Argentina

World Cup 2010: ARGENTINA FIFA ranking: 9 Overall World Cup record: 33-19-13 Coach: Diego Maradona Best performance: Winner, 1978, 1986 Overview: Diego Maradona has found the transition from legendary player to national team coach a difficult one and as a result La Albiceleste struggled mightily in qualifying. But any team that includes Lionel Messi, widely hailed as the best player in the world, has to be considered dangerous. Messi's supporting cast is also strong, especially midfielders Javier Mascherano and Juan Sebastian Veron.

The cozy Miyazato Inn is conveniently located a short walk from the center of El Calafate in Patagonia, Argentina. The five rooms are clean and comfortable. The owners, Jorge and Elizabeth Miyazato, treat you like family, ensuring that you get the best of your stay in this beautiful region. Miyazato Inn, 150 Egidio Feruglio, Zona de Chacras, El Calafate, Argentina; 011-54-2902-491953 http://www.interpatagonia.com/miyazatoinn/. Doubles from $80 in low season, $90 in the high season.

It was well past midnight here, but spontaneous celebration broke out last week when word came from Hollywood that Argentina's Oscar entry, "The Secret in Their Eyes," had snared the award for best foreign language film of 2009. "It was like Argentina had scored a goal or won a match at the World Cup," recalled an ecstatic Soledad Villamil, the lead actress in the film. "Secret," a $3-million co-production with Spain, is part murder mystery, part political thriller and part love story and Argentina's most popular domestic film in three decades.

BUENOS AIRES - With public opinion in Argentina firmly behind President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's plan to nationalize the country's largest oil company, Congress is expected this week to approve the takeover despite some analysts' warnings that her policies are economically reckless. Two nationwide polls released over the weekend showed 74% and 62%, respectively, of those questioned supported the president's proposal for Argentina to take a majority interest in YPF, whose largest shareholder is based in Spain.

Cattle-rustling is an age-old problem on Argentina's legendary Pampas plains, but genetic testing is helping police crack down on thieves. Argentina, one of the world's top beef exporters, is famous for its free-range beef from grass-fed cattle. Experts say lax controls and the sheer scale of some ranches make life easy for rustlers.

In Argentina, soybean production is flying high. That means another banner year for farm equipment salesman Carlos Meniavere. His company, Apache, expects sales of its planters and harvesters to increase 20% this year over 2010. Local demand for his machines, costing $75,000 and up, has risen sharply. So have foreign sales. Apache's relatively low manufacturing costs have led to deals with buyers in Brazil, Venezuela, Russia and other markets. "We're going to sell 400 units this year and export to 10 countries.

Argentina on Strike

The cozy Miyazato Inn is conveniently located a short walk from the center of El Calafate in Patagonia, Argentina. The five rooms are clean and comfortable. The owners, Jorge and Elizabeth Miyazato, treat you like family, ensuring that you get the best of your stay in this beautiful region. Miyazato Inn, 150 Egidio Feruglio, Zona de Chacras, El Calafate, Argentina; 011-54-2902-491953 http://www.interpatagonia.com/miyazatoinn/. Doubles from $80 in low season, $90 in the high season.

Diego Maradona reportedly will remain as coach of Argentina's national soccer team, a decision he is expected to announce next week after meeting with Argentine Football Assn. President Julio Grondona . The state-run Argentine news agency Telam quoted Grondona as saying the meeting would be held Monday. The newspaper La Nacion said Maradona talked with Grondona on Tuesday and had agreed to a four-year deal that will keep him in charge until the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

I just returned from Argentina, where I found it extremely difficult to use any credit card or cash traveler's checks. Very few banks and cambios (exchange banks) accept traveler's checks. Where either checks or credit cards are accepted there is often a 10% to 30% surcharge. Bring cash! JAMES ANDERSON Santa Paula

Argentina's government made official its plan to take control of the nation's largest oil company, YPF, provoking a diplomatic crisis with Spain, where the company's largest shareholder is based. In a televised address from the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said she would ask the country's congress to approve a law to nationalize a 51% controlling interest of YPF, justifying it by declaring that oil production was in the national interest.

Some of the biggest winds in the world blow through the stormy South Atlantic, but none stormier than the political hyperbole that's sweeping through the region lately. It's just 30 years since the Falkland Islands war that took 900 young lives and saved the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while bringing down one of South America's foulest military dictatorships. All this for possession of some 770 chilly islands totaling about half the area of Los Angeles County and with about the same year-round population (3,200)

Rafael Nadal recovered from a terrible start and beat Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, 1-6, 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 (0), Sunday at Seville to give Spain its fifth Davis Cup title with a 3-1 victory. Spain's players swarmed their teammate after he had dropped to the ground in celebration, while Del Potro exited the clay surface in tears for the second time in three days after losing Friday's singles to David Ferrer . "Today is one of the most emotional days of my career," said Nadal, a 10-time major champion who won the title for the third time in his career.

The Peninsula Valdes nature reserve is a remote mix of mud flats, cliffs and stony beaches so rich in wildlife that UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site in 1999. In these waters off the east coast of Argentina, southern right whales thrive and orcas snack on sea lions and baby elephant seals.  Travel outfitter Adventure Life organizes five-day sea kayaking and camping trips that take travelers to see penguins, sea lions, elephant seals and, of course, whales -- up close. The trip starts and ends in Trelew, Argentina, and spends two nights camping at El 39, a beach where southern right whales are studied.

ARGENTINA AND CHILE Slide show Wayne Bernhardson will discuss the capital cities of Buenos Aires and Santiago, the gateway cities to Patagonia, and will offer a visual tour of the Chilean and Argentine lakes district, Argentina's wildlife-rich coastline, Chile's forested fjords and Tierra del Fuego. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220. EUROPE Slide show Mort Loveman will present "Journey to Asia - Borneo, Toraja and Bali.

National Geographic has inspired legions of people to dream about grand adventures, but Ian Lacey, from County Wexford, Ireland, and Lee Saville, from Colorado, are spinning their dreams into action. Name: 350South.org What it does: Follows two young men on a post-college 17,000-mile Pan-American bicycle journey from Alaska to Argentina. What's hot: They're not just doing it to attract new blog fans. Along the way, Lacey and Saville are hoping to meet and ride with Irish expats or those who claim Irish ancestry.

The talk around Mexico's World Cup camp last week was as much about respect as it was about Argentine star Lionel Messi. And for good reason. The Argentines rolled through group play unbeaten while Mexico struggled, losing to Uruguay and tying South Africa. Argentina has won two World Cups; Mexico has never made it past the quarterfinals — and it hasn't even made it that far in 24 years. Plus Argentina has Messi, the world's best player. And Mexico doesn't.

How did lager beer come to be? After pondering the question for decades, scientists have found that an elusive species of yeast isolated in the forests of Argentina was key to the invention of the crisp-tasting German beer 600 years ago. It took a five-year search around the world before a scientific team discovered, identified and named the organism, a species of wild yeast called Saccharomyces eubayanus that lives on beech trees. "We knew it had to be out there somewhere," said Chris Todd Hittinger, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a coauthor of the report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

As a kid, fifth-generation Argentine cattleman Mario Caceres often dressed up in a beret, bandanna and baggy pants called chiripas to emulate his country's gauchos, the nomadic cowboys who once ruled the Pampas and who still symbolize rugged independence, chivalry and expert horsemanship. His head full of the romantic tradition of the gaucho, glorified in songs and the epic poem "El Gaucho Martin Fierro," Caceres built a successful ranching business that once totaled 1,600 head of Angus, one of the breeds that made the name "Argentina" synonymous with beef.