día 14

Bob wanted me to look at real estate and a car while I was here.....

I forgot to tell you that the excitement the other morning was a bit of an earthquake. I knew something had woken me up at about 6:30 one morning but I didn´t know what. When I got up Mabel told me what had happened. This area is extremely earthquake prone. The town itself is mostly made up of very new buildings because this place had been levelled in 1944 and 1977 by huge earthquakes. So the building codes for new structures are strict and it´s very difficult to find a building older than 30 years. There is also a lot of building right now because the economy seems to be recovering from the craziness of 2003 (?) -I can´t remember exactly when that was, but just a few years ago. The inflation is still here but those with money are the ones benefiting from the economy bottoming out. The unemployment is huge, and the people in this province have the worst credit rating of any area in the country. Hence, you see a lot of old cars and building-demolition projects that are completely at a standstill. Anytime a factory opens that is going to provide 50 jobs, it makes the paper. But it´s an easy place to live and visit because the dollar goes far, and if you were comfortable investing in a place that is far from home, this would be it. The winery and olive oil production is booming and seems to only be getting better as the reputation of Argentine wines improve around the world. I am still trying to figure out if I can bring some olive oil back with me. If they sell it in a can, I´m going to get some. It is like liquid gold.