Marcelo Imbellone /FST
Buenos Aires has triumphed in design after consecrating itself in contemporary art. In 2005 it was designated as the first City of Design within the UNESCO Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity’s Creative Cities Network, created in 2004. It now shares this distinction with Berlin, Montreal and Kobe. The cities that receive this honor are those that have made creativity part of their development strategy.
The Argentine capital is the third largest city in Latin America. It has a cosmopolitan population, thanks to the arrival of many European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the 20th century. The cultural sector provides 4% of local jobs. Public and private investments have encouraged the development of modern architecture, new urban design, and public spaces. Different groups of designers contribute to a constant renovation of creativity, and several design-related events take place in the city every year.
Buenos Aires has triumphed in design after consecrating itself in contemporary art. In 2005 it was designated as the first City of Design within the UNESCO Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity’s Creative Cities Network, created in 2004. It now shares this distinction with Berlin, Montreal and Kobe. The cities that receive this honor are those that have made creativity part of their development strategy.
The Argentine capital is the third largest city in Latin America. It has a cosmopolitan population, thanks to the arrival of many European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the 20th century. The cultural sector provides 4% of local jobs. Public and private investments have encouraged the development of modern architecture, new urban design, and public spaces. Different groups of designers contribute to a constant renovation of creativity, and several design-related events take place in the city every year.
In response to the distinction awarded by the UNESCO, the Buenos Aires city government’s Metropolitan Design Center (CMD) has declared October a “Design Month.” The program includes more than 100 activities, among which are lectures, workshops, shows, open studios and presentations of new products for people in the business.
The part of the program that appeals to tourists is the “Shop Windows Circuit” of the businesses that sell creative clothing, footwear, jewelry, objects and graphic design in the neighborhoods of San Telmo-Barracas, Recoleta and Palermo. How do you know which is which? The program member exhibits a CMD logo. The products and prototypes displayed in shop windows are “responsible design” items made with recycled, environment-friendly materials. The best shop window will receive a 5,000-peso prize.
But those who are interested in shopping in San Telmo can get a map off the Internet by visiting the neighborhood website http://www.santelmoonline.com/ and clicking on “Guía.” There they will see a list of 25 participants that is much longer and more representative than the one in the CMD folder.
PHOTO CREDIT: Interior and display window of one of the L'Ago art and design shops in San Telmo http://www.lagosantelmo.com/. Marcelo Imbellone.
The idea of having a party with one’s dear departed is imbedded in many Latin American cultures, especially those with strong indigenous roots. It implies accepting death as part of life, and defying it at the same time. It also makes the loss of a loved one a bit more bearable.
Whoever won the poetry competition was awarded a chair in which to sit at the table of the lord. For this reason, “eisteddfod,” the name of the festival, means “being seated.”
Such hypotheses arise from ancient travel diaries and world maps, as well as several carved stones covered with Medieval-looking figures and Aramaic-looking script that were found in different places on the coast and along the major river of the province of Chubut during the past century. Some are part of the collection of the Regional Museum inside the Salesian School in Rawson. At present, the museum is closed to the public.
Until its closure a couple of years ago, the Salesian Regional Museum had 32 of these carved stones on display. Beside each was a tag giving the place where it was found. All had been donated or acquired from third parties.
The stones seem to have been carved by different people at different times. The intertwined snakes in low relief look Celtic. The profile of a native chieftain or warrior, also carved out in low relief, is the sort of thing that an Indian who had learned rock carving from a European master could have dreamed up. A man on horseback faced by a big arrowhead looks post-Conquest, considering that horses were re-introduced in the Americas by the Spaniards. … Or were the Spaniards the ones who brought them?
I had wanted to see these stones ever since the late 1960s, when Juan Foerster, a German naturalist with a private museum in Dos de Mayo, Misiones, showed me an old scientific journal with photos of the display cases in the Salesian Regional Museum of Rawson and a text speaking of "rune stones" in Chubut. So when I was invited by the province to write travel articles in 2003, I put the museum on my request list.
Throughout the 20th century, various scholars, such as Paul Rivet in France, António Mendes Correa in Portugal and Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso and Paul Gallez in Argentina, among others – published books and papers about ancient maps and written references to trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic voyages that seem to have taken place several centuries before Christopher Columbus’ arrival in North America. Thus we not only have the Phoenecians (from today’s Lebanon and Syria) arriving in England in 1103 BC to mine tin, but also the Chinese discovering North and South America in 400 AD, and Columbus sailing to the New World with copies of maps made by Middle East cartographers who registered voyages that were made 2,000 years before 1492. A leading Argentine exponent of these theories was anthropologist Ibarra Grasso (1914-2000), who wrote many books on the origins of the peoples of Latin America based on his excavations and findings and those of colleagues during the second half of the 20th century. Of particular interest is his book Los mapas de America 2000 años antes de ser "descubierta" (Maps of America 2,000 years before it was "discovered"), published in Buenos Aires in 1997. One ends up thinking: if maritime charts and copies of them made the rounds of Europe and Asia over such a long period of time before Columbus’s voyage, and Greek, Arab and Asian mariners accepted that the earth was a sphere long before the Europeans admitted that is was not flat, why couldn’t Christians fleeing the Holy Land invaded by Muslims have got as far as southern South America on the same maritime routes that the Spanish and Portuguese explorers would take several centuries years later? The main question is: why would Europeans want to go so far south in 800 or 1307 AD?
The treacherous way in which the Order was disbanded in Europe in the early 14th century adds to its aura, and it has numerous fans around the world today. In the US best-selling detective novel The Da Vinci Code, published in 2003, the Priory of Zion (suggestively founded the same year as the Order of the Temple), the Opus Dei, and, in consequence, the Vatican, are portrayed as villains out to keep the world from knowing that Jesus left descendants capable to reminding people of the importance of his teachings. In so doing, it reflects the feelings of many Templar fans about the way in which the Church hierarchy abandoned the leaders of the Order to their fate. And it is an indication of the interest that the Templars are drawing in this digital age, which is also a period of history marked by the rise of violent Islamic fundamentalism. For an example of this adulation in the United States, complete with merchandising, see www.templarhistory.com. For the order’s local version, see www.argentemple.com.ar.
There are those who go so far as to say that the source of the Templars’ wealth was the gold they brought from North or South America during their two centuries in the Holy Land. This theory arises from a Biblical reference to three-year voyages in search of riches that were made to and from Ophir by a Phoenician King’s navy on behalf of King Solomon around 1000 BC, and the fact that the French founders of the Order are believed to have discovered the famous Hebrew leader’s maps during their excavations at their headquarters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years later.
The sea used to reach further inland, and at that time probably reached the mesa, which is now 1 km from the water. The Delphos people, who spend a lot of time talking with locals, say that Indian legends refer to white men with cannon on the mesa before the arrival of the Spaniards.
The group claims to have discovered ceramic mosaic shards atop El Fuerte. Delphos is now seeking vestiges of a second city founded by the former crusaders on the Somuncurá plateau. Since 1997, their members have made more than a dozen sorties into the coastal areas of Río Negro and Chubut, and to the Somuncurá Plateau, shared by both provinces.
Between December and February, the average temperature of the water of the Gulf of San Matías is 20ºC, thanks to the Valdés Peninsula which deflects the cold southern sea current away from it, cliffs that protect fine sand bathing beaches from the wind, and a wide tidal range that leaves large expanses of sea bottom under shallow water exposed at the sun’s heat several hours a day. In addition, the town’s location in the gulf gives it 11 hours of solar exposure a day in summer.
The transparent water, which is blue in some places and turquoise in others, draws divers and snorkelers like a magnet. Tide pools in the "marine gardens" exposed by the low tide harbor fish, octopi and mollusks of the type that make the town’s restaurants attractive to seafood lovers. Near town are sea lion and Magellanic penguin rookeries.
But the desert that embraces the gulf is also interesting, with its native wildlife, fossil beds, octopus fishermen and the local legend about the fort allegedly established by the Knights Templar on a seaside mesa south of town.
Fernando specializes in overlanding excursions. He takes tourists to see and touch the best the sea and land can offer in US army surplus jeeps and troop carriers with trailers for the water tank and kitchen that allow him to serve meals in the wild. These vehicles are used for his popular full-day Fuerte Argentino excursion and the four-day multi-adventure overland expeditions that involve sleeping in tents and diving.
The Fuerte Argentino excursion – Fernando calls it an expedition – includes sandboarding on the dunes; a stop at the octopus fishermen’s village; an explanation of how and why tides are produced, in the place with the country’s greatest tidal range; a canyon where thousands of oysters became fossils 13 million years ago; the marine gardens (if the tide is out), and snorkeling in a lagoon within view of the Fuerte Argentino mesa while the chef prepares the barbecue lunch. After dessert comes the guide´s talk about the Knights Templar, and a crossbow contest to get into the feel of things medieval.
The excursion to the Gualicho salt flats, located in a big depression 72 meters below sea level 60 km west of Las Grutas, combines instruction on salt mining with stargazing. It is done in a new air-conditioned bus. Gualicho is the biggest salt deposit in Argentina in terms of industrial production. During the summer, tours begin in the late afternoon to avoid the daytime temperatures, which can reach 50ºC at noon. Mining activity is observed until it is time to watch a spectacular sunset, with a glass of champagne in hand. Then a long table and chairs are set out on the salt and a sumptuous dinner is served under the stars.
Later, everyone takes turns looking at the moon’s craters and diverse constellations through the telescope, and seeing for themselves how night becomes day through an infrared viewer as the guide spins spooky tales about the salt flat.
Buying is allowed, but the object of the get-together is to barter, be it in Spanish or Quechua. There is plenty of regional food, music and dancing. The fair lasts several days, until all the goods are exchanged.
Cross the bridge from La Quiaca to the Bolivian city of Villazón to see what a market looks like in the bordering country.
Among the 44 species of water birds that live in or stop at the enormous saline lagoon of the reserve, there are three species of flamingoes, which are native to the Puna.
Taken from the “gigantes y cabezudos” (giants and big-heads) procession tradition that originated in Spain in the Middle Ages and later spread to the rest of Europe, the “cabezudos” of Villa Gesell are the gigantes used in Europe, as they are hollow figures several meters tall comprising a head with flailing arms. Beneath the long skirt of each gigante is a strong man who is fitted with a harness that bears the supports of the structure, and makes the figure “dance” to the music of a marching band. In Europe the gigantes represent village archetypes, while in Villa Gesell they symbolize the different communities. The Spanish cabezudos are large head masks held in hand by disguised revelers. For the full Columbus Day festival (Fiesta Nacional de la Raza en el Mar) program, visit 
You have to go out in a boat in the Samborombón Bay, or in front of other towns further south. But the town’s traditional fishing tournament still takes place under the name of this drum fish, even though the fishing done during it is for any species that can be hooked from the pier or beach. The biggest fish wins.
Proof of the marine incursion that covered the region 65 million years ago is the large number of fossil beds in the dry gulfs, capes and bays that can be made out atop Somuncurá and the neighboring Central Plateau. 
Somuncurá has very few inhabitants and several endemic plant and animal species. Most people are small sheep ranchers, and some also raise guanacos and rheas.
Some Meseta Infinita members are Mapuches, members of the major indigenous ethnic group whose ancestors came to live in this area at the end of the 19th century. Today their women are willing to give visitors a hands-on seminar on washing and dying wool and weaving rugs on traditional looms.
The group offers all-inclusive packages of three or four days that begin in Los Menucos, a town of 3,000 inhabitants at the foot of the Somuncurá Plateau halfway between San Antonio Oeste on the coast and Bariloche at the foot of the Andes in the province of Río Negro. You can get there by bus from Bariloche (360 km) or Viedma (500 km). Activities can be arranged in accordance with the visitor’s interests: sheep farm activities including droving and shearing; the ins and outs of rhea and guanaco raising; slate mining; traditional Mapuche weaving techniques; fossil deposits, and rock art sites that are more than 10,000 years old. Accommodation may be in ranch houses, outposts, or tents if excursions range very far afield on the Somuncurá Plateau. Travelers eat with ranch families.
I haven’t done this yet, but it sounds good and I am passing on the information. For more details, see 
Every year, the town’s feast day in honor of the Virgin of the Rosary takes place on the first Sunday of October. Hundreds of people from the Puna come to take part in the processions and exchange their products in a fair that harks back to pre-Columbian times. This is when baptisms and marriages take place, and it is a time to enjoy religious processions whose protagonists are “cachis,” a group of disguised people with masks that are used only in this festival and kept in the church the rest of the year. The group, comprised of 10 people who for the most part are pilgrims from Iruya itself, symbolize a family who with their possessions and livestock entreat the Virgin for her protection against the temptations of a black man who also acts as a buffoon, but is really the group leader. The characters they play are the young and old members of the family, a bull and two horses. They dance in front of the Virgin whose image advances with the procession through the streets to the accompaniment of musicians who play traditional instruments such as the erke and the sikus.
This year, the festivities will take place on October 3 and 4. There will be processions at noon and in the evening on Saturday, and at noon on Sunday.
Its beacon, whose 300,000 candle-power beam was visible as far away as Colonia in Uruguay, was used to announce matters of importance to the population, of which the most famous was the result of the Dempsey-Firpo prize fight that took place in New York shortly after the inauguration. Porteños knew that a green light would mean a victory of the Argentine favorite, and red defeat. That night began with jubilation inspired a green light, but ended with bitterness when the color unexpectedly changed to red.The beacon was repaired thanks to a campaign by the City Hall’s Doors to the Bicentennial Program, which obtained contributions from the owners of the 240 offices in the building, the Italian Embassy, and private companies. From now on, the Barolo’s beacon will be turned on for a half hour on the night of the 25th of every month to commemorate the revolution of May 25, 1810.