QueenPuya

Hello all,Matt and I´s gold standard of vacation was our trip to Italy that wetook several years ago....we love to remember the succulent pizzas andtomato sauces, the wine, the romance etc. Well, I´m afraid Argentinahas lapped Italy and will forever be ingrained in our memories as thebest vacation ever.

Our first day here we went out for a ten dollar lunch, like you mightat Qdoba or the Med. But instead we found ourselves at the super chicCluny, where all the waiters dress in black, and we sat in low, softarmchairs piled with cushions, were fed Pate, gazpacho, perfectlycooked beef loin, chicken stuffed with sundried tomatos and had lovelylittle espressos and cookies for dessert. Heaven, and we already havedecided that our final meal will be there as well. Seriously, if youcan get to Argentina soon , DO IT. It is just going to get moreexpensive, and for now you can live like a king for way cheap.

We walked all around Palermo, but unfortunatly the Botanical Gardenwas closed for the day, so we had to just lap the perimeter, noticingthe creepily large number of cats sleeping and fighting inside itsgates. We went to dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, which made menostalgic for Brazil and caused me to start drinking caipurhina, andwine, which was a bad call. I did have an enormous shrimp stew to sopto up, and passion fruit mousse. I was painfully full, but veryhappy. GOod thing Matt knows how to take care of me in thesesituations.Yesterday we went for a lovely walk by the old harbor area, whichreminded us so much of the Thames in London. Except it was bloody hotand fully humid. My cursed Chacos ruined my feet and I am nowofficially done with them (they are yours, Maggie Mae), so we had togo to the Adidas store to buy me some sneakers.

We went to a tangoshow last night, which was pretty touristy (but cheaper and less overthe top than most) but really, it is hard not to be impressed bytango. The girls were super skinny and I can´t figure out how theydon´t blow out their knees kicking their legs around so quickly.There was a pretty cheesy singer that was on more than I would haveliked, but the crowd really loved him, especially when he askedeveryone where they were from and then would sing a song from thatcountry. For the first time, there were a lot of estadounidense, buthe didn´t sing any songs for us. I don´t really know what couldcompare with ¨por un sueno¨for the Colombians. We had full plans todo a real Saturday night in BA, complete with finding a restaurant at11 at night, and then going dancing at 3, but this freak storm cameand we found it easier to go to bed than stand outside getting soaked. Really, we aren´t nearly cool enough for this town.Today we are going to a giant craft market and have several morelovely meals planned. Times are good and it is much cooler today, sowe are happier. Returnign to real life will be quite a shock....R

Hello all,

Sorry I haven´t written as much as you had become accustomed to from the Ecuador leg of the trip, but the Argentinian and Chilean legs of the trips were WAY more work and we often would arrive exhausted at night with no time for computers. (and, sorry to say, having Matt here with me makes the blogging less urgent). But that is all over now and Matt and I are living the good life in Buenos Aires for a few days on our true honeymoon. We did the capitals of countries back to back....yesterday we were in Santiago, Chile Santiago is a large city (a third the population of the country lives there), and it backs up to the giant Andes. Really, the views of the mountains in Chile were unbeatable. But other than that, I am afraid to say that Argentina beat Chile pretty soundly in all other travel aspects for me. (Oh, Chile wins for the beach, too, but we aren´t really going to Argentine beaches so it isn´t quite fair. And North Carolina beats them all...at least you can swim in it! The Humboldt current makes the water freezing in the Pacific) People in Santiago were anything but friendly, and it wasn´t the easiest city to navigate. Argentina has most of the same stuff as Chile (though maybe not as much tasty fruit...buying cherries and strawberries on the side of the road definitly was fun), but is cheaper and more äutentico.

In Santiago we did have a nice seafood dinner and got to walk about a bit. We saw the presidencial palace where Allende was murdered by Pinochet´s troups. All the Pinochet business was pretty much over, as he had been buried, and everyone was once again riled up about soccer and CHristmas. I did really enjoy reading Chilean newspapers, learning about the intricacies of Presidenta Michele Bachelet´s response the the Pinochet death. Apparently her father was a general and was killed in the coup he controlled, too. I think I am a big fan of the Chilean president, mostly because she is a woman and she has a lot on her plate.because

flew LANChile back to BA; which I most highly recommend. They feed you, beverage you and entertain you to no end, even on the shortest of flights. Really, flying in the US is ghetto compared to South America. Back in La Plata, we hauled it to the herbarium to face the moldy pile of specimens from the Argentinian leg of the trip. I was initially pretty angry about it, after all that work and no one could even put them in the drier for us, but they are redoing the herbarium currently and most people who work there are in Patagonia now, so I guess I can understand. We doused the particularly fuzzy inflorescences with ethanol, which I think cleared up the problem and the ever attentive Diego will now see to them. Diego was very happy to be home, which I can completely understand, and we said goodbye, thanking him for all his hard work and for making the trip go so smoothly. Perhaps we will meet again in Bolivia or Peru for more collecting. Our plants grow in similar ecosystems.

After more pleasant conversation, wine and empanadas with the Criscis, we headed into BA. Our very cute bed and breakfast is in the very Swanky Palermo (special thanks to Lisa and Z for their recommendation). I wish Keri was here and we had several thousand pesos and unlimited luggage space to fill with designer clothes and handbags. I have a strong desire to be girly and materialistic, after pretty much looking like hell for two months. I am strongly tempted to go to a hip pelaqueria and tell them to cut my hair anyway they like (Matt has thought about doing the same too). We´ll see...maybe you´ll be surprised. Might load up on leather coats too. For now, though, we are just walking about, hoping to work up an appetite to start eating. This place is loaded with amazing food and bars and I can´t wait to dig in.

I can´t believe we will be heading back to the US soon, and into full Christmas insanity. Oh, and cold. I hate cold...it is HOT here and we love it. I will not think about it for a few days, and just live it up!"

Rachel

Hi all,

Well, maybe you haven´t put two and two together, but yes we are in Chile during perhaps the most important thing to happen in Chile in quite some time...the death of Pinochet. Really, though, we don´t have anything cool or scary to report. We are in Valparaiso, where apparently there was mourning and celebrations (people feel very strongly one way or the other about him)., but all we saw was some drunk Communists driving around waving flags. It is business as normal this morning and we head out to search for more Puya. We are going to stay away from Santiago, which I think is having lots of crazy demonstrations, burnings and lots of riot police (you can definitly see the shadows of fascism in this country...police are everywhere and I don´t want to cross with them). It is pretty amazing to think about all of the atrocities that were committed here, that may or may not have been necessary to build the super modern, capitalistic Chile we are enjoying today. Well, we will keep our eyes peeled for anything interesting, but so far I¨m a bit disappointed...
Rachel

Greetings from La Serena, supposedly a great beach town in Northern Chile. We wouldn´t know, as we spent all day searchnig for plants, but we got to drive for miles along the coast, which was heavenly and reminded me of driving the 101 along the California coast with Keri. In fact, Chile reminds me more and more of the States and California in particular. It is the exact same Mediterranean climate that is found in California, ( and South Africa and Australia and the real Med), with similar plants. Great mountains (occationally you can glimps the enormous snowy mountains in the distance). Flying over the Andes from Argentina was spectacular...bowls of snow and jagged pinnacles of rock...truly impenetrable. I can now see why Chile is so skinny...really, you can´t get past those mountains.

Chile is Way different from Argentina, which is kind of nice because I like to be able to feel like I´ve been to different places and makes for great late night conversations with Matt. We think we like Argentina more, as Chileans are not nearly as warm or hospitable, though they tend to be more to the point. It has many more rules, which means we have to start obeying the speed limit again and can´t think about bribing cops if we are stopped. Matt doesn´t mind too much, as we have an automatic car again, which makes a huge difference. Oh, and it is much more expensive....but with currancy of 10000 pesos and greater being chucked around for everything, it is hard to do the math and realize what we are spending. Chile eats more vegetables, which I love, but i think Matt misses the all out meatfest.

Again, random Catholic holidays screwed us over...last time it was a regional festival in Argentina commemorating the appearance of the Virgen that caused us to drive all night, and this time it was the holiday of the Immaculate Conception (I guess Jesus formed in about two weeks) that caused the roads north of Santiago to jam with cars of people heading to Viña del Mar and other beachy places. We drove at a snails crawl for hours to a very sketchy town to pass our first night i Chile.

Puya are SO easy to come by here. In fact, they are the dominant vegetation in some places. We missed a good bloom year for the ever present P. chilensis, but we found a great peninsula loaded with P. venusta right out in the ocean on the swanky beach of Zapallar. It was the easiest, perhaps best day of collecting of all. We walked along the beachpath, admiring these mansions with very creative architecture (some sort of Nordic cabin next to 1960s California chic), then found a this area covered in Puya and hummingbirds. We got to watch the largest hummer on earth, Puya gigas (large as a robin, with long wings), feeding and resting....one of my dreams fulfilled! Later, we drove to the entrance of a national park (not entering, as we didn´t have permits), and saw a whole hillside of giant blue PUya berteroniana in full bloom! We saw a woodpecker trying to peck at it, a goatsucker bird nesting in it, and again the big hummer doing its thing) Spectacular.

Today we hung out with a local botanist who works for the Chilean seed bank. He helped us find a new species (which I was relieved to see is a new species) named for my old advisors old advisor Amy Gilmartin. Beautiful plant growing in the cracks of rock heaps overlooking the beach. He brought his very spoiled son along, who was cute enough, but drank all of Diego´s juice at lunch and his dad did nothing to stop it! He also spoon fed the eight year old when he wouldn´t eat. I swear, people are crazy ridiculous about their kids down here. I noticed that too in Ecuador. I have never seen anyone use a harsh word with children and they are constantly praised and coddled, called ¨my life or my love¨. All commercials portray children as angelic and perfect (contrast with the stressed out mother of American commercials putting up with her children´s shenanigans). Weird.

It is also weird to think that these people have a hot Christmas in the middle of their summer vacation. We really can´t get used to seeing Christmas trees when we are baking in the midday heat. I can´t really think about the cold and dark of the Northern Hemisphere either, though I am getting a bit excited to return home. We have just TWO more species to go! TOmorrow we will head back towards Santiago and maybe go to the Concha Y Toro vineyard....drink some Castillero del Diablo and think of us!
Love,

Rachel

Hello all,

Because Matt is sitting right next to me extensively blogging the last bit of his trip...matchabailey.com/recently.html...(see Recently)....I feel a bit silly rewriting what he has written. So i encourage you to read it, and I´ll write on other things.

We are in our final hours of the Argentinian leg of our PUya hunt. We easily found the last species yesterday, just north of Cordoba, which was a welcome relief after a few days of fruitlessly searching for Puya smithii. There were four species in Argentina that we simply couldn´t find. Three were just too high and one we found, but it doesn´t match the description in the book. But that is certainly ok. Chile should be easier as most species live below 1000m in elevation and we have GPS data on many of them (unlike the information on Argentinas species...the monograph lists random names of mountain ranges that no one uses anymore...you pretty much have to find the oldest person in town to figure out what is going on).

I´m going to write now about things that my mother (and hopefully everyone else) would find interesting. They make GREAT coffee here....freshly ground espresso with milk...unlike in Ecuador, and the fresh squeezed orange juice really is amazing, though I do dearly miss the varieties of juices of Ecuador. All is tastier than our Tropicana in the US. So South America one, US none. But then we move on to the food...just a few little crouissantes or some stale bread (they like it stale and sweet down here), which is hardly the big steamy bowl of oatmeal or Wheetabix that I like to eat at home to start me off right. So now the score is evened.

People in Argentina and Ecuador are excessively neat and polite and there are loads of formalities that simply don´t exist in the States. While this can be quite charming, it can get very tiring. Matt and I are constantly worried we are offending Diego, because we tend to be more to the point and straightforward than people here. (Oh, and we are messier and look worse as a rule) But really, we don´t have much time or money to spare and so sometimes I have to draw the line and say this is what we are doing right now. I miss the laid back, take care of yourself, US attitude.

People (well, Diego which I extrapolate to all Argentines), are much more aware of rank and this creates situations in which you don´t call someone until you know for a fact if they are older or more educated than you so you know how to address them properly. Weird....again, I prefer the States where I call my professors by their first names and people find formality awkward.

So we are off to Chile soon. I really don´t know very much about Chile, but I did read an amazing book at the beach last year about Chile....The House of the Spirits, by Isabelle Allende, which I most highly recommend. I really don´t know what it will be like there....more expensive so they say (though they have this weird currency that is like 30000 to a dollar, so we probably won´t even know what we are spending...we do have to pay 100 dollars each to enter the country, which is ridiculous! Apparently they are just geting revenge on the US), better infrastructure (though i certainly wouldn´t complain about Argentinas...except a few very crazy roads we took up north), worse food (but good wine and that is all I really need), and Spanish more Andean than Italian (though Diego pretty much always wants to speak English, so we really are spoiled). They rent automatic cars, much to Matts delight, and so soon we´ll be zooming about the skinny, long country, in search of the biggest and prettiest plants to date. I think we are hitting a good bloom year too! I will collect them all, so there is none left for that sketchy German (just kidding...I love the plants too much to do that to them!).

Ok, off to retrieve our cleaned laundry. What a relief!! Will write again from Chile..."

Rachel

Greetings from just south of the Bolivian border. We have had quitethe time driving all around the northwestern corner of Argentina andare hitting our northernmost location tomorrow. It is hard toremember that things get hotter as you go north down here, but theyalso get colder as you get higher, and higher is exactly what we need. Several very charismatic species are found at over 3500 m inelevation, which was just on the side of the road in Ecuador, but herein Argentina, where there are fewer people and even fewer who settledthe highland, roads simply don´t exist. I have no idea how the fewhardy explorers who made the original collections got there...I guesstime wasn´t of the essence. I´d love to have the time to just roamabout too.Case in point...so today we went in search of Puya volcanensis, ashort little fellow greatly covetted by the horticultural community.It was last collected in the 1930s. We drove to the namesake town ofVolcan and asked around, showing my well worn monograph to people inthe very nice tourist office (I was greatly tempted to pass theafternoon in the Feria buying indigenous goods, but Puya is a harshmistress and thus we had to press on). We headed towards this tinyroad that heads into the mountains...on our map of Argentina roads getto be solid red, doted, or an outline, based on how good they are.This was an outline... We made it a ways in, but found out that thewhole area was now private property, owned by an architect, who hadbeautifully remodeled a centuries old rock house and was building ahotel on the property. Diego was a bit sketched out initially by thesituation, as the architect and his wife had two indigenous¨servants¨, who were ordered to help us ou, and make us tea. Weclimbed a hill with them, and found a beautiful sheep eaten Puyadyckioides, but not the species we wanted. We were also 1000m toolow. Apparently, we would need mules or 15 hours to walk up to wheremaybe it grows, and we simply don´t have time now for such anexpedition, though it sounds terribly fun. But the wife said shewould go over the mountains in the autumn to visit her grandmother,and would try to collect it for me, passing it off to Diego on one ofhis collecting trips (sounds like Little Red Riding hood, but with abasketful of Puya). So, no Puya, but we got to see their beautifulhome, take some coca, see the indigenous woman´s loom made of cactusspines, from which we bought a very autentico woolen horse blanket.That is kind of how this trip is going. Our collecting plans aren´talways working out (though we are doing ok...5 out of 12 species), butwe are having a ton of fun and seeing some of the most beautifullandscapes on earth. Seriously, this place is amazing. We drovethrough winding canyons of brilliant, undulating rocks, set off bygiant cacti and passed through hundreds of miles of dry valleysflanked by impenetrable mountains. I love the giant landscape...itreminds me of the American West, but there are so few people here youreally feel like you can call it your own. Matt and I are weavingfantasies of moving here someday when we are old, or at leastroadtripping the whole country with our kids. This really is myfavorite place in South America (and you know how high the bar wasset...)We had to leave too soon the gorgeous vineyards of Cafayate, thesophisticated and fun city of Salta where we drank more Malbec and atefish and tomatoes until past midnight, and the weird moonscape ofMolinos. But really, Puya set up a great travel itinerary for us. Ifwe hadn´t had to go here, I bet we would have missed it and spent allour time in BA and Patagonia (which I´m sure we would love too).Tomorrow we go in search of the giant fuzzball Puya yakespala andseveral other poorly known plants, then we begin the descent toCordoba. I can´t really fathom going to Chile after all this. We aredead tired and pretty stinky....it is a ton of work and long days, butwe will persevere. OK, now to maybe get eight hours of sleep and ashower before we do it all over again. Really, though, there areworse ways to make a living (or spend some money!)
Rachel