Journey To The Uttermost Part of the World

It must have started when I was quite young, certainly no older than eight or nine. I became fascinated with windjammers, which in the early 1930’s were actually still in use, bringing bulk cargoes of phosphates from Chile around Cape Horn to Europe and the United States.
The names of the books I read about the Southern Ocean and the ships which ventured into it no longer reside in my memory. But the fascination with the bottom of South American remains to this day.
Earlier this year, I happened on a recent volume titled “Rounding The Horn” by Dallas Murphy, and my interest was rekindled by his account of sailing in the area, and actually landing on a small island at the southern end of a series of islands streaming south from Tierra del Fuego, “Land of Fire”.
On this small island stands the tall rock called the Horn - named by the Dutch in honor of the Duke of Hoorn and later Anglicized. (As we later learned, whether the Horn is named for a duke or one of two towns with the name in Holland is still unresolved by historians.)
The book details the history of the European explorations and conquests of the area, beginning with the first contacts as early as the 16th century, and continuing through the establishment of the first European settlements in the mid-19th century.
Much of the focus of the book is on Tierra del Fuego, actually a large island, split between Chile and Argentina, like most of the southern third of South America. It lies south of the Magellan Straits, the waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific found first in the 16th century by the explorer for whom is is named.
Then, longtime friends called and said they had signed up for a trip which would include a large portion of Patagonia, the name for the area south of a line drawn roughly from east to west starting at Buenos Aires, Argentina and crossing the continent to Santiago, Chile. Would we be interested in coming along?
It took me almost no time to decide I wanted to do it, and my friend Carol was delighted to go along. We signed on for the two week journey, beginning in Buenos Aires, and extending by plane, bus and boat all the way south.
The literature about the trip emphasized wind and weather - sudden changes and four seasons in a day. Bring lots of layers, we were told, and footwear for sloshing through mud and getting wet on beaches while debarking from small inflatables, as well as for trekking up and down mountains.
But keep luggage to a minimum because Argentinean airlines charge for anything over 33 pounds checked on domestic flights!
The week before our Saturday, December 8th, departure was a blur. Over the previous weekend, I fell prey to the consequences of a post nasal drip that threatened the entire journey.
But fortified with several kinds of nose drops and other remedies, we took off for Miami, to board another flight there to Buenos Aires, more than eight hours away.

BUENOS AIRES

Our 48 hours in Buenos Aires revealed a modern, quite beautiful city, with far more trees than one would expect and lots of parks, clean and well maintained.
Not so the downtown streets, which were bordered by very narrow sidewalks, many of them cracked and uneven, offered many opportunities for stumbling.
Traffic seemed unusually heavy for a Sunday - until we learned that a new president was to be inaugurated on Monday. (The fact that the election had been virtually ignored in the US media is an indication of how little attention is paid to the countries of S South America.)
Christina Kirchner was to be the first woman president of Argentina, democratically elected, in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Perons, Juan and Eva (Evita) who dominated Argentine politics from 1946 to 1955.
Christina won 46% of the votes in a nationwide election, succeeding her husband Nestor who chose not to run again. Without a primary, there was a field of 13 in the race.
Sunday night after dinner, part of the group (including Carol but not me) walked to the Pink House, the president’s resident in downtown Buenos Aires, where they caught glimpses of the new president and her husband, along with Chavez of Venezuela and Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile.
Bachelet presents a far different background than Argentina’s leader. She is a pediatrician, a socialist, a former minister and health and minister of defense. As we learned when we got to Chile, she has great respect there, in a country which is far more stable economically and far more prosperous than Argentina.
My attention on the trip has been focused on Patagonia and the area south of 50 degrees south latitude, and our visit to Buenos Aires was too short for a deep impression. The language barrier is significant, and one I chose not to try to surmount, Some others of the group did try, with varying degrees of success.
Sunday, our tour of the city included the city cemetery in the Recoleta district, a gaudy collection of above-ground mausoleums, with astonishing decorations in marble, granite and other stones.
We were told that some of the sites were bought and sold after families died out for sums greater than for large houses in the city. One feature I had not encountered before: glass doors to the crypts through which to view the coffins on shelves inside, presumably to make sure the bodies were still where they had been put.
Eva Peron is buried there, not as Eva Peron but as Eva Duarte, her family name. We were told her body was hidden for years after her death to prevent it from being seized by the anti-Peronist military forces which took control of the country in 1976 and ruled until 1983.
Another Argentinean whose grave is at Recoleta is Luis Firpo, a heavy weight boxer who knocked out Jack Dempsey in 1923 but was deprived of his rightful victory by the infamous “long count”.
Only a few of us in the group were old enough to know of the “Wild Bull of the Pampas”, as Firpo was billed in his career. (As a vintage newsreel available on YouTube shows, Firpo actually knocked Dempsey out of the ring, but the referee’s count gave him time to climb back in, and later knock out Firpo.)
Bright colors are supplied only by the flowers on some tombs, but every style of decoration in stone has been applied to the buildings, many of which extend underground.
Recoleta is open only during daylight hours, to reduce vandalism - but there was evidence of vandalism anyway, in parts missing from statuary and decorative fences torn apart.
Until mid-afternoon, our tour of the city continued, but not much registered with me. Obviously, I didn’t come for Buenos Aires.
But we did get, with several others in the group, to a private tango lesson in a bar cum tango museum around the corner from the hotel. I sat out the program but Carol proved a natural,
Dinner on our own at a lovely riverside restaurant was topped off with a fireworks display from the Pink House, celebrating the new president.
Although walking on city streets has not been strenuous, my pace is the slowest of the group, and I suspect I will need to opt out of some activities as the days go on.

The next morning, we headed further south, flying to the boom town of El Calafate, close to the Chliean border. the jumping off place for Los Glaciares National Park, home to the Perito Merino Glacier. For 50 years, Perito Merino has maintained the same mass, gaining six feet a day at the top and losing the same amount at the bottom.
I was lucky enough to see three “calving” ice chunks break off from the face of the glacier, to become floating icebergs in Lake Argentino. Merino is one of fifty glaciers in the park, which encompasses 1700 square miles.
It is the best known both for its stability and for the ease with which people can get close to it.
From El Calafate, we traversed the pampas to the west, heading for the Chilean border. Three hours of gravel road without a town in sight, the land itself brown with a few low bushes (including the calafate bush which yields berries from which jam is made). We saw occasional cattle and sheep but mostly simply open range.
At one point, we ran alongside a herd of sheep being moved to new pastures (or a shearing shed) by gauchos on horseback. At the end of a side road (gravel like the main road we had been traveling on) we stopped at a large barn, where hundreds of sheep were being shorn of their wool.
This annual event is accomplished by roving bands of shearers, who work for 1.5 pesos a fleece, which is in United States dollars about 50 cents. Wages are held down by the poor world market for wool and for lamb, according to what we were told.
The shearers work under the direction of a ”capo” who makes all the arrangements for the process, and who controls the workers with a gong, sounding it for starting, for stopping for mate (more about mate later), for lunch and for quitting time.
The sheep appeared to be resigned to their temporary nakedness, with little bleating heard. Despite the low wages, there is no apparent shortage of labor, with apprentices hauling off the fleeces to tables to be sorted and bailed for further processing, as they wait for an opportunity to become# shearers.
The sheep arrived by truck and evidently were returned to their proper pastures the same way. How who owned which sheep was decided was never revealed. We saw some with splotches of blue or red dyes on the backs of some in the flocks, which may have indicated their origin.
We never got a clear account of the whole process - I can probably find out at Google.

INTO CHILE

At noon, we were sitting in the bus at the border crossing from Argentina into Chile. For the first time since our arrival in South America, the sun shone, and we put up relatively good-naturedly with the inexplicable delay in processing us through.
Clearly, there are issues between Chile and Argentina that have not been resolved. Otherwise, why would we have had to change to a Chilean bus company and bring on board a Chilean local guide? Why would there be lengthy processing for a busload of American tourists, under the guidance of a well-known tour company?
The customs office is one of half a dozen buildings on the site, in the middle of the pampas - but for the first time since leaving El Calafate, there is green in the landscape. Green grass instead of brown covers the land, and there there are trees on the nearby hills.
The green grass indicates much more rain than further east, and the trees indicate less wind.
The inspection was finally over, and we left for the Chilean border crossing, seven kilometers further west, where we would have to go through the whole process again.

TORRES DEL PAINE NATIONAL PARK

Driving into the park, the first vista was a bright cerulean blue lake beneath the abrupt mountains that give the park its name. As we drove further, the views of the peaks constantly changed, with colors shading and textures changing as the angle and distance shifted.
It was a memorable experience heightened by the dazzling sunshine that accompanied us all day, and into the 9:45 sunset. (It stays light for another 45 minutes after sunset.)
We began to see more wildlife. A humpless member of the camel family, the guanaco, protected in the park, has proliferated and we saw dozens along the roadside.
In the air were condors and meadow larks, and on the ground upland geese and the cora-cora, as well as the ostrich-like bird called “nandu” or rhea. The rhea’s chicks are under the protection of the male bird.
At one point, we saw a brood of about a dozen chicks suddenly coalesce into a tight band as their father attacked a small fox which wanted the chicks. The fox quickly changed his mind, as the much larger bird ran him into the brush.
The Chilean guide who had joined us at the border was entranced - she had read of that kind of behavior but had never seen it before.
The towering peaks that give the park its name are only about 10,000 feet tall, but suddenly emerging as they do from the flat pampas, they became the focus of our eyes.
Late in the day, we arrived at Hosteria Lago Grey, a lodge at the southern end of Lake Grey, into which the Grey Glacier calves its chunks of ice, which become floating icebergs moving with the wind, and often grounding in the shallows. There were several in the “front yard” of the Hosteria.
The modern main building was flanked by cabins, connected to the lodge by a covered walkway. As at all our stops, our luggage was delivered to the doors of our rooms, and in the morning, we put it out to be repacked on the bus.
It was 9:15 that evening when we sat down to dinner, one of the poorer meals of the trip - tough tenderloin and tasteless fish. The day had included a long trek into the lower portions of the massif, and I slept through until six in the morning, waking sore and stiff from the exertions.
A Tylenol with codeine morning.
The treks are designed to walk to a destination and return by the same route. Thus, if someone falls behind, as I often did, I can retrace my steps, and the guide has a pretty good idea of where people are.
Typically, the local guide leads the group and Pedro, the team leader brings up the rear, available for the laggards, of which I was usually one.
One thing that was very clear on crossing into Chile was the strength of the economy, compared to Argentino Although the rate of exchange was vastly different - 3.12 pesos to the dollar in Argentina and 475 pesos to the dollar in Chile - prices were significantly higher in Chile, buoyed by a roaring world market for copper and the other minerals found in abundance in the country.
The difference in the economic heath of the two countries can perhaps be traced to the very different courses they have followed since the overthrow of their dictators, Pinochet in Chile and Peron in Argentina. The Peronistas and Peron’s philosophy of popularism, tinged with a healthy dose of corruption, have been a heavy burden for the country to face.
Chile, on the other hand, has repudiated the Pinochet regime while being the beneficiary of the country’s mineral deposits.
The next morning brought sun and clouds - and wind. We hiked towards the face of the glacier along the shore of the lake, eventually reaching a beach with the glacier in front of us.
The trek continued across the beach and into the hills on the other side, but I chose to break off and watch the movement of the icebergs floating in the lake. Crossing the beach became a rite of passage, as the wind continued with gusts up to 50 miles an hour - or so it was estimated.

RANCH LIFE

Back on the bus towards noon, we headed for Punta Arenas, the largest Chilean town south of Santiago, and the jumping off place for voyages further south.
But first, we diverted to Estancia Rio Verde.
A sheep and cattle ranch dating from the 1800’s, it began serving tours in recent years, perhaps because sheep raising has become more difficult to make money at.
The ranch is a family affair, with the owner involved, his American daughter-in-law the pastry chef and maitre d’hotel, and friends and family making up the small staff.
Outside were 10,000 sheep and 4,000 cows, but inside was comfortable and warm, with superb food. Saturday morning, while the group hiked to the arm of the Pacific on which the ranch is located, I stayed behind.
After two days of intensive trekking - even though I did only about half of the walks - I was ready for a few hours of rest. The uneven surfaces take a psychological toll as well as a physical one on my back and legs.
People have been helpful and understanding, but I have felt abashed and embarrassed at being able to do so little.
Our Chilean guide is delightful - a 34 year old mother of a 9 month old daughter, married to a Polish chef. She and her family spend the travel season - September through May - in Chile and the rest of the year in Germany.
She is very grounded, knowledgeable, and a low key contrast to our trip leader, who is bombastic exaggerator - but also very knowledgeable and one who made strong efforts to help me when I needed help.
Once I decoded his language - “a couple of hundred yards” meant half a mile,
“a few minutes” could be up to half an hour - I had little trouble. He is of Italian descent, as are many native Argentineans, proud of his heritage, proud of his city, proud of his country but profoundly unhappy with the way it is governed.
Living, as the people of the estancia do, 22 kilometers from the nearest improved (gravel, not paved) road, requires some interesting adjustments. Electricity is provided by a generator - from 8 p.m. to 10:30 or 11:00. Before and after that, candles and flashlights suffice.
With the generator, lights bulbs tend to be small, set high on the walls. The rooms are spartan, and the bathrooms tiny - at least ours was - but the public rooms are quite large by contrast, and comfortably furnished in a style reminiscent of the American West. There was lots of oaks beams, heavy wood furniture , roughly plastered walls, high ceilings.
An unexpected highlight of our visit to the ranch occurred on the morning of our departure, when we were treated to a Chilean rodeo, in the rodeo ring which is part of the ranch.
Several dozen mounted gauchos, each wearing a woolen poncho in distinctive colors, marched into the ring, to vie with one another in their abilities to handle cattle in a number of situations.
Unfortunately, our timetable prevented an extended stay in the arena, and we were off to Punta Arenas where our ship was waiting.

THE TOUR GROUP

There are 24 people in the party - two single women (in their 40’s?), a father and son (27), another irregular liaison like Carol and I, and the rest (more or less) comfortably married couples.
At 82, I am the third oldest after Sam, 84, and someone else at 83. The rest appear to be in their 60’s and 70’s, and almost all retired.
I suspect the group is more conservative politically than the people I spend most of my time with - but the trip leader ordered us to refrain from political discussion in the interests of harmony, and we have done so.
In the meantime, he has been lavish in his praise of the Chilean president and harsh in his criticism of the Argentinean government.
Most of the couples appear relatively well-of, judging by the clothing in evidence, with a lot of new outwear apparently bought specifically for this trip.
We have spent more time with the Bermans than with others, but we usually have our meals with at least one other couple as well.

THE WIND

The wind is ever-present. At Lake Grey, it appeared to be blowing at least 45-50 miles an hour. and the trees in many placed lean away from the westerly direction of the gales.
At this latitude, below 50 degrees south, there is no other land around the globe to interrupt the wind’s flow - and it just keeps growing stronger. That constant westerly flow against sailing vessels trying to go west around Cape Horn from the Atlantic to the Pacific is what made the passage for those sailing ships such an ordeal, in many cases.

At last, a week after we left Boston, we boarded the Mare Australis (Southern Sea) at 8 p.m. in Punta Arenas. The vessel has cabins for 120, and on this trip, 110 people are on board, including our 25.
Late that night, I woke to feel the only rolling of the ship during the entire voyage. It came from the west running waves as we left the Straits of Magellan for the open Pacific briefly on our way into the islands.
After a day and a half of cruising south at a leisurely pace, several things impressed me. What we were seeing in the Straits of Magellan, and the islands running south from Tierra del Fuego was virtually unchanged from what Magellan and his crew saw in 1520.

Below the Beagle Channel, the avenue to the Pacific that Darwin and the Beagle sailed through in 1834, there are virtually no people except the Chilean naval personnel at the tiny town of Puerto Williams, on the island of Navarino (population 1725).
Reportedly, a small population of Yamana, descendants of the natives, are among those living in the town.
South of Puerto Williams which lies on the north shore of Navarino Island, across the Beagle Channel from the city of Ushuaia, in Argentina, no crops are grown, a few ranches survive. but the country is essentially uninhabited.
A rare aid to navigation, in the form of a channel marker, very occasionally reminded us that other people have been there. The land itself is hilly, with mountains of varying heights, standing on islands, islets, and just plain rocks sticking out of the fjords and channels that go back into the land.
No beaches are to be seen, with most of the hills ending right at the water. In the day and a half we have been sailing south from Punta Arenas, I have seen only two small fishing boats and a single sailing vessel, a chartered sloop based at Porto Williams.
The wind, which had been with us from Buenos Aires to Punta Arenas, disappeared when we boarded Mare Australis, and Saturday and Sunday were fair and pleasant with lots of sun.
Now, glaciers became the focus of the trip, as we steamed down “Glacier Alley”, the northwest arm of the Beagle Channel. We went ashore to see Pia Glacier up close and personal, and then watched from the Sky Lounge on the 4th deck (the highest) as the parade continued.
Germany Glacier is the longest in the area, and we viewed it as the sound system played “Lili Marlene”. This glacier flowed down at a gentle angle, not quite reaching the water. Behind the glaciers, the mountain peaks rise with a mantle of snow fields rising up to the summits.
A new vista opened, a mountain side laid out in striated bands of rock and vegetation in a arc pattern, as though the center of the mountain had been pulled up while the ends were anchored;
It appeared capable of supplying feed for sheep but as in the rest of Tierra del Fuego, no animals were visible.
The weather gods continue to favor us - no sun but no fog and no low-lying clouds obscuring the mountains. In late afternoon, the white streams flowing from snow fields down the sides of the mountains stand out like chalk lines on a blackboard.

CAPE HORN

First, it isn’t a cape - it’s an island, shown on the navigation charts as Isla Hornos, the farthest south of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. (The illusion that we were the only people in the area was utterly shattered as our 120 passenger ship dropped anchor on the east side of the island, right next to the 80 passenger expedition ship, the SS Bremen, based in Ushuaia, Argentina and carrying a group of German travelers.)
It was originally Hoorn Island, named for a small Dutch town or a Dutch nobleman (depending on which source you check) by a Dutch expedition which saw it in 1616.
On the island is a lighthouse, manned by a single Chilean naval rating and his family who spend a year there, in a house attached to the light. Next door, is a chapel dedicated to the sailors who died in the shipwrecks that have occurred over the years in the area.
An outbuilding completes the tiny settlement, while half a mile away, reached by the wooden walkway erected to accommodate visitors and spare the sparse grass, is a magnificent sculpture honoring the dead sailors - seven sheets of stainless steel, set up as a square on end, surrounding a negative space depicting the albatross, the bird most typical of the region, and thought to embody the souls of the 10,000 sailors who were lost in the 800 recorded shipwrecks in the area.
Access to the island for us was by Zodiac on to a narrow beach of large pebbles, and then up 165 stairs to the mesa-like table land that made up the bulk of the island’s 14 acres. The “horn” rises nearly 1500 feet at the other end of the island.
No trees were visible on the island, only short grass and a few shrubs clinging to the edges of the land on the leeward side of the island.
Unlike my imagined Cape Horn, sitting in lonely splendor, surrounding the island on three sides are other varying sized islands and islets which make up the archipelago, stretching north to the large island that makes up the bulk of Tierra del Fuego.
Our weather good fortune continued, with little wind and actual periods of sun during our couple of hours ashore. Pedro, our guide, was making his fifth trip to Cape Horn, and had not been able to go ashore on his previous four trips because the weather would not allow the Zodiacs to be launched.
Getting up the 165 steps was the crowning physical achievement of the trip for me, but I had had lots of practice aboard ship. Our cabin was on the fourth deck, the dining room on the first, and other activities on the second and third decks, with no elevators.
The ship itself had been launched in Valparaiso, Chile, in 2003, designed specifically for the kind of trip we were on. We were on its 167th voyage from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia via Cape Horn, and back, a week’s journey.
Our cabin had twin beds, a dresser, a side chair, a large window on the sea, and a surprising large lavatory with shower. I have had very little ocean-going experience, but the boat seemed more than adequate.
Breakfast and lunch were cafeteria style, while dinner was a full sit-down meal, with unlimited wine from Chilean and Argentinean vineyards. OAT had three nine-place tables to ourselves, served by an extremely accommodating waiter, who managed to find tonic water for me when I had had more wine that I needed.
Two birthdays in our group were celebrated with cake and champagne on very short notice.
Piped into each cabin were three or four channels of music, with a classical channel we found exceptional. Even the engine room , which we got to visit, was spotless.
Access to the outside was more limited that I would have expected, with open decks only outside the Sky Lounge on the fourth deck, at the stern of the boat, and a similar small area at the bow on the third floor, outside another lounge. I would suspect that a good deal of the time, the weather would not be conducive to strolling on the deck outdoors.

USHUAIA, ARGENTINA

This small city, clinging to a shelf of land below the end of the Andes for six or seven miles, is the jumping off place for voyages to Antartica, Cape Horn and the Falklands, and as these trips have gained popularity, the city has grown.
Moored to the docks in the harbor were half a dozen vessels, ranging from our own 236 foot liner to a three-masted sailing ship that makes the Antartic trip at a slower pace.
The city is geared today to the expeditionary business, with people working in Ushuaia from September to May, and then leaving for warmer climes until the next season. The population is reported to be 64,000.
Our day and a half at Ushuaia featured a Landrover ride to a lake in the interior of Tierra del Fuego Island that added little to our experience, but did feature a superb lunch of sausage and steak, cooked on a barbecue set up in the woods.
Tea in the home of the owner of the Landrovers, high up the muntainside above the city, gave us some great views, loevly tea and outstanding pastry.
We flew out of Usuaia’s channel side airport back to Buenos Aires, for the last day of the trip. With the Bermans, we made our last foray into the neighborhoods of BA, for final shopping and a bargain lunch in a restaurant we were delighted to find ourselves the only tourists.
With a 10:30 p.m. departure for Dallas, en route to Boston,we were shocked to board the bus from the hotel to the airport at 5:00 in the afternoon. But after battling Friday afternoon traffic leaving the city, and arriving to encounter utter chaos at the airport, we understood our trip leader's concerns.
In 50 years of air travel, I have never encounters conditions like those at the airport - at least twenty lines of passengers, with perhaps a dozen people in each line, trying to check in, - with computers down, for the most part. Eventually, our leader took our information and came back with our boarding passes - only I found someone elses name on mine.
So the process started over again.
Eventually, courtesy of Sam Berman's lifetime membership in the American Airlines Admirals Club, we relaxed there - only to find an hour later our flight had been canceled. The wind had blown a rolling stairway into our plane, rendering it unfit to fly!
Eventually, we were boarded on a flight to Miami, and Sam's providential membership got us all Business Class seats, a great boon for the eight and a half hour flight. The down side is that Carol and Vivian Berman have now sworn never to fly any other way!

Looking back over the time we were gone, I was a little surprised to find that I could get along quite nicely - at least for two weeks - without telephones, newspapers, television, and e-mail. At the same time, I was reachable for a family emergency, should one have arisen.
It was a great trip, and increased my respect for OAT as an organization. We are going with them again soon.