Latin Landscapes

A man has a painful look on his face (above), waiting for customers to buy his green, blue and red bottles, at a market in Buenos Aires. 

Just outside the market, a child accordion player (below) takes a break from busking. His hands droop with exhaustion.

On the surface, the huge city of Buenos Aires seems prosperous. Its distinctive cosmopolitanism is reflected in many European restaurants, hotels and high-end retail shops. Classy bars line back streets, attended by people wearing haute-couture fashion, including the country's famous leather products. However, all is not as it seems in Argentina.

In 1999, after years of dodging debts and hyper-inflation, the economy imploded. With debt over 50 per cent of GDP, the IMF demanded the government introduce austerity measures, leading to soaring unemployment and nationwide strikes. 

When the IMF held back support and ordered even greater budget cuts, citizens panicked and rushed the banks in November 2001 to withdraw their money. The government ordered a freeze on accounts, infuriating the people, who staged a series of riots. 

In January 2002, the government abandoned the fixed peso-US dollar parity that had been in place for 10 years. Almost immediately the peso lost nearly half its value, sending many companies broke. By 2003, unemployment was at 25 per cent and huge sections of the population of more than 40 million had been plunged into poverty. The lower peso, however, sparked a boom in exports, prompting the economic recovery. Lasting remnants of the crisis are still evident, including a large disparity between Argentina's 'haves' and 'have nots'.

A peak hour train streaks away from a suburban Santiago station (above) surrounded by huge art murals. Food vendors (below) congregate at a produce market in Santiago. These fishmongers are sharing a joke with their colleagues next door.

Chile is a second world country that relies heavily on copper production. Chile produces 24 per cent of the world's copper and has an estimated 28 per cent of its reserves. Like Australia, world demand for raw materials, especially from China, strongly effects the domestic economy.

From 1955, Chile began a process of nationalisation of copper mines and reserves. In 1971 all copper production was handed to the state-run Codelco company, which today accounts for 11 per cent of the world's supply.

Realising that the resource was non-renewable - and supply would last less than a century - the Chilean government established a sovereign fund in 1985, relaunched in 2006, to pay for pensions and to transfer wealth through generations. The fund has invested in low risk assets. Australia could learn from Chile's example.

In 2003 the Chilean Congress named the port city of Valparaiso 'Chile's Cultural Capital'. Home to about 300,000 people, situated about 120 kilometres north-west of Santiago, Valparaiso's heyday was before the Panama Canal opened in 1914, as crews sailing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would stop in before or after crossing the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. The city's demise was replaced by a resurgent art movement, the evidence of which can be hiding in lane ways like this.

Valparaiso, though a port city, rises steeply from the water's edge in nearly all directions. As such, the city is built around a series of Cerros, or hills. The most well known is Cerro Concepcion (pictured below), where there are many restaurants, cafes and places to stay.

Though enchanted by Valparaiso's artistry, many visitors are repelled by its poverty.  In the above picture, two women discuss the morning's fish catch, as a calculating cat surveys the scene.

In the picture below, a dishevelled man and his friend size up a worker on his way to the office.