BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Agostina Senese is a vegetarian in a country where cooking beef on the grill is considered a sacred rite. "It's like you're doing something really wrong if you don't eat meat here — it's like a like a sin," says Senese. It's not easy to go vegetarian in the world's biggest beef-eating nation. Traditional barbecues are the signature event of most weekends and holidays — one that Senese feels left out of. "I don't have friends that are vegetarians so it's really really difficult for me."

ESQUEL, Argentina — As the huffing, creaking, smoke-blowing mass of iron lumbers out of its corrugated metal shed, the clicking of cameras begins. The Old Patagonian Express, immortalized in Paul Theroux’s 1979 book, rumbles to life as it has since its first trip in 1922. Its passengers line the narrow-gauge tracks, cameras at the ready, wearing furry hats to ward off the chill in this mountain town hard up against the Andes in Patagonian Argentina.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Every Sunday Fabian Lopez buys a copy of Clarin, Argentina's most widely read paper, at his neighborhood kiosk. Lopez says he likes Clarin best, but he can't trust everything he reads in it. Its owners, the Clarin Group, have been openly feuding with the government over a new media law that threatens their business. "Opinions can be bought," Lopez shrugged cynically, handing over his coins for the paper. " Still you need something to inform you!"