Mendoza Zoo

Next we went to explore the zoo. I did a seminar once dealing with zoos and their importance, you know, species conservation and and .... yadda yadda blah blah. Nothing in my opinion justifies keeping animals in constraint and stimuli impoverished conditions. Most of them are going nuts over beeing imprisoned in much to small and bland pens. Have a look at this webpage:
 http://www.captiveanimals.org/zoos/zse1.htm.

Anyway on rare occasions, especially in other countries, I like to see whether conditions are better or worse than in most German zoos.

So here we were, at the zoo in Mendoza (http://www.zoo.mendoza.gov.ar/).

At least they had a decent map to find the animals ... NOT:

But we still found some of them. Here is a hungry meerkat:

A shaved camel, it is still cute, isn't it:

With age come saggy bumps (don't worry dear camel, happens to everybody):

The word 'environmental enrichment' for zoo animals never reached Mendoza. Poor ice bear :(

An Indian elephant gone crazy and constantly bumping his head in the wall, yeah, I'm completely sympathizing, a so very social animal like an elephant and all alone and look at the 'enriched' environment, plenty to do ... NOT

A special for J. The hippos looked at least quite content in their water basin:

Can you guess what this is?

Correct, an armadillo lying on it's back and napping until his partner came:

A peacock tried in vain to impress a female:

And of course the promised live nandu:

And do you remember the engraved nandu feet in Tunduqueral?

Tomorrwo we will have exciting archaeology at a museum in Cuyo just outside of Mendoza and first shots from Buenos Aires. And on that bombshell I'll go to bed and leave you alone with your thoughts about the dignity of animals and zoos. See you tomorrow!

Museum of Natural History and Anthropology Juan Cornelio Moyano

The Moyano Museum is one of the oldest museums in the interior of Argentina. The building from 1930s  itself is impressing, you saw it on yesterday' post. But the interior is much more fun. For just 5 pesos (not even one Euro) you can wander through the zoological, geological, paleontological, and anthropological section. We saw a stuffed Darwin Rhea (Pterocnemia pennata, a kind of nandu):

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin-Nandu


The dinosaurs were fun, the presentation really well done (see for example the 1996 in Malargüe discovered Aerosteon):



http://www.diariouno.com.ar/galeriaFotosNota.html?url=/contenidos/2009/03/27/noticia_0009.html

but the anthropological section was more fun :) ... of course it was, at least for me. Unfortunately C had already left for Malargüe taken our cam with him. So all I can show you are som hideous photos made with M's mobile cam (which is even worse than my mobile), but anyway, you'll have to endure.

Here is a steatite pan-shaped vessel for offerings from the early Ceramic Period (ca. 500 BC to AD 600) with steatite from Santa Maria del Oro, Rivadavia, Mendoza:

The pottery of the Agrelo culture was also very interesting (you wouldn't believe eh? Just old pots). The typesite 'Agrelo' is just south of Mendoza around which the Agrelo culture flourished from AD 1 - 1000. Look for the incised lines, they are a characteristic. Sometimes just the neck is incised, but sometimes the whole vessel is incised in geometrical designs:



But the best part was the Aconcagua mummy. Not that it was on show, the mummy and the offerings like silver statues of llamas and a gilded female statue are with the university. But there were replicas and some less valuable items and of course photos. It is indeed a quite interesting story; in 1985 the mummy of a 7-year-old boy was found in the Andes at 6300 m asl at a mountain top called Aconcagua, I should have said THE mountain top, because it is the highest in Argentina. From the clothes and offering goods, it is certain that he must have lived during the Inca period, a radiocarbon date confirmed this to the late Inca period. The vomit of the poor boy was stained red by achiote leaves which were found in his stomach and which are supposed to have a hallucinogenous effect (I for some time wanted to try achiote seeds in a couple of recipes, one reason more to do so, I suspect *hehe*) and his body bound so tight that his ribs broke.

A.C. Aufderheide, The scientific study of mummies 2003, fig. 4.48



Isotope studies showed that he ate the last 1 ½ years mainly terrestial food like maize, quinoa, beans and vegetables, but before this time there was a significant input of marine food. So he probably wasn't a native to the Andean area (Fernández et al 1999). But strontium or oxygen analysis are still to be done for a more certain statement. That's all for today, tomorrow I will take you to the area of Uspallata with wild rivers, mountains, cats and nandu feet. See you then.

Holiday trip to Argentina - 1. Stop Mendoza

Mendoza....fourth largest city of Argentina. But wait, didn't I tell everybody I would be in Muscat for Christmas? Most of you probably thought that I had spent my holidays in Oman, riding camels. But no, shortly before we made our booking final C got the chance to spend a couple of weeks in Malargüe at the Pierre Auger Observatory for cosmic rays (http://www.auger.org/). So off we went to Argentina to spend at least Christmas together. We stayed a couple of days in Mendoza before C left for Malargüe.

This is a view of Mendoza from our hotel window; quite nice with the Andes in the background, isn't it?

 

Mendoza is, despite the arid environment, astonishingly green. A clever artificial irrigation system with canals traversing the city makes it possible to sustain a lot of parks and shrubbery for the city dwellers.

 

Around the central Plaza Independencia, which are  brimming with life at nightime (street vendors, street shows, restaurants all around it) are four corner parks which are a bit more modest. One is the beautiful Plaza España with it's typical Andalusian colourful tilework:

Music and Art obviously are playing a major role in Argentinian life. You can find art on the streets (here in front of our hotel)

 

and inside the hotel:

This piece of art reminds you quite distinctly that Mendoza is first and foremost a wine cultivation area. There is probably the very popular Malbec wine in this barrel and someone had mercy and shot it. You can tell, I am no fan of Malbec wine. Even the French, and Malbec originated in the Bordeaux area, used Malbec only for blending ... or vinegar ....or probably tourists.

But back to the parks of Mendoza. The largest one is the Parque San Martin with a large artificial lake in the middle. With the views of the mountains it is quite beautiful, don't you think?

You can walk along the alleys and marvel at the tree art, an art form which is sadly a missing element in archaeology :(

and just for the fun of it, a close-up:

M was happy because there are a lot of really old wrecks cars in Mendoza.

That little doggy was happy because we gave him some water on this hot and sweltering day:

At the corner of the Parque San Martin is the Museum of Natural History and Anthropology Juan Cornelio Moyano (what a terribly long name). It was built in the 1930s and is featuring a distinct yacht style (not 'yatch', as a one could read on a spanglish website).

More about it's innards tomorrow. So prepare for a tiny bit of archaeology. But it won't be a lot since I have produced an off-shoot, a blog-baby, where I can wholeheartedly blog about archaeology (unfortunately it is in German because there are already a mass of good archaeology blogs in English but not that many in German) http://torwen.wordpress.com/. It is still in it's infant shoes but we will see....