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.