The vast grasslands at the heartland of Argentina can be seen by the untrained eye as just an endless, featureless flatland. Still, there is more to it than catch the eye, with seasonal lagoons and ponds brimming wth life in the form of pink flamingoes, black swans, ducks, geese and a myriad of other birds. Wild grass flowering during most of the year attract pollinating insects, copses of trees provide shade and protection for small fauna and birds, water streams are omnipresent, plenty with fish, otters and sometimes the imposing capybara.
In many ways, it is a fading country. As the farms get more automated and people leaves the countryside, public spending gets ever scarcer, so that services at the farmland go unattended, thus reinforcing the human flow towards towns and cities. Road maintenance is becoming a thing of the past, road signs and police presence are nearly nonexistent.
But the other side of this growing neglect is that nature is,up to a point, claiming the land back. Of course it is still farmland, but with a vanishing human presence, more often rheas can be spotted, and sometimes antelopes and deer will be seen on the distance. Wildlife is coming back, slowly but steadily. The big ones, as the Puma, are still restricted to the wilder areas, such as the hills in the southwest.
For me and my wife, who owns and runs a farm in Coronel Suarez, Buenos Aires Province, everyday wildlife is mostly grey foxes, skunks, ferrets and the ubiquitous armadillos, of which we enjoy 3 different species, Peludo, Mulita and Piche. They are the most conspicuous land animal around, despite the fact that, in theory (and maybe in other areas) they are endangered species,
People in the grasslands use only or mostly Google as a search engine, unaware of the potential it has to make their lives easier and more productive. Google Maps is barely used, and local guides limit themselves to review urban businesses and shops. The rural areas are mostly overlooked, and the potential of Maps is bareboned by the lack of human input. You can hardly trace your path once you leave a main road, and even there you are likely to miss most landmarks.
Though I have spent most of my time as a Local Guide doing things in Buenos Aires city (which itself is under-reviewed considering it is the capital city), but over the last year I came to realise how badly in need of users input the countryside was. I started adding missing places on the map, starting from my wife’s farm, so that it would be easier for contractors and suppliers to trace their way to and from the farm. Then added a few useful landmarks, as rural dirt roads are just an empty line on the map, so they were useful to create a route or help navigating it.
I also found out that rural schools, critical for the families still living in farms, aren’t set up on Maps either. I set up two so far, with photographs. That should help people getting there, but they will be useful too as landmarks on an area in which even road signs are notorious by their absence.
I know my input will always be too small, particularly provided I spend most of my time in the Capital city, but I hope that by helping enriching the map, more rural people will be enticed into using it, and thus maybe some will also start adding info to it, then starting a virtuous loop. WIll this ever happen?
Time will say. I will keep adding to the map in the meantime
