The Life of a Necktie

After a hiatus of some years and constantly being asked.... “What did you do when you were working”? I finally wrote some of it down. Harry Bachrach was the name of my company. I sold the company10+ years ago to Bob Davidson who is still running it along similar lines today. NYC was our head office but we literally worked world-wide. To be in Germany, France, Italy, Korea, China, Thailand, England, Japan or anywhere else was common in our working day. I watched the fluctuations of all kinds of currency rates during my tenure. I flew and worked from this place to that place and spent many a day bleary-eyed and jet-lagged. I chose to work only with the marketing arms of the fashion design world, not the retailer directly. I think it was hard enough just to do that instead of being at the whim and call of each store buyer, too. I had a love-hate relationship with my profession. I loved the art part of it, hated the many details needed to get it all done. Well, here is an outline of my business when I worked. Ultimately I was responsible for it all even though I had plenty of good people working with me.

Research: Each month, day or even hour, something “trendy” happens. It might be in color, in style, in events. It might be blatant, subdued or barely perceptible. But it is there, over and over again. Designers of recognition (Armani, Dior, Versace, Ralph Lauren/Polo, Tommy Hilfiger etc.) sometimes create a trend, but most of the time it is through their diligent research that it comes to the foreground and becomes mainstream and trendy. “Trend” has many levels. Avant Guard vs. Popular, Old vs. New, Modern vs. Traditional, etc. Research for neckties follows these guidelines in finding a “trend”. What makes necktie research most difficult is the fact that ties are worn by many different people and these people want to accessorize different outfits with the appropriate necktie. It is not correct to say that a tie is designed only for a certain style, that it is designed at the same time or alongside a new trend. In fact many times neckties influence the trend. A case in point was the late Jerry Garcia collection, or the look associated with Zegna. Ralph Lauren, years ago, ‘invented’ the extra wide tie and started a Fashion Revolution. His bold statement of a necktie look changed the whole Fashion business. Necktie looks stand totally separate, on their own and do not lean on a Designer Look. Yes, some designers dictate an approach to fit their view of Fashion. The minimalist concept of Donna Karan dictates a certain Spartan approach to designing ties. But this dictation in itself makes the designing very difficult. To create in a world of just black or just grey with the least amount of decoration, has always been extremely difficult. Yet that is what Donna Karan specifies. Luckily, we are very capable. We take inspiration from architecture, film, advertisements, magazines, news events, etc. We listen, we look, we search. All of our contacts, suppliers and customers help with our research. We cherish the challenge.

Create a Rough Concept of a Design We consider the ability to put a feeling or an idea onto paper, one of our great assets. To express what we see, feel and hear. To make it visible so that all can see it. This ability cannot be learned. It cannot be bought. It is innate. You have it, or you don’t. Trying to teach this to someone is futile. We have tried for years to teach this skill and while some people get to a certain level, it is best if you are born with it. Harry Bachrach Inc., my former company still existing, is extremely lucky to have people who are ideal for this endeavor. We have people who were made for this job. Their talent is so natural that it is amazing to see their creation take place. They make it look so easy, so fluid is their motion that the end result is exactly what is needed for the collection at that time.

Draw the Design via Computer Sometimes a concept is so right, so crystal clear and perfect and understood by everyone but… it cannot be produced during printing or weaving. Concessions have to be made to keep the general feeling but to still make the technical aspect feasible. It must be printable. It must be weavable. The challenge here is to NOT lose the feeling of the concept and to produce a workable rendering. The concept must stand up in many different ways. If the concept is e.g. “Echo”, then each design must fit that image, that concept. Our computers are very helpful in that they allow us to work clean, neat and efficient. But… a computer is still like a typewriter. It just sits there. It needs input, it needs brain power. It needs hands on. Nevertheless, we believe it makes us more flexible to have the designs created electronically.

Make Presentations to the Customer All previous work and talent is for nothing if we cannot make our customer understand what we are after. We must present our idea, our concept for full criticism, then stop and listen. Pride, while we have it, must take a back seat. Our goal, each and every time, is to present our work and listen for the “wow” effect. We take great pains to work out the correct colorations for each design. We fold the art work so that it resembles a necktie. We present it on shirt swatches, whether real or make believe. We add the designer logo, add belly-bands, work out new labels, etc. We do what we can to make the presentation a pleasurable experience for our customers. The presentation is an important step in securing our livelihood. All things must come together here. The presentation must make sense to everybody. Too “slick” and it feels false. Too “sloppy” and it feels “cheap”. A balance is needed. Yet it must be artsy and appealing. It is as much a part of our image as the art itself.

Correct and Adjust the Sketch We try to avoid this at all costs. We sometimes don’t understand why a 10% reduction of the design makes our customer happy. Is it our pride that makes us think this way? Why can’t we be right from the start? Corrections, adjustments are just that. Basically, we have succeeded in piquing the interest of our customers. If a small adjustment has to be made, so be it. We are lucky to have the aid of our computers and we will be happy to make these corrections. We are in “Commercial Art”. Even our customers are subject to the whims of the store buyer and ultimately the final consumer. Yes, we believe the final consumer would want each and every design the way WE designed them, but then maybe not. Who knows for sure? It is our belief that with the input of everyone, we eliminate the least popular designs and become more focused on the best designs. Corrections are sometimes necessary, but generally disliked. We are still in the early stages here and from here on our art becomes a consumer product.

Color Strike Off The first step after the approval of a sketch is to create a design sample, a strike off in various color combinations. While the sketch was shown in e.g. “yellow” the ultimate collection will have this design in various color combinations. Not only do we create a yellow necktie but we will color the red, the blue, the grey, maroon tie, etc. This is a small hidden corner within Harry Bachrach Inc. We stand out in creating colors that sell. We have full time people – colorists – whose passion it is to create the right look in correct colors. Give them any design and they will color it to order. Bright, dark, natural, hot… any way it needs to be. Traditional, Country, Avant Guard, Updated Traditional, Urban … we color it to fit the demand. By concentrating on each customer’s need, we can custom color our designs fitting their visions. We create strike offs in many, many, ways. We print or weave them. We even offer to sew the neckties for a complete sample line. All our work is based on the special needs of each client. Many of our print designs have within each design 12 or more printing screens. Our coloring art utilizes those screens in a color palate that compliments the total tie. We will show colorations which bring out the uniqueness of the designer and of the art inherent in the design. We never forget the art behind each tie, behind each color combination, behind each Designer look. Colors add so much to the final product. Just imagine a pink Mercedes Benz car – great car, wrong color! With every tie, we aim to make the design, designer image and color blend perfectly. We aim to make each tie to accessorize a man’s outfit, bringing out the shirt, the suit and the style. Colors are very, very important and we believe we are the best at coloring.

Show Strike Off to Customer Time becomes of the essence when we reach this point. We and our customers have committed each other to the design at this stage. We have made the printing films at the mill level, or written a (software) program for a woven design. Already we have put a lot of time, effort and money into the creation of the fabric. At the printing mill level we have made actual, physical screens for printed designs, we have custom mixed printer colors; we have custom dyed yarns for woven fabrics and have done as much as we could for a full production item. We, Harry Bachrach, have worked hard to get to this point. Yet, all we have really produced is a strike off; a mere sample, nothing more. We have not made any money. We have spent money. It is our conviction that we are correct in all previous aspects of the necktie up to this point. We show the strike off, a true and replicable sample of the actual production item, to our customer with pride. With pride do we await their comments. We have all worked for this point in the life of a necktie. We understand the urgency and feel the apprehension just before the actual showing of the strike off. We like this tension, this calculated uncertainty. This feeling of “let me see” is what drives us all. We love the smile we see when people touch the fabric, touch the tie for the first time. (Did you ever notice that you have to “touch” the design at this point?) Yes you just have to touch it. Art has become reality. Ideas have become tangible. This is a critical point and cannot be overstated. We can now touch art.

Make a Sample Sometimes, but lately more often, we are asked to produce a sample line in complete detail. We oblige by presenting the total collection of our designs or even a total set of fully labeled, fully ticketed neckties. Until now all of our efforts lead us only to making a sample line that will be given for representation to the Retailer. It was common that we produced only sample yards that could be sewn into neckties locally. That is changing. Local factories are closing and the domestic expertise is no longer available. We are now more and more completing the full production circle, from the idea to the finished necktie. The samples of the neckties created are a representation of a production tie in every detail. We can and do sew sample ties, including labels, belly bands, with or without plastic sleeves according to the many different styles featured by our clients. We label each tie and do the work any contractor or any manufacturing facility of ties would do. We pride ourselves in delivering a product that is in many respects better than the fine products sewn elsewhere in the U.S.

Wait Here is where we have to stop for a while. We do not sell our designs, ties or fabric yardages to the Retail Trade. Retail meaning stores visited by the public to actually purchase a necktie. ‘Macy’s’ in the U.S. for example, or ‘Nordstrom’ or ‘Bloomingdales’, or ‘The Bay’ in Canada, etc. We are suppliers to the wholesale market only. That is our choice. We have chosen not to work with retailers in any way because they present a whole different set of circumstances and we are not set up to deal with their whims and idiosyncrasies. We just wait. We wait until our customer the wholesaler, or as we prefer to think the marketing arm, has reached an agreement with a retailer to have our designs produced for delivery to their stores.

Additional Merchandise A while ago, we decided to add to our assortment of products. We now also produce and offer for sale: woven labels, belly-bands, lining and tipping. We offer anything that is used to make a necktie presentable to the ultimate customer.

Produce Fabric Production has to be broken down into two major areas; printed production and woven production. For the printed production, we have to secure the woven ground cloth, have the cloth prepared for printing, set up the printing tables, mix the individual colors, clean and set up the screens and print each color way by hand. For a design with 10 screens, we print by hand each screen on top of the next until the final product is completed. Yes, it means we must apply one color over the previous color until all 10 colors create the full design. It is all done by hand and by experts that learn their trade over many years. Naturally, great care is taken to do this job correctly since the production has to match the samples exactly. The alignments must be exact, no deviations or unevenness is allowed. Even the washing out of the excess color, the water temperature, the amount of chemicals in the water, the heat setting, the drying cycle, the applying of end-finish starch, the rolling and finally the shipping must be done with the utmost care. Each step is as important as the previous one or the next one. The end product must be perfect. For weaving, the logistics are different but no less involved. Depending on which loom we use, the yarns have to be prepared accordingly. Each thread must be dyed according to the color palette we used during sampling. Each colored yarn used needs to be calculated and weighed. Different weight for each yarn is needed during weaving; each loom is specifically set up and prepared. Each design needs and has a unique setup; no two designs can be made simultaneously. Weaving is very mathematical, very logical, very time consuming. Weaving is a slow process, each thread is inserted one at a time and while looms work 24 hours a day, weaving with silk is difficult. Silk is a natural fiber and is delicate and capricious. Therefore the speed of the loom cannot be very high and we have designs where we can only weave one yard in 30 minutes or about 15 yards in an 8 hour shift. Weaving is slow. Weaving is complex and an art form in its own right. Even though we use the latest, modern looms, silk weaving is exceptionally complicated. To find qualified people, even looking world-wide, is a challenge. Just to produce the set of cards, or program that guides the loom through its weaving cycles needs experts. Expensive experts today. Woven ties also have a disadvantage since a loom has technical limitations that can be coaxed but ultimately cannot be avoided. The number of colors used per pattern, the effects wanted and the way they are executed, the stop and go when ends break, the shading of the yarn, the unevenness of the silk itself, each adds to the uniqueness of a woven design but also adds to its demise. Woven neckties are therefore most difficult to produce.

Sew Ties We have the production fabric at this point and all is well. We can ship the fabric after we inspect it three times (on the printing table, after the steaming process, after end-finish) or we are asked to make the neckties. The choice of whether to receive the end product from Harry Bachrach as fabric or as neckties, is up to our customer, the Wholesaler. We have been asked to operate a full facility just for the production of neckties. We are capable of producing any number of dozens of ties per week. We are set up for hand sewn as well as Liba (machine made) ties. We make any shape, any length, and any style of necktie. We literally custom produce ties for our clients. Just as in Sampling and Coloring, we create a product we are proud of. We are in fact, a neckwear sewing mill in addition to a design studio.

Ship According to Instructions This final detail is important to our clients. Some customers want the product to be shipped sorted by groups; separated by color, by style, by pre-pack, by whatever. Some want the extra-longs separated from the regulars, etc. Any which way we are instructed, is the way we ship. It seems a small detail but it shows again how Harry Bachrach works. We are a full service house for the Necktie Industry. Not just a design studio, not a sewing factory, not a weaver, nor a printer and yet we are all of these. We live by the motto. Give our Clients what they ask for when they ask for it. Wait for the Money Oh, I almost forgot this one. After we ship the final product and after we do all of the above … we have to wait for the money; sometimes for a period far in excess of the terms agreed upon.

Hello Larry

You picked a nice spot on Earth for your final rest, Larry! I noticed you have new neighbors already, too. I came to VA not to lament, not to be your judge and certainly not to cry for you. I simply came to make sure it is true, to see with my eyes and to make certain that you had departed. I found that those moments of departure give the remaining living a glimpse of what is to come for all. For all of us the day of departure will come with certainty. For some of the living this is a scary moment. As you know we are being bombarded with information about how we will be after we depart. What the new arrival will be like. How we will fare on the other side, etc. So many opinions prevail that I choose to disregard them all. You, while here, chose to listen to one particular strand of belief. Habes Verum. You left rather suddenly Larry! But then, what is a perfect time? I came to offer my congratulations to you for a job well done while you were here. We will certainly remember you always. I hope that your dreams came true and that you found what you were looking for where ever you are now. No more worries for you, no more fear, no more uncertainty. You know the truth now. You might no longer care about our small, detailed existence and your departure certainly left some in disarray. Yes, our living and death is all part of the whole, I know it. Yet we cannot help being as we are here on Earth. We still struggle daily, still deal with our egos. Only when we close our own circle of existence, when we pass on too, do we truly know. I wish you all the best, Larry. Requiem in Pacem.

Good bye Argentina

I travelled two months in Argentina. Four weeks in Buenos Aires, the Capital and then another five weeks, by bus, plane and ship covering major tourist attractions and also out of the way regions. I am glad I spent the time ‘exploring’ this land. While a lot of information is available on line, there is nothing like actually interacting with Argentineans on a daily basis. I shared their hopes, dreams and daily lives throughout my journey. I am not speaking as an expert, but my comments were as I saw life.
There were some things that amazed me even though I anticipated many things through my study of Argentina before I actually took the trip. I knew the Pampa is flat. I knew that Patagonia is desolate. I knew that the Iguaçu Falls were in the jungle, etc. What I did not realize is that very few Africans live in Argentina. I saw only one black person in all the time I travelled throughout this Land. I never knew that I would be eating meat on an almost twice daily basis. That ‘sandwich’ almost always meant just ham & cheese. How about a tuna fish sandwich? I saw lines at gas stations, long lines.

I never knew there was a shortage of gas or was it the distribution system? I found the monetary policy of Argentina puzzling. No banks will change your pesos back to US Dollars if you do not have a receipt that you bought them at an exchange office or a bank. I saw people stand in line for buses, for taxis, for new subway cards and at the post offices. Obediently, they stood and seemed resigned to the fact that this is the proper behavior everywhere. Well, I can tell them it does not happen in the rest of the world.

Argentineans are fun loving people. They love to party and have a good time. They eat and drink well and seem to have some disposable income for social affairs. Family seems dear to them. The greetings, the small talk during daily lives was very important. A hello without a hug or a kiss was unheard of. Lots of smiles, lots of help to strangers were offered and I certainly loved that one. Argentineans are a friendly people. They are very social, very talkative, very open if a little loud sometimes. Sometimes I craved some quiet time but that was not in the cards, talk was everywhere.
Argentina is unlike other South American Countries I have visited so far. I name Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico for example. Yes, I can compare Argentina with some European countries I know, like Portugal or Spain, or some aspects of Italy, too. Argentina is huge. Traveling by bus made this especially noticeable. The distances are measured in days, not hours. The major cities are spread far out from each other with almost nothing in between them.
Over the last centuries all the land has been set up to be used for agriculture and or animal husbandry. I did not see much heavy industry; I did not see a huge fishing industry. Maybe I was in the wrong spots.

What I did see is that Argentina is very conscious of its natural heritage and takes the stewardship of the land it owns seriously. Or was that due to the fact that I lived among very young adults in hostels all those weeks and that the new generation is more conscious of the environment.
I don’t really know, but as it is, I liked Argentina. I would recommend it as a place to visit. If you visit, spread yourself across the land; visit the North, the South and everything in between. Argentina has a lot to offer for every point of view in life. I am glad I came.
Good bye Argentina and thank you for having me. I enjoyed my stay!

Patagonians

The year is 1520 and Ferdinand Magellan meets some really tall people way down south on this Island we call Tierra del Fuego in South America.

The people he meets seem to him like Giants, here is an excerpt of an actual account of the first meeting.
"One day we suddenly saw a naked man of giant stature on the shore of the port, dancing, singing, and throwing dust on his head. The captain-general [Magellan] sent one of our men to the giant so that he might perform the same actions as a sign of peace. Having done that, the man led the giant to an islet where the captain-general was waiting. When the giant was in the captain-general's and our presence he marveled greatly, and made signs with one finger raised upward, believing that we had come from the sky. He was so tall that we reached only to his waist, and he was well proportioned..."

A myth is born. Due to this report Magellan called the people Patagão in Portuguese or Patagoni in the Italian plural since the writer of this account above (Pigafetta) was Italian. Since Pigafetta's time the assumption that this derived from pata or foot took hold, and "Patagonia" was interpreted to mean "Land of the Bigfeet" or land of the Giants.
All early reports of the people of Patagonia were mostly wrong. There were no such thing as Giants, but the people Magellan met were tall people, fierce people.

Most likely Magellan met a man from the Tehuelche Tribe. The Tehuelche is a collective name for some native tribes of Patagonia and the southern Pampas Region in Argentina and Chile.

Their normal body height is just below two meters (6 ‘plus). This is certainly a large man for the medieval average man of one and a half meters. To get a true understanding of the original inhabitants of the most southern area of S. America is not easy. So many reports I read were just plain false; left over from prejudices, misinformation given on purpose, or plain ignorance.
I wanted to know who inhabited the area of Ushuaia, who were the indigenous people that lived in the ‘Land of Fire’. Tierra del Fuego, as Magellan named it, certainly had people for centuries before the European Explorers came to this region. Today we know that people inhabited Patagonia as early as 14,500 years ago. I also learned that most of the people living then were truly very different from each other.
The very tall Tehuelche (Patagonians) were very different from the Yámana people, for example.

The Yámana were boat people, living only at the shore line and they sat hunkered down in their bark boats, warming themselves by a fire most of the time. Their body features adapted over eons to this kind of living.

Yes, they had an active fire in the middle of the boat made out of tree bark. That fire, lit on a base of rocks and sand never touched the actual boat, it just gave warmth. Warmth was very much needed since all the Yámana wore was a loin cloth at best.

Yes the Yámana slept in the nude and lived in the nude all their lives. Yes, even in the winter, in snow and ice they wore no clothes. The Yámana were the original inhabitants of Ushuaia. They kept warm by hunkering down and exposing little of their body to the elements. They sat near fires most of their lives and those were the fires Magellan saw when he called this area Tierra del Fuego, or Land of Fires.
The Yámana women were the swimmers. The women dove into the ice water to retrieve mussels from way below. The women pulled their men to shore, carried them, because they could not swim. The women swam with their babies tied to their heads from the boat to shore.
All their lives the Yámani lived near the shore lines of the frigid ocean so whenever they could, they would squat down to preserve their body heat.

This squatting was so much a part of their lives that their lower limps became shortened over the centuries. The Yámani had longer and more muscular arms than normal men from paddling their boats all day long. Pictures drawn from centuries ago showed them out of proportion. Darwin thought he had found the ‘missing link’ when he first saw them; the link between ape and man.
The history here is very fascinating. It is so different from the history the early Europeans ‘imagined’ it to be. It is much more complicated in fact than what seems obvious. Based on the languages, we know today that one group of people had nothing to do with another group.
The indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego, the Fuegians, belonged to several tribes including the Ona (Selk'nam), Haush (Manek'enk), Yaghan (Yámana), and Alacaluf (Kawésqar). All of these tribes except the Selk'nam lived exclusively in coastal areas. The Yaghans and the Alacaluf traveled by canoe around the islands of the archipelago, while the coast dwelling Haush did not. The Selk'nam lived in the interior of Isla Grande de Tierra Del Fuego and lived mainly by hunting guanacos.
The Fuegian people spoke several distinct languages: both the Kawésqar language and the Yaghan language were considered isolated languages, while the Selk'nams spoke a Chon language like the Tehuelches on the mainland.

Some people today believe that the facial features seen on photos are similar to those taken of the Aborigines of Australia. Naturally a connection is sought, but none has been found yet.
You see how complicated this all gets?
This is an amazing history. None of the individual tribes was large in numbers. The Yámana for example accounted for maybe 3000 people, yet they spoke their own, very distinct from the rest, language.
When Darwin explored this part of Earth in about 1832, he kidnapped four young teenagers (under the pretense they stole a small boat) and took them back to England to present them to the Royals and to teach them about ‘civilization’.
One of the teenagers died on this trip but the rest gave some information about the lives of the Yámana. Most of the information given by those teens was false; some of it on purpose to protect the tribe from further contact with the Europeans. Stories of cannibalism of the Yámana certainly kept people away from them for a while.
Only with Thomas Bridges (ca. 1842–1898) did we start to learn something of the original inhabitants of Ushuaia. He and his son Lucas learned the language of the Yámana, spoke to them, lived with them, helped them, and clothed them and….. he killed a lot of them.
Not being used to wearing clothes, they never washed them.

They contracted diseases to which they had no natural resistance. Smallpox, measles and tuberculosis added to this mess. Thomas Bridges meant well but created havoc within the tribe. From a starting count of 3000 people in 1920 only about 100 remain today. Most of the 100 living Yámana no longer speak their native language. Add to that the ravaging of their food supply like walrus, seals and whales and it is no wonder we lost a group of people we could have learned something from.
The same stories can be told in different ways of all the other tribes we call the Patagonians today.
There is no true Patagonian; there never were Giants or people with big feet. And, I am sorry to say, there will never be such people. Yes, there were the Haush, Tehuelches, Ona, Selk’nam or Yámana, all very different people, very different from each other, but…..
They are almost all gone.
We only have some old photos of what has been.

Ushuaia 4X4

Curious as I am, I did want to see what it is like in the surrounding mountains.

Hiking was totally out of the question, the ascents are steep, the distances huge, the ground muddy or even still frozen way up above the tree lines. We looked for a 4X4 tour company and found Canal Tours. Unfortunately we were stood up at pick up time. It was some communication error about the pickup time but Canal Tours did refund our money.

To find a ‘replacement’ tour for the next day was not easy but we found the company “Nunatak Adventures”.

This was our very last day in Ushuaia and the weather was in our favor. This time the pick was flawless.

We took Route 3 North for about a half an hour before we left the main highway to stop at an Inn that specializes in winter activities. This far south winter lasts from May to October. Here you have snow of about two meters each year covering a plateau 26 km long. This plateau is only 700 meters above sea level and almost totally flat. A perfect place for cross country skiing, people come here to train from all around the world.

Besides those skiers, the locals train dogs to pull Antarctic sleds.

We visited a place that trains 60 dogs as sled dogs, but were told that many more such places are spread along this lengthy plateau.

Tourists can take a sleigh ride in the southern winter. Argentineans are very adept at finding ways to make a living.
After a few more miles along Route 3 North we left the paved highway and entered the forest. And what a forest it was. Very few roads were cut into this part of the National Forest and all of the roads are just for true 4x4 vehicles. Our driver drove a Range Rover Discovery vehicle and this truck had to really prove it could handle this terrain.

On some slick hills, with good tires, the truck spun out sideways. We were up to the doors in mud and slime.

We bounced over rocks, logs and through troughs of water. Ruts and fallen trees had to be avoided. Our trip took us to areas we would not have been able to reach on foot in such a short time. The landscape around us was that of a primitive forest. While not a ‘virgin’ forest, it was a forest that had been left alone for years and years. The high winds that sweep through these mountains created disasters for the shallow rooted trees.

Many were toppled over, their flat roots exposed. A helter-skelter of trees, limbs and debris littered the forest floor. I felt like an intruder; intruding into a space reserved for goblins and wicked gnomes. This southern forest, this Patagonian Place is a rough place to visit and no place to live. There are no large animals to hunt. The fox, I believe, is the largest animal to live here. And they are rare.

Canadian Beavers were introduced years ago by misguided well-thinkers. This rat has altered the landscape drastically; it has no natural predators here and is booming across Southern Argentina and Chile. By eating young sprouts of trees, by felling healthy trees that take a long time to grow in this cold climate, it does not help the forest. The beaver destroys more than it helps create.

We stopped for a Parrilla, a gaucho kind of barbeque for lunch. Oh, what a treat.

Big slabs of barbequed meat were served along with sausages, wine, salad, and even cookies for dessert. What a treat.

A fox came to visit, waiting for a handout. The locals shared their Mate if you wanted to drink this herb. The plates we ate from were disks from cut tree trunks.

The wine was served in plastic cups. Yes, life is good.

Our view included a huge sweet water lake, created by run offs from the glaciers higher up the mountains surrounding us. We were at the bottom end of the large Andes Chain, the Mountains that run from here all the way to Colombia, heck even the Rocky Mountains are actually part of this huge Range that runs along the western part of the Americas.

After this great lunch we walked for a bit along the rocky lakeshore before our car picked us up again. We found Calafate Berries while walking and had them for an additional dessert.

These berries look like egg shaped blueberries but grow on a very thorny low bush. Sweet and delicious, crunchy inside, they were a new experience for me. They are just hard to pick without getting pricked by those thorns. Our ride back along the shore of the lake brought us ultimately back to the ‘old’ Route 3.

This section of the old Route gave us an idea what it was like to travel here only about 50 years ago. This old Route 3 was a simple road, cut into the woods, much like the wood cutters road we just came from. Ok, a little better but not much better.

I felt jarred and rattled once we returned to our Apartment. I had an insight into the mountains, and yes, I believe it was almost impossible to cross them on foot. No wonder the Jail in Ushuaia had no perimeter walls. Who would want to end up in those mountains years ago? And I know from visiting the land beyond the mountains, there is just desert-like scrub and not much more. Patagonia they call this area, where even today you will find no living people. Patagonia is a lonely place, beautiful to look at but inhospitable to most animals, including man. Yet I am glad I just visited and saw it myself.

Ushuaia after Antarctica

Coming back to Ushuaia, after our trip to Antarctica was a surreal experience. Somehow modern life in Ushuaia seemed to get in my way. My modern life in general seemed too complicated after my Antarctic visit. Yet it felt comforting to know every conceivable modern convenience was available in Ushuaia. For some days I felt like a split personality. Antarctica did impress me, the idea that I visited a Continent, still in a fairly natural state,

unchanged for millennia, left its mark on me. If I had been blessed by Nature with a suitable physical make-up, living in Antarctica would mean only survival. Here, back in Ushuaia just surviving is not enough.

We are here for seven more days then we will fly back to Toronto. The word ‘flying’ does not seem natural, it feels out of context. Man is not made to fly, right?
For the rest of my remaining life I need to stay in touch with the world around me, do things that seem a lot more complicated than just survival. This is my modern reality.

The way I visited Nature in Antarctica made life seem harsh but somehow simpler.The creatures there lived the life they were designed for.

Whales did not fly.

I am searching for words to describe the feelings I had, yet words fail me. Antarctica is Nature. Ushuaia is 2012.

It seems a long time to stay in a city I do not really love. Ushuaia is all business without beauty.

Amid shambled buildings are palaces with the latest of the latest. Ushuaia is a city with ugliness and

beauty living side by side. I needed to force myself to look at the beauty part of it. My natural tendency is to look at the missing pieces, at the broken parts. I always have a hard time looking at what works, I look too much at what does not work and needs fixing.

I get fixated on the things that need doing instead of on the stuff that is great as is.

We knew we were going to be in Ushuaia for a week and had arranged to stay in a one bedroom apartment right after we docked with the Antarctic Dream.

This place, Bahia Serena, worked great for us. We met some people from the ship while shopping at La Anonima, the only big Supermarket in town. We were invited for a drink to meet others, too. We chose instead to have Ursula Schulz and Hannelore, gals we met on the ship, over for a glass of wine and some dinner later on. Yes, Carol and I bummed around town doing this, doing that. It was nice to be at the end of our trip, just hanging out, not having to go anyplace unless we felt like it.

To understand Ushuaia better we visited the old Jail (Carcel de Ushuaia).

Ushuaia was not much of a town before WW2 and became somewhat infamous because the British built this Prison in the form of a starfish. From 1902 until 1947 men and women were incarcerated here and worked as lumber jacks until their time was served.

The prison had no surrounding walls. There was just nowhere to run. Surrounded by the icy waters of the Beagle Cannel on one side and the towering heights of the Andes Mountains on the other, there is even today, no place to go. The ships bringing supplies and picking up the cut wood were few and far between. Ushuaia was a ghost of a town, a penal colony mostly.
After 1947 the first Scientist and Explorers came to town and Ushuaia was set up as a supply spot for anything going to Antarctica. Today Ushuaia is a stop for Cruise ships, both for ships going to Antarctica or for ships going from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean or vise versa. Ushuaia is a Sea Port city, along with all the seediness of it. The former jail, now restored to a

tourist attraction with conference and meeting halls, as well as a museum and art gallery,

shows the history of Ushuaia. It shows in great detail the way of life for immigrants, seafarers and indigenous people years ago.

Naturally, being so close to the end of Ruta 3, we had to take the trip to the literal ‘End of the World’.

This Route starts in Buenos Aires and runs just past Ushuaia until it ends inside the National Park called ‘Fin del Mundo’. We took a taxi to visit, it was that close.
Argentina built two monster highways, the most westerly, Ruta 40 and the most easterly, Ruta 3. Both highways run the length of the county and are a feat of civil engineering. How could we not travel to the end of the southernmost road on this Earth?
Besides this famous road, the National Park gave us an insight into how the Indigenous People lived here for centuries.

The state of preservation of the area was perfect. Argentina does a great job keeping the landscape pristine, limiting access, and letting Nature be Nature.
And would you believe it? Carol and I ran into three of the women that were stationed at Port Lockroy on Antarctica!

Sometimes it is a small world; you meet people you know in the most unlikely places. I have wondered often if these chance meetings far away from what one would expect have a special meaning. Is it a cosmic sign? A sign to do what?
And what did it mean that we again met the leaders of the Australian Compass Motorcycle Tours in Ushuaia?

We were stopped for a cup of coffee when those guys walked in, just to shake hands with us. After finishing up with the BMW group we met all along our travels, those leaders are now set to meet new clients here in Ushuaia and guide them back to Santiago de Chile. It is a tough job given what I know about this area and Argentina now; tough for both the riders and the guides to travel by bike to the end of the world and back again.