Colon 2  Argentinos Juniors 0

With this defeat, Argentinos Juniors can say goodbye to any lingering hopes they had of challenging for the title. But it was a sad way to go. A dodgy penalty in the second minute put the visitors on the back foot. An even dodgier one in the second half punched the final nail in the coffin. To rub salt into gangrenous wounds, Argentinos also had two goals disallowed. Then a long journey back to Buenos Aires during which to mull over their poor
fortune.

Colon is a town way up in the north-east of Argentina…a nondescript sort of place which you´d probably never visit unless you had family or friends there — and then, not often.

Four Legs Good

That´s why I found myself in another of Argentina´s nondescript towns, visiting family, which I don´t do often. In this case the in-laws in Chacabuco, deep in that huge, flat, fertile plain in the middle of the country known as the Pampas. The in-laws live on the edge of this nondescript town in the middle of a huge, flat, featureless, fertile plain which lends itself to ample alliteration and many cows. The alliteration is infinite but there are not as many cows as there used to be, the reasons for which I shall explain later.

I´m not sure if you´ve ever attempted to describe a nondescript town but I shall dig deep and give it a try.  Chacabuco lies about four hours west of Buenos Aires, as the bus drives. When I say the Pampas are flat, I mean really flat. In the words of that old Who song, you can see for miles and miles and miles. You might see a water tank in the distance and think you´re nearly there. But you´re not. And when you do finally reach your destination, you wonder why you bothered.

We passed through several other towns which looked pretty much the same — Chivilcoy, San Andres, Lujan. I imagine that you could easily get off the bus in the wrong town and not realise your mistake for several hours — or years!! Residents pass their days scratching their bellies and drinking mate, a bitter tea imbibed through a metal straw.

Chacabuco, like all the other towns in the region, has a main plaza that you won´t be surprised to learn is in the middle of the town. In the middle of that, you can bet the price of a Chelsea season ticket, that you´ll find a statue of San Martin, Argentina´s liberator from Spanish colonial rule. Sometimes he´ll be on a horse, sometimes not. So I´m exagerating a little here, there is some variety. Then you´ll find a plaza in each corner of the town. So that´s five plazas in all. If you run out of things to do, you can walk from one to another — and then back again!

There are people who enjoy and thrive in flat places, like Kansas or Saskatchewan or Cambridgeshire but I´m not one of them. I need a hill or two, or a coastline. Does living in a place like Chacabuco make you flat and dull, or do towns like this attract flat and dull people? This is small town with a capital S and a capital T. The residents are often suspicious of all outsiders – whether they´re from Buenos Aires or Basingstoke, so they treat me with no more or less disdain than any other visitor.

I fear I´m being a little harsh. Chacabuco is peaceful, relatively prosperous and a lovely place to bring up children. I also saw a hummingbird, which left me very excited. And that  you don´t do in Basingstoke! Also, I have discovered three interesting things about Chacabuco. It´s the hometown of Argentina´s 1978 World Cup winning captain, Daniel Passarella. It produces oats, cows and soya. And it´s got five plazas. Or did I already mention that?

When I first visited Chacabuco some years ago, it had just two restaurants, both pizzerias. One was closed at lunchtime, the other in the evening. But now the town is buzzing, literally. A by-product of its recent genetically-modified soyabean prosperity is that the whole population now travels by moped — flat out on the paved roads, recklessly on the dirt tracks and often with girlfriend, two small children and pet dog riding pillion.

Soya...Mmmm!!?

Monsanto and its GM soya have transformed the Argentine countryside. Cows are not exactly an endangered species. But more and more of them are being herded off the lush green pastures and are now reared in the months before slaughter in tight enclosures on high protein food in a system known as feedlot. It´s nutritious and tasty, at least that´s what its supporters
will tell you, but it´s not grass.

Soya is also nutritious and tasty, at least that´s what its supporters will tell you. But most Argentines would rather nibble Sir Alex´s discarded chewing gum than put soya on their plate.

Most of it goes to Europe and China to feed cattle. There´s surely some irony there but I find that after a few hours in this place – the flatness, the wind and the smell of cow excrement mixed with the chemicals – and I can´t think straight.

What is beyond question is that there´s more and more soya and less and cows, simply because GM soya is easier to grow and much, much more lucrative. You almost never have to call out the vet to deal with tricky illnesses. There are stories here that some producers will buy themselves a new house on the profits of each harvest. And some have traded their mopeds for fancy four x fours. There are more than two restaurants in town now, a wine shop and stores selling designer clothes.

But what of the gauchos, those hardy Argentine cowboys who tamed the savage pampas? With fewer cattle to herd they are becoming little more than showmen who entertain tourists. Or they sit around drinking mate, scratching their bellies and telling tales of the old days.

I also scratched my belly as I watched this game live on television, with the windows open and the crickets making a hell of a racket outside. This was a reasonable performance by Argentinos Juniors against one of the title contenders. But the result, thanks to poor refereeing, left me disappointed and disillusioned.

I think I´ll drown my sorrows with a cocktail made from fermented GM soya tipped over a glass of crushed ice with a cherry on top. It´s the future and it smells foul!