Day one in Buenos Aires

The burglar whom Bonnie thwarted matches the description of the North Boulder burglar published in the newspapers -- 5´9", black hair. Hopefully, he won´t want to tangle with Miss B a second time!

Here in Buenos Aires, Fall is in the air. The evenings are breezy and cool, and the leaves on the tree-line streets are just starting to turn.

The city had a really hot, humid summer, followed by heavy rains just before we arrived, so everyone seems in a up mood with the advent of pleasant weather. We have not had much time to walk around, having arrived late last night, but this does seem to be a beautiful city, in a faded glory kind of way. The beautiful 1920´s buildings from the city´s economic peak are well maintained. That´s a big difference from Havana, where the 1930´s buildings from their golden era have become dangerous slums under Castro.

Yesterday, we went to Mendoza´s natural history museum, which is housed in a 1920´s art-deco building that is was made to evoke a ocean cruiser. Unfortunately, that building was poorly maintained, with broken windows, dilapidation, etc. The exhibits were pretty cool, despite petty swipes at the U.S., such as referring to us as "the United States of Northamerica" and displaying a map titled "America" which pretented that no land exists north of Mexico and Cuba.

It´s interesting that the two most hostile places that we have been to -- Otavallo, Ecuador, and Mendoza, Argentina -- are the two places that are relatively prosperous on account of exports to the U.S. -- Indian crafts from Ecuador and wine from Argentina.