Consorcio

A feature of apartment building life; the monthly meeting of the consorcio. As I've always rented I've never gotten involved much in apartment building politics.

Mirabilla Palermo Towers

Rising 45 stories along Juan B Justo the recently Mirabilla Towers have become a focus of anti-tower sentiment as large swaths of Palermo have, in recent years, been blanketed with luxury high rises. While I'm in favor of architecture that scales the the neighborhood I'd point out that these towers sit along one of the biggest avenues in the city and so aren't really that out of place. Plus, I like the design. If it's any consolation, the current crisis has probably put on hold for a decade any more projects like this.

Rooftop Cables

A couple more shots from the rooftop along Rivadavia. Older buildings never planned for cable TV [which everyone here has, just about]. For a lot of these buildings the cables are bunched on the top and draped down the sides. This building, which has close to 200 units, had a LOT of cables up on their terrace.

Once from the 18th Floor

Last night I went over to Beatrice M's building where she kindly let me use her rooftop to take some pictures aruond dusk. Their place is on Rivadavia between Congreso and Once. The top is just high enough to afford a striking view of the city but still low enough that you feel in the middle of all the messiness that is Buenos Aires.


Congreso with a 200mm lens which flattens everything.


The telephoto zoom is also good for spying.


Buenos Aires' skyline is a boxy, organic chaos.

Lipstick & Monobrows - The Central Asian Buddy Bears

The Buddy Bears are a Cow Parade derivative that started in Berlin in 2002 and have been touring the world ever since [they're previous stop was Pyongyang]. Currently they are set up in Plaza San Martin. They're to raise money for impoverished children and the hook is that these fiberglass bears represent all the countries in the world with an artist from each country invited to paint their bear.

I noticed a trend with bears from former Soviet Republics in Central Asia: Lipstick and Monobrows! Is this cultural?

[The 4th bear pictured is from Serbia. I appreciate how the artist avoided the whole dilemma of how to treat the face].

More pictures on the excellent blog The Silver River.

Ombu Gomero Trees in Plaza Francia

Ombus are massive, native trees found on the pampas and in many parks and plazas in Buenos Aires. While their limbs look massive, the wood is quite light and spongy. These trees are in Plaza Francia, directly facing the Recoleta cemetery.

The Ugi's Index

Ugi's is a simple, working class pizzaria chain in Buenos Aires. They serve cheap and, let's be honest, rather crappy pizza. I remember on my first trip to Buenos Aires in 1997 I ate there every day. I was at the end of a long backpacking trip. My money was running low and Buenos Aires, at the time, was very expensive compared to other countries in South America. Back then a pizza cost 2 pesos. The peso was tied to the dollar at a 1-to-1 ratio until the crisis in 2001. So basically for a buck I could get half a pizza and that was my dinner.

Ugi's posts the price of their pizza prominently in their windows. I think back in the 1990s this was a way for them to tout how cheap their pizza was. In the last few years, however, it's become a sort of porteño version of the Big Mac Index, that is, an unofficial way to measure inflation.

Just a bit of background: Argentine tied their currency to the US Dollar in the 1990s after suffering hyperinflation in the late 1980s. This worked for awhile but ended disasterously in 2001 when they defaulted on their debt and let the peso float. It crashed 75% reaching 4-to-1 in June of 2002 before stabilizing at around 3-to-1 where it remained until recently. This made everything in Argentina, Ugi's pizza, steaks, leather jackets, whatever, very, very cheap in dollars until about 2006 when inflation started to pick up and eat up the difference.

With some searching on Flickr, I managed to reconstruct the increase in the price of an Ugi's pizza, which just recently was raised to 12 pesos. While a 600% nominal increase in 8 years is eye-popping, I wanted to track this in dollars and adjust for US inflation. Here's what I found:

	Date	Price in Pesos	Exchange Rate	Price in Dollars	CPI Deflator	Constant 2000 Dollars	% Change since 2000
.	1/1/2000	2	1	$2	1	$2	-
.	1/25/2004	3.5	2.98	$1.17	1.1	$1.07	-46%
.	9/4/2006	4.8	3.1	$1.55	1.17	$1.32	-34%
.	2/1/2008	6.9	3.16	$2.18	1.25	$1.75	-13%
.	3/1/2008	8	3.17	$2.52	1.25	$2.02	1%
.	4/1/2008	10	3.17	$3.15	1.25	$2.52	26%
.	3/1/2009	12	3.65	$3.29	1.23	$2.67	33%

Click on the dates for my sources.

As you can see, Ugi's pizza reached purchase price parity last year but with their recent increases they've jumped ahead. I predict from this measure that the value of the Argentine peso will fall, which is something that basically everyone is predicting anyway.

BTW, I should mention I'm not the first to notice this relationship. The excellently named and now unfortunately defunct World's First Expat Blog noticed this trend a year ago. Mmantantirulirula posted about the phenomena back in 2007 and even Brazilian expats here are bitching about it.

The Pampas - Blue Sky, Clouds and Soy Beans

I usually think of the Pampas as a huge expanse of flat nothingness to be crossed on the way to someplace more interesting. But when the light strikes right and the sky is a perfect blue, they're beautiful.

Paragliding in El Bolson

Overlooking El Bolson to the east is Cerro Piltriquitron. There's a rough and steep dirt road that leads from the town to a platform from which paragliders take off [parapente in Spanish]. The view over the town, about 800 meters below, the valley and the cordillera is superb. There's also a trail that leads up to a refuio and continues on to the peak.

Cerro Tronador - Thunder Mountain

South of Bariloche but still inside Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi is Cerro Tronador. At 3400 meters is a good 1000 meters higher than any other nearby peaks [the Andes are a low lower here than in Mendoza]. Tronador means thundering. The name was given for the sound of ice chunks and rocks that frequently fall from the mountain. From Bariloche you take Route 40 south about 35km to Villa Mascardi. From there a dirt road leads 50 km to the base of the mountain where you find Ventisquero Negro:



It's a small, dirty glaciar formed by chunks of ice that have fallen from the hanging glaciars higher up. Here's a couple of pictures of the hanging glaciars near the top of the mountain:



The destination was well worth the trip. There were small white vans leading tour groups but it was a lot more fun to take a rental car and stop where we wanted for pictures. The dirt road was slow going but easily passable in our Chevy Corsa.

Old Growth Alerces in Patagonia

Last week I went to Bariloche and El Bolson. While it's a little off topic for this blog, I thought I'd share some of the photos from the trip. Above is El Abuelo, an old growth Alerce estimated to be 2600 years old. Alerces are related to the Giant Sequoias in California. Since I'm from California and grew up around Redwoods and Sequoias, I was curious to check out their South American cousins.

Alerces or Fitzroya cupressoides grow in Valvidian temperate rainforests in Chile and Argentina. This grove receives 5000mm of rain per year.


The rain forest is dense with ground vegetation with lots of Bamboo or Chusquea quila sprouting everywhere.




Ash from last year's eruption of a volcano in nearby Chaiten [in Chile] still coats many of the plants.


The grove is only accessible via a boat tour across Lago Menedez. Along the way there are spectacular views of Cerro Torrecilla and it's hanging glaciar.


The boat tour is operated by Brazo Sur. The tour currently costs 110 Argentine pesos which struck me as being on the pricey side but it included a journey of an hour each way and a two hour docent lead tour of the grove [you're not allowed to hike on your own and the other areas of the park with old growth Alerces are closed to tourists]. There's more information about the tours on the company's website. In high season it's good to reserve in advance. I showed up and was able to walk on but even in early March the boat was nearly full. Admission to the park is an additional 30 pesos for non-resident foreigners. These prices, like all prices in Argentina, are subject to inflation.

Contrafrente

Apartment buildings have to leave a space on the inside of the block [manzana] which is called the lung [pulmon]. In real estate parlance these rear-facing apartments are referred to as contrafrente [against the front]. They tend to be a lot quieter. I love going over to friends' apartments that are contrafrente and seeing the hidden views of the city.

Donado & Holmberg

After seeing my photo of the medianera of a demolished house, a reader, Alberto, suggested I go check out a section of Villa Urquiza between the streets Donado and Holmberg. Back in the 1970s, during the dictatorship, the city government evicted the owners to clear the way for a freeway. The freeway never got built and the buildings that weren't demolished were invaded by squatting families. Fast forward 25 years and the city government is buying off and evicting the squatters. Some of the families have been there over 20 years and are receiving up to 90,000 pesos to move elsewhere [source: La Nacion and Pagina 12]. The articles mention that it's not clear yet if the land will be turned into parks or developed.

Echevarria & Donado

I like the play of colors and angles on this building--the triangle of the building jutting out over the sidewalk and the little recessed triangle below, in the center, filled with plants that compliment the green tile of the exterior.

Houses & Cars

When I'm out taking pictures of Chalet style houses and other bizarre architecture I don't usually like to get cars in the picture because the block the view. Sometimes, however, I like the cars. I feel they add a bit of 2009 into the scene. In 30 years these two photos will be a lot more interesting.

Carne Delivery

Sealed House

An abandoned and sealed up old house on the corner of Neuquen and J.F. De La Robla in Villa Santa Rita. I like the graffiti too. It's simple and direct.

Odd Houses in Tandil

Bizarre, chalet-inspired houses are all over the country, not just in Buenos Aires. Here are a few from Tandil. I like how in the two houses above their shared wall makes them appear like a single house.


I'm not sure this decorative fence is better than simple bars. It's harder to forget you're locked in. Or maybe that's the point.


The world needs more cantilevered rooms.