The Ruins of Quilmes, and Hector Cruz.....

The Quilmes Indians were the longest hold outs to the Spanish, hanging in there for 30 years before they gave up and were marched down to BA provience.....

the huge maze of connecting stone foundations went on up the hillside....

Several families would live in one foundation, with roofs of cane around the edges and an open courtyard for working in the center....as we went up the hill, the dwellings became more elaborate and smaller...for the head honchos ...

And here is an example of  their main source of food, milk, clothing,  hauling, and music (they made flutes out of the bones)......you can see the nursing baby's feet in back of mom....

The biggest surprise of the day was on the road back to Tucuman...This amazing place was built by artist Hector Cruz....it went on and on, with a museum, gallery spaces for his work, and all these courtyards.....

he had piles of rock of every color and texture laying around, that he used for all the designs....

He has had some of his designs woven into tapestries for sale like this one....

Our guide talked of a huge controversy between this guy and the Quilmes Indians...Back in 1992, Cruz got a ten year concession for $110.00 at the Quilmes ruins site, and was supposed to pay the Indians a percentage of the profits.   He built a big hotel and ran it, without paying a dime to the Indians up until 2007, when the Indians were finally able to eject him.  He still lives and works at the above museum site, with bitter feelings flying around...if there is not another side to the story, I have such a hard time imagining such a "bad guy" making such beautiful art.......

And your food shot from Tucuman for this week is special!  I had a great tamale and corn muffins in the foreground, and dave had mashed potatoes, cheese tart, and a llama steak....he described it as similar to venison back strap without the gaminess, with a hint of sweet.......

Tucuman turismo

I had read that Tucuman had some great archecture, and it lived up to the review....

There two buildings are on the main town square .....

Unlike Buenos Aires, most of the city is only two stories high....

 we walked all over the city the first day, and took a break in the big town park designed by Carl Thies...what are those things on this tree?

I know what these things are...we saw a net work of little paths all through the park, and when we looked closer, the paths had been made by millions of red ants ....

We signed on to an outing to see the ruins of Quilmes, and on the way, our guide asked if we wanted to see "the phallic rocks"...of course we said yes....these carved rocks had been found all over the area and put in this little park  to stop the theivery...some were combinations of penises and female genitals....and some had symbols ......no one seems to know for sure what they were all about....

We saw lots of horses and carts in Tucuman, but in the little town with the penis park, horses roamed freely all through town.....

But my favorite town by far that is near Tucuman is Termas de Rio Honda, south of Tucuman..this town has hot springs all through it, with every house having hot water, and lots of public pools of different temperatures...I found this statue on top of the oldest hotel in town, Hotel Roma......

And we paid three dollars  to spend as long as we wanted in these public pools down by the river...there must have been 10 or more pools, all of different temperatures, with different amusements at each one...dave is lounging in the hotest one he could find. 

Another favorite thing we did in tucuman was eat!  and eat hot spicy amazing food!   Tucumaians are very proud of their peppers and chilis, and tamales, and locro.....

next week, the Quilmes ruins and Salta.....

The Tucuman Train

The train from Buenos Aires up North to Tucuman has been shut down for over 20 years, but a month ago it got going again, and that convinced me it was time to explore the north country...

 

The train cars were built in 1990, in Cordorba, Argentina by Fiat...Some of the details reminded me of European art deco, Hercule Poirot style...

We rented a private room, but spent much time in the dining car...and unlike American trains, the food was very fancy... and cheap...dinner was pollo relleno, chicken pounded out and rolled around a vegetable and egg filling.

For an hour or so, leaving Buenos Aires, the view was of great graffitti on high concrete walls ...

Then the view opened up to vast soy fields and pasture land...and as we approached Tucuman, sugar cane, orange and lemon trees took over...

As we got farther north, closer to Bolivia and Brazil, the folks at the stations along the way had more and more indio/spanish features...we began to see more horses...horses pulling carts.. there was home made breads and goat and sheep cheeses in big rounds, and more gaucho hats and baggy pants...

homes got simpler, with no surrounding concrete walls....

Here's our little room after the beds were pulled down...the 26 hour trip with private room costs 400 pesos for both of us ($100),  and I loved the whole adventure ..For Dave, however, the click click of the train going over the rail connections kept waking him up, so he was not quite ready to sign up for another go.

Here's to more journeys and adventures....

Planning an adventure....

I have had a case of the fall dull-drums....and my favorite cure has always been to plan another trip..so Monday we head for the North of Argentina...on a recently reinstated old train to Tucuman...the listing says it is a 25 hour ride, but Porteno friends roll their eyes and hope we get there in 40 (trains have a bad reputation down here).  We booked a sleeper car, and will bring lots of books and lots of wine in case there are delays..

It's getting dark much earlier now, and my inner clock tells me its time for dinner at 7 or 8....but everyone else in the city still doesn't go out till past 9...we do get excellent service this way..

We tried to find a small concert being held in a private old historic home, but the concert turned out to be "private."  This building being restored was across the street...

Your art for this week is a big wall mural in friend Kevin's restaurant, Empire Thai.....

That's all for this slow dark week, but much more coming up next week!

The Circus has come to town...and not just one!

Buenos Aires has always been big on circus...with schools all over the city...and for the next week, circuses from all over the world have come to BA to show their stuff...There are performances all over the city, but this park is the setting for most of the events, with 4 giant tents and a huge metal dome for trapise...

If you are in BA, look up the schedule on the Buenos Aires gov tourism site to get the complete schedule...we went to two performances so far....And our favorite hands down was Loft, by The Seven Fingers of the Hand, a Montreal group...

.Some of the audience enters through the refrigerator on the stage set (above), the underwear clad cast distributes snacks to the audience, and,besides being a very quirky funny show, the circus feats they preform are truly amazing....

 My spanish teacher and Dave both believe they were dogs in their former lives....

I believe I was a tree...

I went back to the museum of Xul Solar for a guided tour this week ...He worked with Paul Klee and Kandinski  for years before coming back to Argentina and holing up in a family building, making lots of fantastical art....hanging out with Jorge Borges....developed two languages/games/music that were linked to the cabala, astrogology, sanscript ....he was out there...

But the art work of this last week that I like the best are these horses that Dave has been blistering his hands making....they are for a benefit luncheon to get school supplies for poor kids, held at the Polo Club....

Sorry there are no food shots this week...my best meal was a beautiful lunch at our favorite Japanese restaurant on Independenca in San Telmo, but I ate it all before I remembered to snap a shot!  Besos to all, Jamye