Dear Andres and shellers,

The Mar del Plata can be muddy, right?

I was in Argentina for a paleontologic meeting in April, visiting the coast
of Patagonia at Comodoro Rivadavia (Chubut province) and southward in Santa
Cruz province. I was informed that no shells or fossils could be collected
in these provinces without a permit, so I took photographs instead, and that
was enough. I was amused that the field trip vehicles, while driving on the
beach, destroyed thousands of common shells that nevertheless must not be
collected -- but the law is a good one.

Each province has its own legal statutes. To my surprise, police check
vehicles crossing the provincial borders, at least, on the coastal highway
between Chubut and Santa Cruz. Our hosts were equally surprised to learn
that the U.S. has no such checkpoints between states, with the exception of
a few agricultural checkpoints that prevent the spread of pests like the
Mediterranean fruitfly. Travel broadens the mind.

The scenery is superb. Patagonia has an excellent coastal highway with ample
access to beaches, none of which had so much as a footprint before we
visited them. We saw cliffs of yellowish sandstone like those of southern
California, but without the population. Patagonia has very few people; it is
rather dry. In the areas we visited, the vegetation consists mainly of
shrubs and cushion-shaped plants along with tufts of grass. The entire
landscape is scattered with rounded pebbles of igneous rock from the Andes,
and the wind can be fierce. Clouds are morphed by this wind into shapes I've
never seen before. After several days there, I realized that this was not
the only reason that the sky and land looked strange to me, and yet
familiar, like Wyoming. The air was clean and there were no contrails, not
one in a week of field trips. In contrast, at least one freighter was always
visible offshore, traveling the road to the Straits of Magellan.

The constantly shifting clouds had their own appeal, and were a challenge to
the photographer. Because of them, the light shifted constantly as well, so
the colors of the dry vegetation, already interesting, changed with them and
often seemed to glow. I was by no means the only person on the field trip to
remark on this.

Much of this landscape is given over to livestock, especially sheep.
However, the parts that we visited are protected, so we had the treat of
seeing gray foxes, guanacos, and rheas.

The food was hearty and plentiful; for example, the "miga completa" is a
sandwich in which a grass-fed steak is covered by ham and then a fried egg.
The water is safe. Argentina bottles some fine red wine, such as the Malbec
varietal, which goes well with beef. Our hosts in Trelew were wonderfully
accommodating. And Buenos Aires is an amazing city... Its character is
European, but with 15 million people it is practically a country itself.

The population is currently unhappy about the economic situation, because
the peso recently lost 2/3 of its value by comparison with the dollar, with
a devastating effect on people's bank accounts. People seem to be pulling
through the hard times with dignity and a rather ironic grace.

I heartily recommend visiting Argentina, but not necessarily for the shells.
Or at least, we need some guidelines to the rules...

Cheers,
Andy

Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama

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