Madero & Madero Preserve: Sunday, October 17

This afternoon I had a very nice (and long) walk to Puerto Madero and then into the Nature Preserve that has been established between Madero and the River Plata. From the hotel, the nearest corner of Puerto Madero is only about 6 blocks away. I walked the entire length of Madero, which must run about 2 miles. From there I crossed to the North and after several blocks of modern high rise buildings arrived at the Nature Preserve. It is primarily marshland with a number of developed trails around it, the perimeter trail being 7 to 8 miles in length. I did not do the full tour, but did walk about 5 miles of it. It was a very pretty place, not too crowded but enough people around that you felt very comfortable. The weather was nice. A bit windy, and cool, but very nice in the sunshine.

Near Madero, looking back towards the city

Back towards the city

The old warehouses at Peurto Madero, now converted to shops and restaurants, and condos on the floors above.

One of 16 warehouse building that have been restored

High Rises in Barrio Madero through the rigging of the Frigate President Sarmiento

The Commerce Building

The Customs Building

Modern high rises in Barrio Madero

In Barrio Madero, headed to the Preserve

A fountain

Barrio Madero

Barrio Madero

Between the high rises and the preserve was a street full of vendors and people

Another monument, apparently dedicated to naked people

Now in the Preserve, a large area of wetlands

Looking across the wetlands towards Barrio Madero

The trails were well developed and quite wide

Flora and fauna

A rickety boardwalk into the reeds

The River Plata. It is about 30 miles across to Uruguay at this point.

I called Mom from here to wish her a Happy Mother's Day (which it is in Argentina).

Picnic area along the river

A container ship leaving port

Looking down into the bog

Back at Puerto Madero

An old wooden lock at Puerto Madero

An abandoned rail line, now grass

A well deserved Chopp (draft beer) at the end of a very long walk.

Palmero: Saturday, October 16

After sleeping in most of the morning, I finished unpacking and settling into my room of the next 2 weeks, had a late breakfast and then headed out. I walked to the subway station and took the subway to the Plaza Italia, which is at the Southern end of a long line of parks and open areas in Palmero that stretches several miles, nearly to the river. This provided a nice, relaxed opportunity to enjoy nature, which I missed more than I would have imagined in Sao Paulo. My walk took me past several monuments, which are abundant in this city. I walked past the zoo, and relaxed for a while in the grass next to a pond where a number of men were fly cast fishing. After watching the for a while I concluded they must just be practicing their casting skills, as I never saw anyone pull a fish out of the water (were you there, Mitch??). From there the park took me down to the City Planetarium, where there was a large gathering of people on the lawn. Needing to find a Bano, I walked that way in hopes of finding a Porta-Potty. Sure enough, they did have facilities, and the gathering was for Meditation Day, where they had a main speaker/facilitator who appeared to be from India, spoke in English and then was translated into Spanish. There was a very peaceful mood there, so I hung around for a while, until it concluded. That all made for a pretty full afternoon, so I made my way back to the hotel for an early evening.

The Plaza Italia, right next to the subway entrance.

Pink Flamingos at the zoo.

Monument de Los Espanoles

Looking towards the park

Pond in the park

Trees and grass!!!!!

Another monument in the distance

Wild parrots. Both they and the grass they are green, so they are a bit hard to see.

Another pond-side view

The Meditation gathering

The Planetarium is on the right

The speaker for the Meditation. The area directly in front was VIP seating, which seems a bit counter to the underlying philosophy of it all, but it was an interesting experience.

Friday, October 15

Four days in Sao Paulo was enough for me. It is such a big city, nearly the size of Mexico City with 20 million in the Metro area. And it is miles and miles of buildings. While I enjoyed working with the people there, I did not like the city. Too much of everything, except open space. The week was productive, though the Portugese/Spanish/English conversations became comical at times. The weekend weather was forecast to be rainy, and I could not find a convenient way to go an excursion from Sao Paulo, so I changed my travel plans and flew to Buenos Aires Friday night instead of Sunday as had been previously planned. Buenos Aires has plenty more adventures to explore, so an extra weekend there seemed like a good call. I arrived at the hotel in Buenos Aires about 1:00AM, and true to its form, the city was bustling with people out and about on the town. These folks keep late hours!

Sao Paulo, Brazil: Monday, October 11

Monday afternoon I headed out to travel to Sao Paulo. Using Delta, I went through Atlanta. The flight down was about 9 hours and arrived at 8:00AM on Tuesday morning. The ride from the airport to the hotel was pretty long, and there was little traffic because it is a Holiday. Sao Paulo is big. Really, really big. Skyscrapers as far as you can see. It is not a tourist town, and they did not have any City Tours available. The hotel is about 5 miles from the downtown area. Here are some pictures from the hotel.

Home again!!!

After a couple of days in Buenos Aires with Top Management, I was able to catch a ride home with them on Friday, October 1 on the company plane. It is a Falcon 90, so it was a pretty nice ride home. We stopped in Trinidad for fuel, and were not allowed off the plane, so our total plane time ended up being 13 hours. A long day for sure, but a more comfortable ride than commercial airlines.

My magic carpet ride back to the US

A river, probably in Brazil

I think this river might be the Amazon

Probably over Venezuela

The Macuro peninsula of Venezuela

Landing in Trinidad for fuel. They were not particularly friendly to us there, in spite of the $15,000 we spent on Jet A.

So, another adventure comes to an end. Stay tuned, I leave for Sao Paula, Brazil on October 12.

Andes Crossing

On Wednesday, September 29 I flew from Santiago to Buenos Aires to meet up with Top Management from the US who were visiting. The crossing of the Andes was spectacular. Seeing this makes it very hard to imagine that 200 years ago San Martin assembled an army in Argentina, split it into 4 groups and crossed the Andes into Chile to fight the Spanish for Chile's independence.

Monday, September 27

Monday morning I woke to find that it had rained in the city overnight and the mountains had a fresh dusting of snow. Even the tops of the Coastal Mountains had some snow. And the precipitation had cleared the air of smog and haze, and it was spectacularly clear.