelta) para …
Where does the bus for … leave from? ?de donde sale el micro para … ?
What time does it leave? ?a que hora sale?
How long does it take? ?cuanto tarda?
Do you go past … ? ?usted pasa por … ?
far, near lejos, cerca
slow, quick lento, rapido
I want/would like … quiero/queria …
there is (is there)? ?hay(?) (?hay descuento para estudiantes?, is there a discount for students? or hay agua caliente, hot water available)
Do you know … ? ?sabe … ?
Do you have … ? ?tenes/tiene … ?
a (single, double) room una habitacion (single/doble)
with two beds con dos camas
with a double bed con cama matrimonial
with a private bathroom con bano privado
with breakfast con desayuno
it's for one person/ es para una persona/
one night/ una noche/
two weeks dos semanas
How much is it? ?cuanto es/cuanto sale?
it's fine esta bien
it's too expensive es demasiado caro
do you have anything cheaper? ?hay algo mas barato?
Is there a discount? for cash ?hay descuento por pago en efectivo?
fan, air conditioning, heating ventilador, aire a condicionado, calefaccion
Can you camp here? ?se puede acampar aqui?




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Breaking away and drifting back


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The big break came towards the end of World War II, for most of which Argentina had remained neutral, essentially because the politicians favoured Britain and the Allies while large sections of the armed forces sympathized with the Axis and its fascist philosophy. Argentina finally declared war on Germany in 1944, the year that Arturo , an abstract art review seen as a pioneer in world art circles, was first published. Argentine artists, many of whom were born in Europe, often in the Central and Eastern European countries most affected by both world wars, rejected what they saw as an unjustifiable hegemony, led from countries that had just indulged in such acts of barbarism that they could teach the New World no lessons, in politics or in art. Abstract forms were chosen as a way of protesting against reactionary politics in an indirect way, that could not be readily identified as subversion. Just after Peron came to power, a number of ground-breaking exhibitions were staged in Buenos Aires, including that of the Asociacion Arte Concreto-Invencion, in March 1946, and Arte Madi, in August of the same year. Three major art manifestos were published that year or the following, the relatively less influential Manifiesto Intervencionista (by Tomas Maldonado and his friends), the Manifiesto Madi, signed by Hungarian-born Gyula Kosice (born 1924) and his colleagues, and the Manifiesto Blanco issued by members of the Academia Altamira, which wanted to create a new art-form based on "matter, colour and sound in perpetual movement".

The last of the three was primarily instigated by Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), indisputably one of the twentieth century's key artists and founder of the Informalist movement. Fontana may have done most of his work, and died, in Italy - there is a foundation named after him in Milan - but he was born in Argentina, in Rosario de Santa Fe to be exact, the son of an Italian immigrant and an Argentine actress of Italian origin. For his education he was soon dispatched to Italy, where he studied architecture. A hero during World War I he returned to Argentina in 1940, after churning out a number of monuments for Mussolini's regime, though he never espoused fascism. In Argentina he worked for his father's firm sculpting funerary monuments, a job he quickly gave up for teaching art in the capital. A co-founder of both the Altamira School and the Escuela Libre de Artes Plasticos, on Avenida Alvear, Recoleta, he never recovered, either psychologically or in terms of his reputation in Argentina, from being runner-up in the competition to design the national flag monument in his native city. Perhaps a case of sour grapes, he later described those seven years spent in Rosario and Buenos Aires, as "una vita da coglione" (a shitty existence), and he decided to leave the country "as a more positive alternative to committing suicide". No wonder, perhaps, that Argentina has never gone out of its way to claim Fontana as its own. Back in Italy in 1947, he developed his own theory of art - enshrined in the Spatialist Manifesto issued that year - and his now unmistakeable style: a series of minimalistic monochrome canvases, slashed with one or more incisions or pierced with holes, apparently evocative of restrained violence or simply representing an "exploration of space". Known somewhat irreverently in the art world as "Lucio the Slasher" or "Lucio the Ripper", he has been the subject of a couple of major exhibitions in Buenos Aires in recent years, suggestive of a rehabilitation, but the rest of the world still thinks of him as an Italian creator. Nonetheless a couple of his works, including the somewhat unrepresentative Concepto espacial , are on prominent display inside the entrance to the MNBA.

Meanwhile in Argentina the other avantgarde artists seemed more intent on theory than practice, but nonetheless produced some work that is still regarded as significant to this day. Madi, probably a nonsense word like Dada, but sometimes said to be derived from "materialismo dialectico", was decidedly political in its aims of creating a classless society, and reacted against Surrealism which it claimed was dominated by an elite. One of the movement's most radical ideas, cooked up in the 1970s, was to build a series of "Hydrospatial Cities" suspended in space over water, starting with the River Plate, where the urban environment would be so radically different from those previously created that there would be no need for art; this idea has yet to be put into practice. Back in 1946 Kosice produced a series of works using neon-lighting, thought to be the first of their kind, and he later experimented with glass, plexiglass, acrylic, cork, aluminium and bone - his intriguing Dispersion del aire (1967) at the MNBA is one such work. Kosice's articulated wooden sculpture Royi , dating from 1944, is also regarded as revolutionary, as it is both abstract and lathed rather than "sculpted". Another member of the movement, Kosice's wife Diyi Laan (born 1927), created works on a structured frame in an abstract, hollow shape such as her Pintura sobre el marco recortado (1948). Rhod Rothfuss (born 1920) was the Uruguayan leader of Madi, but his enamel paintings on wood, created in the 1940s were highly influential on that decade's art in Argentina.

Rivals of the Madi group, partly for personal reasons, the Asociacion Arte Concreto-Invencion or Intervencionistas, were far more radical politically, espousing solidarity with the Soviet Union largely as a means of protesting against growing US interference in Latin American affairs. Artistically they were more conventional than the Madi lot, and tended to produce paintings in traditionally shaped frames; they drew much of their inspiration from artists like Mondrian, Van Doesburg and Malevich. Members included the leading theorist Tomas Maldonado (born 1922), Claudio Girola, Lidy Prati and Gregorio Vardanega, but the most acclaimed artists in the movement are Enio Iommi (born 1926), Alfredo Hlito (1923-93) and Raul Lozza (born 1911). The first of the three, Claudio Girola's brother Enio, is undoubtedly one of Argentina's greatest-ever artists and he stands out from the other Intervencionistas in part because he works in three dimensions. His exquisite sculptures in stainless steel - such as Torsion de planos (1964) at the MNBA - wood, bronze and aluminium, express his personal "spatialist" credo that in many ways links him more closely to Fontana. More recently Iommi underwent an about-turn and began producing objects with emphasis on the material, using wire, old boxes, industrial and household refuse including rusty nails - his 1977 Retiro exhibition significantly entitled Adios a una epoca marked his switch to arte povera , after decades of using "noble" materials. Hlito, meanwhile, was a more "mainstream" Intervencionista, whose work displays the clear influences of people like Mondrian and Max Bill, and even surprisingly Seurat and Cezanne - though it was their use of colour and brushstrokes that most interested him. A very typical work, Lineas tangentes (1955), is on show at the MNBA. Lozza, on the other hand, became so obsessed with the problematics of colour, form and representation in art that he formed his own movement in 1949, called Perceptismo, according to which paintings must first be sketched obeying certain architectural rules before the colour can be filled in. His watershed work Pintura Numero 153 (1948), executed just before he left the Intervencionistas, is on show at the MNBA and its geometric forms against a bright orange background already point to this schism.

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Reactionary politics and artistic reactions

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The 1950s and 60s were once again times of turmoil in Argentina; Peronism was replaced by democratic governments and military dictatorships that shared only one ruthless aim: eliminating Peronism. Peron himself returned to power briefly in the 1970s, before dying in office and transferring power to his third wife "Isabelita"; her disastrous period in charge resulted in another military backlash and the nightmarish Proceso. Since 1983, following the debacle of the South Atlantic conflict, Argentina has been unshakeably if imperfectly democratic. All of these ups and downs have been reflected in the country's postwar art as much as, if not more than in its literature, cinema and music. The reactionary politics of virtually everyone who held power in Argentina from 1944 to 1983 were either rebelled against by mainly leftist, engage artists, or dictated by a more conservative approach, often based on mainstream artistic schools in Europe.

Raquel Forner (1902-87) came to the fore in the 1950s - even though she had begun to paint in the 1920s as a student of Spilimbergo - mainly because she was so unmistakeably influenced by Picasso. This comes through in her style - in which human figures are amalgamated with symbolic images - and subject matter. She painted two series of haunting oils about the Spanish Civil War and World War II: Espana (1937-39) and El drama (1939-46); the spine-chilling Retablo de dolor (1944), at the MNBA, which belongs to the second group, also reveals her interest in the religious paintings of El Greco. Sometimes likened to Karel Appel, a member of the CoBrA group - further proof that European comparisons remain legion in Argentina - she set herself apart in the 1960s by concentrating on the theme of the human conquest of space, as expemplified by her colourful 1968 masterpiece Conquest of Moon Rock .

Unusual sculptor Libero Badii (born 1916), some of whose work, including later paintings, is displayed at the Fundacion Banco Frances, Belgrano, Buenos Aires, won a national prize in 1953 with a sensually organic marble figure, Torrente , which can be seen at the MNBA. Arp and Brancusi are easily detectable influences on his earlier works.

From 1955 to 1963, Jorge Romero Brest was director of the MNBA; politics had its dictators and so did the art world, for this staunchly anti-Peronist guru of Argentine art then went on to direct the highly influential and virtually monopolistic Centro de Artes Visuales at the capital's wealthy Instituto Torcuato di Tella until 1970, and he had the power to make or break artists. Essentially a democrat, however, he staged increasingly subversive exhibitions by avant-garde artists after General Juan Ongania's mob seized totalitarian power in 1966, purportedly to combat Marxism and Peronism. President Ongania sent the police in to close an exhibition by minor artist Roberto Plate, which comprised a mock public lavatory in which visitors were encouraged to draw graffiti. In a famous interview Ongania said that he had taken such drastic steps because someone had outrageously drawn a penis and Argentina was not ready for that kind of thing; what really riled him, no doubt, was the fact that most of the graffiti consisted of political slogans and insults personally directed at him.

Romero Brest's most famous achievement while in charge of the MNBA was the discovery of four artists who went under the label of Otra figuracion, after a ground-breaking joint exhibition of that name held in Buenos Aires in 1961. Part German-style Expressionism, part Dubuffet, part de Kooning and quite a lot of Rauschenberg, the young artists who had met in Paris dominated Argentine painting throughout the rest of the decade. Ernesto Deira (1928-86), Jorge de la Vega (1930-71), Romulo Maccio (born 1931) and Luis Felipe Noe (born 1933) all produced highly acclaimed work, though Vega is usually regarded as the most original. Deira's Homenaje a Fernand Leger (1963) at the MNBA speaks for itself; heavy neofigurative shades of Francis Bacon are easily detectable in Maccio's Vivir un poco cada dia (1963) also at the MNBA; while Noe's Ensoresque masterpiece Introduccion a la esperanza (1963), at the same museum, illustrates his theory of " cuadro dividido ", in which several paintings are chaotically assembled to make one work. Vega's Intimidades de un timido (1960s) at the Museo Nacional is typical of his vast canvases, brimming with vitality but largely mysterious in their imagery. Of all four group members, his work is hardest to pigeonhole. Similarly, while Alberto Heredia (born 1924), admirer of Marcel Duchamp and living up to his description as a "ramshackle artist", was closely related to the Otra figuracion, he also has a lot in common with both Surrealism and Pop Art. His now famous Camembert Boxes (1961-63), filled with day-to-day flotsam and jetsam, are seen as a breakthrough in Argentine sculpture, while the gruesome later work Los amordazamientos (1972-74), displayed at the MNBA, is apocalyptic in its depiction of human despair.

Worldwide, the 1960s was marked by the new artistic phenomenon of Happenings, and what Argentine artists called Ambientaciones; despite their often massive scale and laborious preparations, they were by nature ephemeral events, and all we have left now are photographic documents. Marta Minujin (born 1941), whose colourful Colchon (1964) can be seen at the MNBA, has been a leading exponent. Her two key works in 1965, La menesunda and El batacazo , both staged at the Centro de Artes Visuales, were labyrinths meant to excite, delight, disturb and attack the visitor's five senses, and they caused both scandal and wonderment in Buenos Aires. She continued to perform into the 1970s, poking fun at national icons like Carlos Gardel and the ovenbird, Argentina's national bird; after creating Obelisco acostado in 1978, the following year she went to construct a 30-metre-high Obelisco de pan dulce , a half-scale model of Buenos Aires' famous phallic symbol clad with thousands of plastic-wrapped raisin breads, erected at the cattle-raisers' temple, the Sociedad Rural in Palermo. To celebrate the return to democracy in 1983, her Partenon de libros was a massive monument covered in books - many publications had been banned or even burned under the junta - also raised in the open air in the capital.

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Pronunciation

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The Spanish pronunciation system is remarkably straightforward and consistent, with only five, very pure vowel sounds (English has many more than this). Only a few sounds tend to cause problems for foreigners, most notably the rolled double R and the common R which, though not rolled, is pronounced in a subtly different way to its English counterpart. A general rule of thumb is to make sure you articulate words clearly and put more effort into pronunciation than you would in English: observation of native speakers will make you realize that speaking Spanish involves a much more obvious articulation of facial muscles than English, which often appears to foreigners to be mumbled through barely open lips. Another characteristic of Spanish is that there is no audible gap between words within a breathgroup; thus Buenos Aires is pronounced BWE-no-SAI-res and not BWE-nos-AI-res. Failure to observe this detail produces a very stilted Spanish.

A blessing for foreigners is the fact that Spanish is spelt exactly as it sounds - or sounds exactly as it is spelt. If this seems a minor point, imagine the problem for foreigners in working out the pronunciation of English words through, though, rough and slough

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Diphthongs

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A diphthong is basically a combination of two or more vocalic sounds (either the two "weak" vowels i or u or a "weak" and a "strong" vowel - a, e or o ). Common diphthongs in Spanish include AU, as in jaula (cage), pronounced HAW-la and EI or EY as in ley (law) pronounced very like the English word lay. In general, once you have mastered the vowel sounds, diphthongs are entirely predictable and easy to pronounce. Only the rarer EU as in Europa (pronounced ew-RO-pa) and the very uncommon OU as in the GOU (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, the group of officers from which Peron emerged in the 1940s, pronounced like English "go") take a bit of getting used to.

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Useful general terms and vocabulary


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To begin, select a topic in the navigation bar to the left

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Greetings and responses


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hello, goodbye hola, chau (adios is used too, but is more formal and more final)
good morning buen dia
good afternoon buenas tardes
good night buenas noches
see you later hasta luego
how are you como esta(s)? or, more informally como andas?
(very) well, thanks, and you? (muy) bien gracias, y vos/usted?
not at all/you're welcome de nada
excuse me (con) permiso
sorry perdon, disculpe(me)
cheers! salud!




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Useful phrases and expressions


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Note that when two verb forms are given, the first corresponds to the familiar vos form and the second to the formal usted form.

I (don't) understand (no) entiendo
Do you speak English? Hablas ingles or (usted) habla ingles?
I (don't) speak Spanish (no) hablo castellano
My name is … me llamo …
What's your name? como te llamas/como se llama (usted)?
I'm English soy ingles(a)
… American … estadounidense or norteamericano/a
… Australian … australiano/a
… Canadian … canadiense
… Irish … irlandes(a)
… Scottish … escoces(a)
… Welsh … gales(a)
… a New Zealander … neocelandes/a
What's the Spanish for this? como se dice en castellano?
What did you say? que dijiste/dijo?
I'm hungry tengo hambre
I'm thirsty tengo sed
I'm tired tengo sueno
I'm ill no me siento bien
what's up? que pasa?
I don't know no (lo) se
It's hot/cold hace calor/frio
what's the time? que hora es?



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Numbers, days and months


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0 cero
1 uno/una
2 dos
3 tres
4 cuatro
5 cinco
6 seis
7 siete
8 ocho
9 nueve
10 diez
11 once
12 doce
13 trece
14 catorce
15 quince
16 dieciseis
17 diecisiete
18 dieciocho
19 diecinueve
20 veinte
21 veintiuno/a
22 veintidos
23 veintitres
24 veinticuatro
25 veinticinco
26 veintiseis
27 veintisiete
28 veintiocho
29 veintinueve
30 treinta
31 treinta y uno/una
32 treinta y dos
40 cuarenta
50 cincuenta
60 sesenta
70 setenta
80 ochenta
90 noventa
100 cien/ciento
101 ciento uno/una
200 doscientos/as
300 trescientos/as
400 cuatrocientos/as
500 quinientos/as
600 seiscientos/as
700 setecientos/as
800 ochocientos/as
900 novecientos/as
1000 mil
1002 mil dos
100,000 cien mil
1000,000 un millon
2000 dos mil
2001 dos mil un
2002 dos mil dos
2003 dos mil tres


The following ordinal numbers are invariably used in referring to the floors of high-rise buildings - useful when people ask you what floor you want in an elevator ( que piso? )

first primero/a
second segundo/a
third tercero/a
fourth cuarto/a
fifth quinto/a
sixth sexto/a
seventh septimo/a
eighth octavo/a
ninth noveno/a
tenth decimo/a


Monday lunes
Tuesday martes
Wednesday miercoles
Thursday jueves
Friday viernes
Saturday sabado
Sunday domingo


January enero
February febrero
March marzo
April abril
May mayo
June junio
July julio
August agosto
September se(p)tiembre
October octubre
November noviembre
December diciembre




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Stress


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Familiarizing yourself with Spanish stress rules will make it easy to work out where the stress falls when you are faced with an unfamiliar word. Basically, any vowel marked with an accent is stressed; thus anden (platform) is an-DEN; the Venezuelan Independence hero, Bolivar is bo-LI-var and Maria is ma-RI-a. If there is no written accent, then there are two possibilities. If the word ends in a vowel, n or s , it is stressed on the second to last syllable: thus desayuno (breakfast) is de-sa-JU-no, comen (they eat) is KO-men and casas (houses) is KA-sas. If the word ends in any consonant apart from n or s, then it is stressed on the last syllable: thus ciudad (city) is ciu-DAD, comer (to eat) is ko-MER and Uruguay is u-ru-GWAI.

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Casas de Provincia


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Buenos Aires Av. Callao 237 (Mon-Fri 9am-3pm; tel 011/4371-3587).

Catamarca Av. CA?rdoba 2080 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm; tel 011/4374-6891).

CA?rdoba Av. Callao 232 (Mon-Fri 10am-7pm; tel 011/4373-4277).

Corrientes San MartA­n 333, 4th Floor (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm; tel 011/4394-0859).

Chaco Av. Callao 322 (Mon-Fri 10am-4.30pm; tel 011/4372-5209).

Chubut Sarmiento 1172 (Mon-Fri 10.30am-5.30pm; tel 011/4382-8126).

Entre RA­os Suipacha 844 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm; tel 011/4328-9327).

Formosa H. Yrigoyen 1429 (Feb & March Mon-Fri 9am-3pm; rest of year closes 1pm; tel 011/4383-0721).

Jujuy Av. Santa Fe 967 (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm; tel 011/4393-6096).

La Pampa Suipacha 346 (Feb Mon-Fri 9am-3.30pm; rest of year same days 9am-6pm; tel 011/4326-0511).

La Rioja Callao 745 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm; tel 011/4815-1929).

Mendoza Av. Callao 445 (Mon-Fri 7am-5.30pm; tel 011/4371-0835).

Misiones Santa Fe 989 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 011/4393-1211).

NeuquA©n Pte PerA?n 687, 1st Floor (Mon-Fri 9.30am-4pm; tel 011/4326-6812).

RA­o Negro TucumA?n 1916 (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm; tel 011/4371-7273).

Salta Av. Pte Roque S. PeA±a 933 (Mon-Fri 10am-5.30pm; tel 011/4326-2456).

San Juan Sarmiento 1251 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm; tel 011/4382-9241).

San Luis AzcuA©naga 1083 (Mon-Fri 10am-5.30pm; tel 011/4822-3641).

Santa Cruz Suipacha 1120 (Mon-Fri 10am-5.30pm; tel 011/4325-3098).

Santa Fe Montevideo 373, 2nd Floor (Mon-Fri 9.30am-3.30pm; tel 011/4375-4635).

Santiago del Estero Florida 274 (Mon-Fri 9am-7pm; tel 011/4322-1389).

Tierra del Fuego , Santa Fe 919 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 011/4322-8855).

TucumA?n Suipacha 140 (Mon-Fri 9am-3pm; tel 011/4322-0564).

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Maps

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Road maps can be obtained at bookshops and kiosks in all big towns and cities or at service-stations but are quite hard to find anywhere else. Many maps aren't up to date or contain a surprising number of errors: road numbers are sometimes wrong; barely passable tracks may be depicted as sealed roads or vice versa; and roads that have been there for years are missed out while routes that nobody has ever heard of are clearly marked. It's often a good idea to buy a couple of maps and compare them as you go along, always checking with the locals to see whether a given road does exist and is passable, especially with the vehicle you intend to use.

The really good news is that the clearest and most accurate map of the whole country is the one you can get free from the national tourist office in Buenos Aires; it's called Rutas de la Argentina and has small but clear inset maps of twenty towns and cities as well as a 1:2,500,000 national map, the ideal scale for most travellers. Slightly more detailed but a tad less accurate is the mini atlas ( Atlas Vial ) published by YPF , the national petrol company and sold for $10 at their service stations. The ACA (AutomA?vil Club) produces individual maps for each province which vary enormously in detail and accuracy; the regional maps or route planners the club publishes may be enough for most travellers, especially since the provincial maps cost $5 each.

Glossy and fairly clear - but equally erratic - regional road maps (Cuyo, Northwest, Lake District, etc) are produced by LA­nea Azul under the generic name of AutoMapa and are often available at petrol stations and bookshops, as are the similar Argenguide series of maps, published by Argentum. These all cost around $8. Outside Argentina you can get hold of the user-friendly Kevin Healey's Travel Map of Argentina (though at 1:4,000,000 the scale's a bit small), and the World's End Maps of different areas of Patagonia, published by Zagier and Urruty ( zagiel@ciudad.com.ar ). Finally, there's a brilliant map of Buenos Aires, the Insight Fleximap , which is clear, reliable, easy to fold and waterproof.

The street plans istributed free of charge at tourist offices also range from the highly detailed to the impressionistic, and some of them are dominated by their private sponsors rather than designed to steer you easily around a given town or city. Luckily, most urban areas, with their convenient grid-systems and publicly displayed maps, are difficult to get lost in and many locals are only too happy to give directions. Some cities produce directories of services hat include detailed maps, with transport routes.

For 1:100,000 ordnance-survey style maps he Instituto GeogrA?fico Militar at Av. Cabildo 381, Casilla 1426, in Buenos Aires, is the place to go (Mon-Fri 8am-1pm; tel 011/4576-5545, fax 011/4576-5509). The maps cost around $15 each but you might be able to get a photocopy for less; although these topographical maps - and the colour satellite maps sold here at similar prices - are great to look at and very detailed, they're not really very practical unless you're used to maps of this type.

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Map and guide outlets

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As well as over-the-counter sales, most of the outlets we list allow you to order and pay for maps by mail, over the phone and sometimes via the Internet

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USA and Canada


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ADC Map and Travel Center , 1636 I St, Washington DC 20006 (tel 202/628-2608).

Adventurous Traveler Bookstore , 245 South Champlain St, Burlington, VT 05401 (tel 1-800/282-3963; www.AdventurousTraveler.com ).

Book Passage , 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera, CA 94925 (tel 415/927-0960; www.bookpassage.com ).

The Complete Traveler Bookstore , 199 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 (tel 212/685-9007; www.completetraveler.com ); 3207 Fillmore St, San Francisco, CA 94123 (tel 415/923-1511; www.completetraveller.com ).

Distant Lands , 56 S Raymond Ave, Pasadena, CA 91105 (tel 626/449-3220; www.distantlands.com ).

Elliott Bay Book Company , 101 S Main St, Seattle, WA 98104 (tel 206/624-6600; www.elliottbaybook.com ).

Map Link , 30 S La Petera Lane, Unit 5, Santa Barbara, CA 93117 (tel 805/692-6777; www.maplink.com ).

Phileas Fogg's Books & Maps , 87 Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto, CA 94304 (tel 1-800/533-FOGG; www.foggs.com ).

Rand McNally , 444 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611 (tel 312/321-1751; www.randmcnally.com ); 150 E 52nd St, New York, NY 10022 (tel 212/758-7488); 595 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94105 (tel 415/777-3131); 7988 Tysons Corner Center, McLean, VA 22102 (tel 703/556-8688).

Sierra Club Bookstore , 730 Polk St, San Francisco, CA 94110 (tel 415/977-5653; www.sierraclubbookstore.com ).

Travel Books & Language Center , 4437 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington DC 20016 (tel 1-800/220-2665).

Traveler's Choice Bookstore , 2 Wooster St, New York, NY 10013 (tel 212/941-1535; tvlchoice@aol.com ).

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Britain and Ireland

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Blackwell's Map and Travel Shop , 53 Broad St, Oxford OX1 3BQ (tel 01865/792792; www.blackwell.co.uk ).

Daunt Books , 83 Marylebone High St, London W1M 3DE (tel 020/7224 2295); and 193 Haverstock Hill, NW3 4QL (tel 020/7794 4006).

Easons Bookshop , 40 O'Connell St, Dublin 1 (tel 01/873 3811).

Fred Hanna's Bookshop , 27-29 Nassau St, Dublin 2 (tel 01/677 4754).

Heffers Map Shop , 3rd Floor, Heffers Stationery Department, 19 Sidney St, Cambridge CB2 3HL (tel 01223/568467; www.heffers.co.uk ).

James Thin Melven's Bookshop , 29 Union St, Inverness IV1 1QA (tel 01463/233500; www.jthin.co.uk ).

John Smith & Sons , 57-61 St Vincent St, Glasgow G2 5TB (tel 0141/221 7472; www.johnsmith.co.uk ).

The Map Shop , 30a Belvoir St, Leicester LE1 6QH (tel 0116/2471400).

Newcastle Map Centre , 55 Grey St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6EF (tel 0191/261 5622).

National Map Centre , 22-24 Caxton St, London SW1H 0QU (tel 020/7222 2466; www.mapsworld.com ).

Stanfords , 12-14 Long Acre, London WC2E 9LP (tel 020/7836 1321); Campus Travel, 52 Grosvenor Gardens, SW1W 0AG (tel 020/7730 1314); British Airways, 156 Regent St, W1R 5TA (tel 020/7434 4744); and 29 Corn St, Bristol BS1 1HT (tel 0117/929 9966). Web site sales@stanfords.co.uk

The Travel Bookshop , 13-15 Blenheim Crescent, London W11 2EE (tel 020/7229 5260; www.thetravelbookshop.co.uk ).

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Australia and New Zealand

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The Map Shop , 16a Peel St, Adelaide (tel 08/8231 2033).

Specialty Maps , 58 Albert St, Auckland (tel 09/307 2217).

Worldwide Maps and Guides , 187 George St, Brisbane (tel 07/3221 4330).

Mapworld , 173 Gloucester St, Christchurch (tel 03/374 5399, fax 03/374 5633; www.mapworld.co.nz ).

Mapland , 372 Little Bourke St, Melbourne (tel 03/9670 4383).

Perth Map Centre , 1/884 Hay St, Perth (tel 08/9322 5733).

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National holidays

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January 1 New Year's Day ( AA±o Nuevo ).

Good Friday ( Viernes Santo ). The whole of Semana Santa or Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter weekend, is a big event and traditionally a time when people go on the last vacation of the summer. Accommodation and restaurants stay open to take advantage of this. The Friday, and sometimes the Thursday, but not Easter Monday, are official public holidays.

May 1 Labour Day ( DA­a del Trabajo ).

May 25 May 1810 Revolution ( RevoluciA?n de Mayo ).

June 10 Malvinas Day ( DA­a de las Malvinas ). The anniversary of the unilateral treaty establishing military rule by Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1829 (only exercised briefly in 1982; coincidentally the South Atlantic conflict ended on June 10, 1982).

June 20 Flag Day ( DA­a de la Bandera ).

July 9 Independence Day ( DA­a de la Independencia ).

August 17 San MartA­n's Day ( DA­a de San MartA­n ). The anniversary of San MartA­n's death in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in 1850.

October 12 Columbus Day ( DA­a de la Raza ). Controversially commemorating the "discovery" of the Americas in 1492.

December 25 Christmas Day ( Navidad ).

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Public holidays

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Some local anniversaries or saints' days are also public holidays when everything in a given city may close down, taking you by surprise. Festivals of all kinds, both religious and profane, celebrating local patrons such as Santa Catalina or the Virgin Mary, or showing off produce such as handicrafts, olives, goats or wine, are good excuses for much partying and pomp. In the Northwest, for example, there is probably a feast every day of the year somewhere. In the Northeast the tropical mindset shows in the dedication to Brazilian-style carnival. Details of the more interesting fiestas are given throughout the text.

To avoid the old habit of "bridging the gap" between weekends and public holidays, some of the latter have been decreed movable feasts and are switched to the following Monday, but if they fall on Saturday or Sunday no day off in lieu is given. Christmas Day stays put regardless of when it falls.

In addition, although banks and government offices are closed on Maundy Thursday ( Jueves Santo , the day before Good Friday), and on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception ( Fiesta de la Virgen or la ConcepciA?n Inmaculada ), employers are allowed, confusingly, to insist that their employees work on those two "optional" holidays. Museums are often closed on those days and transport may be limited. Banks also close on December 31. Another important national festival (but not a bank holiday) is the DA­a de la TradiciA?n , November 10, the climax of a week of gaucho parades, concerts and other celebrations (a sort of spring carnival), across most of the country. On the final working day before New Year's Day, ticker tape pours out of office windows in Buenos Aires' City district, and streamers are thrust into cars and bus windows, in the whole downtown area. Unless this is your idea of fun, this endearing custom makes it worth avoiding central Buenos Aires on that day.

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Tour operators and outfitters

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Alessio Expediciones , C.C. 33, Chacras de Coria, Mendoza (tel & fax 0261/4962201; aconcagua@alessio.com.ar ). One of the best local Aconcagua guiding outfits, used by many international groups.

Alquimia , Paseo Artesanal, Local "C", JunA­n de los Andes (tel 02972/491355 or 02944/1561-0842). Small, enthusiastic agency that organizes climbing expeditions up LanA­n and white-water rafting trips on the RA­o AluminA©.

Cumbres y Lagos Patagonia , Villegas 222, Bariloche (tel 02944/423283). Offers white-water rafting trips on the RA­o Manso ($100 a day).

Estancia Huechahue , JunA­n de los Andes ( huechahue@jandes.com.ar ). Organizes horseriding trips.

Estancia La MaipA? , Lago San MartA­n, Santa Cruz (tel 011/4901-5591, fax 4903-4967). Organizes horseriding trips.

Fitzroy Expeditions , Lionel Terray 545, El ChaltA©n, Santa Cruz (tel & fax 02962/49301; troyexp@internet.siscotel.com ). Climbing, horseriding and trekking options, plus glacier iceclimbing and expeditions onto the Southern Polar Icecap.

HosterA­a AyelA©n , Pasaje Arrayanes, Casilla de Correo 21 (tel & fax 02972/425660; charlesm@smandes.com.ar ). Experienced fishing guide, Charlie Muspratt, organizes bespoke fishing tours of the Lake District ($160 per day with transport).

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Rafting

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Though it does not have the range of extreme options as neighbouring Chile, Argentina nevertheless has some beautiful white-water rafting ossibilities, ranging from grades II to IV. Most of these are offered as day-trips, and range in price from $60 to $120. These include trips through enchanting monkey puzzle tree scenery on the generally sedate RA­o AluminA©, to the north of JunA­n de los Andes; along the turbulent and often silty RA­o Mendoza near the city of the same name, passing through barren mountain gorges; on the RA­o Manso in the Alpine-like country of the south of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi; and along the similar but less-visited RA­o Corcovado, to the south of Esquel. Esquel can also be used as a base for rafting on Chile's fabulous, world-famous RA­o FutaleufA?, a turquoise river that flows through Chilean temperate rainforest and tests rafters, with rapids of grade V. You do not need previous rafting experience to enjoy these, but you should obviously be able to swim. Pay heed to operators' safety instructions, and ensure your safety gear (especially helmets and life jackets) fit well.

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Climbing


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For climbers , the Andes offer incredible variety - from volcanoes to shale summits, from the continent's loftiest giants to some of its fiercest technical walls. You do not have to be a technical expert to reach the summit of some of these and, though you must always take preparations seriously, you can often arrange your climb close to the date through local agencies - though it's best to bring as much high-quality gear with you as you can. The climbing season is fairly short - November to March in some places, though December to February is the best time. The best-known challenge is South America's highest peak, Aconcagua (6962m), accessed from the city of Mendoza. Not considered the most technical of challenges, this peak nevertheless merits top-level expedition status as the altitude and storms claim several victims a year, some of whom are experienced climbers. Permission to climb must be obtained in advance from the SubsecretarA­a de Turismo in Mendoza, in person or through a tour company, and climbing fees are high (as much as $120 in peak season). Only slightly less lofty are nearby Tupungato (6750m), just to the south; Mercedario (6770m) just to the north, near Barreal in San Juan Province; Cerro Bonete (6872m) and Pissis (6779m) on the provincial border between La Rioja and Catamarca further north; and Ojos del Salado, the highest active volcano in the world (6885m), a little further north into Catamarca. The last three can be climbed from FiambalA?, where you're required to register with the police; but Ojos is most normally climbed from the Chilean side of the border. The most famous volcano to climb is the elegant cone of LanA­n (3776m), which can be ascended in two days via the relatively straightforward north eastern route. The two-day southern route involves tackling a heavily crevassed glacier and is for experienced climbers only.

Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, near Bariloche, offers the peaks of the Cerro Catedral massif and Cerro Tronador (3554m). And southern Patagonia has been a highly prized climbing destination ever since the Italian Salesian missionary, Padre de Agostini, published his Andes PatagA?nicos in 1941. One testing summit is San Lorenzo (3706m), which, from the Argentinian side, can best be approached along the valley of the RA­o Oro, although the summit itself is usually climbed from just across the border in Chile. Further south still are the inspirational granite spires of the Fitz Roy massif and Cerro Torre , which have few equals on the planet in terms of sheer technical difficulty and the grandeur of the scenery.

On all of these climbs, but especially those over 4000m, you must acclimatize thoroughly, and be fully aware of the dangers of puna , or altitude sickness .

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Useful climbing contacts

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ARGENTINA

Centro Andino Buenos Aires , Rivadavia 1255, Buenos Aires (tel 011/4381-1566). Offers climbing courses, talks and slide shows.

USA

American Alpine Club , 710 Tenth S, Suite 100, Golden, CO 80401 (tel 303/384-0110, fax 384-0111; www.americanalpineclub.org ). Annual membership costs $65, which includes free rescue insurance for peaks up to 6000m ($25 supplement for peaks up to 7000m), and a research service for specific articles or publications.

Club Andino Bariloche ( CAB ), 20 de Febrero 30, Bariloche, RA­o Negro (tel 02944/422266; www.clubandino.com.ar ). The country's oldest and most famous mountaineering club, with excellent specialist knowledge of guides and Patagonian challenges.

UK

British Mountaineering Council , 177-179 Burton Rd, Manchester, M20 2BB (tel 0161/445 4747; www.thebmc.co.uk ). Produces regularly updated and practical fact sheets on mountaineering in Argentina (free for members, otherwise A?6; membership A?17). Excellent insurance services and book catalogue.

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Polo

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Of all the major sports played in Argentina, polo is the one you're likely to be the least familiar with. First played over two thousand years ago in Ancient Persia, the game became popular in the British Raj, and was adopted in Britain in the 1850s, when London's Hurlingham Club was founded. At first known as "hockey on horseback", it was soon called polo, from the Tibetan word for ball. Exported across the Atlantic to the United States in the 1870s, where the rules were changed, it began to be played on Argentina's estancias soon after and the Buenos Aires Hurlingham Club was established in the 1880s. By the 1920s Argentine teams were holding sway in the polo world; Argentina won the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and have seldom been beaten internationally ever since. The country's criollo thoroughbreds - known as petisos - and champion polistas are exported worldwide; no leading polo team is complete without a troubleshooter from Argentina, proving that it's not just Argentine football players who earn lucrative livings as sporting mercenaries abroad. Ten-goal players (the top ranking) like Bautista Heguy, earn millions of dollars this way. In the country itself it's a game mainly for estanceros and wealthy families from Barrio Norte, but is nonetheless far less snobbish or exclusive than in Britain or the USA; there are some 150 teams and 5000 club members nationwide. One or two polistas are national heroes, worshipped as pin-ups and heart-throbs almost on a par with footballers and pop stars. Don't miss a chance to see an open championship match in the spring at the Campo de Polo , in Palermo, especially the final at the beginning of December. Even if the rules go over your head, the game is exciting and aesthetically pleasing to watch, with the galloping of athletic hooves over impeccably trimmed frescue and a virile ballet of horsemen waving sticks over their heads and whacking the ball the length of a huge green lawn.

For more information take a look at www.polo.co.uk . To find out more about matches and schools, should you want to learn to play, contact the AsociaciA?n Argentina de Polo at HipA?lito Yrigoyen 636 (tel 011/4331-4646).

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Football

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Football was introduced to Buenos Aires by British sailors in the 1860s, and by the end of the nineteenth century, amateur clubs had begun to spring up. In 1930, Argentina reached the first World Cup Final, before losing to the hosts, Uruguay, but with interest in the game booming, the domestic game turned professional in the following year. On the international stage, rivalry is hottest with Brazil. Argentina has twice won the World Cup : at home in 1978, and in Mexico in 1986. The 1978 World Cup was the most controversial of the competition's history: awarded during Isabel PerA?n's presidency, it became a political hostage of the country's military dictatorship, who saw in the tournament an opportunity to unite a riven nation and to demonstrate to the world the success of their regime. Money that was sorely needed for other projects (some $700 million) was spent on new stadiums and infrastructure projects, political opponents were rounded up, and despite growing international concern over human rights abuses, FIFA refused to change the venue. Argentina won the cup after a 3-1 victory over the Netherlands, among widespread reports that the Peruvian team was bribed to throw the match that led to Argentina reaching the final ahead of Brazil.

The domestic football scene is dominated by two colossi, River Plate and Boca Juniors . Both teams originated in the poor port area of Buenos Aires' La Boca, but have little else in common other than a shared hatred. Class divisions accentuate this rivalry. River Plate, founded by Englishmen in 1901, moved from La Boca to the more affluent area of Palermo in the north of the city, and it is traditionally the team of better-off PorteA±os. The team's kit is white with a diagonal red band, and their stadium, known as the Monumental or the Gallinera (Cock Pit), was the venue for the 1978 World Cup Final. Fans of Boca Juniors' (founded in 1905) are nicknamed the Xeneizes, which derives from the fact that the core of the club's early support came from Genovese immigrants, and the team has stuck loyally to its working-class roots. Their cauldron of a stadium, the Bombonera, is in the heart of La Boca, blocks away from El Caminito tourist street. The clash of these two arch rivals, known as the superclA?sico , is viewed with quasi-religious fervour and is given saturation coverage by the nation's media, both in the days leading up to the game and for the post-mortem afterwards. Neither team is completely satisfied about winning the championship if the season has been blighted by a defeat in the superclA?sico .

Boca are also notorious for their barra brava . Every team has a barra brava - organized mobs of fanatical supporters that are "sponsored" by the club with free tickets and transport to games. The barras have attracted fierce criticism in the press for their involvement in extortion rackets, drug dealing and political intimidation, and businessmen and corrupt politicos have been known to employ the barras as their hired heavies. Sporadic attempts at clamping down on the barras have had mixed success, but one significant prosecution resulted in JosA© "The Grandfather" Barritta, a shady mafioso godfather figure who ran Boca's gang, being imprisoned for his role in the murder of two River fans in 1994.

Other important teams in the capital are VA©lez Sarsfield; San Lorenzo, a team that has a nominal alliance with La Boca against River Plate and plays at the Nuevo GasA?metro Stadium; and Racing Club , who play in the deprived southern barrio of Avellaneda. Ignore the stench from the Riachuelo and head there to witness the extraordinary devotion of their fans, or hinchada (nicknamed the Guarda Imperial ), universally acclaimed as the most fanatical of all, despite their team's lack of success on the field over the last thirty years and numerous recent brushes with bankruptcy. Win or lose, the singing here is unbeatable. The strident antipathy that exists between Racing and local derby rivals, Independiente , comes close to the more famous feud between River and Boca. The city of Rosario has a similarly bitter clash, between Rosario Central (whose supporters are pejoratively known as Los Canallas - "riff-raff") and Newell's Old Boys (whose fans are called Leprosos - lepers). The only other cities that are represented by teams in the first division are CA?rdoba and La Plata.

If you can, be in Buenos Aires on a date that coincides with a crucial fixture for the national team: this is the best time to experience the full fervour of Argentina's passion for the game and, should the result go the right way, head to the Obelisco on Avenida 9 de Julio - the magnet for communal celebrations . Likewise, the Obelisco is the point of ritual homage for supporters of domestic clubs after league or cup success. Spectating at a domestic game can be an incredibly exciting experience. At present, the domestic footballing year is split into two separate championships: the opening one ( Apertura ), which is settled in December, and the closing championship ( Clausura ), which picks up after the summer recess and lasts until June. In January, some of the major teams from the capital decamp to Mar del Plata to play in a minor summer tournament. Seats ( platea ) at games cost about $20, but you'll get much more atmosphere on the terraces ( popular ; $10), though you should be aware that celebrations can get very rowdy: stand just in front of one of the crowd-control barriers so as not to get bowled over by the inevitable surge that follows a goal, and cede the very centre of the terrace behind the goal to the hard-core hinchada . Problems with crowd control are evidenced by the towering fences that surround most pitches. Also be aware that policing at the bigger games can get very heavy-handed: you may well be charged on horseback or baton-charged, so stay alert to avoid potential trouble spots.

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Information centres and park administration

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The National Park Headquarters at Santa Fe 680 in Buenos Aires (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm; tel 011/4311-0303) has an information office on the lower ground floor, with introductory leaflets on the nation's parks, though some are occasionally out of stock. A wider range of free leaflets is often available at each individual park, but these are of variable quality and limited funding means that many parks give you only ones with a basic map and a brief park description. Contact the headquarters well in advance if you are interested in voluntary or scientific projects.

Nature enthusiasts would gain more from a visit to the Fundacion Vida Silvestre than they would from a visit to the National Parks' headquarters in the capital. The Fundacion, located at Defensa 251, Piso 6K, (1065) Buenos Aires (Mon-Fri 10am-1pm & 2-6pm; tel 011/4343-3778 or 4331-3631; www.vidasilvestre.org.ar ), is a committed and highly professional environmental organization, and is an associate of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Visit its shop for back issues of its beautifully produced magazine, for books and leaflets on wildlife and ecological issues; as well as for information on its nature reserves. Bird-watchers should visit the headquarters of the country's well-respected birding organization, Aves Argentinas/Asociacion Ornitologica del Plata , at 25 de Mayo 749, Piso 2K "6", (1002) Buenos Aires Capital Federal (Mon-Fri 2.30-8pm; tel & fax 011/4312-1015; aop@aorpla.org.ar ). They have an excellent specialist library ($5 per day for non-members) and a shop, and they organize morning outings once a month to the capital's prolific Costanera Sur marshland reserve (on weekends; $5), and birding safaris around the country (at prices far more accessible than most specialist overseas operators. A $50 annual membership for foreigners entitles you to their high-quality quarterly magazine, discounts on bird safaris, free access to the library, and the possibility of getting involved in scientific and conservation work.

Each national park has its own Intendencia , or park administration, although these are often in the principal access town, not within the park itself. An information office or visitors' centre is usually attached, and you can usually buy fishing licences here. Parks are often subdivided into more manageable units: the larger divisions of which are called seccionales , often with some sort of small information office of their own in the main building.

Argentina's guardaparques , or national park rangers, are some of the most professional on the continent: generally friendly, well-trained and dedicated to jobs that are demanding and often extremely isolated. All have a good grounding in the wildlife of the region and are happy to share their knowledge with those who express an interest, although don't expect them all to be professional naturalists - some are, but ranger duties often involve more contact with the general public than with the wildlife. You may need to register with the guardaparque before heading out on treks or to seek camping permits.

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Visiting the parks

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All national parks have routes of public access, though many of the ones in more isolated areas - Baritu, Perito Moreno, and Santiago del Estero's Copo, for example - are not served by any public transport or even tour vehicles, and the only way of visiting is by renting your own transport. Most parks are free to visit, but in some of the more touristy ones, there's often a fee (usually $5 per visit), which is charged at the park gate. Scenic attractions such as the falls in Iguazu, Cerro Trondador and the Isla Victoria in Nahuel Huapi, or the Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares, thus serve to generate funds for less commercial parks that are still vitally important from an ecological perspective. In certain of the larger parks, such as Nahuel Huapi and Lanin, you are charged only to access the areas not served by a main public highway.

Camping is possible in virtually all parks, and sites are graded according to three categories: camping libre sites, which are free but have no or very few services (perhaps a latrine and sometimes a shower block); camping agreste sites, charging $2 per person, which are run as concessions and provide a minimum of hot water, showers, toilets, places for lighting a campfire, and usually some sort of small shop; and camping organizado sites, charged at about $5 per person, which have more services, including electricity and often some sort of restaurant. In some areas, Bariloche being the most obvious example, local climbing clubs maintain a network of refuges for trekkers and climbers. These range in quality from free places with ground space for sleeping bags but no services, to others costing up to $10 per person per night, with mattresses and meals available, and a small shop on site.

Always try to be environmentally responsible on your visit. Stick to marked trails, camp only at authorized sites, take all litter with you (don't burn it), bury all toilet waste and choose a spot at least 30m away from all water sources, and use detergents or toothpastes as sparingly as possible, choosing biodegradable options such as glycerine soap. Above all, please pay particular respect to the fire risk in all parks. Every year, fires destroy huge swathes of forest, and virtually all of these are started by hand: some deliber ately, but most because of an unpardonable negligence. As ever, one of the prime culprits is the cigarette butt, often casually tossed out of a car window, but just as bad are campfires - both ones that are poorly tended and ones that are poorly extinguished. Woodland becomes tinder-dry in summer droughts, and, especially in places such as Patagonia, it is vulnerable to the sparks carried by the strong winds. Once started, winds, inaccessibility, and limited water resources mean that fires can turn into infernos that can blaze for weeks on end, and much fire-damaged land never regenerates its growth. Many parks have a complete ban on lighting campfires and trekkers are asked to take stoves upon which to do their cooking: please respect this. Others ban fires during high-risk periods. The most environmentally responsible approach is to avoid lighting campfires at all: even dead wood has a role to play in often fragile ecosystems. If you do need to light one, never choose a spot on peaty soil, as peat, once it has caught, becomes virtually impossible to put out. Choose a spot on stony or sandy soil, use only fallen wood, and always extinguish the fire with water, not earth, stirring up the ashes to ensure all embers are quenched.

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Birds and animals

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Once, these plains were the home of pampas deer ( venado de las pampas ), but habitat change and massive overhunting over the centuries has brought the species to the edge of extinction and today only a few hundred individuals survive, mainly in Samborombon and Campos del Tuyu in Buenos Aires Province. Standing 70cm at the shoulder, the deer has a short-haired, yellow-grey pelt, and is easily identified by its three-pronged antler.

The coipu ( coipo or falsa nutria ) is a large rodent commonly found in the region's wetlands, especially in the central east of Buenos Aires Province and the Parana Delta, where it is farmed mainly for its fur but also for its edible meat. The great vizcacha dens ( vizcacheras ) described in the nineteenth century by the famous natural history writer, W.H. Hudson, have all but disappeared, but you may see an endemic bird named after the writer, Hudson's canastero, along with the greater rheas, burrowing parrots ( loro barranquero ), with their yellow rumps and browny-grey heads, and ovenbirds ( horneros ) that he so loved. Named after the domed, concrete-hard mud nests they build on posts, ovenbirds have always been held in great affection by the gauchos and country folk, who regularly refer to the species in human-sounding terms, with local names such as Juan Alonsito.

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Birds and animals

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The wetlands have a remarkable diversity of birdlife, including numerous species of ducks, rails, ibises and herons. Some of the most distinctive species are the wattled jacana ( jacana ), which tiptoes delicately over floating vegetation; the southern screamer ( chaja ), a hulking great bird the size of a turkey, with a strident call like the cry of an oversized gull; the unmistakeable scarlet-headed blackbird ( federal ), which frequents reedbeds; filter-feeding roseate spoonbills ( espatula rosada ); the wonderful rufescent tiger heron ( hoco colorado ); and jabirus ( yabiru ), the largest variety of stork, measuring almost 1.5m tall, with a bald head, shoe-horn bill and red ruff around its neck. Up above fly snail kites ( caracoleros ), which use their sharp, curved bills to prize freshwater caracoles from their shells.

In the shallow swamps, amongst reedbeds and long grasses, you will find the marsh deer ( ciervo de los pantanos ), on the list of endangered species but still suffering from poaching. Standing 1.3m tall, it is South America's largest native deer, easily identifiable by its size and its multi-horned antlers that usually have five points. One of the most common wetland animals is the capybara ( carpincho ), the world's biggest rodent, weighing up to 50kg. Though most active at night, it is easy to see in the day, frequently half-submerged, as this grazer is a strong swimmer. In the past, it suffered heavily from hunting, as its skin makes a distinctive, soft, water-resistant leather, a demand now largely satisfied by commercial capybara ranches, though poaching continues. Reptiles include the black cayman ( yacare negro or yacare hocico angosto ), which grows up to 2.8m in length, and is the victim of illegal hunting; and snakes like the lampalagua   boa (up to 5m in length) and the curiyu   yellow anaconda (which can grow over 3m), both of which are non-poisonous, relying on constriction to kill their prey.

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Birds and animals

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More than five hundred species of bird inhabit the Parana forest, and you stand a good chance of seeing the toco toucan ( tucan grande ), with its bright orange bill, along with other smaller members of the same family. Rarities include the magnificent harpy eagle ( harpia ), one of the world's most powerful and specialized avian predators, and the bare-faced currasow ( muitu ).

The fauna in this part of the world has also been hard-hit by habitat loss and hunting, although it's still one of the few places in Argentina where you might just see the highly endangered jaguar ( yaguarete or tigre ). Weighing up to 160kg, and more powerful than its African relation, the leopard, this beast is the continent's most fearsome predator. The beautiful spotted ocelot ( gato onza ) is similarly elusive and almost as endangered, having suffered massive hunting for its pelt during the 1970s.

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The wet chaco

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Found in the eastern third of Chaco and Formosa provinces and the northeast of Santa Fe is what is described as wet chaco habitat. It consists of small remnant patches of gallery forest (not unlike the Parana forest), growing by rivers and ox-bow lakes; savannah grasslands studded with caranday palms and "islands" of mixed scrub woodland ( isletas de monte ); and wetland environments similar to those of the Mesopotamian grasslands. The key tree species is the quebracho colorado chaqueno , one of Argentina's four quebracho species, whose name means axe-breaker in Spanish, though it has always been valued more for its tannin than for its hard wood. It can reach heights of 24m, and the most venerable specimens can be anything from 300 to 500 years old. Other common tree species are the urunday; timbo colorado; lapacho negro ; and the intriguing crown of thorns tree ( espina corona ), with clumps of dramatic spikes jutting out from its trunk. On the savannahs, the graceful caranday palms grow alone or in small groups ( palmares ) and reach heights of up to 15m. They are extremely resilient, surviving both periodic flooding and the regular burning of the grasslands in order to stimulate the growth of new shoots for cattle pasture: whereas most shrubs perish in the flames, the caranday seems to flourish.

The wetland swamps are often choked with rafts of camalote , a waterlily with a seductive lilac flower; or the large discs, some more than a metre in diameter, of another distinctive waterlily, the flor de Irupe , whose name comes from the Guarani word for "plate on the water". Piri , looking rather like papyrus horsetail, and pehuajo , with leaves like a banana palm, form large reed beds where the water is less deep.

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Birds and animals

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The birdlife is similar to that in the swamps of Mesopotamia, and you're likely to see the greater rhea (called suri in this region more often than nandu ); the fork-tailed flycatcher ( tijereta ) with its unmistakeable, overlong tailfeathers; monk parakeets ( cotorras ), which build huge communal nests in caranday palms; the red-legged seriema ( chuna de patas rojas ), a long-legged roadrunner-type bird; and two birds that are trapped for the pet trade - the red-crested cardinal ( cardenal comun ), and the turquoise-fronted Amazon ( loro hablador ), an accomplished ventriloquist parrot.

One of the most beautiful animals in the wet chaco is the solitary, nocturnal maned wolf ( aguara guazu or lobo de crin ), whose name means "big fox" in Guarani, and which, to this day, is occasionally persecuted for fear that it's a werewolf ( lobizon ). This coppery auburn beast, standing almost a metre tall and weighing up to 25kg, actually eats birds' eggs, armadillos, small rodents and fruit. It is seriously endangered, with only an estimated 1500 remaining in Argentina.

One of the most curious-looking denizens of the region is the giant anteater ( oso hormiguero, oso bandera , or yurumi ), with its bushy tail and elongated face, gently curved like a shoehorn. Its astonishingly sensitive sense of smell is forty times better than humans', to make up for its poor eyesight. It breaks open rock-hard termite mounds with its exceptionally strong claws, and scours out thousands of termites a feed with its probing, sticky tongue. Much smaller is the collared anteater ( oso melero or tamandua ), a perplexed-looking creature with a black and orange-yellow coat. Although it can often be found on the ground, it is ideally suited to clambering round in tree branches, making good use of its prehensile tail. So too do the region's primates: the black howler monkey ( caraya or mono aullador negro ), one of South America's biggest monkeys, weighing up to 7kg; the black-capped or tufted capuchin ( cai ); and the endangered mirikina ( mono de noche ), Argentina's smallest primate (only 60-70cm long, including its tail), and the world's only nocturnal monkey.

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The dry chaco

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The dry chaco refers to the parched plain of unruly thorn-scrub that covers most of central and western Chaco and Formosa provinces, northeastern Salta, and much of Santiago del Estero - where you'll find the best-preserved example of this ecosystem within the Parque Nacional Copo. This habitat was once more varied, but massive deforestation and the subsequent introduction of cattle has standardized the vegetation. There can be few places in the world where the cacti are not necessarily the spiniest of plants, as is the case here. Everything, it seems, is aggressively defensive: the vinal shrub, for instance, is dreaded by riders and horses alike for its brutal, reinforced spikes, up to twenty centimetres long. To the early explorers and settlers, much of the dry chaco was known simply as the Impenetrable for its lack of water and all species have adapted strategies to save water, about half of them losing their leaves during the winter drought. In places, a dense understorey of chaguar and caraguata grow: robust, yucca-like plants which are processed by the Wichi to make the fibre for their yica bags. The monte scrub grows from ground level to a height of some four metres, and from this ragged tangle, trees liberate themselves once in a while.

The tallest trees in the dry chaco are the quebrachos , notably the quebracho colorado santiagueno (up to 24m tall and 1.5m diameter), exploited for tannin and by the timber industry; and the quebracho blanco , used extensively for firewood and whose bark - cracked into thick "scales", not dissimilar to cork-oak bark - has antimalarial properties. Its leaves resemble that of an olive tree, and its distinctive husk of a seed pod contains oval parchment-yellow flakes of seed.

Several other species can also reach imposing sizes, such as the two types of carob tree , the algarrobo blanco and algarrobo negro , both of which play an integral role in the life of the Wichi and other indigenous groups for the shade, firewood, edible beans and animal forage they provide. Regrettably, the species have been severely overexploited to provide a much-prized reddish wood for the furniture industry. The beautiful guayacan , with olive-green bark that flakes rather like a plane tree and leaves somewhat like a mimosa, is valued for its extremely hard wood, also used for furniture. Perhaps the hardest wood of all is that of the endangered, slow-growing palo santo (meaning "holy stick"). This tree, characteristically with a profusion of knobbly twigs and a host to many small, grey, octopus-like bromeliads, flowers in spring with tiny blooms the colour of lemon yoghurt. Its fragrant, green-tinged wood can be burnt as an insect repellent; though carvings are sold by the Wichi and Qom, export of the wood has been prohibited. Finally, the palo borracho (or yuchan ) is the most distinctive tree of all, with a bulbous, porous trunk to store water; the tree protects itself, especially when young, with rhino-horned spikes, and it flowers with large yellow blooms from January to July, the seedpods producing a fluffy cotton-like fibre.

Creepers such as the famous medicinal una de gato (or garabato ) are quite common. Cacti are some of the very few plants here that grow straight: predominantly the candelabra cardon (a different species to that which grows in the Andes), which grows to the size of a tree; and its similar-looking cousin, the ucle (which has seven lobes per stem, compared with the cardon 's nine). These cacti are sometimes planted so as to grow into tightly knit hedges.

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Birds and animals

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More than three hundred varieties of bird inhabit the yungas forests, with Calilegua having the richest supply of the national parks. Species include the toco toucan (the official symbol of Parque El Rey); the impressive and rare black-and-chestnut eagle ( aguila poma ); the king vulture ( jote real or cuervorey ), with a strikingly patterned orange head; dusky-legged and rare, red-faced guans ( pava de monte comun and alisera respectively); numerous varieties of hummingbird; mitred and green-cheeked parakeets ( loro de cara roja and chiripepe de cabeza gris respectively); and the torrent duck ( pato de los torrentes ) and rufous-throated dipper ( mirlo de aqua ), both found in fast-flowing streams. The morning chorus or cacophony is such that you'll wish you'd brought recording equipment as well as binoculars and a camera.

Like the flora, fauna in the yungas changes with altitude. Rich in fish and crustaceans, the crystalline streams are the favourite haunts of southern river otters and crab-eating racoons (called mayuatos here). Other mammals found close to the water include South America's largest native terrestrial mammal, the Brazilian tapir ( tapir, anta or mborevi ), a solid, Shetland pony-sized creature, with a trunk-like stump of a nose and which weighs up to 250kg in this part of the world. They are hard to see, however, being mainly active at night. The strange tree-porcupine ( coendu ) clambers around the canopy with the help of its prehensile tail, as do capuchins and black howler monkeys , while the three-toed sloth ( perezoso ), which virtually never descends from the trees, depends on its sabre-like claws for locomotion. Felines are represented by jaguars margays, pumas and Geoffroy's cats . Of these shyer creatures, you will be very lucky to see anything other than tracks. This also applies to the most famous regional creature of all: the taruca , a stocky native Andean deer. Considered a delicacy, it was traditionally hunted by locals for Easter celebrations, but it was brought to the brink of extinction in Argentina and is now one of only three national animals protected by the status of Natural Monument - the other two being its Patagonian cousin, the huemul , and the southern right whale. It grazes in small herds just below the tree line in winter, and on high rocky pastures such as those above Calilegua in summer.

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The puna

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The prepuna and higher puna of the Andean northwest encompass a range of extremely harsh, arid habitats that range from the cardon cactus valleys from Jujuy to La Rioja, to the highest bleak Altiplano vegetation below the permanent snow line. Everything that grows here must be able to cope with extremely impoverished soils, and a huge difference in day- and night-time temperatures. Prepuna habitat usually refers to the sparsely vegetated rocky gullies and highland meadows ( prados ) of the cordillera, and is found at altitudes of between 2000m and 3500m. You'll see bunch grasses, reeds and stunted quenoa trees, but the most distinctive prepuna plant is the candelabra cardon cactus (also called pasakan ), which indigenous folklore holds to be the reincarnated form of their ancestors. These grow in a fairly restricted range centred on the Valle Calchaquies, and take a century to reach their full height of 10m. Their beautiful yellow flowers produce a sweet fruit, and though they are now protected, their strong, light wood was used in the past as a building material.

The puna is found above 3400m, and is characterized by spongy wetlands ( bofedales ) around shallow high-mountain lagoons, and sun-scorched flat Altiplano pastures of tough, spiky grasses. On the higher slopes, you'll find lichens and a type of rock-hard cushion-shaped prehistoric moss called yacreta that grows incredibly slowly - perhaps a millimetre a year - but lives for hundreds of years. It has been heavily exploited - partly for making medicinal teas, but mainly because it is the only fuel to be found at these altitudes.

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Birds and animals

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Of the fauna, birds are the most prolific: you can see all three varieties of flamingo wading or flying together in great pink flocks, especially on the banks of Laguno de Pozuelos. They are, in decreasing size, the Andean flamingo ( parina grande ; with yellow legs), Chilean flamingo ( flamenco austral ; with bluish-grey legs) and Puna or James' flamingo ( parina chica ; with red legs). The lesser rhea ( nandu petizo, choique or suri ), a metre-high flightless bird, is shy here and will sprint away from you at incredible speeds. Binoculars can also be trained on giant coots ( gallareta gigante ) and it's extremely rare relative, the horned coot ( gallareta cornuda ), Andean avocets, puna plovers ( chorlito puneno ), Andean geese ( guayata ), Andean lapwings ( tero serrano ), and all kinds of grebes, teals and other ducks. The most common bird you'll hear is the grey-breasted seedsnipe , but listen, too, for the modulated whistle of a wading bird called the tawny-throated dotterel - one of the most entrancing sounds to disturb the silence of the Altiplano.

The animals most people associate with the Andean puna are the four species of South American camelids, especially the llama , a domesticated species well adapted to harsh conditions, and which eats anything. The local people use llamas as beasts of burden, as well as for meat and their thick wool (shorn every other year, adults yield 4kg a time). The other domesticated camelid is the slightly smaller alpaca , which varies in colour from snow white to raven black, via a range of greys and browns. Alpacas produce much finer wool, and one thick fleece, harvested every two years, may weigh as much as 5kg. They're few and far between in Argentina, and you're only likely to see them in the Antofagasta de la Sierra area.

The two other South American camelids are both wild. The tawny-beige, short-haired antelope-like guanaco is found over a widespread area, stretching from the northwest puna to the mountains and steppe of Tierra del Fuego. Listen out for the eerie, rasping alarm call used to alert the troupe to possible danger. The guanaco population is still relatively healthy, although it is hunted for its meat and skin, despite being legally protected. The young, called chulengos , are easily approachable, unlike the adults. The guanaco's more diminutive cousin, the vicuna , is the most graceful, shy and - despite its delicate appearance - hardy of the four camelids, capable of living at the most extreme altitudes. It's usually found between 3500 and 4600m, as far south as the north of San Juan Province, although the biggest flocks are to be found in Catamarca Province. Like rodents they have incisors that continually grow, enabling them to munch away on the tough bunchgrasses, lichens and spiny Altiplano vegetation, but they're fussy eaters. After thousands were shot for their pelts during the 1950s and 60s, they faced extinction across their whole continental range, but national and international protection measures including a ban on trade in their skins has helped ensure that their numbers have risen back to safe levels. This has allowed a pilot project to begin in Jujuy's Valle Calchaquies, whereby their valuable fur (the second finest natural fibre in the world after silk) is exploited on a strictly controlled, sustainable commercial level. Animals are rounded up once every three or four years - no mean feat considering that these animals can sprint at up to 60km per hour over short distances - and shorn, in a practice reminiscent of the days of the Incas. Then, only Inca noblemen could wear vicuna cloth, but nowadays you can buy one of the prestigious ponchos - weighing 1.3kg and requiring the wool of at least six animals - for $2000.

Other mammals spotted in the puna include the nearly extinct royal chinchilla and several varieties of armadillo. Mountain vizcachas , looking like large rabbits with curly, long tails, can often be seen nodding off in the sun near watering-places or heard making their distinctive whistle. You're unlikely to see the puma , silently prowling around the region but normally avoiding human contact.

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The Patagonian cordillera forests

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The eastern slopes of the Patagonian cordillera are cloaked, for most of their length, in forests dominated by the various species of Nothofagus southern beech . Two species run the length of the forests, from the northernmost forests of Neuquen to Tierra del Fuego: the lenga (upland beech); and the nire (lowland or antarctic beech). Both deciduous, they frequently grow in close proximity, so telling them apart can be problematic at first. At lower altitudes, the lenga is by far the taller species, but closer to the tree line, the two intermingle as dwarf shrubs in impenetrably dense thickets. The lenga , capable of flourishing on incredibly thin topsoils, tends to form the tree line, reaching up to 1600m above sea level at the latitude of Neuquen. The nire , which rarely grows more than 15m tall, tends to be found close to water; and whereas in autumn both species turn a remarkable variety of hues, it is the nire that has the most vibrant palette, with astonishing garnets, golden yellows, rusty oranges, and pinks the colour of rosehip jelly. By comparing the leaves of the two species, you can always verify any preliminary identification: lenga leaves have lots of veins, with each band between the veins having a uniform double lobe on the edge; nire leaves have far fewer veins, and each band has a less regular, crinkle-cut edge with several lobes. Associated with lenga and nire are three intriguing plant species: false mistletoe ( farolito chino ), a semi-parasitic plant that draws sap from its host as well as producing its own through photosynthesis; verdigris-coloured lichen beards ( barba del indio or toalla del indio ), which need unpolluted air to flourish; and the llao llao tree fungus, also called pan de indio ("Indian's bread"). When young, it does have a faintly sweet flavour, but is low on nutritional value. The llao llao produces the characteristic brain-like knots on trunks and branches that are so beloved of local artisans, who use them to craft animals and ashtrays.

Lenga and nire are the only species that occur at all latitudes where you can find Patagonian Andean forest. The next most prominent tree species are two related evergreen beeches, the more northerly coihue and the guindo (or coihue de Magallanes ), found mainly in Tierra del Fuego. Both have fairly smooth bark and distinctive laurel-green leaves that are small, shiny and tough, with a rounded shape and tiny serrations on the edge. Both trees grow only in damp zones near lakes or, in the case of Tierra del Fuego, by the shores of the Beagle Channel, where they reach 25-30m in height.

In central Neuquen, you find one of Argentina's most remarkable trees, the araucaria monkey puzzle , which grows on poor volcanic soils, in widely spaced pure forests or, more normally, mixed with species of Nothofagus. The forests of Parque Nacional Lanin contain two species of broad-leafed Nothofagus not found anywhere else: the roble pellin (named for its oak-like leaves), and the rauli (with more oval-shaped leaves), which together often form mixed, low-altitude woodlands. Also confined to the area is the radal , a shrubby tree with a creamy whitish flower and a greyish wood that is valued by craftsmen for its beautiful speckled vein, reminiscent of a sloughed snakeskin.

The most diverse type of forest in the region is the rare Valdivian temperate rainforest ( selva Valdiviana ), found in patches of the central Patagonian Andes from Lanin to Los Alerces, usually pressed up against the Chilean border around low passes where rainfall is at its heaviest. This verdant tangle requires extremely high precipitation (3000-4000mm annually) to flourish, and it is marked out from the rest of the forest by several distinguishing factors: different layers of canopy, thick roots breaking the surface of the soil, and both epiphytes and llianas. Two other tree species found only in the central Patagonian lake district are the scarce arrayan myrtle, always found next to water, and with a glorious, flaky, cinnamon-coloured bark; and the mighty alerce , or Patagonian cypress, which resembles a Californian redwood and is one of the world's oldest and grandest tree species.

The understorey of the forests is dominated in most places by dense thickets, up to six metres high, of a bamboo-like plant, cana colihue , a mixed Spanish and Mapudungun term that means "tree of the place of water". Every 7-12 years they flower, die and reproduce - a phenomenon that can spark a lemming-like plague of colilargo mice. The most stunning shrub, if you catch it in bloom (late spring or autumn), is the notro firebush (or ciruelillo ), whose fiery flowers resemble miniature scarlet crowns. Another native to these parts, the fuchsia , has conquered the world as a garden favourite. Growing in Tierra del Fuego, and looking rather like a glossy rhododendron, the evergreen canelo takes its Spanish name from the fleeting cinnamon taste of its bark, a taste rapidly followed by a peppery tang. In English it is known as Winter's bark, after a certain Captain Winter of Francis Drake's expedition, who discovered that its leaves helped to treat and prevent scurvy. The native wild holly ( muerdago silvestre ) has glossy, dark-green leaves and, in spring, clusters of yellow-orange fairy-bell blooms the size of blackcurrants. Of forest flowers, some of the most brightly coloured are the amancay , a type of golden-orange lily that carpets glades in central Patagonia in midsummer; and the brilliant yellow flowers of the yellow lady's slipper ( zapatilla de la Virgen ), whose snapdragon blooms bob on their delicate stems in spring. Lupins ( lupinos ), introduced by the British to enliven estancia gardens, have spread like wildfire through parks like Lanin, and, though considered a plague, they do put on a glorious show from late December to January, when in bloom.

As you move away from the mountains towards the drier steppe, you'll often find a zone of transitional woodland , although the change from steppe to forest can be quite abrupt. In northern and central Patagonia, the woodland is normally composed of species like the mountain cypress ( cipres de la cordillera ), or the autochthonous retamo , which flowers with pale-violet blooms.

Found on mountain-valley floors or just above the tree line are peaty sphagnum moors ( turbales ) and bogs ( mallines ). Here you'll find chaura prickly heath, and you can munch away on its waxy, pinky-red berries, which have a spongy texture and look like miniature Edam cheeses. The creeping diddle dee ( murtilla ) is a common upland plant; there are several types of berries that go under the local Spanish name of mutilla . On rocky soils, look out for the common blue perezia ( perezia azul ) whose diminutive, mauve flowers have a double rosette of elegant, spatula-shaped petals.

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Birds and animals

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Many of the birds that inhabit the steppe are also found in the cordillera. Typical woodland species include the world's most southerly parrot, the austral parakeet ( cachana or cotorra ); the green-backed firecrown ( picaflor rubi ), a type of tiny hummingbird; the curious and hyperactive thorn-tailed rayadito , a tiny chestnut-and-white bird with a prominent eye stripe, which flits about seeking insects in Nothofagus bark; two secretive ground birds, the chucao tapaculo and chestnut-throated huet-huet, with a piping call, are both more often heard than seen; and two birds that allow you to get surprisingly close - the powerful Magellanic woodpecker ( carpintero negro gigante ), and the hand-sized austral pygmy owl ( cabure ). Finally, if any bird has a claim to symbolizing the continent of South America, it is the Andean condor . With eyesight eight times better than that of man, and the longest wingspan of any bird of prey, (reaching up to 3.10m), it's the undisputed lord of the skies along the entire length of the Andean spine, from Venezuela to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. Until fairly recently, this imperious bird was relentlessly poisoned and shot, the victim of prejudice and macho posturing. Fortunately, it's now protected in Argentina and its population stable. Although you'll probably only glimpse a dot soaring far off in the sky, you may be treated to the sight of the ermine ruff of the adult bird or even the rush of the wind in its splayed wingtips as it sweeps past.

The principal predator of the cordillera mammals is the puma . Local farmers equate these cats with a dangerous drain on their finances: a female, teaching her growing youngsters how to kill, can slaughter more than fifty lambs in a night. The law confers protection on all pumas, but even conservationists recognize that this is hard to enforce outside the national parks: on private land they are seen as fair game, and the meat is considered a delicacy. Commonly known as leon (lion) by country dwellers, this cat is no pussy either. Though the chances are that any puma will sight you and make itself scarce well before you sight it, there are extremely infrequent cases of attacks on humans, mainly by protective females with cubs, or old cats who can no longer catch more fleet-footed prey. In the highly unlikely event of being faced with a seemingly aggressive puma, do not run but make yourself appear as big as possible, and, facing it at all times, back off slowly, shouting loudly. A smaller feline, the Geoffroy's cat ( gato montes ), tends to run before you've even seen it.

Perhaps the most endangered creature is the huemul , a thick-set native deer whose antler has two prongs. It is a relative of the taruca of the northwestern Andes, and has likewise attained the status of National Natural Monument. Protected by this legislation, this docile animal may yet manage to survive; the chief threat to its survival is no longer hunting, nor even from diseases spread by cattle, but habitat loss and human encroachment. Almost as endangered is the pudu , the world's smallest deer, measuring a mere 40cm at the shoulder and weighing 10-12kg. It has small, single-pointed horns, and is devilishly difficult to see, as it inhabits the dense undergrowth of the central cordillera forests from Lanin to Los Alerces. Also hard to spot are the opossum ( comadreja comun ) and another interesting marsupial of the humid forests of the Andes, the monito de monte . Localized and nocturnal, your best chance of seeing one is in Nahuel Huapi or the southern part of Lanin. The endangered culebra valdiviana is a poisonous (but not mortally) woodland snake that's confined pretty much to this range, too. Tierra del Fuego has no snakes at all.

In terms of mammals, you stand most chance of seeing introduced species . The European red deer ( ciervo colorado ) and European wild boar ( jabali ) have reached plague proportions in some parts of the central lake district. The beaver ( castor ) was introduced from Canada to Tierra del Fuego in an attempt to start a fur-farming industry. Unfortunately, the species took to the Fuegian streams like the proverbial duck. The consequences for the Fuegian environment have been devastating. The rodents have run amok, chewing their way through valuable woodland and blocking streams with their dams, flooding mountain valleys, flatlands and pasture. To compound things, nire and lenga trees are much slower-growing than the birches of the beavers' native Canada. To combat this public enemy, year-round, no-limits hunting has been permitted, with hunters being allowed to sell the furs. Yet the castores have proved that their skins are as thick as their pelts, and people now believe that indiscriminate hunting can actually increase beaver populations, since they respond by giving birth to larger broods. Other introduced fur species have had deleterious effects too: muskrats ( ratas almizcleras ) were introduced to the south of the island at the same time as the beaver; during the 1930s, rabbits ( conejos ) crossed into the northern plains from the Chilean half of the island, and invaded the southern region after escaping from a fur farm in Ushuaia in the 1950s; and, ominously, the destructive mink ( vison ) has also been around here for the last eight years.

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Birds and animals

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Several coastal areas, notably those of the Bahia Samborombon, Bahia San Antonio, and Bahia San Sebastian, have been integrated into the Hemisphere Reserve for Shorebirds, a network of reserves designed to protect migrant waders across the two American continents. Birds like the Hudsonian godwit ( becasa de mar ) and the red knot ( playero rojizo ) migrate from Alaska and as far as Tierra del Fuego - a distance of over 17,000km. Other typical coastal species are Magellanic penguin ( pinguino magellanico , whose major continental breeding colony is Punta Tombo, but which is also found at Valdes, Puerto Deseado, San Julian and Cabo Virgenes; Chilean flamingos ; and the South American tern ( gaviotin sudamericano ). At Deseado, you can see all four different types of cormorant ( cormoran ) including the blue-eyed ( imperial ) and, most beautiful of all, the uncommon red-legged cormorant ( gris ). Look out for the curious, dove-like snowy sheathbill ( paloma antartica ); and several types of duck, including the crested duck ( pato juarjual or creston ) and the flightless steamer duck ( quetro no volador or alacush ), an ash-grey bird with an orange bill that uses its wings in paddle-steaming fashion to hurry itself away from danger. On the open sea, especially in the far south, you stand a good chance of seeing the black-browed albatross , and the giant petrel , both superbly skilful fliers.

Peninsula Valdes is the main destination for marine fauna , attracting more visitors per year than the Galapagos Islands. Its twin bays, Golfo Nuevo and Golfo San Jose (Latin America's first marine park), are where as much as a quarter of the world's population of southern right whales ( ballena franca austral ) breed annually. The peninsula is also host to a 40,000-strong and growing colony of southern elephant seals ( elefante marino ). Other sightings might be sealions ( lobos del mar ), which are found in colonies along the whole Atlantic coast, and possibly even a killer whale ( orca ). Further down the coast, at Cabo Dos Bahias, you can see the endangered fur seal ( lobo de dos pelos ); while Puerto Deseado and San Julian are fine places to catch the energetic, piebald Commerson's dolphins ( toninas overas ). Sea trips on the Beagle Channel offer a slim chance of seeing Peale's dolphins , a minke whale , or even perhaps an endangered marine otter ( nutria marina or chungungo ).

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Gardel and tango's golden age

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Back in Argentina, in the 1920s, the tango moved out of the cantinas and bordellos into cabarets and theatres and entered a classic era under bandleaders like Roberto Firpo, Julio de Caro and Francisco Canaro . With their orquestas tipicas they took the old line-up of Vicente Greco (two bandoneons, two violins, a piano and flute) and substituted a double bass for the flute. This gave added sonority and depth, a combination which was to continue for the next twenty years, even in the larger ensembles common after the mid-1930s. It was during this period that some of the most famous of all tangos were written, including Uruguayan Gerardo Hernan Matos Rodriguez's   La Cumparsita in 1917 - the most famous tango of all time. He took it to Firpo who was performing with his band in a Montevideo cafe: the rest as they say is history!

The first tango-cancion (tango songs) used the language of the ghetto and celebrated the life of ruffians and pimps. Angel Villoldo and Pascual Contursi introduced the classic tango lyric of a male perspective, placing the blame for heartache firmly on the shoulders of a fickle woman, with Contursi putting lyrics to Samuel Castriota's "Lita": "Woman who left me, in the prime of my life, wounding my soul, and driving thorns into my heart … Nothing can console me now, so I am drowning my sorrows, to try to forget your love …". Typical of tango songs, male behaviour itself was beyond reproach, the man victim of women's capriciousness.

In its dance , tango consolidated its contradictory mix of earthy sensuality and middle-class kitsch. It depends on an almost violent and dangerous friction of bodies, colliding often in a passion which seems controlled by the dance itself. A glittering respectability hid darker undercurrents in the obvious macho domination of the male over the female in a series of intricate steps and in the close embraces, which were highly suggestive of the sexual act. The cut and thrust of intricate and interlacing fast leg movements between a couple imitated the movement of blades in a knife fight.

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Carlos Gardel

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The extraordinary figure of Carlos Gardel (1887-1935) was - and still is - a legend in Argentina, and he was a huge influence in spreading the popularity of tango round the world. He was actually born in Toulouse, France, but taken to Buenos Aires at the age of four by his single mother. He came to be seen as an icon of Arrabal culture, and a symbol of the fulfilment of the dreams of the poor porteno workers.

In Argentina, it was Gardel above all who transformed tango from an essentially low-down dance form to a song style popular among Argentines of widely differing social classes. His career coincided with the first period of tango's golden age and the development of tango-cancion (tango song) in the 1920s and 30s. The advent of radio, recording and film all helped his career, but nothing helped him more than his own voice - a voice that was born to sing tango and which became the model for all future singers of the genre.

In the 1920s, like most tango singers, Gardel sang to guitar rather than orchestral accompaniment. Everything about Gardel, his voice, his image, his suavity, his posture, his arrogance and his natural machismo spelled tango. Interestingly enough he started out as a variety act singing traditional folk and country music in a duo with Jose Razzano. They enjoyed great success but Gardel's recording of Contursi's Mi noche triste (My Sorrowful Night) in 1917 was to change the course of his future.

During his career, Gardel recorded some nine hundred songs and starred in numerous films, notably The Tango on Broadway in 1934. He was tragically killed in an aircrash in Colombia at the height of his fame, and his legendary status was confirmed. His image is still everywhere in Buenos Aires, on plaques and huge murals, and in record-store windows, while admirers pay homage to his life-sized, bronze statue in the Chacarita cemetery, placing a lighted cigarette between his fingers or a red carnation in his buttonhole.

After Gardel the split between the traditionalists such as Filiberto and D'Arienzo , later Biagi and De Angelis, and those musicians called the evolutionists, such as De Caro, Di Sarli, Troilo and Pugliese became more pronounced. Bands, as elsewhere in the world during this period, became larger, in the mode of small orchestras, and a mass following for tango was enjoyed through dance halls, radio and recordings until the end of the golden age around 1950.

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Tango politics

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As an expression of the working classes, the fortunes of the tango have inevitably been linked with social and political developments in Argentina and the social classes they empowered. The music declined a little in the 1930s as the army took power and suppressed what was seen as a potentially subversive force. Even so, the figure of Juan D'Arienzo , violinist and bandleader, looms large from the 1930s on. With a sharp, staccato rhythm, and prominent piano, the Juan D'Arienzo orchestra was the flavour of those years. His recording of "La cumparsita" at the end of 1937 is a classic and considered one of the greatest of all time.

Tango fortunes revived again in the 1940s when a certain political freedom returned, and the music enjoyed a second golden age with the rise of Peron in 1946 and his emphasis on nationalism and popular culture to win mass support. This was the era of a new generation of bandleaders. At the top, alongside Juan D'Arienzo were Osvaldo Pugliese, Hector Varela and the innovative Anibal Troilo. Of all bandoneon players, it was Troilo who expressed most vividly, deeply and powerfully, and so tenderly, the nostalgic sound of what is now regarded as a noble instrument. When he died a few years ago half a million people followed his funeral procession to the cemetery.

Buenos Aires in the late 1940s was a city of five or six million and each barrio would have ten or fifteen amateur tango orchestras, while the established orchestras would play in the cabarets and nightclubs in the centre of the city. Somehow in this era, however, tango began to move away from working class to middle class and intellectual milieus. Tango became a sort of collective reminiscence of a world that no longer existed - essentially nostalgia. As a popular lyric, Tango de otros tiempos (Tango of Other Times), put it:

Tango, you were the king
In one word, a friend
Blossoming from the bandoneon music
of Arolas
Tango, the rot set in
When you became sophisticated
And with your airs and graces
You quit the suburbs where you were born
Tango, it saddens me to see
How you've deserted the mean dirt-streets
For a carpeted drawing-room
In my soul I carry a small piece
Of that happy past!
But the good old times are over
In Paris you've become Frenchified
And today, thinking of what's happened
A tear mars your song.

In the 1950s, with the end of Peronism and the coming of rock'n'roll, tango slipped into the shadows once again

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Astor Piazzolla and tango nuevo

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Astor Piazzolla dominates the recent history of tango, much as Carlos Gardel was the key figure of its classic era. Born in Mar de Plata in 1921, Piazzolla spent his childhood in the Bronx, New York, where he was hired at age thirteen by Carlos Gardel to play in the film El dia que me quieras and booked for his Latin American tour. Luckily for Piazzolla he hadn't taken up the offer when the fatal aircrash in which Gardel died occurred. Back in Argentina, from 1937, Piazzolla played second bandoneon in the orchestra of Anibal Troilo, where he developed his feel for arrangements. (While the first bandoneon takes the melody, it is the second bandoneon that gives the music its particular harmony and flavour.)

Troilo left Piazzolla his bandoneon when he died and Piazzolla went on to ensure that tango would never be the same again. In the 1950s he won a government scholarship to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (one of the most celebrated teachers of composition, who included Aaron Copland among her pupils). It was Boulanger who encouraged Piazzolla to develop the popular music of his heritage.

Piazzolla's idea was that tango could be a serious music to listen to, not just for dancing, and for many of the old guard it was a step too far. As he explained: "Musicians hated me. I was taking the old tango away from them. The old tango, the one they loved, was dying. And they hated me, they threatened my life hundreds of times. They waited for me outside my house, two or three of them, and gave me a good beating. They even put a gun at my head once. I was in a radio station doing an interview, and all of a sudden the door opens and in comes this tango singer with a gun. That's how it was."

In the 1970s Piazzolla was out of favour with Argentina's military regime and he and his family moved to Paris for their own safety, returning to Argentina only after the fall of the junta. His influence, however, had spread, and his experiments - and international success - opened the way for other radical transformations.

Chief among these, in 1970s Buenos Aires, was the fusion of tango-rockero - tango rock. This replaced the flexible combination of bandoneon, bass and no drums, as favoured by Piazzolla, with a rock-style rhythm section, electric guitars and synthesizers. It was pioneered by Litto Nebbia , whose own album, Homage to Gardel and Le Pera , is one of the most successful products of this fusion, retaining the melancholy of the traditional form in a rock format. Tango moved across to jazz, too, through groups such as the trio Siglo XX - Osvaldo Belmonte on piano, Narciso Saul on guitars and Nestor Tomasini on saxophone, clarinet and percussion.

Meantime, the old guard had kept traditional tango alive, two key figures being Roberto Goyeneche and Osvaldo Pugliese. Roberto "Polaco" Goyeneche , born in 1926, had been vocalist for many orquestas tipicas before he followed in the footsteps of key singers Rivero and Fiorentino by singing with Troilo between 1955 and 1964. He then became a soloist working with various bands including Hector Stamponi's quartet, remaining a key interpreter until his death in 1994. He made more than one hundred records over his forty-year career. Pianist Osvaldo Pugliese remained one of the major tango musicians until his death in 1995 with many younger talented musicians serving their apprenticeships with him.

These days in Argentina, the tango scene is a pretty broad one, with rock and jazz important elements, along with the more traditional sound of acoustic groups. There is no shortage of good tangueros and they know each other well and jam together often. Nobody would think they had not been playing together in a band every night for years.

The big tango orchestras, however, are a thing of the past, and economic considerations mean that tango bands have returned to their roots, to an intimate era of trios, quartets and quintets, even a sextet is already serious business. Two of the best sextets, the Sexteto Mayor and Sexteto Berlingieri , joined together in the 1980s to play for the show Tango Argentino , and subsequent shows which revived an interest in tango across Europe and the USA, with each group going its own way in Buenos Aires. The Sexteto Mayor, founded in 1973 and starring the virtuoso bandoneonistas Jose Libertella and Luis Stazo , is one of the best tango ensembles playing in Argentina today. They can be seen periodically at El Viejo Almacen, Casa Blanca, and other tango places in Buenos Aires, when they are not on tour.

In a more modern idiom, singers like Susana Rinaldi and Adriana Varela , working with Litto Nebbia, are successfully renovating and re-creating tango, both at home and abroad, Varela particularly in Spain. They are names to look out for along with bandoneonistas Osvaldo Piro, Carlos Buono and Walter Rios (Rios is also working with the great "new song" singer Mercedes Sosa); violinist Antonio Agri who worked with Piazzolla and more recently with Paco de Lucia; bandoneonista, arranger and film-score composer Nestor Marconi ; singer Jose Angel Trelles ; pianist and composer Gustavo Fedel ; and Grupo Volpe Tango Contemporaneo , led by Antonio Volpe.

Latterly tango is enjoying an upsurge of popularity in Argentina and other parts of the world - particularly Europe, where couple dancing seems right back in fashion. While there may be little discrepancy between the numbers of men and women looking for romance, flirtation and sex, modern pressures seem to prevent many people finding an ideal companion, making tango dancing - with its physical and emotional intensity, moments of courtship, male bravura and female aggression - a way of making contact and something of a wish-fulfillment.

According to choreographer Juan Carlos Copes, tango has responded to the viscitudes of contemporary gender values: "The tango is man and woman in search of each other. It is the search of an embrace, a way to be together, when the man feels that he is male and the woman feels that she is female, without machismo. She likes to be led; he likes to lead. The music arouses and torments, the dance is the coupling of two people defenceless against the world and powerless to change things." *


* Quoted in the definitive and beautifully illustrated book A?Tango! by Simon Collier (Thames & Hudson, 1995)

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Astor Piazzolla

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Astor Piazzolla (1921-92) brought the tango a long way from when it was first danced in Buenos Aires a century ago by two pimps on a street corner. In his hands this backstreet dance acquired a modernist "art music" gloss.

Born in Mar de Plata, yet spending his childhood in New York, Piazzolla's controversial innovation came from his classical music studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger , who thought his classical compositions lacked feeling - but upon hearing his tango Triunfal apparently caught him by the hands and said, "Don't ever abandon this. This is your music. This is Piazzolla."

Piazzolla returned to Mar de Plata in 1937, moving to Buenos Aires two years later, where he joined the seminal orchestra of Anibal Troilo as bandoneonista and arranger. In 1946 he formed his own first group and in 1960 his influential Quinteto Nuevo Tango . With this group, he experimented audaciously, turning tango inside out, introducing unexpected chords, chromatic harmony, differently emphasised rhythms, a sense of dissonance and openness. Traditional tango captures the dislocation of the immigrant, the disillusionment with the dream of a new life, transmuting these deep and raw emotions onto a personal plane of betrayal and triangular relationships. Piazzolla's genius comes from the fact that, within the many layers and changing moods and pace of his pieces, he never betrays this essence of tango - its sense of fate, its core of hopeless misery, its desperate sense of loss.

Piazzolla translated the philosophy expounded by tango poets like Enrique Santos Discepelo - who, in "El cambalache" (The Junkshop) concludes that the 20th-century world is an insolent display of blatant wickedness - onto the musical plane. A Piazzolla piece can shift from the personal to the epic so that a seeming cry from a violin or cello becomes a wailing city siren as if following a shift in landscape from personal misery and nostalgia to a larger, more menacing urban canvas.

In Piazzolla's tangos, passion and sensuality still walk side by side with sadness, but emotions, often drawn out to a level of almost unbearable intensity, are suddenly subsumed in a disquieting sense of inevitability. If you close your eyes while listening to his work, you can exploit the filmic dimension of the music: create your own movie, walk Buenos Aires alone at Zero Hour, visit clubs and bars, pass through empty streets shadowed by the ghosts of a turbulent history. Piazzolla always said that he composed for the new generations of portenos, offering a music that allowed them to live an often dark and difficult present while absorbing their past.

Piazzolla's own ensembles turned tango into concert music. "For me," he said, "tango was always for the ear rather than the feet." This process escalated in the 1960s, when he started to work with poet Horacio Ferrer . Their first major work was a little opera called Maria de Buenos Aires (1967) but it was the seminal Balada por un loco (Ballad For A Madman) which pushed the borders of tango lyrics far from those of thwarted romance and broken dreams of traditional tango song. Surreal and witty, the ballad's lyrics reveal the tortured mental state and condition of a half-dancing, half-flying bowler-hatted apparition which appears on the streets of Buenos Aires. While it appalled traditional tangueros, the song inspired new aficonados at home and abroad, particularly among musicians.

Elected 'Distinguished Citizen of Buenos Aires' in 1985, Piazzolla's commitment to tango and its future was unequivocal. A prolific composer of over 750 works, including concertos, theatre and film scores, he created some atmospheric 'classical' pieces, including a 1979 concerto for bandoneon and orchestra, which combines the flavour of tango with a homage to Bach, and, in 1989, "Five Tango Sensations", a series of moody pieces for bandoneon and string quartet, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. These are thrilling pieces, as indeed are all of his last 1980s concert performances released posthumously on CD

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Discography

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Tango can increasingly be found in the world-music section of major record stores throughout the world; most commonly in collections of variable quality aimed at dancers, closely followed by the works of Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla. An worldwide mail-order service is offered by the Buenos Aires' tango store, Zivals, accessed through their excellent Web site www.zivals.com .

The following recordings offer a good introduction to tango's major stars, both old and new.

The Rough Guide to Tango (World Music Network). With tracks from twenty of the greatest tango musicians - from Gardel and Piazzolla to contemporary artists such as Adriana Varela and Litto Nebbia - The Rough Guide to Tango is one of the best introductions to the genre.

Eladia Blasquez   La Mirada (DBN). Recording from one of tango's finest modern singers and lyricists, including her first composition, the poetic Sueno de Barrilete .

Carlos Gardel   20 Grandes Exitos (EMI Odeon). One of the best of the innumerable collections of Gardel's finest recordings, packed with his unmistakeable renderings of iconic classics such as El dia me quieras, Volver, Caminito and Cuesta Abajo .

Roberto Goyeneche   Maestros del Tango (RCA). A superb compilation of hits from one of tango's most beloved characters, known affectionately as "El Polaco"; includes his classic interpretations of Malena (regarded as the definitive version of this tango), the seductive Naranjo en Flor and the wonderful Sur , an elegy to the atmospheric south of Buenos Aires, tango's true home. Another good compilation by Goyeneche is El Disco de Oro (RCA).

Tita Merello   La Merello (EMI Odeon). Classic compilation by one of tango's early and most famous female stars, including her own composition, the bittersweet Se dice de mi .

Astor Piazzolla   Noches del Regina (RCA). The master of modern tango interprets classics such as the polemical Cambalache , regarded as subversive by Argentina's military dictatorship as well as his inimitable and hugely popular Balada para un loco , telling the tale of a madman's wandering around the streets of Buenos Aires, with lyrics by Horacio Ferrer. For his most characteristic, avant-garde compositions, check out Adios Nonino (Trova) titled after perhaps his most famous composition, or 20 Exitos (BMG Entertainment) which also includes Adios Nonino as well as Verano porteno . Also look out for Zero Hour (Nonesuch), recorded in 1986, which Piazzolla himself thought was the finest set he ever made, with its evocative fusion of moments, emotions, situations distilled into moving form, charting the urban life of the individual in the city at Zero Hour, the time between midnight and dawn.

Osvaldo Pugliese   Tangos Famosos (EMI Odeon). Classic recordings by the maestro of the "Generacion del 40"; displaying his towering talent as both composer and pianist. There's also a multiple CD collection of his works, Obras Completas , also on EMI.

Susana Rinaldi   Cantando (Polydor). One of tango's major contemporary female stars, noted for her powerful voice - occasionally a little strident but rich and expressive at its best. Includes classics such as Cafetin de Buenos Aires, Madame Ivonne and the gorgeous Maria by Catulo Castillo.

Edmundo Rivero   En Lunfardo (Polygram). The charismatic singer interprets classic tangos such as El Chamuyo and Atenti, Pebeta , infused with Buenos Aires' street slang, lunfardo.

Sexteto Mayor   Trottoirs de Buenos Aires (World Network, Germany) Currently Argentina's premiere tango ensemble in the traditional style, the Sexteto Mayor is a shifting collection of virtuosi led by the two hugely experienced bendoneon players Jose Libertella and Luis Stazo, who started their vintage group in the early 1970s. This largely instrumental album of classic tangos is entirely thrilling, with Adriana Varela unleashing her deep, husky-toned voice on four songs. Unashamedly emotional and utterly convincing.

Julio Sosa   El Varon del Tango and 20 Grandes Exitos (both on Sony-Columbia). The self-styled "macho" of tango and last of the "old style" singers interprets classics such as Sus ojos se cerraron and the world famous La Cumparsita . Look out too for his version of La Casita de mis viejos for an insight into tango's almost mawkish attachment to the parental home - and in particular the mother.

Anibal Troilo   Obra Completa (RCA). Known affectionately as "pichuco", bandoneonista Anibal Troilo led one of Argentina's most successful tango orchestras and composed many classics such as Sur and Barrio de Tango . His trademark Che, bandoneon , with lyrics by one of tango's great poets, Homero Manzi, is a sweet, sad elegy to the bandoneon itself.

Adriana Varela   Maquillaje (Melopea). One of tango's most successful contemporary singers, offering a very distinctive, throaty interpretation of classic tangos and compositions by rock nacional superstars Fito Paez and Litto Nebbia.

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Cuarteto

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The Argentine dance style known as cuarteto first became popular in the 1940s. Named after the original Cuarteto Leo who played it, its line-up involved a solo singer, piano, accordion and violin, and its dance consisted of a huge circle, moving anticlockwise, to a rhythm called tunga-tunga . In the 1980s it underwent a resurgence of interest in the working-class "tropical" dancehalls of Buenos Aires, where it was adopted alongside Colombian guarachas , Dominican merengue and Latin salsa. It slowly climbed up the social ladder to reach a middle-class market, notching up big record sales. The most famous contemporary singer of cuarteto is Carlos "La Mona" Jimenez .

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Folklorica


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In a movement aligned to nueva cancion, dozens of folklorica singers and groups emerged in the 1960s and 1970s - their music characterized by tight arrangements and four-part harmonies. Alongside nueva cancion star Mercedes Sosa , leading artists of these decades included the groups Los Chalchaleros, Los Fronterizos and Los Hermanos Abalos ; and guitarists Eduardo Falu, Ramon Ayala, Ariel Ramirez (notable for his zambas and his Creole Mass), Suma Paz and Jorge Cafrune .

The 1980s saw the emergence of new folk composers including Antonio Tarrago Ros and Peteco Carabajal , while in more recent years groups have come through experimenting and re-evaluating the folk dance traditions of zamba, chacareras, cuecas , and the like, with a poetic emphasis. Among this new wave are Los Trovadores, Los Huanca Hua, Cuarteto Zupuy, El Grupo Vocal Argentino and Opus 4 .

The best place to see folklorica music is at the annual Cosquin national folklore festival , which has been a fixture since the 1960s.

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Books

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There's a fair number of books on Argentina available in English, ranging from specialist academic publications to travelogues. Most major bookstores will have an historical work or two while secondhand bookstores are often a goldmine for finding quirky and obscure works by travellers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The recent upsurge of interest in things Argentinian - thanks in part to the current tango craze and Alan Parker's movie Evita - has seen a concurrent small burst of new English translations and reissues of many of Argentina's classic novels. If your previous experience of Latin American fiction has been the classic "magic realism" of Garcia Marquez or the works of Isabel Allende, then you'll find many surprises in Argentinian literature - from the dark urban narrative of Roberto Arlt, through Manuel Puig's idiosyncratic appropriation of the popular culture of soap operas and film, to the erudite yet absorbing works of the unique Jorge Luis Borges.

The books we list have details of the UK publisher followed by those of the US publisher, where different. The term o/p denotes that a book is currently out of print, but is still generally available through secondhand bookstores

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Useful addresses

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www.amazon.co.uk (UK) and www.amazon.com (US) The world's major online bookstore, with hundreds of titles relating to Argentina.

Canning House Library , 2 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PH (tel 020/7235 2303). A good selection of books on Argentina (and other Hispanic countries). Also produces a quarterly bulletin detailing new publications on Latin America.

Grant & Cutler Ltd , 55-57 Great Marlborough St, London W1V 2AY (tel 020/7734 2012; www.grant-c.demon.co.uk ). Major foreign-language bookstore, with a comprehensive range of Argentine literature in Spanish and English, dictionaries and a small selection of history and travel. Also worldwide mail-order service.

Latin America Bureau , 1 Amwell St, London EC1R 1UL (tel 020/7278 2829). Publishers of books on Latin America, which are available by mail order along with a wide selection of other publishers' titles. Also has an interesting library open by appointment.

South American Explorer's Club , 126 Indian Creek Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850, US (tel 607/277-0488; explorer@samexplo.org ). Among its mountain of resources on South America, this long-established organization produces a free catalogue containing a wide choice of books available by mail order, to members and non-members alike.

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Nature and wildlife

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Charles Darwin , The Voyage of the Beagle (Penguin). Very readable account of Darwins' famous voyage, which takes him through Patagonia and the pampas. Filled with observations on the flora, fauna, landscape and people (including the dictator Rosas) that Darwin encounters, all described in the scientist's methodical yet evocative style.

Gerald Durrell , Whispering Land (Penguin/Viking Press). A lighthearted and wonderfully descriptive read detailing Durrell's antics and observations while animal collecting in Peninsula Valdes, the Patagonian steppe and the yungas. Enduring good-value, despite what now comes across as a colonial, expat tone: his capacity for making animals into characters is unsurpassed.

Gerald Durrell , The Drunken Forest (o/p). The accident-prone author strikes out in search of more unsuspecting wildlife. Essentially centering on a collecting trip in the 1950s to the Paraguayan chaco, but which could equally apply to the Argentinian chaco, with the same species involved, and with adventures in the estancias of the pampas.

Graham Harris , A Guide to the Birds and Mammals of Coastal Patagonia (Princeton University Press). An informative, slickly produced but somewhat expensive field guide that includes first-rate illustrations of Patagonian mammals. Stronger on Chubut Province than further south, especially as regards the birds and, for the purpose of identification, could do with illustrations of the cetaceans as you see them in the sea rather than just the whole animal.

W.H. Hudson , Far Away and Long Ago (The Lyons Press, US). A nostalgic and gently ambling portrait of childhood and rural tranquility on the Argentine pampas, this is a book where the background becomes the foreground and vice versa: politics and the "events" of civil war in Rosas' time recede, giving way to the little things of life, as noticed by a child with an intense, spiritual love of nature. An early environmentalist, the author regrets the expansion of agriculture and the destruction of habitat variety in the pampas in the course of his lifetime.

Martin R. de la Pena and Maurice Rumboll , Collins Illustrated Checklist: Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica (HarperCollins). The best field guide currently available on Argentinian ornithology, and a useful companion to even the non-specialist bird-watcher. It would benefit from some indication of frequency and an indexed list of local names, and there are some problems with certain plates as regards colouring and mixed scale, but overall can be thoroughly recommended.

Graciela Ramacciotti , Flores and Frutos Silvestres Australes (ISBN: 950-43-7293-7) Identification of the plants and flowers of Tierra del Fuego is made easy with this slim, lovingly-produced and bilingual (Spanish/English) photographic guide. It's also applicable to much of Patagonia; and there's a recipe section at the back. Published by the author.

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The arts

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John King and Nissa Torrents (eds), The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema (o/p). Authorative collection of essays on Argentine cinema, compiled by two experts in the field. An excellent introduction to Argentina's film industry.

Simon Collier (ed), Tango! The Dance, the Song, the Story (Thames & Hudson, UK). A glossy coffee-table book with a lively account of the history of tango and its key protagonists, well-illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos.

David Elliott (ed), Art from Argentina: 1920-1994 (Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK). Comprehensive illustrated account of the development of twentieth-century Argentine art, composed of a series of focused essays and monographs of major figures. Indispensable to anyone with a serious interest in the subject.

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The search for an identity

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It has been said that Argentina's artistic creativity was not decolonized until the 1920s , when it finally ceased, albeit hesitantly, to draw its inspiration exclusively from France, Spain, Italy and other European countries. While a relatively progressive president, Marcelo T. de Alvear, was in power from 1922 to 1928, bringing about a relaxed climate of creativity and prosperity, key figures Xul Solar and Emilio Pettoruti came back to Argentina after long peregrinations in Europe, and the Martin Fierro magazine, a vaguely patriotic publication interested in criollo and neocriollo culture as a means of achieving a non-chauvinistic brand of "Argentinidad", in all fields of artistic creation, first went on sale in 1924; Borges was one of its contributors.

Of all the early "post-colonial" artists, Xul Solar , born Oscar Agustin Alejandro Schulz Solari (1887-1963), stands out, both technically and for his originality; he is one of the few artists in Argentina to have a museum all to himself, the fantastic - in both senses of the word - Museo Xul Solar in Recoleta, Buenos Aires. Solar was an eccentric polymath, born just outside Buenos Aires to a German-speaking Latvian father and a Genoese mother. After abandoning his architectural studies in the capital he set sail for Hong Kong but jumped ship in London, stayed in Europe for twelve years, and began working there as an artist. Back in Buenos Aires he experimented with new styles and influences but in 1939, fascinated in particular by astrology and Buddhism, he founded the Pan Klub , a group of artists and intellectuals sharing his Utopian pacifist credo. Some of his more disturbing pictures evoke the ruins left by World War II.

Xul Solar worked mainly with watercolour and tempera, preferring their fluidity and pastel colours to the relative rigidity of oils. While many influences are visible, his closest soul-mate, both artistically and philosophically, is undoubtedly Klee, though artists as varied as Bosch, Braque, Chagall and Dali evidently provided inspiration too. His beguiling paintings essentially work on two levels: a magical, almost infantile universe of fantasy, depicted in fresh, bright colours and immediately appealing forms, and a far more complex philosophy of erudite symbolism and allegory, in which the zodiac and cabalistic signs predominate, along with a repetition of snake and ladder motifs. His adopted name is not only a deformation of his real surnames but also "Lux" (light) backwards, while "solar" suggests his obsession with the planets. Octavio Paz's maxim "painting has one foot in architecture and the other in dreams" has often been quoted in his connection and the artist's early architectural training unmistakeably comes across in his paintings, in which buildings and futuristic urban plans predominate.

You can see a particularly fine watercolour, Pupo , one of Xul Solar's earlier works (1918), at Buenos Aires' Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes or MNBA, the country's biggest and richest collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century painting and sculpture. In the same museum you can see a very fine painting - Arlequin , 1928 - by Solar's friend and contemporary, Emilio Pettoruti (1892-1971), whose major exhibition in 1924 sent ripples of scandal and excitement across the conservative capital. This event is widely interpreted as the beginning of the modern era in Argentine painting. Pettoruti transferred into painting and collage his personal and, for some, very Argentine vision of Cubism.

The MNBA not only houses a beautiful collection of art, but it also traces in a concrete form the very history of the country's painting and sculpture since independence in the early nineteenth century. In colonial times Argentina had relied on two main sources to satisfy the growing demand for artwork: the craftsmen of Peru and Bolivia, especially those of the Cusco School , who churned out mostly religious paintings and objects that added a mestizo touch to European baroque themes and styles; and artisans and artists from Brazil, whose slightly different techniques and inspiration provided some variety among the objects on offer. As a gaucho identity began to emerge and benefit from economic prosperity a more specific creativity appeared, in the form of mostly silver and leather " motivos " - mate vessels, saddles, knives, guns - of the kind displayed at museums right across the country. A major collection of these objects is housed at the Museo Hernandez , in Palermo, Buenos Aires. But as a middle class and wealthy land-owning aristocracy became firmly established, they heaped scorn upon this "vulgar sub-culture" and would have nothing in their homes but fashionable European and European-style art. Not until 1799 did Buenos Aires have its own art school , the Escuela de Dibujo, but it was shut down upon the orders of King Carlos IV only three years later. After independence, an academy of fine art was founded, but all the teachers came from Europe and it too was closed down for lack of funding in the 1830s.

Carlos Morel (1813-94), one of the first recognized Argentine artists, had been trained there; firmly entrenched in the Romantic tradition of early nineteenth-century France, his oils of urban and rural scenes and military episodes were exquisitely executed and you can see a particularly fine example, Carga de Caballeria del Ejercito Federal (exact date unknown) on display at the MNBA.

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