South America Blog
About this blog
Wayne Bernhardson is the author of Moon Handbooks to Buenos Aires, Chile, Argentina, and Patagonia. Here he shares his vast knowledge of South America and its people.
Recent Posts
- The Papal Cumbia
- The Uruguayan Sacraments: Tango & Mate
- Taxing the Tourist: Argentina's AFIP Aims Low
- Fortress Falklands: A Book Review
- Pope Argentinus I, The Musical: Ragtime Meets Tango
- Credit Where Credit Is Undue?
- ¿Adios Hugo?
- When "No" Is A Positive
- Chile and Its "Crazies"
- The Oscars: A Post Mortem, So to Speak
- Sacrificing the Atacama? A Chilean View of Dakar
- Chilean Oscar Faceoff? "No" v. "Kon-Tiki"
- Friday Digest: Southern Cone Nuggets
- Dancing in the Mud? The Andean Aftermath
- Floods & Mud: Summer Storms Hit the Andes
The Papal Cumbia
In the spirit of the holiday weekend - even though freelancers like myself never have weekends - I would like to share a treatment of the recently ascended Pope Francis from an Argentine variety show called Peligro sin Codificar (roughly translatable as “Uncoded Danger,” as opposed to, say, “Code Red”). more >>
The Uruguayan Sacraments: Tango & Mate
Over more than three decades of work and travel in Latin America, this is one of my least favorite times of the year. That’s partly because, as I’m usually in South America from late October or early November, it becomes harder to concentrate as I’m anticipating a spring return home in time for the baseball season, but also because Semana Santa (“Holy Week”) holidays present an obstacle to updating guidebooks – many offices and services are closed, and high hotel occupancy rates make things more expensive, at least for a few days. more >>
Taxing the Tourist: Argentina's AFIP Aims Low
Many times recently I’ve touched on the topic of exchange rates and, in that regard, I have to say that it’s so much easier to write on Chile or Uruguay, whose juridical and macroeconomic stability make it relatively simple to inform potential visitors of what they’ll encounter. Argentina, though, is a challenge, and there’s always the risk that details may change between the moment I finish writing and the time I post it. more >>
Fortress Falklands: A Book Review
In early 1986, shortly after arriving in the Falkland Islands for my dissertation research under a Fulbright-Hays research fellowship, my wife and I took a hike into the hills west of Stanley, the Islands’ capital and only town. Hoping to glimpse the panorama of Stanley Harbour and the East Falkland countryside, we ascended the flanks toward the summit of the 1093-ft (333m) Mount Kent but, as we approached, we found our way blocked by polite but firm British squaddies. more >>
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