ARGENTINA! ;-)

[+arieltuc]

Hello to everybody!

 

I am writing to tell you how we live Geocaching in Argentina (GA): Although we are not even close to the Geocahing's levels of the US or Europe, being a nation with 1,073,518 sq mi (the eighth largest country in the world) Argentina has enormous growth potential, to the point that since 2010 we have grown at a rate of 70% on average (2010: 127 caches ; 2011: 240 caches ; 2012: 442 caches ; 2013: 636 caches). As of today, we have already passed the number of caches hidden in 2013, and we are still two months away to the end of this year hoping to reach more than 800 hidden caches.

 

This steady growth was parallel to the consolidation of GA's virtual work team. Even though we live in different provinces (states), each member voluntarily assumed a role to enhance this activity in our country, which I will explain here:

 

The user fhsosa (Ramos Mejias, Province of Buenos Aires) administers the forum http://geocachingargentina.foroargentina.net/ and the blog http://geocachingargentina.blogspot.com.ar/ where we all make our contributions, standing out the more recent updates of the user jabry_team (Alta Gracia, Province of Córdoba).

 

We will not deny the potential of Facebook, and this is why the user Nan_y_Edu (Santa Fe, Province of Santa Fe) created the page https://www.facebook.com/groups/838460649516784/ where we answer questions to the newcomers.

 

We have already made an appearance on "La Nation", the second largest daily national newspaper:

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1658304-un-juego-que-nacio-gracias-al-gps where the user kariher (Ramos Mejias, Province of Buenos Aires) was interviewed.

 

As we all live in big cities, we know that a nano cache is more likely to survive and not to be stolen, so the user javiermanlavalle (Lavalle, Province of Mendoza) participated us in the community purchase of 30 nano containers, which are already distributed everywhere in Argentina.

 

We should also mention that the best "McGyver style" caches are hidden by the user PanchoChia (Rio Cuarto, Province of Cordoba).

 

To give more thrust and seriousness to the GA, I rented the .com.ar domain, so the web http://www.geocaching.com.ar/ is a gateway for all those who want learn about geocaching, the web along with the twitter https://twitter.com/GeocachingAR are administered by the user leomuni (Palermo, Buenos Aires City).

 

Obviously we could not pass up the opportunity to have a youtube channel, which is administered by the user grinpol (Villa Mercedes, Province of San Luis). Always careful not to show spoilers http://www.geocaching.com.ar/videos.html

 

"Our official English-Spanish translator is an American (for us, one Argentine more) the user joeavrage (Salta, Province of Salta). Joeavrage and PanchoChia were able to correct all errors on this words."

 

And finally, who writes, is the one who keeps statistics and manages the WhatsApp's channel of all this bunch of crazy fanatics of the GA, I live in San Miguel de Tucumán, Province of Tucumán and since I've started I have organized nine events in different places (including the first Argentine CITO).

 

Now that you have some idea of how we work and contribute to grow the GA, we need the help of Goundspeak, which is why we want to make these three requests:

 

1-Divide Argentina into provinces in the geocaching search: We know that there are few provinces without caches but today we have 750 hidden caches in total; however, as I said before, Argentina is a huge country and it would make the search much easier if it is by province (each province is the size of most European countries).

 

2-Adding another moderator for Latin America: Mixtli is an excellent person and I only have words of gratitude for his work, commitment and professionalism. However we see that the growth of not only Argentina, but throughout the continent, consumes much time and there are caches take a while to be reviewed and approved. So we want to ask for another reviewer to assist Mixtli on his work.

 

3-Add an Argentine souvenir: Getting souvenirs is very motivating (we see it every August) and it is even more so as you visit a distant country (Argentina is visited by many GC's user every year). This is why we respectfully suggest the following souvenir (we have taken great effort into their preparation):

 

http://imgcdn.geocaching.com/ddf92ba3-6b7f-4d33-9f45-9ad0b3d4f4dc.png

 

Well, I think that's enough for today.

Happy Geocaching!

 

Arieltuc

sheriff@geocaching.com.ar

Tucumán - Argentina