The Whispering Land is an autobiographical account of the 8 months Gerald Durrell spent travelling in Argentina during the late 1950s, [1] collecting animals for his then recently founded Jersey Zoo. [2] The book is divided into two parts. In the first, Durrell travels south from Buenos Aires to the arid scrublands of Patagonia; in the second he is based at a small town in the north western province of Jujuy.
In the first part he travels south with his wife Jacquie Durrell and two other female companions to the town of Puerto Deseado in the Santa Cruz province; from here they travel to the outskirts of a remote local ranch where they then spend time filming penguins. After this, they then move north to Peninsula Valdes where they spend several weeks filming a South American fur seal colony as well as southern elephant seals. Other animals observed on the peninsula include guanacos.
In the second part, his wife Jacquie having fallen ill and returned to England, Durrell travels alone to the tropical province of Jujuy where he stays on a ranch with a couple, making friends with other locals who help him with his collecting work. He collects animals by purchasing pets from locals in the town he is based near initially, including a red-fronted Tucuman amazon named Blanco, yellow-fronted amazon parrots, grey-necked guans an armadillo and a Geoffroy's cat kitten. Later travels to a larger nearby town yield up, amongst other things an ocelot and a yellow naped macaw. Durrell gets the chance to travel into some nearby forested mountains for three days before returning to Buenos Aires with his collection; during this period he fails to capture some vampire bats, even though he offers his own toes as bait, [3] but he succeeds in procuring a pygmy owl.
The book ends as he leaves his friends and Argentina with his collection of animals to return to the Channel Islands via ship.
Will Cohu of The Telegraph said that while The Whispering Land wasn't Durrell's "most entertaining book", it contained "the reassuring message that life was a kind of theatre that could be played for its comedy". [1] The Australia Women's Weekly praised Durrell, saying he had "the ability to deal as sympathetically and amusingly with humans as with animals". [2]
Gerald Malcolm Durrell, was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals (1956). Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series and one television film. He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell.
Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and the autonomous city of Buenos Aires, which is the federal capital of the nation as decided by the Argentine Congress. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, and exist under a federal system.
My Family and Other Animals (1956) is an autobiographical book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It tells in an exaggerated and sometimes fictionalised way of the years that he lived as a child with his siblings and widowed mother on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939. It describes the life of the Durrell family in a humorous manner, and explores the fauna of the island. It is the first and most well-known of Durrell's Corfu trilogy, which also includes Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (1969) and The Garden of the Gods (1978).
The coat of arms of the Argentine Republic or Argentine shield was established in its current form in 1944, but has its origins in the seal of the General Constituent Assembly of 1813. It is supposed that it was chosen quickly because of the existence of a decree signed on February 22 sealed with the symbol. The first mention of it in a public document dates to March 12 of that same year, in which it is stated that the seal had to be used by the executive power, that is, the second triumvirate. On April 13 the National Assembly coined the new silver and gold coins, each with the seal of the assembly on the reverse, and on April 27 the coat of arms became a national emblem. Although the coat of arms is not currently shown on flags, the Buenos Aires-born military leader Manuel Belgrano ordered to paint it over the flag he gave to the city of San Salvador de Jujuy, and during the Argentine War of Independence most flags had the coat of arms.
Argentina has a vast territory and a variety of climates and microclimates ranging from tundra and polar in the south to the tropical climate in the north, through a vast expanse of temperate climate. Natural wonders include the Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas, the widest river and estuary of the planet, the Iguazú Falls, the Humid Pampas, and the Argentine Sea. Visitors enjoy the culture, customs and Argentine cuisine.
San Salvador de Jujuy, commonly known as Jujuy and locally often referred to as San Salvador, is the capital and largest city of Jujuy Province in northwest Argentina. Also, it is the seat of the Doctor Manuel Belgrano Department. It lies near the southern end of the Humahuaca Canyon where wooded hills meet the lowlands.
The Motorcycle Diaries is a posthumously published memoir of the Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. It traces his early travels, as a 23-year-old medical student, with his friend Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Leaving Buenos Aires, Argentina, in January 1952 on the back of a sputtering single cylinder 1939 Norton 500cc dubbed La Poderosa, they desired to explore the South America they only knew from books. During the formative odyssey Guevara is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Inca civilization. By journey's end, they had travelled for a "symbolic nine months" by motorcycle, steamship, raft, horse, bus, and hitchhiking, covering more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi) across places such as the Andes, the Atacama Desert, and the Amazon River Basin.
Jacqueline Sonia Durrell was the first wife of Gerald Durrell. She assisted him on several of his animal collecting expeditions, and with Jersey Zoo that he founded.
The Jujuy Exodus was an episode of the Argentine War of Independence. It was a massive forced displacement of people from the Jujuy Province, by orders of General Manuel Belgrano, conducted by his patriot forces that were battling a Royalist army. The population was compelled to leave under the threat of execution.
National Route 9 is a major road in Argentina, which runs from the center-east to the northwest of the country, crossing the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Salta and Jujuy. It starts on Avenida General Paz, which marks the border between the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the surrounding province of the same name, and ends at the Horacio Guzmán International Bridge, on the La Quiaca River, traversing 1,967 km (1,222 mi). The road is a limited access motorway from Buenos Aires to Rosario.
The Buenos Aires Eco Park is a 45-acre (18 ha) park in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The former zoo, opened in 1888, contained 89 species of mammals, 49 species of reptiles and 175 species of birds, with a total of over 2,500 animals. The institution's goals are to conserve species, produce research and to educate the public. In June 2016 the city formed a bias about the zoo's cruelty. They had to close the 140-year-old zoo and relocate most of the animals to nature reserves, including Temaikèn. The zoo property will be converted into an ecopark.
Martín Miguel de Güemes was a military leader and popular caudillo who defended northwestern Argentina from the Spanish royalist army during the Argentine War of Independence.
Partido de la Costa is a partido on the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province in Argentina.
The Battle of Pavón, a key battle of the Argentine Civil Wars, was fought in Pavón, Santa Fé Province, Argentina on 17 September 1861 between the Army of the State of Buenos Aires, commanded by Bartolomé Mitre, and the Army of Republic of the Argentine Confederation, commanded by Justo José de Urquiza. The withdrawal of Urquiza left the field to Mitre.
Soto Grimshaw (1833–1900) was an Argentine naturalist, explorer and gaucho.
The Overloaded Ark, first published in 1953, is the debut book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It is the chronicle of a six-month collecting trip, from December 1947 to August 1948, to the West African colony of British Cameroon – now Cameroon – that Durrell made with aviculturist and ornithologist John Yealland.
Francisco Bernabé Madero was an Argentine lawyer and politician. He served as Vice President of Argentina, and founded the town of Maipú.
José Luis Marcelo Ventecol Mendieta is an Argentine journalist. He was born on a farm in Orán, Salta, but was registered in the Civil Registry in Jujuy.
Gregorio Paz was an Argentine soldier who fought in the war of Independence, the war against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation and in the Argentine civil wars.
The following lists events from the year 2014 in Argentina.