If Maradonas’ “Hand of God” and The Falklands (Las Malvinas) are the only things you associate with Argentina then you need to read this blog post. I BET you’ll learn something new. ¿Listo? ¡Vamos!
1. So there’s no better topic that Argentines love to talk about over and that’s: politics.
The first interesting thing that I bet you didn’t know about Argentina is that the country has actually had two female presidents. So, the first one was Isabella Perron that took over from her late husband when he died in 1974. And more recently; Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Two female presidents. Bravo, Argentina!
2. Número dos is that on the 29th of each month in Argentina we eat gnocchi.
You spell it with an Ñ instead of a “GN” as we spell it in England. It was a tradition first brought into the country by Italian immigrants and well, it stuck. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had a nicer gnocchi than I’ve had in Argentina.
3. The third thing that I bet you didn’t know about Argentina is that it’s got the highest number of plastic surgeries.
Around 30% of women in Argentina have had some form of plastic surgery.
4. The fourth thing that I bet you didn’t know about Argentina is that it’s got the highest number of psychologists per capita.
This was really evident when I lived in Mendoza, because everybody that you met, when you asked them what their profession was were, more often than not;
Psicólogas – Psychologist (feminine) or; Psicólogos – psychologist (masculine)
5. The next one, número cinco, is about the Andes Mountains.
So the Andes Mountains start in Merida in Venezuela. I lived there for a year, an absolutely beautiful country. And they end right down in the Southernmost tip of Patagonia.
And in Mendoza, where I lived, there is that same mountain range and of course; Mount Aconcagua; the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere. In fact it’s the highest mountain in the Americas. It’s 6,962 metres tall, which is pretty big.
6. Most people think that Polo, or football, is the national sport of Argentina, but neither of them are.
It is in fact a sport called Pato. Pato means duck. And it’s a bit of a mixture between Polo and basketball. It was the Gauchos that first started playing Pato, you ride on your horse and it has a similar kind of element to Apollo. You kind of knock the ball and the first one to reach their Estancia was the winner.
7. Argentina has three unique weather phenomena.
So the first one is called El Zonda. Which is like this really hot, strong wind that’s kind of like as if you’re being blown out by a hairdryer. It comes over the Andes mountains and hits onto the plains of Mendoza. And when it hits it lifts up all of the dust and the sand because, of course, Mendoza used to be a desert. And so people have to close the windows and close the shutters. It’s like a proper full-on sandstorm.
The other thing that happens there is: Granizo – hailstones. They are bigger than golf balls and they do loads of damage. They can damage your car, if you’re out in your car and they can damage the crops as well that are grown out in the fields.
So, in Mendoza, where I lived, it’s a wine region so hectares and hectares and hectares of grapes growing and being grown for really Fine Wines. And these huge granizos that would fall, they would completely destroy crops. So measures were put in place for planes to go up and disperse the hail clouds, so that they didn’t cause as much damage. And also on the border, with emisiones which mean;
Emisiones – Emissions
In the North East of Argentina on the border with Brazil, they have the Swarms of locusts as well. So really extreme weather situations are going on in Argentina which is quite incredible. It’s a massive country so in the very North, on the border with Bolivia. You’ve got Salta and Cachi and all those places Cafayate, really warm. Then it goes all the way down right the way down practically to Antarctica in Patagonia where it’s absolutely freezing. South of the equator is in the southern hemisphere, but it does have a lot of different temperatures and, of course, the different seasons, which are beautiful.
9. Another interesting fact that I bet you didn’t know is that there is a Welsh Colony in Argentina.
In Chubut, Patagonia – by the way Patagonia is part of Argentina, it’s not a separate country. In the west of Patagonia is a place called Puerto Madryn in the province of Chubut and that’s where there’s a Welsh Colony called Y Wladfa. There is a community of Welsh people. They emigrated, they left North Wales in the late 1800s, by boat, went and set up a Welsh colony in Argentina in Patagonia and they’re still there today and if you visit it you have like you know there’s like Welsh cake and the people dressed in the traditional Welsh costume. They speak Welsh and of course they speak in Español as well – it’s quite incredible.
10. Yerba mate is classed as the traditional drink of Argentina.
It comes in a gourd. You have a loose leaf tea that goes inside it which is called Le Yerba and you drink it through a metal straw called a bombilla. you can have it: Dulce – sweet or, Amargo – not sweet. You won’t meet an Argentine that hasn’t got a mate at least within arm distance.
I made a short video all about Mate, watch it on my YouTube channel here…
11. La carne
If you’re vegan or vegetarian and you’re reading this blogpost you might want to skip this bit because Argentina is known as; El Rey – the king of the carne – meat.
The meat in Argentina is incredible, probably because of all of that land there it’s so fertile that the meat is really, really delicious and of course, one of the most traditional or most common meals in Argentina is El Asado, which is lots of different cuts of meat barbecued with wood. So you let the wood burn and use the Embers to slowly cook the meat outside. In Argentina by law you are not allowed to call your child messy.
12. An Argentine Cowboy is known as a gaucho.
One of the very first jobs I had in Argentina was working as a translator on multi-day horseback rides across the Andes. And I would go with the translator, with a group of tourists the guide and the Gauchos and I would listen to the stories of- Folkloricos – the folklore -stories that the Gauchos would tell us around the campfire in the evening and it was really a wonderful tradition to have been a part of.
13. Argentine tango.
Tango was born in Argentina, in fact it was born in Buenos Aires.
14. Dinosaurs
And of course I couldn’t do this blogpost on “15 things I bet you didn’t know about Argentina” without of course mentioning the discovery of the largest dinosaur remains in history. It was of course found in Patagonia in Argentina. The remains of the Patagonia Mayorum were discovered in 2008, and since then they’ve found more remains in a new ken which is also in Patagonia.
There you have it, 15 (ish) things I bet you didn’t know about Argentina. And if you prefer video…check out my YouTube video below.
Want to learn more about South American Spanish? Read this blog post: South American Spanish V’s European Spanish – what’s the difference anyway?