Flooding in Buenos Aires

Record rainfall this year in Buenos Aires (most in one month since records began, 149 years ago) combined with an ever growing concreted area and sewage/drainage system that belongs to the Victorian era have made parts of Argentina's capital a very large outdoor swimming pool in the last week.

This Youtube is a great (and spectacular) visual of the weather there. This isn't in some outlying 'burb, either. It's the level crossing at Palermo, one of BsAs swankier hoods in the centre of town.

Impressive stuff.

Peru, flooding and tourism

You read about it first on IKN in this post last week, "Peru's tourist industry facing crisis."

Now you read about it in The Economist. (although their piece does say very silly things like "Lake Titicaca is close to overflowing", proving that the author has no idea about the area....go to Desaguadero, dumbass....or at least work out what the word means, mono-linguist).

Just sayin'.

Peru's tourism industry facing crisis

I picked a hi-resolution photo, so if you were planning to go this year you
can now click on the above, download and tell your
friends how great is was without leaving the beach.

After the rains comes the perfect storm. The flooding and chewing-to-bits of the rail connection to Machu Picchu has isolated Peru's jewel in the tourist track crown and according to latest reports the citadel will be inaccessible for the next seven to eight weeks. However, the new accesses that will open are footpath only, because they're now talking about five months to get the rail line back up and running.

This is not just a problem for Cusco. The two days (or so) that tourists spend at Machu Picchu form part of a whole circuit that runs typically for two weeks and shuffles coachloads of gringos from Lima-to-Paracas-to-Arequipa-to-Lake-Titicaca-to-Cusco and then flies them back to Lima. So with the main event now cancelled, tourists are turning their back on the whole deal because going all the way to Peru without getting to see the star attraction just doesn't appeal the same way. The result? In the last few days, foreign tour operators have cancelled no less than 50% of all their tour packages, leaving hotels all along the circuit facing empty rooms and tour guides with nobody to tour.

A quick ciggypack calc done yesterday by your humble scribe and a couple of pals who do numbers better than himself put the loss at about 0.5% of projected country GDP. This isn't a disaster in itself, but that money isn't part of the big purse run by the government; it's cash that goes directly to the populations of some of the poorest parts of the country and supports a whole range of service and ancilliary industries (the families that rely on market stalls selling trinkets to people wearing backpacks are in for the tough time, for example). All this on top of flooding that has cost the subsistence farmers of the high plains to the tune of eight million soles and wiped out crops for around 20,000 farmers, according to the Agro ministry.

Moral of this story: Don't build your railtrack next to a river in the high Andes.

More on the Cusco floods

Reader 'Roy' has just left a comment on this previous post about the flooding in the Cusco/highlands region of Peru and I think it's worth sharing with the larger audience. It's written in caps (hey...i didn't write it) but it's definitely worth your time. The last line is exactly right, Roy. Thanks for taking the time out.

IT IS TRAGIC WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE SACRED VALLEY NEAR CUSCO. TODAY01-30-2010 THERE ARE ABOUT 5000 DISPLACED POOR FARMERS, WHO HAVE LOST EVERYTHING, TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING TO EAT, JUST IN THE SMALL TOWN OF URUBUMBA. ALL OF THEIR HOMES ARE FLOODED ON LOWER LAND. OTHER SMALL TOWNS IN THE VALLEY ABOVE THE HIGH WATER LINE HAS THE SAME PROBLEM.

THE RESIDENTS OF THIS TOWN ARE TRYING TO FEED THEM, BUT THEY DO NOT HAVE MUCH THEMSELVES. THE WHOLE VALLEY JUST HAD ANOTHER PROBLEM THE PAST FEW WEEKS. THEY HAVE HAD TO SELL THEIR CORN CROP AT A LOSS. LAST YEAR A PIECE OF FARM LAND THAT MADE 10,000 SOL, ONLY MADE 2000 SOL IF THEY WERE LUCKY. THE PRICE OF CORN HAS COLLAPSED. MANY FARMERS DIDNT GET BACK THE COST OF PUTTING THE CROPS INTO THE GROUND. I KNOW MANY WHO BORROWED THE MONEY TO PLANT THEIR CORN CROPS. NOW THEY CAN NOT REPAY THE LOANS.

NOW THE REST OF THE FOLKS THERE WHO WORK IN THE TOURIST INDUSTRY HAVE LOST THEIR JOBS, OR SOON WILL. A LOT OF PARENTS WILL HAVE MUCH DIFFICULTY IN FINDING A FEW SOL TO SEND THEIR CHILDREN BACK TO SCHOOL IN MARCH. THE LOCAL PEOPLE DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO HELP EACH OTHER, FOR NO ONE ELSE WILL. MANY OF THOSE CUTE KIDS IN THE TOURISTS PHOTOS ARE SLEEPING TONIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN WITH EMPTY STOMACHS.

BUT NOT TO WORRY, THE TOURISTS HAVE BEEN QUICKLY AIRLIFTED OUT OF THIS DISTURBING SIGHT, AND LIMA IS SO FAR AWAY.

Going to Peru to do Machu Picchu soon?

Then make it via the Inca Trail, cos the train is out of action for two months, according to El Comercio today. Above photo from here

It must have been tough for the cossetted gringo tourists to have had to experience what Peru minus comfy transport, plentiful food and warm beds is really like...FOR TWO WHOLE DAYS, TOO! Poor souls. Mind you, the other side of Peru was in evidence too, as two Chilean tourists stuck there told how they paid a U$300 bribe to their travel agency to get them out on one of the helicopter rescue flights before the supposed first flyers of elderly and sick. Viva investment grade, baby....