Cat Update -- Cat in a Tree!

I've taken to going over to the Jardines Botanicos, the botanical gardens nearby, to enjoy the natural beauty, and more importantly to hang around with the cats. Yesterday I was over there, crouched over petting a cat by the fence, when a guy on the other side of the fence spots me as a manly cat lover, and tells me that there's a cat stuck in a tree down a little ways. So I put on my cat-rescuing hero cap and went to investigate.

And sure enough, there she was, a cat in a tree:


As might be expected, Kitty was none too happy about her predicament, and she was being pretty vocal. Unfortunately, kitty was pretty far up in the tree, maybe 12-15 feet? But, the tree was quite close to the fence, which is pretty tall but has a rail running across the top:

You can't really see her in the picture, but kitty's in the Y in this tree. You can tell how high the fence is from the pic, though -- it wasn't something you could just climb up on. So I dragged over a garbage can and hoisted myself up, standing on the little rail at the top of the fence, leaning against the tree.

I could just reach up with 1 arm to the kitty. Kitty's kind of freaked out, but glad to see me. I ended up petting the cat for a long time, trying to get her to calm down, to earn her trust. I'm not sure how I can get her down to the ground -- it will be hard enough just to get myself down from atop this fence, let alone get down with a freaked out cat. But I'm thinking that if I get the cat, some passer-by with some courage will take the cat from me.

So I try to get the cat with the 1 arm, but, alas, Kitty is having none of it. I tried to grab her under the belly and lift, but she dug her claws into the tree like her life depended on it. Passers-by were stopping occasionally to look at the spectacle, and to give me advice in spanish that for the most part I couldn't understand.

I stood on the fence about 8 or 10 minutes, a long time to be perched up 7 or 8 feet off the ground on a teeny railing. I could have used force and just ripped the cat from the tree, but lord knows what the cat would have done to me, and for sure having a snarling scratching cat in my hand would dramatically increase my chances of falling off of my precarious perch.

So, heroism was not to be. Kitty, I tried, but you're on your own. Before I lowered myself down, which wasn't so easy, I took one picture of the kitty from up on the fence. Here she is, looking at me, thinking, oh hell, where are you going?

I left the garbage can next to the tree, hoping that would catch the attention of people who worked in the park and they'd notice the cat.

Later in the day I did worry about the cat. And today, I went back to the park to see if she was still there, or if I could find her. And, good news, I did find her, out of the tree, hanging around on the lawn. She did look a little scared, but I hung around and pet her for a long time. It was sweet.

Parque Centenario

I love big city parks. I don't think you can have a great big city without good parks, or at least adequate parks. What makes a city great is public spaces, places where you go to be with your fellow man. For me, this is where civility is born, in public spaces.

A few days ago I went to Parque Centenario, one of the more attractive public spaces I've been to in Buenos Aires:

It's a nice park, I think it's been refurbished relatively recently. There's a pond in the middle that people stroll around, and there's even duck-feeding to be done:


And there are some fine lawns and trees and benches, which is pretty much the prescription for an urban park. These pictures were taken on december 31 -- it was a nice warm day, and there were lots of people in the park hanging around.

Parque Centenario is interesting because it's very round, with the lake more or less in the center. And there aren't any good landmarks among the surrounding buildings, so it's quite easy to get directionally disoriented. And the roundness really doesn't help when you're trying to navigate the surrounding streets on a bicycle. The roads go off at all sorts of angles, so it's hard to keep your bearings. I've gotten slightly turned around near here several times.

Just for fun, here's a snap from Google Earth of Parque Centenario. You can see the patchwork of streets running off in all directions. No grid here, that's for sure, something I'll address in a later post on cycling in BA.

Google Earth is so fun -- I'm always trying (and mostly failing) to navigate my cycling trips using Google Earth. I'll write more about this in a later post.

Cats in the Park!

Okay, cuteness alert here! There's practically no reason for this post except to show cute pictures of cats in a public park near my apartment. Except that I guess it is interesting that they have cats living in some of the parks here. Or at least in two of them.

This is the second park I've seen with a group of cats comfortably lounging around and apparently being fed. Earlier I posted one picture of the cats in Parque Chacabuco. But the Jardines Botanicos, the Botanical Gardens, right by my house has a much bigger group of cats. Here's a group of five cats all doing what cats do best -- lying around sleeping:


The cats in this park are almost an attraction. People seem to come by the park to look at the cats, and sometimes to feed them. There's a fence that runs along the sidewalk next to the park, and on any given weekend day, and sometimes weekday, you'll see one or a few people stooping down at the fence trying to pet the cats or feeding them. Here's one wondering if I've got any food for him:

As I said in my earlier post on Parque Chacabuco, there's something just charming about having these gorgeous little creatures lounging around in public parks. Certainly one aspect of that charm is that these cats are obviously fed -- they're not eating birds and mice. You sometimes see little trays of cat food left by the fence, and I think also that the people running this park may feed them in a more official capacity.

This park is just a sidewalk away from a big street, Santa Fe. Sometimes the cats go through the fence and hang out on the sidewalk, or, in this cat's case, on the benches:



And sometimes a cat is just plain cute. Click on this one to see the big picture, and look at how much this cat appears to be looking forward to a nice scratch. I did say cuteness alert, right?

Face it, nothing is cooler than containerized shipping!

Ok, you will have to indulge me this post. I know that not everyone loves containerized shipping. But I sure do! Always have.

One of life's genuine pleasures is realizing your irrational and pointless interests and just indulging them. Some people just like stamps, so they collect stamps. Trainspotters, they love trains I guess. Maybe butterflies, ribbons, funny hats, colored socks, maps, fancy imported chocolate. Whatever floats your boat, as long as you're reasonable about it.

So I love containerized shipping. Okay, actually not all that much. Not as much as a stamp collector loves stamps or a butterfly collector loves butterflies. But I do love going by a big port and looking at the ships and cranes, and yes, containers. And of course this is in the Buenos Aires blog because today I went by the port here.

As you might expect, this is a major port. Probably nearly all imports to this country come through this port. This is it -- no other ports of any size. I rode my bike down there today and took some pictures.

Here is one of the main gates -- there are several. This one is nice because you can see the gate, a bunch of containers lying around, and also a big passenger ship. (Of course with all these pictures, if you want to really get a sense of the port, you'll have to click on the picture to see the larger image)

Here's another shot near the main terminal. Here you can also see a train with containers loaded onto it. Multi-modal, that's the glory of containerized shipping!

I first got interested in containerized shipping in business school. I had studied economics, and I was learning about business and costs and efficiencies, and I read somewhere about containerized shipping and how it had revolutionized the industry. Then I thought about it, comparing it with the old system. With containers, you just take them off a train or truck, hoist them up with a crane and put them on a boat. On the other side of the world, another crane hoists the container onto a truck or train, and two days later it backs up into the loading dock of your local Walgreens.

Compare this to the old days, where everything was basically unloaded by hand (okay, they still had cranes, but everything was on pallets or whatever). You had zillions of beefy stevedores, lifting and hauling. It might have taken a couple days to unload a ship. And then everything was put in a warehouse by the dock, and it might have sat there for weeks or days. And everything had to be organized and accounted for, and there were really big opportunities for theft and corruption and other hanky-panky.

Ha, I'd better cut short the containerized shipping lesson. But don't forget, it's "the box that changed the world". Really -- there would be no wal-mart, no cheap imported goods, no dollar stores.

OK, back to the port. One of the beautiful things about riding a bike is that you get to see things you never would otherwise. You wouldn't take a taxi to the port to look around. And everything's so spread out it would be boring to walk it. But on the bike I get to see things like these fantastic hulking buildings, which really make the place look like some kind of fortress:

The port is huge, it stretched along about two, maybe two and a half miles. Lots and lots of containers, containers stacked up everywhere, even across the street from the waterfront. Lots of cranes too. These were about a mile from what seemed to be the main terminal:


One last thing, about another half-mile down I spotted this impressive building, half-hidden by a line of containers stacked up:The small picture doesn't do it much justice -- this building is enormous, and impressive. It really looks like some kind of outpost of the spanish empire or something. Well, Argentina was settled by more italians than spaniards (roughly 45% v. 35%), so maybe this is an example of the Argentines indulging their italian heritage. The Italians, at least in Rome, seem to make even the most ordinary government buildings, the ministry of agriculture or something, into the most ornate and impressive palaces. So maybe this is an Italian-style Customs House. I'll try to look into it.