Jujuy a northern province of Argentina, pegged between the province of Salta, Bolivia, and Chile. It's one of the most beautiful places of the country, but also one of the poorest. Jujuy's touristic potential has just begun to be exploited a few years ago. And it also hosts an interesting community of blogs, one of the first to have a provincial directory which is unfortunately offline today: Jujuy Weblogs -although you can still see it through Google's cache. The absense of this directory joins the perception by many bloggers of the lack of unity between the different blogs. While Sergio Aramayo points out that “the state of the local ‘blogthing’ is quite incipient”, Veronica San Martin admits “I only have contact with two blogs from Jujuy, which I visit often, read their posts, leave comments, recommend visiting, and also have shown them as examples in the blogs seminar I have given. I don't think there's a common unity among the province's blogs”.

There's consensus among the interviewed bloggers from Jujuy about the lack of diffusion of blogs’ existence. Some categories where these kind of publication platform would be interesting is local politics. However, there are no blogs – or at least, I haven't been able to detect them- that analyze the topic of local policy at Jujuy. According to Veronica San Martin, “I don't know why there aren't any blogs that speak about local policies. I can only make two assumptions: maybe it's because when one creates and writes in a blog we do it on something we're passionate about, and maybe there's no one that at the same time likes politics and knows about blogs. Notice that around here, this tool is not widely popular yet. I have taught information technology seminars in the province and these included the teaching of blogs as a new communication and expression tool, but these classes were aimed at Jujuy's tourism sector. I also did it for the agriculture sector. If this technology were spread to other sectors, I believe more blogs would come up and diverse topics would be discussed, including local policy”.

Blogs from Jujuy, by topic

There are many blogs especifically dedicated to Jujuy's news. On the tourism side, the most active blogs are Veronica San Martin's Turismo Jujuy; Alguien de Perico and Sergio Aramayo's Jujuy.com. There are blogs about history and places, such as Apichuya's De vicuñas andantes, api dulzón y duendes perversos. Or personal blogs, such as José Victor Antonio Riquelme's Cyberblog 520; Lagrima's Yuyos y Yerbas; Text Decoration; Sin Pupilent; Peros, paras, porkes; Irremediablemente nocturno; Martín Chalup's Martland; and Luciérnaga Furiosa, by Cas.

There are also blogs about technology and the Internet, such as Rodrigo Galíndez's (who currently lives in the city of Cordoba) 16 bits; Ezequiel Acosta Garcia's Pixeljuy; and Sergio Aramayo's a16, more into web design, just like the one of the Asociación de Diseñadores en Comunicación Visual de la Provincia de Jujuy. Also, in the same style, there is Dos Dedos.

As stated in the introduction, Jujuy began to appear on the tourism radar some years ago. Such interest has inspired various conflicts, such as problems for land possession in Tilcara, which I wrote about in my travel blog (here and here). Except for Copenoa, a news agency in Northern Argentina, I haven't noticed any other media taking interest in the subject, which is really intersting.

By the way, if anyone knows of any other blogs from Jujuy that were left out of the list, let me know in the comments area.

Jujuy's blogs list

Tourism and news
Turismo Jujuy
Alguien de Perico
Jujuy.com

Technology, Internet, Design
a16
16 bits
Dos Dedos
Pixeljuy

Personals
De vicuñas andantes, api dulzón y duendes perversos
Cyberblog 520
Yuyos y Yerbas
Text Decoration
Sin Pupilent
Peros, paras, porkes
Martland
Luciérnaga Furiosa

Photoblogs
Joaquin Carrillo

Events
Calendario de Jujuy