Uyuni salt flat tour
From Uyuni, I booked a 3 day/2 night tour that would end in the salt flats.
The environments you see on that tour definitely seem otherworldly to Europeans and Americans, as we really don't have much like it at home. Reading Mae's description will give you an idea of what I mean. (At this point I should add that her diligent blogging has been inspiration to my, although it has not sufficed to make me equally diligent.) I've also put together all my photos from the tour in an album on my flickr page, so you can see what I saw - minus the boredom and whatever I saw after my camera battery gave out.
Also along on the trip were 4 Israeli girls (the Israeli percentage of travellers in Uyuni has to be at least 90%), as well as two American guys, which gave us the opportunity to talk about the NCAAs, starting that weekend. Weird as it sounds, that was really enjoyable for me, although it probably won't have the staying power that the environment had.
One thing that has really stuck with me - both from the train ride to Uyuni and the salt flat tour - is my continued wondering what the people on the side of the road/track must feel like and think. Most of Bolivia's residents live in what is known as the altiplano. Much of Bolivia is in fact altiplano, although my guidebook indicates that most of it is not. Either way, it's areas above 3500 meters. Not too much grows at the altitude and climate. For the most part, particularly in the part of the altiplano we saw, that meant that quinoa and potatos grow, and llamas can be herded. And that is about all.
So these people who live in the altiplano, who often need to attend boarding school in order to go to secondary school (the state provides these, although I'm sure some fees are involved), really have little expectation of ever leaving the country and travelling the world. But at the same time, trains and SUVs full of tourists from all over the world pass by several times a day. What must these people think of the tourists they see, many of whom are broke or in debt, but cary a digital camera and mp3-player with them? I really can't say what that must feel like to those who are in a very real sense standing by the roadside of globalization, but can't catch a ride. I imagine it's worst alongthe train tracks though, because at least cars sometimes stop and the foreigners interact with the locals (to the degree possible) whereas the train is just a big metal box with hands holding digital cameras out the windows passing.
As for the salt flat tour itself, it was definitly a highlight of the trip, and anyone who misses out on the opportunity to see the environments on that tour is a fool.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Nothing quite like it
When I awoke in Uyuni the following day, I had already missed all opportunities to leave for the salt flat tour for the day, so all I had left to do was schedule departure for next day (easily done through the hostel) and explore the town. It turns out Uyuni has pretty much nothing to offer. There's one small museum, where among the few items they have is a remarkably well preserved mummy. Well, I'm not going to lie to you....nothing brightens your morning quite like staring at one of these:
Oh, and they love displaying mummies in the high Andes regions - I've seen plenty in my time there.
When I awoke in Uyuni the following day, I had already missed all opportunities to leave for the salt flat tour for the day, so all I had left to do was schedule departure for next day (easily done through the hostel) and explore the town. It turns out Uyuni has pretty much nothing to offer. There's one small museum, where among the few items they have is a remarkably well preserved mummy. Well, I'm not going to lie to you....nothing brightens your morning quite like staring at one of these:
Oh, and they love displaying mummies in the high Andes regions - I've seen plenty in my time there.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
I have a future
I got into graduate school today! Yay! I'll be doing a M.Sc. in Development Economics at Trinity, Dublin. If anyone else will be on the emerald isle next year, holla!
I'm really excited about this, as those of you with whom I've spoken about this know, I actually didn't expect to be admitted anywhere, let alone such a good program. This ends weeks of anxiety regarding the issue. Now I just have to prove worthy of the honor and avoid flunking out.... just kidding (ljctkoj?) - I plan on taking this one a lot more seriously than the time at GW, and actually will do well. It also means that my schedule posted on the blog will stand as is, at least all the big legs.
p.s.: I know this post stinks, but it's the best I can do.
I got into graduate school today! Yay! I'll be doing a M.Sc. in Development Economics at Trinity, Dublin. If anyone else will be on the emerald isle next year, holla!
I'm really excited about this, as those of you with whom I've spoken about this know, I actually didn't expect to be admitted anywhere, let alone such a good program. This ends weeks of anxiety regarding the issue. Now I just have to prove worthy of the honor and avoid flunking out.... just kidding (ljctkoj?) - I plan on taking this one a lot more seriously than the time at GW, and actually will do well. It also means that my schedule posted on the blog will stand as is, at least all the big legs.
p.s.: I know this post stinks, but it's the best I can do.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
The Bolivian frontier
From Salta, I planned on travelling through to Uyuni in Bolivia in one swift go. As it turned out, Bolivian travel is rarely swift, and the single go included a number of frustratingly long pauses. However, I was lucky to meet two other people from the same hostel in Salta who planned on making more or less the same trip (they would be getting off the train a little earlier). Between the three of us, we had a nice little travel group, something we noticed as we boredly stared at the tiny TV screen at the hostel, as our bus didn't leave until 12.30 am. For those of you that are confused, that's 00:30 or half past midnight.
There were also other reasons for not wanting to travel alone: while Chile is definitely safe, and I feel comfortable in Argentina because I more or less fit in both physically and linguistically, I was a lot less sure about Bolivia: it's straight 3rd world, plagued by what Lonely Planet calls the "triple crown" of underdevelopment (illiteracy, low life expectancy and something else I've now forgotten - probably extreme poverty, of which I saw plenty), a country where everyone is indigeno and Spanish is more of an afterthought than lingua franca - and my Quetchua is mighty rusty. At least that's what I'd heard about the country.
At the very least, I'd quelched (is that even a word?) any remaining fears I had about not having the little piece of paper that foreigners need to leave the country without paying a big fine. I told you about how I didn't receive that document here. In Buenos Aires, I'd gotten the phone number of the German consular section and gotten in touch with them about my problem - on about the 15th try. (The upside to having the phone number in my passport for so long had been that it got me out of a bribe attempt by Argentine cops, who visibly fretted upon opening my passport and seeing the name, address and phone number on a paper therein. But that's another story all together.) When I finally did reach the consulate - I'd had to call the emergency number in order to actually get someone on the phone - I was told that if Germans are given any papers at entry, they are just statistical questionnaires, and only Americans are forced to suffer the pain of holding onto the special entry paperwork.... haha!
So the three of us set off from the hostel in Salta, A German, a Czech, and an Israeli.
The first thing you notice when you take a bus to the Bolivian border is that it's probably the worst bus in Argentina. Otherwise, the Argentine bus system is amazing, but the buses up to the border are pieces of crap. Moreover, there were more Bolivians and Israelis in the bus than anything else, something that holds for Bolivia in general. Also, the normal order of the buses begins breaking down: tons of campesinas had huge bags and blankets full of god knows what being loaded into the bus, and most of them had one or two dirty, snot-nosed kids tagging along, too - and they were of the opinion that they shouldn't have to pay for the kids. The conductor saw this differently, and soon there was a massive argument about who exactly needs tickets immediately in front of me at the bus door. The conductor pointed out that the lady can't bring two kids on for free and expect all the other foreigners to pay, then looked at me for confirmation, which is something I felt obligated to agree with. Anyway, the bus driver let me on, then continued his fight with the woman, but not before she pushed one of the kids in the door behind me and when the bus driver pulled it back out, claimed it was my child.....riiiiiiiiight.
We arrived in the Argentine border town of La Quiaca at the beautiful hour of 5 am, an hour early and two hours before the border would open. Chilling at a wonderful 3400 meters above sea level, it was really cold there, so we grabbed our packs and headed into the station in hopes of finding something warmer. All we found was a station full of Bolivians huddled under blankets and a vile smell. Tom (the Israeli guy) and I also found that some kind of weird, hot motor-oil smelling fluid was on our packs, something I'd noticed when I pulled my jacket out in the cold and dark, but not realizing the extent. Like I said earlier: not the best bus. I was fortunate in that although I got the mystery fluid all over my bag, that where it stayed - on the outside. Tom was not so lucky, and as he pulled the pieces of clothing out of his bag, horror was written all over his face.
Before we knew it - or had fully assessed the damage to Tom's property, it was time to head towards the border, so we strapped on our packs and got going. This decision was aided by our being freezing cold, so we wanted to move. It actually was pretty cool walking through the dark city as dawn came over the horizon, and it got light really quickly, so after some pictures at the border, we were able to cross in to Villazón, the Bolivian border town.
Once you cross the border, you know right away that you are in a different country - and this country's a lot poorer. Everything's really dirty, people are trying to sell you anything that can be made from llamas at the border, and buses are ratcheted up about 4 feet in order to make it across the Bolivian "roads." And despite being a border town and transport hub, Villazón doesn't have a single ATM open to foreign cards.
We ended up camped out at the train station for a couple hours, during which time Tom fully inspected the damage to his bag - hilarious damage, I may add. Each pair of pants had a dark crotch stain, while every shirts was embellished with dark areas around the armpits. Eventually, however, our train departed, and the fun had to end. I will add, however, that the one good thing about Villazón was my first exposure to Bolivian food: for a whopping 6 Bolivianos (the name of the people and the currency...), which totals some $.75 American, I had a 2 course meal that was quite tasty. In the train (which moves at about 20 miles per hour - 9 hours to Uyuni, a grand distance of 160 km) they had a) toilets and b) TVs/movies. While either one of those may seem normal to you, believe me, in Bolivia they aren't.
The first movie they showed was "Blood Diamond" starring the always arresting Leo DiCapprio. I'd hoped that my first viewing of the film wouldn't be on small screen 35 feet away with incomprehensible audio, but despite this I was able to enjoy the film. The second movie was some Bolivian production, and I use that term loosely: they apparently don't have audio editing equipment in the country, and much of the movie consisted of people conversing in the middle of the altiplano, in other words in the middle of nowhere and all I could hear was the wind in the microphone. This was topped only by the scenes in "Buenos Aires," which were actually a Bolivian pig stall. At that point I wished they didn't have TVs in the train.
We finally arrived in Uyuni at shortly before 1 in the morning. One of the things about Bolivian public transportation that makes it so special is that all departure and arrival hours are at the most horrid times imaginable. In this case, I than had to find a hostel , and after following some Israelis for a while in an unsuccessful attempt to find a hostel with heating, I went to the HI. It was slightly warmer there than outside, and that did the trick for me.
From Salta, I planned on travelling through to Uyuni in Bolivia in one swift go. As it turned out, Bolivian travel is rarely swift, and the single go included a number of frustratingly long pauses. However, I was lucky to meet two other people from the same hostel in Salta who planned on making more or less the same trip (they would be getting off the train a little earlier). Between the three of us, we had a nice little travel group, something we noticed as we boredly stared at the tiny TV screen at the hostel, as our bus didn't leave until 12.30 am. For those of you that are confused, that's 00:30 or half past midnight.
There were also other reasons for not wanting to travel alone: while Chile is definitely safe, and I feel comfortable in Argentina because I more or less fit in both physically and linguistically, I was a lot less sure about Bolivia: it's straight 3rd world, plagued by what Lonely Planet calls the "triple crown" of underdevelopment (illiteracy, low life expectancy and something else I've now forgotten - probably extreme poverty, of which I saw plenty), a country where everyone is indigeno and Spanish is more of an afterthought than lingua franca - and my Quetchua is mighty rusty. At least that's what I'd heard about the country.
At the very least, I'd quelched (is that even a word?) any remaining fears I had about not having the little piece of paper that foreigners need to leave the country without paying a big fine. I told you about how I didn't receive that document here. In Buenos Aires, I'd gotten the phone number of the German consular section and gotten in touch with them about my problem - on about the 15th try. (The upside to having the phone number in my passport for so long had been that it got me out of a bribe attempt by Argentine cops, who visibly fretted upon opening my passport and seeing the name, address and phone number on a paper therein. But that's another story all together.) When I finally did reach the consulate - I'd had to call the emergency number in order to actually get someone on the phone - I was told that if Germans are given any papers at entry, they are just statistical questionnaires, and only Americans are forced to suffer the pain of holding onto the special entry paperwork.... haha!
So the three of us set off from the hostel in Salta, A German, a Czech, and an Israeli.
The first thing you notice when you take a bus to the Bolivian border is that it's probably the worst bus in Argentina. Otherwise, the Argentine bus system is amazing, but the buses up to the border are pieces of crap. Moreover, there were more Bolivians and Israelis in the bus than anything else, something that holds for Bolivia in general. Also, the normal order of the buses begins breaking down: tons of campesinas had huge bags and blankets full of god knows what being loaded into the bus, and most of them had one or two dirty, snot-nosed kids tagging along, too - and they were of the opinion that they shouldn't have to pay for the kids. The conductor saw this differently, and soon there was a massive argument about who exactly needs tickets immediately in front of me at the bus door. The conductor pointed out that the lady can't bring two kids on for free and expect all the other foreigners to pay, then looked at me for confirmation, which is something I felt obligated to agree with. Anyway, the bus driver let me on, then continued his fight with the woman, but not before she pushed one of the kids in the door behind me and when the bus driver pulled it back out, claimed it was my child.....riiiiiiiiight.
We arrived in the Argentine border town of La Quiaca at the beautiful hour of 5 am, an hour early and two hours before the border would open. Chilling at a wonderful 3400 meters above sea level, it was really cold there, so we grabbed our packs and headed into the station in hopes of finding something warmer. All we found was a station full of Bolivians huddled under blankets and a vile smell. Tom (the Israeli guy) and I also found that some kind of weird, hot motor-oil smelling fluid was on our packs, something I'd noticed when I pulled my jacket out in the cold and dark, but not realizing the extent. Like I said earlier: not the best bus. I was fortunate in that although I got the mystery fluid all over my bag, that where it stayed - on the outside. Tom was not so lucky, and as he pulled the pieces of clothing out of his bag, horror was written all over his face.
Before we knew it - or had fully assessed the damage to Tom's property, it was time to head towards the border, so we strapped on our packs and got going. This decision was aided by our being freezing cold, so we wanted to move. It actually was pretty cool walking through the dark city as dawn came over the horizon, and it got light really quickly, so after some pictures at the border, we were able to cross in to Villazón, the Bolivian border town.
Once you cross the border, you know right away that you are in a different country - and this country's a lot poorer. Everything's really dirty, people are trying to sell you anything that can be made from llamas at the border, and buses are ratcheted up about 4 feet in order to make it across the Bolivian "roads." And despite being a border town and transport hub, Villazón doesn't have a single ATM open to foreign cards.
We ended up camped out at the train station for a couple hours, during which time Tom fully inspected the damage to his bag - hilarious damage, I may add. Each pair of pants had a dark crotch stain, while every shirts was embellished with dark areas around the armpits. Eventually, however, our train departed, and the fun had to end. I will add, however, that the one good thing about Villazón was my first exposure to Bolivian food: for a whopping 6 Bolivianos (the name of the people and the currency...), which totals some $.75 American, I had a 2 course meal that was quite tasty. In the train (which moves at about 20 miles per hour - 9 hours to Uyuni, a grand distance of 160 km) they had a) toilets and b) TVs/movies. While either one of those may seem normal to you, believe me, in Bolivia they aren't.
The first movie they showed was "Blood Diamond" starring the always arresting Leo DiCapprio. I'd hoped that my first viewing of the film wouldn't be on small screen 35 feet away with incomprehensible audio, but despite this I was able to enjoy the film. The second movie was some Bolivian production, and I use that term loosely: they apparently don't have audio editing equipment in the country, and much of the movie consisted of people conversing in the middle of the altiplano, in other words in the middle of nowhere and all I could hear was the wind in the microphone. This was topped only by the scenes in "Buenos Aires," which were actually a Bolivian pig stall. At that point I wished they didn't have TVs in the train.
We finally arrived in Uyuni at shortly before 1 in the morning. One of the things about Bolivian public transportation that makes it so special is that all departure and arrival hours are at the most horrid times imaginable. In this case, I than had to find a hostel , and after following some Israelis for a while in an unsuccessful attempt to find a hostel with heating, I went to the HI. It was slightly warmer there than outside, and that did the trick for me.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
the MAAM - or how national identity can evolve
While I was in Salta , I also visited a number of museums, including a very new - and quite well done - one by the name Museo de Archaelogia de Alta Montaña, the MAAM (Museum of Archaeology of High Mountain Areas.... the English acronym of MAHMA just isn't that sexy, is it? Does that reflect the fact that Argentine ladies are generally more sexy than English one? I don't know, but feel free to weigh in on this subject in the comments section). This museum is so new it isn't in most guidebooks, although it should be. On the one hand, it has a number of excellent exhibition items, but almost more interestingly, it illustrates how Argentina's attitude viz-á-viz its own history is changing, particularly regarding the original indigenous inhabitants of the southern cone.
The reason the museum was created was for an Incan ice-mummy that originates in the Salta region. The Incas had this crazy thing where they made human sacrifices, though not on the scale of, say, the Aztecs, although their way of doing it was pretty loco. First the kids - and I mean children, usually between 6 and 12 - would be selected from different regions of the huge empire and be blessed by the Inca (emperor) during the Inti Rami (sun festival) in June in Cuzco. From there, the children, priests, and entourage would walk in a straight line to the sacrificial sight - straight across rivers, through valleys and over mountain tops, and whoever has seen the landscape here knows that isn't easy today with mountaineering equipment. (In the meantime, Jeremy Piven would be handling the logistics.) These sacrificial sites were of course significant in their own right - they lay atop the highest peaks in the Andes, usually above 6000 meters over sea level. The peaks were both home to gods, and also these high peaks were revered as deities themselves by the Incas. Although northern Argentina was among the furthest places from Cuzco still in the Incan empire, a disproportionate amount of these sacrifices took place in what is now Argentina, because some of the highest mountains in the Andes are there, including Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in the Americas although no sacrifices have been found there.
The little girl that is housed in the MAAM was first unearthed in the 1930s, but then sold to a collector in Buenos Aires, where she was soon forgotten and badly abused. Eventually, it was purchased at a yard sale in the mid nineties for an astounding U$S 25 - that's right, the same price as two movie tickets and a medium popcorn, and a far better investment considering that the buyer received an invaluable archaeological artifact that to locals is a semi-goddess. The museum was created to house her remains and explore the Inca influence in what today is Argentina.
The museum emphasizes the continuity of the belief system that led to the girl's being sacrificed, which among peasant indigenos in the area are still maintained. In fact, videos that form part of the display have interviews with campesinos who talk about how the girl's spirit appealed again and again to local people to return her body home during her decades in exile. According to these locals, those visions and dreams have discontinued since the body's return to Salta, although she did appear to one woman to thank her and affirm her spirit is back at rest. The exhibits also emphasize t he girl as a person, on not simply an object to be stared at, and so the room in which she is displayed is treated like a tomb: visitors are asked to remove hats and keep their voices low. Moreover, she isn't lit all the time, but visitors push a button that lights her up for several seconds.
Speaking of that lighting button, it's actually quite funny: There is a thick panel of glass, and behind it darkness. Since most museum exhibits aren't right up against the display screen, most visitors lean down and really close to the glass before pushing the button - only to find themselves 3 inches from the girl's half-decayed face, with her mouth and eyes torn wide open, screaming. I think it's about as cos e to a horror flick as any museum will take you. I certainly jumped at that, then decided to hang around the room and see what others' reactions would be. I wasn't disappointed, as most visitors not only jumped back from the glass, but most the girls would scream, also. I know the museum organizers wanted to give the girl dignity by keeping her obscured, but the result seems rather counterproductive.
I think the approach of the museum, particularly acknowledging the girl's continued importance to local peoples, is a tremendous step forwards for Argentina. This after all is the country that a) managed to kill almost all black descendants of slaves in a war with Paraguay and where many people say that if they're black, they simply can't be Argentine because there are no black Argentines, b) waged a war of extinction against indigenous peoples, know as the Conquista del Desierto, that today would probably be condemned as genocide, and c) not only has Catholicism as a state religion, but continues to ban all forms of abortion (and where many feel embarrassed to buy condoms!) and pays the country's bishops out of state coffers.
In essence, government money is supporting something that implicitly (or even explicitly) acknowledges - and even emphasizes - the country's polyethnic and polyreligious past and present. This goes along with the generational gap I've observed in how Argentines perceive themselves, with youngsters feeling more connected to the rest of South America than to Europe, and decrying anti-Bolivianism as outright racism, hypocrisy in a country that itself has indigenos and needs to embrace its Latino identity. Sure, much of this is the result of Argentines coming to terms with their new found economic position in the world (way farther down, and no longer on par with countries from Southern Europe or akin to the USA, and now being outperformed by Brazil and, even more so, Chile) that in many ways have made it more South American, but the affects are as much cultural as anything else.
While I was in Salta , I also visited a number of museums, including a very new - and quite well done - one by the name Museo de Archaelogia de Alta Montaña, the MAAM (Museum of Archaeology of High Mountain Areas.... the English acronym of MAHMA just isn't that sexy, is it? Does that reflect the fact that Argentine ladies are generally more sexy than English one? I don't know, but feel free to weigh in on this subject in the comments section). This museum is so new it isn't in most guidebooks, although it should be. On the one hand, it has a number of excellent exhibition items, but almost more interestingly, it illustrates how Argentina's attitude viz-á-viz its own history is changing, particularly regarding the original indigenous inhabitants of the southern cone.
The reason the museum was created was for an Incan ice-mummy that originates in the Salta region. The Incas had this crazy thing where they made human sacrifices, though not on the scale of, say, the Aztecs, although their way of doing it was pretty loco. First the kids - and I mean children, usually between 6 and 12 - would be selected from different regions of the huge empire and be blessed by the Inca (emperor) during the Inti Rami (sun festival) in June in Cuzco. From there, the children, priests, and entourage would walk in a straight line to the sacrificial sight - straight across rivers, through valleys and over mountain tops, and whoever has seen the landscape here knows that isn't easy today with mountaineering equipment. (In the meantime, Jeremy Piven would be handling the logistics.) These sacrificial sites were of course significant in their own right - they lay atop the highest peaks in the Andes, usually above 6000 meters over sea level. The peaks were both home to gods, and also these high peaks were revered as deities themselves by the Incas. Although northern Argentina was among the furthest places from Cuzco still in the Incan empire, a disproportionate amount of these sacrifices took place in what is now Argentina, because some of the highest mountains in the Andes are there, including Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in the Americas although no sacrifices have been found there.
The little girl that is housed in the MAAM was first unearthed in the 1930s, but then sold to a collector in Buenos Aires, where she was soon forgotten and badly abused. Eventually, it was purchased at a yard sale in the mid nineties for an astounding U$S 25 - that's right, the same price as two movie tickets and a medium popcorn, and a far better investment considering that the buyer received an invaluable archaeological artifact that to locals is a semi-goddess. The museum was created to house her remains and explore the Inca influence in what today is Argentina.
The museum emphasizes the continuity of the belief system that led to the girl's being sacrificed, which among peasant indigenos in the area are still maintained. In fact, videos that form part of the display have interviews with campesinos who talk about how the girl's spirit appealed again and again to local people to return her body home during her decades in exile. According to these locals, those visions and dreams have discontinued since the body's return to Salta, although she did appear to one woman to thank her and affirm her spirit is back at rest. The exhibits also emphasize t he girl as a person, on not simply an object to be stared at, and so the room in which she is displayed is treated like a tomb: visitors are asked to remove hats and keep their voices low. Moreover, she isn't lit all the time, but visitors push a button that lights her up for several seconds.
Speaking of that lighting button, it's actually quite funny: There is a thick panel of glass, and behind it darkness. Since most museum exhibits aren't right up against the display screen, most visitors lean down and really close to the glass before pushing the button - only to find themselves 3 inches from the girl's half-decayed face, with her mouth and eyes torn wide open, screaming. I think it's about as cos e to a horror flick as any museum will take you. I certainly jumped at that, then decided to hang around the room and see what others' reactions would be. I wasn't disappointed, as most visitors not only jumped back from the glass, but most the girls would scream, also. I know the museum organizers wanted to give the girl dignity by keeping her obscured, but the result seems rather counterproductive.
I think the approach of the museum, particularly acknowledging the girl's continued importance to local peoples, is a tremendous step forwards for Argentina. This after all is the country that a) managed to kill almost all black descendants of slaves in a war with Paraguay and where many people say that if they're black, they simply can't be Argentine because there are no black Argentines, b) waged a war of extinction against indigenous peoples, know as the Conquista del Desierto, that today would probably be condemned as genocide, and c) not only has Catholicism as a state religion, but continues to ban all forms of abortion (and where many feel embarrassed to buy condoms!) and pays the country's bishops out of state coffers.
In essence, government money is supporting something that implicitly (or even explicitly) acknowledges - and even emphasizes - the country's polyethnic and polyreligious past and present. This goes along with the generational gap I've observed in how Argentines perceive themselves, with youngsters feeling more connected to the rest of South America than to Europe, and decrying anti-Bolivianism as outright racism, hypocrisy in a country that itself has indigenos and needs to embrace its Latino identity. Sure, much of this is the result of Argentines coming to terms with their new found economic position in the world (way farther down, and no longer on par with countries from Southern Europe or akin to the USA, and now being outperformed by Brazil and, even more so, Chile) that in many ways have made it more South American, but the affects are as much cultural as anything else.
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