After Mendoza we headed north to the San Juan province. After arriving at the bus station in San Juan capital and surveying our options, we decided to head to Barreal in the southwestern corner of the province. The town of Barreal is a green oasis in the midst of rocky, mountainous desert. The town is dotted with small orchards and alfalfa fields, however oddly enough there is no vegetation on the banks of the river Pato nearby. It gives the impression that the land would be inhospitable even with the presence of water.
A half hours drive south of town there is a big dried mudflat, similar to the blackrock desert, called the pampas of El Leoncito. El Leoncito is the name of the nature reserve. On the pampas we tried out auto-velismo, which is basically a motorless go-cart with a sail attached. The wind that day was pretty light, but there were a few good gusts to give us a taste of what riding in a wind-powered car is like.
After enjoying the pampas for a few hours we packed up the wind-car and drove up into the mountains to one of the two observatories in Parque El Leoncito. The observatory that we toured specializes in asteroids. Apparently there is a doozy headed on a collision course with Earth some 900 years from now. Although we didn't get to look through the giant telescope, we did get to look through a very powerful portable telescope. One of the docents set up the telescope and showed us around 14 stellar objects. One of the reasons why the observatory was built in this far corner of argentina is that it averages around 320 clear nights per year. The night we were there was one of those clear nights, and moonless to boot. So many stars were visible that I couldn't distinguish the milky way.
Here are our pictures!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Natural History Museum of La Plata
That said, this museum in Pedro´s hometown is AWESOME. It is the largest natural history museum in Latin America (at least it was circa 2007 when my guidebook was written) and has a very old-fashioned, 19th century feel. The building itself is beautiful and houses hall after hall of any kind of bones you could possibly want to see. Dinosaurs? Check. Giant armadillo-type creatures from the ice ages? Check. Umpteen whale skeletons hanging above elephants, horses and giraffes? Check. There are cool displays of various bugs and butterflies, as well as a room that houses a collection of stuffed animals that would make darwin weep, all realistically displayed, for example the case containing a condor devouring a small goat on a rock which I assumed represented a mountain top.
click here for more pictures
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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