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
Bariloche, Tierra de Presidentes
In 1913, Theodore Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to visit San Carlos de Bariloche - which he described as “a real frontier village” - but he wasn’t the last. In reality, T.R. was an ex-president at that time - his term had expired in March of 1909 and he lost a semi-independent “Bull Moose Party” candidacy in 1912, after which he headed to Chile and Argentina (followed by Brazil). He did, though, meet with pioneer conservationist Francisco P. Moreno, who jump-started Argentina’s national parks system with a gift of several thousand hectares that became part of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. To digress a little, Roosevelt's grandson Kermit Roosevelt Jr. more >>
Argentina Sports Update
Argentines have made their mark in sports - everybody knows about soccer, where they’ve won two World Cups and Diego Maradona may have been the greatest player ever. More recently Argentines have also made their mark in basketball (winning the Olympics in 2004), tennis, and other sports. Most recently, for different reasons, polo and golf have made the headlines. more >>
Che Guevara Slept Here!
For four nights, in February of 1952, Ernesto Guevara Lynch and his buddy Alberto Granados crashed on hay bales in the national parks barn in the city of San Martín de los Andes, in Neuquén province. This was the trip that led to the book now immortalized in the film The Motorcycle Diaries, during which Guevara and Granados traveled as gasoleros - a modern Argentine slang term that means doing as much as possible as cheaply as possible. The term derives from “gas-oil,” as Argentines call diesel fuel, which is much cheaper than gasoline here. more >>
Cruising the Falklands
Ever since spending a year in the Falkland Islands in 1986-7, I’ve considered myself privileged to have done so. In reality, the Islands are a sub-Antarctic Galápagos, with abundant wildlife that’s remarkably tame - sit down near a black-browed albatross on Saunders Island, for instance, and the birds will come waddling up to you. more >>
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