Errata from Painted Valley Farm

I have now spent 53 days at Granja Valle Pintado and it feels as much like home as anything can to ol' itinerant me.

Night after night I slide into my sleeping bag liner into my sleeping bag under my blanket and don't worry about the the fact that I'm going to bed with feet the color of charcoal.  The morning wake up is always a little difficult and seems to come too early even though it's not that early.  I have moved out to my tent in a nest in the woods, which is tranquil and private compared to my former loft in the community kitchen.  The route to my tent, which in the morning gives me a hilltop view of the entire farm as sunlight creeps towards it, is also one of the preferred walking trails of the cow Rosa, which makes walking with my head down a necessity in terms of navigating the minefield of robust cakes she sets down wherever she pleases, wherever she pleases generally meaning in the middle of the already-too-narrow road I need to take to avoid being raked by thorny rosehip.  I'm used to cow manure now, though, and recognize it as a useful resource on the farm, but its easier to work with when its dry than when its squishing between your toes.

I wash my clothes every so often in buckets and have found that water left out in large plastic bottles all day gets warm enough for a great shower.  It's still preferable to go to the municipal gym in town, where a shower that used to be free is now less than a dollar.

The other day Jeremy and I were talking to this guy in town, and the guy looked down at Jeremy's battered, sandaled feet, then looked up at Jeremy, and, with a solemn, almost bitterly regretful tone one might hear in a conversation between two grizzled warriors discussing the casualties suffered in a particularly messy foreign conflict, said, "man...............your feet must get real fucked up out there."  His lips curled in in anticipation of forming the word "fucked" and then just whipped it out forcefully with a heavy emphasis on the "fu" sound.  I sliced my heel on some rocks in the river the other day and that's taken a while to heel, but my general biggest problem is thistle thorns as I walk barefoot around the garden.

Tao, our wonderful dog, kindly accompanied me to the river one day and, while I was stumbling into the icy rapids, stole one of my Croc sandals and then, on another day, another sandal before I realized it was her and not mysteriously rising water to blame.  She ripped up my Croc but I mended it with found items. I chastised the hell out of her but she just smiles and still steals peoples' footwear.  She also messes with the geese and the horse despite repeated admonishment.  On the positive side, she helps to run loose horses off our land, loves to play, and is generally a joy to have around.

Alex recently purchased several new chickens to increase our egg production.  One day after he brought them home we found one of the laying hens hanging from a nail on a post by her neck, apparently having fallen victim to some freak jumping accident.  To take advantage of the bad situation, we had to drain it, scald it, pluck it, and butcher it right then and there at 11 PM.  In the belly of the hen we found no fewer than 12 eggs at various stages of development.  We had chicken and rice stew the following day.  We then started to find eviscerated chicks in the coop and uncovered a sinister network of subterranean tunnels under the whole chicken complex.  Add to that the increasing incidence of local birds called Tero's being found deconstructed and strewn about the garden and its been a tough time for birds in these parts.

I have been fishing with an improvised reel, consisting of nothing more than a pvc pipe--design borrowed from a man met on a family trip to Alaska circa 1996.  I have not yet caught anything, but I have a great cast.

It has been great to see tangible progression on the farm.  The beer we made on my second day has been bottled and already tastes like beer, but needs a few more weeks to properly finish gasifying.  Radish seeds I planted exploded into bright red radishes the size of racquetballs (I was looking for something in between golf- and base-) and we have been harvesting them like crazy.  The beginning forms of tomatoes are sprouting and we will have solid zucchini in just a matter of days.  The pea plants are practically gushing crisp, sugary snap peas.  The goslings I met several weeks ago are adolescent GEESE.

Our one bee hive split into two hives and they stopped stinging us so much, but then one of the queens left and/or died and they started stinging us again.  One of the farm associates is a  bee cultivator and explained that bee venom contains two very powerful and beneficial proteins or something like that, and so now when I get stung I pretend I just got a shot at the doctor's office and say thanks and take a small but not excessive amount of comfort in the fact that the offending bee (or, in the mentioned metaphor, the doctor) is dying for having stung me.  Putting clay on the sting helps.

The Christmas season came and went without too much fanfare, the farm's isolation making dates something of an abstract concept.  We did have a lovely dinner and gift exchange at Pastor's house in town on Christmas Eve, however, and, the big kicker, a traditional Argentine asado out at the farm for my birthday.  A traditional asado consists of an entire lamb splayed out on an iron cross and slow cooked over a fire.  The tender, juicy meat was the best I have ever tasted and fed about 20 people.

It has been raining off and on for several days, but the system seems to have broken and sun is coming out in force just in time for the New Year, which also happens to coincide with a full moon.  In terms of the watering, which is my job, its a good thing we are about to line and fill and connect to 300 meters of tubing a 30,000 Liter spring-filled irrigation tank.

I am going to buy empanadas and take a shower.

Return to Patagonia: Down on the Farm

One month ago I arrived in Argentina, set to continue my journeys for as long as time and money and mind allow.  After a few days in Buenos Aires I headed back to El Bolson, situated along the 42nd parallel at the foot of the Andes.  Spring is in full swing with the sun shining hotter and longer and the greens growing greener than they did during my last stay, in Winter, but nights are still chilly and the surrounding peaks are still covered in snow.

I am currently staying at the Granja Valle Pintado (Painted Valley Farm) as a volunteer, working in exchange for food and shelter and knowledge.  My goal is to learn about sustainable living practices including farming, building, and community living.  We are three volunteers (two Americans and one Argentine) and the farm´s owner, Alex.  Alex is an American citizen but grew up in Indonesia and has lived for the past several years here in Argentina.  He and a group of several people from Argentina, Canada, Chile, and the US bought 20 acres in the wake of the peso collapse in 2001 with the goal of creating a small, self-sufficient community.  So far, the only one who lives permanently on the land is Alex.  He accepts volunteers during most of the year to help in advancing projects on the farm and to share his extensive knowledge about biodynamic agriculture.

He recently organized a community-supported agriculture program where people can pay the farm a regular contribution for a ¨share¨ of its produce: each week during harvest season each member receives a "basket" of the farm's goods.  CSA's have prospered in the US and can be found in every state (Manhattanites can even participate), but in Argentina the idea is still in its infancy.  The idea is to reunite people with local sources of food and rescue agriculture from large-scale production methods. Why? Because the methods used to produce, process, package, and transport the food we buy in supermarkets cast more than a shadow of doubt upon the quality and safety of that food.  Moreover, large-scale agriculture depends on an unsustainable exhaustion of natural resources and an unacceptable destruction of habitats for all living organisms.

We generally work from 9 to 8, with a healthy three hour siesta in the middle of the day.  The volunteers have one day and a half free each week and we use them to go into town (a 1 hour hike) or relax around the river.  Tasks we have been keeping busy with include weeding, watering, planting, transplanting from greenhouse to outside, applying mulch and compost, preparing earth for planting with a hoe, digging a 300 meter ditch for an irrigation pipe, putting in posts for a corral, caring for the chickens, making beer, grinding flour, making bread, and cooking meals.

Crops we have include carrots, rutabaga, kale, leeks, corn, garlic, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, parsnip, bok choy, quinoa, wheat, corn, millet, flax, potatoes, radishes, beetroot, basil, chard, arugula, squash, zucchini, cilantro, parsley, oregano, mustard.  There are fruit trees such as apple, peach, plum, and cherry, but many of them are too young to give fruit yet.  Rose hip grows like a plague everywhere and, while its fruit is good for everything from jams to vinegar, will cut you kindly if you forget its thorns. We share the farm with the cow Rosa, the horse Volcan, the dog Tao, 16 chickens, a family of geese, and a hive of bees for making honey.  The bees are exceptionally aggressive: After 25 years with only one bee sting, I have been rewarded with no less than 7 over the past few weeks.

On a final note, I recently celebrated the one year anniversary off my being laid-off from JPMorgan.

after a day in the fields

   

Steps from home

view of the farm from a distance (greenhouse on right)

"associates" of the farm came out for the corn planting; here after lunch in the community kitchen (i sleep in a  loft in this building)

Travelogue: Pause

After 7 months in Latin America, I am back home in the States. I will be returning to Argentina at the end of October to continue working on organic farms in Patagonia and explore more of the continent, but the sojourn is at a temporary end. My trip back ended, fittingly, with one last adventure as I was sequestered at Miami immigration due to my appearance, which no longer matches any of my IDs  I don't think I look that suspicious, but judge for yourself after the jump.

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Travelogue: Hare Krishna

I spent the past several days at an ashram. Simply put, an ashram is a monastery. The one I visited is for devotees of the Hare Krishna movement and is also an organic farm that accepts volunteers. The movement is based on some pretty basic ideas about keeping life simple and healthy, and is all about yoga, mantras, and praising Krishna. It is also a little bit like laws and sausages, in that it might spoil your spiritual appetite to know that it was founded in New York City in the 1960s.

Life on the ashram is soothing. The community consists of gardens, temples, and dormitories on 9 hectares of land in the Pampas outside of Buenos Aires. Despite the proximity to the Grand Capital, the farm is quiet and the air fresh, with the majority of neighbors being lazy cows, horses, and pigs. A few families live in separate houses on the land, while devotees practicing the monastic lifestyle live in communal spaces at the center of the community. The devotees make offerings to their gods several times a day in a fantastic temple that looks like a space ship.

Despite the spiritual nature of life on the ashram, religious views were kept at arms length on a "take it or leave it" basis for guests. All were honest about the fact that this life is not for everyone and that you have to, after having gotten your ya-yas out in the material world, really want to dedicate yourself to finding an inner peace.

What follows is the schedule of a sample day for the volunteers who, it should be noted, paid a nominal fee and were treated more as guests than laborers:

7:30 AM: Wake groggily in your spartan, monastic, yet comfy room. Stumble to dining room for breakfast of chapati bread, banana marmalade, and custard.

8:30 AM: Head out to the construction site for the day's work. Work consisted of pounding posts into holes in the ground for a future floor. The girls did gardening with Maria.

10:30 AM: Sit in the sun to share a mate and discuss American imperialism, spiritual wanderings, and the invasion of Argentina by Monsanto and the Soy lobby with Ariel and Gustavo, our "supervisors." They are kinda mercenary eco-construction workers who recently moved to the ashram from an eco-village called Gaia and are not involved in the monastic lifestyle.

11:15 AM: Resume working.

1:00 PM: Finish work, go put on sandals and lie in the sun.

1:30 PM: Lunch, followed by siesta.

4:30 PM: Yoga and Meditation

5:30 PM: Tea and snack

8:30 PM: Dinner

9:00 PM: Read two pages, fall asleep in spartan, monastic, yet comfy room.

Every day was exactly the same, save for Sunday, during which we did not work and had an extra meditation session.

Sometimes DVDs were played in the dining room, and I feel obligated to note that I watched an anti-abortion video that had been crafted out of scenes from Kill Bill.

Ariel lived in this cozy little trailer.

One of our gourmet, lacto vegetarian lunch dishes.

There is pleasure to be had in the monotony of pounding rubble into a hole for hours at a time.

Typical afternoon activity.

This young lad claimed to be something of a Dr. Doolittle.

The gardens and the house under construction.

Pizza!

The great Argentina Pampas.

The temple, called a "truly," and another sacred building next to it where they keep the clothes of the gods.

Fiesta Del Poncho

The Fiesta Del Poncho has been one of Argentina's grandest cultural festivals since its inception in 1967. Taking place in the capital city of the Northern province of Catamarca, "El Poncho," as it is generally referred to, is a 10 day extravaganza of song, dance, food, and art and takes its name from the hand-woven garments which are plentiful, and famously well-made, in the province.

I had the good fortune to be invited by my friend Pastor to participate in Poncho 2009. Artisans come from near and far to advertise and sell their handiwork, but also to just be part of the experience. Many of them know each other from other stops on the national crafts fair "circuit," so the atmosphere is one of a big reunion. Some stay in the back of vans, some in tents, some at hostels, some with family nearby. In between attending to customers, they just sit around and smoke, drink, eat, and shoot the shit. Some have big operations while others are rastafarians rolling out a mat of bracelets on the sidewalk. Most of the more established artisans seem to care little about how much they sell, being happy enough to have gotten away from home.

Due to a late night arrival and runaway confusion regarding his name, Pastor and I stayed for free in a room in the city cathedral complex. In this most unlikely of places I found my first high-powered super-hot shower in over four months. Despite the fact that I was no longer cold, I took full advantage.

We started "work" each day around 1pm and went until 11 or 12 pm depending on the day. The work consisted of hanging around the stand chatting and sellin' them chimes--our stand was a big hit. The weekends were busy and the chimes chimed continuously. We drank milkshakes and we drank beer and we drank wine in the middle of the day. We ate empanadas and hot dogs and sweets and stews and steaks.

A pudgy man with a limp and a nasally voice wandered around the hall selling coca leaves and muna muna, a plant rumored to augment male virility--"Muna muna, coca!....Muna muna, coca!" was his constant refrain. A white-haired Chilean selling Andean flutes played the same song once every five minutes for ten days and I started to hum it in my sleep.

I explained to no less than 500 people, confused by my accent and appearance, that "Yes you are right, I am not from Argentina, I am American but, for the time being, I live in Argentina....and I met this guy down South and I am learning about what he does and helping him in the workshop." They told me how great that is and that they have a cousin in Michigan. Many of them personally welcomed me to Argentina. Old men clasped my shoulders and called me "son" and old women kissed my cheek with smudgy lipstick. One group of teenage girls conducted an informal but thorough interview and later offered me some orange juice.

Every evening we went home wiped out. We ate dinner almost every night at the same place on the plaza because it was good, it was easy, it was cheap, and they knew us. We went to bed late and woke up late and had coffee in the morning and went back to sell them chimes.

my friend sebastiana is michelle obama's brazilian cousin

kids out front getting busy
pastor fixing some breakfast in the room
glass mandalas and windchimes
the puesto

setting it up on the first day
in the truck on the way to the first day of the Poncho

On the Road Again: Catamarca

I have temporarily moved on from the kingdom of mud and sustainability to get more in touch with my traveling artisan roots. I am now selling windchimes with Pastor, my mud and sustainability mentor, at the Fiesta del Poncho, a 10-day cultural festival and arts fair in the Northern Argentine city of Catamarca.

To get here I had to endure 36 straight hours on a bus and an Adam Sandler movie called "Click," which must have been produced as a model for how to go straight-to-DVD. All worth it, however, because I am wearing sandals and only one shirt for the first time in 18 weeks, and even starting to get my tan back. On top of that, I have credentials--a distinguished artisan badge around my neck that lets me get the secret artisan discount (four pesos instead of five for a delicious piece of cake.)

Gotta get back to work.

Staying Put in Patagonia

This trip has comprised several markedly different "stages." There was the "blowing through Central America's Highlights" stage, the "camping with a crazy Dutchman" stage, and the "freezing my ass off to hike and sail at the End of the World" stage. Yet another stage has begun, and, for the first time on my trip, I feel like staying put. History will refer to this as the "farming, working with mud, and really going off the reservation" stage.

El Bolson blossomed with an influx of European and Argentine hippies in the 1970s. New Age homesteaders gobbled up plots of free land in this fertile valley, surrounded by snow-capped Andean peaks and traversed by the truly-blue Rio Azul. They created lives out of the land, making homes, making crafts, making cheese, making beer, making jam, making families. The town's Feria Artesanal became (and still is) a serious tourist draw and source of income, and I would guess that it indirectly or directly supports more than half of the town's 30,000 permanent residents (the population in Summer skyrockets to over 100,000 due to tourism).

I am currently volunteering for a local artisan and staying in the mud-walled hut/tool shed in his yard. Temperatures are consistently below freezing here, but a small wood-burning stove and a down comforter make the place comfy. I help him build mud ovens, plant trees, build greenhouses, and make windchimes in his workshop. He gives me food and a place to sleep and teaches me about everything he does. I usually eat lunch and dinner with the family and it's a rare day that I don't watch at least one episode of the Simpsons with the kids.

One of things that makes El Bolson so interesting is its heavy emphasis on local production, self-sufficiency, and community. Despite continued growth and commercialization, its lifeblood is the self-made craftsman. The town is full of transplants that arrived to try and make something out of nothing. Pastor, for example, showed up fifteen years ago as a 20-year old with no money and a baby on the way, and has made a name and a great living for himself out of the windchimes. He spent a substantial part of those fifteen years building two gorgeous houses by hand, progressing bit by bit only as time and money and help would allow. These type of people are used to making do with what they have and, most importantly, helping others. One community outside of town, for example, has a semi-formal system whereby the same group of people meet once every couple weeks to work on one of the group member's houses, rotating until all are finished.

The spirit of cooperation makes El Bolson a great learning environment. Many people rely on groups of friends and volunteers to do small and large-scale building projects and, even in the winter, help is always needed. Whatever the project, volunteers are incorporated in such a way that, rather than just working, they learn. In general, everyone here seems to be learning, whether about construction, knitting, farming, or websites. I have attended a course on seeds and a course on electricty, and last night a woman I met in the gas station invited me to come to her creative writing group later this week.

Pastor is part of a loosely-knit group of people, jokingly referred to as "the tribe," that are linked by a common interest in sustainable living. These are the folks that are developing off-the-grid communities outside of town with the the goal of self-sufficiency and cooperative living; the folks that build houses out of clay, sand, water, and cow shit; the folks that make windows out of broken windshields and wine bottles; the folks that treat toilet water with complex systems of rocks and water plants; the folks that, in the wake of the Argentine peso collapse in the early 2000s, created a local system of barter and trade divorced from government currency. Some of them also happen to believe that the world is, in some sense, going to end in 2012, and that giant energy-producing crystals occasionally come down from other galaxies, but, refreshingly, these ideas are not forced upon anyone.

I think that, like many people, the "crisis," as well as my particular experience on Wall Street, has prompted me to explore what it means to be happy, successful, and/or comfortable. To that end, getting to know "the tribe" and El Bolson, and the complete culture shock that entails, has been especially refreshing and rewarding. I am continually surprised at the way these people use a combination of creativity, enterprise, simplicity, efficiency, and patience to create wondrous things, whether it be homes or pieces of art or communities or lives, in the vague sense of the term. I am going to stay here a while and soak it all up, but, for the moment, I'll leave the neophyte's naive wonder at that.

Work: Brick Ovens and Greenhouses

In El Bolson, Argentina, a town with roots to a hippie "colonization" in the '70s, I have been volunteering with some locals in order to learn about bio-construction, organic agriculture, permaculture, etc. Here is a link to photos of the two projects I have been working on:

http://picasaweb.google.com/JSant27/ElBolsonTrabajos?feat=directlink

Travelogue: Hitching

I recently spent six days on the road, hitchhiking from Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, to El Bolson, in the Northern part of Argentine Patagonia. My original hope was to hitch from Ushuaia to Bolivia, but I found getting rides to be harder than expected in some places and, on two occasions, had to ultimately take a bus. Hitching in Patagonia is neither easy nor comfortable, but, having talked to other travelers, I knew it was at least possible and had to try.

I logged over 2000 km of Northwesterly travel, and ended up splitting the distance between hitchhiking and buses. I rode in one long-haul cargo truck, one truck carrying pipes for oil rigs, four pick-ups, and two cars. The drivers were as diverse as their vehicles: Raul owns sawmills in Brazil, works as a part-time translator of Portuguese for the government, and drives for fun; one guy who's name I didn't get was just driving an unrelated old woman to her hometown so she could vote in congressional elections; Dario and his son Felix were driving to Rio Gallegos to check in on the family business, which maintains gas and oil distribution networks; Sergio drives a truck carrying equipment to and from the oil derricks outside of Comodoro Rivadavia; Pedro is a soil environmentalist working for an American oil company; the other guy who's name I didn't get works for a state-run agricultural institute; Sebastian made a bundle when the Argentine peso collapsed and, despite being trained as a lawyer and holding a government job, makes his money renting houses and selling produce from his land; the other Pedro, who saved me during the most perilous of my waits, works for the government and was traveling to Bariloche, consistently doing over 100 mph, to visit a mysterious "amiga."

Conversations, obligatory in such situations, were easy and interesting, although, topically speaking, they became somewhat repetitive: our backgrounds, U.S. and Argentine politics, football, the weather (my fault), and Swine Flu. Instead of being tiresome, the common themes allowed me to draw some conclusions as to what might be the "Argentine opinion" on a certain topic: All are frustrated with Argentine politics, most dislike Chavez (their president is cozying up to him), all like Obama, most think the climate is changing, most wanted the U.S. to beat Brazil in the Confederations Cup, and all think the current fuss about Swine Flue in Argentina is a misguided campaign fueled by a self-interested government and press.

I was surprised to uncover a certain self-loathing of Argentina in almost every conversation. Sergio grew up in a working family and only studied through second-grade, yet travels in Argentina and Chile with his family, when he can, and, judging by our conversation, thinks deeply about the world beyond his trucking job. He abhors what he perceives as Argentine disinterest in culture and learning and thinks it puts the country at a disadvantage. Raul, as we discussed the poor maintenance of the icy road between Ushuaia and Rio Grande, told me about the entrenchment of corruption in local politics and mused that "Argentina would be a wonderful country if it were not for the Argentines." In answering my question as to why Argentina exports 100% of its crude oil and imports refined products, Pedro asserted, quite sincerely, that Argentines are lazy. A supervisor at the oil company, he told me that he can always count on the Bolivians and Paraguayans to have completed their assignments, and then some, whereas the Argentines can be counted on to spend half of their time working and half drinking mate. Each conveyed the sentiment that Argentina has not lived up to its potential, and, from an economic standpoint, may be irreparably broken.

Outside of the cars, I did a lot of walking and a lot of waiting. The best place to wait for rides is at the final exit of a city. Getting there sometimes involved a walk of several kilometers which, with a 60+ pound pack on my back, became quite a workout. On several occasions I did the walk out and, in defeat, back in to town. Twice, I was picked up within moments of reaching my spot, but in most places I spent several hours standing on the side of the road. I did plenty of thinking, but the hours were long and thinking became dangerous, so I turned to music. The iPod saved my life.

Rio Gallegos was the big distaster. A transportation and shipping hub, it is the first city in continental Argentina as you travel North from Tierra del Fuego. Despite the volume of long-haul traffic and the fact that I spent the better part of thirty-six hours thumbing on the roadside and asking around the truckstop, I could not get a ride. Battered by the cold wind and losing hope, I gave in on second day and bought a bus ticket.

The gas station in Gallegos was near the bus terminal, and, mostly for convenience, I slept two nights in the terminal waiting area. The first night I shared the room with another hitchhiker, an Argentine, and slept rather fitfully as I kept expecting to be kicked out. Amidst my tossing and turning, a cute little black dog showed up to sleep under my seat. I woke from my half-sleep some time later to find that he had taken my gloves out of my boots and chewed a hole in one of them. More distraught than angry, I gave him a hard smack. His puppy dog eyes made me regret it, and, making sure to stash my belognings carefully in my bag, I let him sleep with me the next night.

The biggest obstacle was the cold, with temperatures in the daytime at or below freezing. Moreover, because the sun does not really come out until after 9 AM and I wanted to get early starts, I often began my walk in the dark. It is hard to stay warm standing on the side of the road, no matter what you wear, so I paced, jumped, clapped, jogged, and rattled my body like an insane person.

The act of "thumbing" became problematic in and of itself. I wore a thin pair of liner gloves because my thicker ski gloves did not allow for an adequate extension of the thumb. Better than nothing, these gloves nevertheless left my fingers almost numb and I would sometimes have to abort the thumb as a car passed to tuck it underneath my fingers. Aside from the cold, I actually developed a slight case of tendinitis at one point and had to change thumbing form to avoid the pain.

Simple as it seems, hitching took some learning and some getting used to. Aside from having to learn where to wait, who to look for, and how to ask around, I had to overcome a subtle sense of embarassment. At it's essence hitchhiking is begging, something which is, to me, completely foreign and decidedly uncomfortable. At the start I would reluctantly and timidly stick out my thumb, always a split second too late to avoid outright rejection. After a few short hitches in and around Ushuaia, however, I warmed up to it, lost my inhibitions, and boldly begged everyone that passed.

Even once I became accustomed to thumbing, I had trouble looking drivers in the eye. I did not want to see the disgust and disapproval I imagined to be emanating from behind the wheel. After a while, though, I began to feel ownership of my role as a hitchhiker and to even take some pride in it. I started to look at the drivers because to not look at them is to let them off easy. "Not picking me up is one thing," I thought, "but at least acknowledge me." Another benefit to looking at people is that many people that don't stop will visually apologize. For example, many drivers will look at you and gesture that they are heading somewhere else, or simply wave to acknowledge your wait and apologize for the pass. Instead of saying "I reject you," they are saying, "I really would like to help you, but, for some reason that is out of my control, I can't, and I wish you the best of luck." Even though you are still out in the cold, these looks are great for morale.

All told, the scorecard is not that impressive: I saved about $60 dollars on transportation costs, but added more than four days to my travel time (with different luck, however, I could have saved double the amount in half the time). I slept very little, walked a lot, and shivered more. At a couple points in the trip I was quite distraught, wanting to give up quickly but feeling as I did that I owed it to myself to keep trying. When I finally arrived to El Bolson I was so exhausted and dirty that I was pretty worthless for the next two days. As the days wear on, however, it is harder for me to remember the bad times and easier for me to remember how, every single time I got out of the car, the driver shook my hand, looked me in the eyes, smiled heartily, and wished me good luck. A few of the drivers even hugged me.

I would now advocate hitchhiking as a personal exercise, something akin to shaving your head completely, fasting, or running a marathon. Not only do you learn about yourself, and your limits, but you pick up a little bit of empathy along the way. I certainly did not set out on the hitchhiking trip with grand visions of a social experiment, but I did, on this selfish endeavor, learn a little bit more about what it's like to go without. Key for me is the idea that you don't have to go out of your way to make someone's day. Sometimes, all you have to do is stop.

Travelogue: Sailing

A week ago I walked onto the docks at the yacht club here in Ushuaia and, in what was for me an uncommon feat of audacity, asked for a ride. I ended up three days later on Tranquilo, a 57-foot boat captained by a Dutchman named Bart. Bart made millions developing and marketing Vox Vodka. After 17 years of work he decided to hang it up, at age 34, and commissioned a world-famous boat builder--the guy who designed the Maltese Falcon--to build him a state-of-the-art beauty. Like a nice black suit, his boat conveys class, luxury, and confidence in an improbably subtle package. Despite Bart being a relative newcomer to the world of sailing, his boat has afforded him entry to the most exclusive of sailing circles and is the envy of many an old hand.

Bart himself designed the interior in a luxury minimalist style (think this), packed the boat full of toys (jet boat, skis, scuba gear, deep-sea fishing rigs) and set off around the world. Three years later, having crossed the Atlantic and sailed solo to Antarctica, he is exploring Tierra del Fuego and planning to continue up the Pacific coast of the Americas.

In Puerto Williams we moored Bart's boat against another, the Kiwi Roa, from New Zealand. This aluminum-hulled 50-foot boat looks like a tank and was built by the captain and owner, Pete Smith, who has been sailing around the world for 30-years with his wife Jo. Between those on the docks and those moored away, the Micalvi Yacht Club was hosting dozens of sailboats, but almost all were empty, locked up for the winter as their captains have gone home to various places around the world. In fact, aside from Kiwi Roa and Tranquilo, the only boats with owners present were Ocean Tramp and Santa Maria Australis. The town is small (pop. 2500), but the yacht club community is smaller, so within a couple minutes I knew everyone.

Ocean Tramp is owned by Charlie Porter, a legendary American climber turned scientist. Charlie has pioneered solo routes of El Capitan, kayaked through the Patagonian fjords and around Cape Horn, patented a type of climbing nut, made maps for the Chilean Navy, and hunted seals during a winter living with natives in Greenland. He now works as a glacial geologist, studying climate change by monitoring the glaciers of the Southern oceans from his sailboat, which he has converted into a scientific super-station.

Wolf, a German captain not nearly as grizzly as his name, runs charter tours on Santa Maria Australis. He bought his first sailboat at 22 and sailed it around the Mediterannean until it was crushed, made money importing and exporting in Germany, and relocated to Chile 15 years ago. His trips are high-octane (kayaking/climbing/scuba) customized adventures to Cape Horn and Antarctica for Europeans with deeeeeep pockets.

These boats, and the others moored at Puerto Williams and Ushuaia, are made for long-term, offshore "cruising." Bart's and Pete's boats, which are sturdy enough for world travel and can comfortably house a few people, are two of the smaller ones. The larger ones, such as Wolf's and Charlie's, are upwards of 70 feet with two masts and covered cockpits. Below deck, they have sleeping space for 8-10 people, at least three bathrooms, common areas for dining and seating, a well-equipped galley for cooking, and storage space for toys, supplies, luggage, and food (boats going to Antarctica are required to have one year's worth of food).

Certain paradoxes infuse the world of sailing and make it all the more intriguing. Hardy, brave, and practical to the core, each and every one of these captains keeps a clean, organized cabin (shoes off before entering) and, while they will face the harshest of elements to bring in a sail or tie down a line, they just as readily expect to enjoy hot tea and a good snack once below deck. They take pride in their adventures, and in being hardcore, but they place an equal premium on class, cleanliness, and comfort. They can be hard-headed, "type A," and narrowly focused on their boats and their journeys. The yacht clubs, however, are places of sharing and cooperation. For example, due to limited dock space boats must moor against each other, three and four deep against the docks. It is thus necessary to walk on other boats to reach your own--just wipe your feet first and nobody minds. Likewise, when you arrive, the crew of the boat you will moor against should be there to help you tie lines. When we arrived, the couple in Kiwi Roa were cooking or sleeping or otherwise unavailable. Bart blew a loud horn to get them out on the boat, and nobody thought twice about it.

The atmosphere is convivial and familial, with captains hosting each other for dinner, swapping stories, sharing weather reports, and generally looking out for one another. The world of ocean cruising seems relatively small, as sailors who have never met can triangulate their relationship to each other with reference to the names of other boats they have encountered in distant ports and anchorages. A kind of self-monitoring membership system exists in that anyone who sails into these docks has done serious ocean crossings and most have been to Antarctica. Necessarily then, each is worthy of the other's respect and trust.

Supporting the captains in these nautical dramas is the crew. Most larger boats, save for the Maltese Falcon, cannot be sailed safely by one person over long distances. Putting up and taking in sails, making repairs on the fly, mooring, night watches for safety, and, for charters, taking care of clients, generally necessitate an extra hand or two. Some boats have regular crews, some pick them up as they go. Some couples, like Pete and Jo, handle the boat themselves, but for longer trips they might also solicit crew members. Some crews get paid while others share expenses with the captain for the privilege of passage. Others sail in something of a volunteer capacity, working for their bunk and food.

Thilo, from Switzerland, is a 23-year old I met in Puerto Williams, and had just crossed the Atlantic on a six-week voyage crewing for a private boat. He had no prior experience sailing and is simply traveling the world like me, but ended up on a fantastic voyage with an old, party-loving German captain, his girlfriend, and two young fellow crew members. They shared cooking duties, night watches, and general work onboard to keep the boat above water and on course, but otherwise had a free, fun, and priceless journey.

Martin, a former geography teacher from Holland, is in Ushuaia trying to score a job as a crew member on one of the Cape Horn or Antarctic charter boats, such as the one Wolf captains. He sailed down from Buenos Aires and is hoping to get around the world by crewing. He worked as a sailing instructor in Holland and knows what he's doing, so thinks he might find a paying gig, at least one that will cover a plane ticket home at some point.

Websites exist that serve to connect those seeking boats with those seeking crews, but the positions offered are usually for "shared expenses" arrangements (expenses include diesel, food, port fees, etc.). The really great trips, on private boats going to fantastic locations, require patience, diligence, and luck. Thilo, for example, spent two months waiting for his lucky day and Martin has spent three months in Ushuaia cultivating relationships with the sailors here. The season does not begin again until late October, so he has to kill time until then.

It appears that I, too, may have a chance to join the company of these modern-day explorers. Charlie Porter invited me to accompany him and his group of scientists on a three-month trip later this year to the islands of South Georgia and Tristan de Cunha. Not set in stone yet, but this is the trip of a lifetime, so I have accepted the offer. Before entering the open Southern Atlantic, however, I need to address a less exciting aspect of sailing and test my resistance to seasickness.

Photos: Carretera Austral, Tierra del Fuego, Isla Navarino

Photos from the last three weeks.  As always, over-captioned for your enjoyment.

Carretera Austral,Tierra del Fuego, and Isla Navarino

If that doesn't work try: http://picasaweb.google.com/JSant27/CarreteraAustralTierraDelFuegoAndIslaNavarino?feat=directlink 

Re: The Docks

I went back to the Docks yesterday and found the mysterious Dutchman with the beautiful sailboat.  After a brief chat, Bart agreed to give me a ride to Puerto Williams, 5 hours across the Beagle Channel.  The trip usually costs $100 for a 20 minutes ride on a small Zodiac motorboat, so I'm pretty proud of having secured such a superior alternative.  Furthermore, due to Chilean territorial ambitions and the arbitrary nature of political boundaries, Puerto Willliams is actually part of Chile's Antarctic claim.  Thus, assuming all goes to plan, on Thursday I will be able to claim having visited all 7 continents (although there will be an asterisk by my name due to the tecnhicality).

Cultural Connections: All your 80s ski wear

Every Southern Chilean town, no matter how small, has at least one shop that sells "Ropa Americana."  These second-hand clothes come by boat from the United States and Canada and are bought up by enterprising merchants throughout Chilean Patagonia.  By the looks of the merchandise, an enterprising exporter in the U.S. or Canadaa buys up a quantity of clothing and then lets it "age" before releasing it to Chilean importers.  Right now, the 1985-1988 vintage is hot.

Chile is home to several super ski resorts, but few of them are in Patagonia.  When it comes to being warm, however, style matters little in this part of the world.  Consequently, what would only pass for ski clothing in the U.S. is everyday wear during frigid Chilean winters.  

I am primarily talking ski bibs.  At some point 10-15 years ago, savvy American skiiers decided that a bib with suspender straps was no longer either necessary or acceptable.  Discovery of the magic of elastic, and the modernization of ski jackets to include advanced features such as powder skirts, ushered in an era of fancy ski "pants" with all sorts of nooks and crannies built-in. A sea change also took place in terms of colors.  Bibs had been available in a veritable neon rainbow of colors, but the era of pants has been dark hued.

The World's carpet littered with bibs, Chile stepped in to vacuum.  If you can handle the color, there are deals to be had.  Having sifted through bins and racks and more bins and racks of neon green and fuschia, I am convinced that we made a mistake.  The only thing that has stopped me from buying 13 neon ski bibs (most with polyster inlaid somewhere) is the size of my bag.  These bibs are national treasures, and I plan to start a business exporting the imports back to the U.S. Note the superman suit below, one of my personal favorites.

The Docks

Greg is from Vancouver, but left five years ago to sail around the world.  He looks about 65.  He told me he bought his first sailboat before I was born, and is on his third.  His wife is with him for a couple of months but will return to Canada in August.  I asked him if I could hitch a ride to Puerto Williams, a Chilean settlement that is the actual Southernmost town in the world.  Trying to be polite but trying to say no, he explained that there is not much space and if the weather is bad he may have to anchor somewhere for several days, in which case I would be stuck with them.  "I can handle that," I said desperately.  "Well," he stuttered, "what I really mean is we would be stuck with you."  

No hard feelings, we continued chatting for a while.  He had crossed the Pacific Ocean from French Polynesia to Chile and is now rounding the Southern tip on his way to the Falkland Islands and then up to Buenos Aires to have some repairs done.  I was curious about Antarctica seeing how Ushuaia is fewer than 700 miles from the polar continent.  "In my younger days I was ballsy," he explained, "but now I'm more careful and the ice just makes me nervous."

I was at the docks with some fellow travelers, Enrico and Casey, looking for a cheaper alternative to the sightseeing trips that take tourists around the Channel.  The city has a dock where people can pay to anchor as they  pass through.  The "club" also has a kitchen, bathrooms, and lounge facilities.  We found a man on shore who said to just go ask around the boats.  Somehow feeling that we were trespassing, we tiptoed onto the docks, marveling at the array of sailboats.  Some were old and basic, some were new and fancy, but all gave the impression that they had known wondrous voyages.

After our chat, Greg told me to check with a Dutchman moored nearby, who has a large, beautiful sailboat all to himself.  To get to the boat I had to walk on another.  It belongs to a French guy and is chartered for 25 day trips to Antarctica.  After a few timid attempts at "hello?", I decided nobody was home and skittered back to the dock.  

We spoke with a local man who keeps a small sailboat at the club.  We told him we wanted to just take a spin around the channel, maybe see the local penguin colony.  He pulled on his cigarette, looking a bit disgusted by our ignorance and a bit confused as to why we did not just go to the tourist agency.  "There aren't any penguins," he said, squinting through his own smoke.  He lightened up after that with some joke about how they didn't like the cold, and suggested we ask Mickey, who goes to Puerto Williams and Cape Horn.  

We couldn't find Mickey, so we took our by then well-practiced query to a sailor on one of the tourist boats.  He had a perfectly formed, silver handlebar moustache and hunched down in his coat as he smoked.  Openly pessimistic about our prospects, he pulled out a cellphone, saying he knew of one person that might help us.  Phone to his ear, we saw his eyes light up as the line connected. "Mickey?!" we heard him say.

After some hefty laughs, a brief explanation of our situation, and friendly banter we didn't understand, he passed the phone to Enrico.  Enrico told him we had heard he might be going to Cape Horn and that we would love to come along if possible.  Casey and I listened with glee as we heard Enrico answer that, yes, we did have raingear, warm clothing, and shoes.  We were convinced we had just scored a free trip to Cape Horn--surely such details would only be discussed at the conclusion of a successful call.  Then we heard Enrico say "1500 dollars?" and sank back to Earth.

The captain of the Antarctic-bound charter boat, a French expat, emerged at that point, and I asked him if he knew anyone going to Puerto Williams.  "This is a really bad time," he explained, with a touch of condescension.  "There are not many people going and you may get stuck."  After a bit of an awkward conversation in which he presented problems which I insisted didn't bother me, he suggested I call Wolf, who would be going in a few days. Thrilled, I waited giddily for the number and off we went.  Wolf's wife Jeanette was lovely on the phone as she explained that yes Wolf would be going soon and could take me, but that he might stay for a week.  "No problem," I answered.  She went on to mention that the cost would be $100 each way.  Too expensive, another defeat.

Our mission, though unsuccessful in terms of finding a cheap excursion, was nevertheless encouraging.  What I learned is that private boats come in and out of the docks going in all directions, and that most of the sailors are happy to talk with visitors.  People like Greg, for example, are also travelers and are not out to gouge anyone.  I am convinced that, if I keep trying, I'll meet someone looking for help or even just company.  If I do meet that person, regardless of where the boat is going, I'm getting on.

People: The Cyclists

Ushuaia, because of its generally accepted status as "Southernmost City in the World," attracts travelers with pretty amazing itineraries.  I have met two cyclists here whose trips blew my mind:

Daniel is about 40 years old, from the province of Buenos Aires, and works in the family business selling bicycle equipment.  He is going to bicycle all the way from Ushuaia to the Northern reaches of Alaska on a trip that will last more than one year, and has been ten years in the planning.  His budget is 25000 pesos, which comes to about 6,600 USD.  He also spent about 15000 pesos on his gear (about 4000 USD), which includes a bike, a trailer, and good camping gear.  In 2001 he cycled the whole of Argentina, from North to South, but his family thinks he is too old for this trip.  

Jaffie is 24 and from Nepal.  A UCLA graduate in Anthropology, he has spent the past 20 months cycling through the Americas.  He ran out of money in Ecuador, and has since earned money writing the occasional travel article, working odd jobs, or selling musical equipment he left back home.  A girl in Costa Rica pitied him after he was robbed and he ended up staying in her house for a month.  A police officer in Bolivia helped him cross the border illegally to avoid paying a visa fee.  

Having seen the mania that is the Central American highways, I asked them if they feared getting hit. Both downplayed the danger and have covered thousands and thousands of accident-free kilometers.  Daniel uses a small mirror to monitor oncoming traffic.  Jaffie pointed out that on long stretches of road in Latin America, most of the traffic is commercial trucks with professional drivers.     

Los Antiguos Border Crossing

The border towns of Chile Chico (Chile) and Los Antiguous (Argentina) face off somewhere between Northern and Southern Patagonia.  Both have beautiful surroundings and small town charm, but serve mainly as gateway cities.  I spent a lovely evening in Chile Chico, chatting with the senora of the hospedaje, a city councilwoman and ardent socialist, before boarding a morning mini-bus for Los Antiguos.  On the way I chatted with a local guy who was crossing over to shop for flour and other supplies in Argentina--its much cheaper there.  He asked about typical salaries in the U.S., the cost of my North Face jacket, and, with a look that said he would be very sensitive to my answer, my opinion of Chile.  I evaded the last question, explaining that much of my time in Chile had been on the "campo" with foreigners.

Chile bid me adieu with no problems.  Argentina stamped me through and bid me good trip.  As I walked back to the mini-bus, however, the driver called me back.

"Oye," he called. "There is a new woman here who wants to check your bag.  Usually they don't ask but she's new..."

"No problem," I said, hefting my backpack, which is by now a delicately packed behemoth, into the customs office.  I had a few apples and a cucumber and said so immediately, not wanting to appear evasive and knowing they would not be allowed.  Head's shook: "We have a plague of apples right now."  Oops.  Argentina, unlike Chile, does not fine for such indiscretion, but they certainly wag their fingers at you.

The real problem was the pills.  My dopkit is full of them.  When I left I took about 60 ibuprofen out of a large bottle and put them in a clear ziplock.  I didn't anticipate a problem but now it is clear to me why it might not be a great idea.  This anonymous, suspicious baggie full of Argentina-knows-what lent a certain suspiciousness to everything else: the bottle of tylenol, the ziplock full of antibiotics, the generic Mexican stomach meds, the multi-vitamins!  That and sheer quantity.  Several times I heard other guards ask the bag-searcher how many pills I had, obviously implying that if there were few, it would not be a problem.  Her pained response, after a sigh, was "there are lots."  

These two poor customs women, I'll call them Stickler and Amenable, were flummoxed.  Pills abound and no way to identify them, and now a smug backpacker on his way to irate, indignant that his well-traveled pills would meet their fate in this forgotten backwater of a border town.  I insisted that I was not parting with anything unless they could show me the written law. Amenable seemed to understand my displeasure and sought to ameliorate it, calling other offices for clarification on the rules and advice on this situation.  

Meanwhile Stickler proceeded to dismantle the whole of my luggage.  She held at arms length, pinched between the tips of cautious, condescending fingers, my collection of plastic baggies, my scraps of newspaper, my pieces of string, my packets of soup, my Argentine Playboy magazine (traded for my last New Yorker in a hostel, but just for language practice).  I curtly identified each item, lingering close, exuding distrust.

My driver had already left once to take the other passengers across the border and returned to get me when I realized I had been at this border station for almost 2 hours.  While Stickler insisted that I could not bring any medicine into the country Amenable was attempting to identify the mystery pills.  There seemed to be a lack of agreement in policy.  Despite the initial statement that transporting meds was not allowed, full stop, they were allowing me to keep the seemingly more "heavy" amoxicillin.  Also, despite their contention that the ibuprofen was a problem because it was "loose" and unidentifiable, they did not have a problem with the open bottles of Tylenol and vitamins, nor with the several blue Advil PM (if anything the most dangerous of all) floating loosely in the dopkit itself.  

Seeing the hour, I pleaded, although not desperately, that I did not have time, that I had a bus to catch and did not want to hold my driver any longer.  Still, I had to wait.  I realized that Amenable was trying to form a collective identity between us all, trying to foster a sense that all of us in that amateurish border station were in it together against the larger Argentine bureaucracy.  I wasn't having that bullshit and maintained my emotional distance.  She said we had to wait for a call from some other office, and offered me a smoke in the meantime.  I coldly refused.  

The much anticipated phone call was of no help, and at this point ouAmenable informed me, with complete apology, that she was going to the local hospital to see if they could identify the pills.  I threw up my hands and almost screamed, completely amazed at the ridiculousness of the situation, and tried once more to say, I give up, let's pretend I never protested and you can have all my pills.  "I can't," she lamented, "now we have to find out what this is."

I knew the driver was losing money--all he does is go back and forth with border-crossing passengers all day at frequent intervals--so I told him he could leave.  He accepted my offer, kindly explaining how I could walk across the border and into Los Antiguos, and then, ever so sheepishly, told me he still had to charge me.  "It wasn't my fault," he said with a shrug and some sort of squishing up of his face that was meant to convey sympathy.  He had been nice to wait this long, but I was still a bit hurt by the desertion.

Amenable came back from the hospital with no luck and said they had to keep trying.  Stickler sat at her computer, having been silent for quite some time.  I could tell she felt bad about having launched this fool's crusade and, to augment her regret, I subtly played the part of dejected and persecuted innocent, far from home and all alone in an unforgiving place. 

In fact, the place was supremely pleasant, and if I had to be stuck at a border crossing I could have done worse.  Warm, with beautiful views of the Patagonian steppes through plentiful windows, I was quite comfortable and did not at all feel threatened.  Having made my traveler's rights stand and having tired of doing so, I decided to read my book and wait it out in peace. Thirty minutes later my allied official waved me outside and said, "ok, we're done."  When I asked what had changed she answered "nothing."  She explained that they still could not identify the pills, but neither could they continue to hold me.  

To top off the weirdness of it all, she offered me a ride to town in the customs department car, which I heartily accepted.  She explained the recent problems they had been having with drugs, I explained that, traveling for an extended period of time, I had to be vigilant about my stuff. She said sorry, I said sorry, we chatted about this and that, I made it in time for the next bus South. I lost two apples, a cucumber, and more than 60 ibuprofens.  Having made it across with the rest, I call it a victory.

Photos: Cagalandia

This is a well-captioned set of photos that should explain a lot about the "farm" I worked on in Chile.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JSant27/2009TravelsCagalandia#

Travelogue: Emerging from Cagalandia

Five days ago I left Cagalandia for good.  My departure marked the end of 42 straight days of what I would consider "roughing it."

I am having to acclimate to sleeping in beds, using regular showers, being indoors, and not being able to pee anywhere, any time.  Despite these practical matters, I largely attribute my "out of sorts" feeling to the fact that my activities are no longer so restricted by my surroundings. Freedom brings alternatives and demands decisions.  What to do, what to eat, where to go...its a bit of a shock.  I am still decompressing after what was in many ways a dramatic experience, and, despite several attempts, am not sure how to relate all that has transpired.  I am stalling trying to process it all and so will just catch up on my recent travel.  Pictures of Cagalandia are forthcoming.

After two straight weeks of rain, the sun came out, on Sunday, and I left.  Thomas took me to town on the catamaran.  At one point our left front tried to submarine, along with my bag, and I thought we were goners. He pulled us out of it, though, and I manned the jib as we landed without incident in Raul Marin.  Early the next morning I took a minibus, a new service run by a local man, to La Junta, another tiny settlement slightly larger than Raul Marin.  I spent the night at Tia Lety's Hospedaje and had a thrillingly hot shower, watched Spider-Man 2 and Yo, Robot in Spanish, chatted with Tia Letty about her arrival 30 years ago as one of the initial settlers of the village, and hung the contents of my bag all over the room in an attempt to dry these victims of the prior day's sailing trip.   

At 5AM the next morning I hopped on another minibus to Coyhaique, capital of the Aisen region. It's a six hour ride along one of the world's wildest roads, the Carretera Austral, which lumbers unpaved through glacial river valleys beneath snowcapped peaks. For hundreds of kilometers you see nothing but landscapes, and then, amazingly, a city.  Bursting out of an isolated and deserted countryside, Coyhaique boasts 50,000 residents, traffic lights, public transport, two supermarkets, a North Face store, and a beautifully designed public library where I now sit using free wireless internet.  Despite its big-city aspirations, wilderness is still a walk away and wood-stoves reign.

I am using Coyhaique as a base from which to provision and plan for the next stage: continuation towards the southern tip of the continent.  The weather has become a factor, as it is now the beginning of winter, and I want to take stock of what I can realistically do given my equipment and the conditions.  Attempting to be intrepid and thrifty, I pitched my tent my first night here--I paid a nominal amount to a local hospedaje for use of the yard, kitchen, and bathroom facilities, but have since moved into the house.  Despite the conditions, I have it stuck in my head that, being this close, I should go all the way.  The next big stop is the epic Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, in summertime a trekkers Eden.  Afterwards I will explore what I can of Chilean and Argentine Tierra del Fuego, probably bottoming out at Ushuaia.