EXHAUSTED TOAD

PUERTO NATALES: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
My apologies, readers. I have over walked and am on my last leg. I will BLOG properly from Puerto Octay. Where? At the head of a vast lake north of Puerto Montt.
I board the ferry tonight here in Puerto Natales and disembark at Puerto Montt on Monday morning. A bus takes me to Puerto Octay where I will rest out in the country for a couple of days and gaze at snow-capped volcanoes.
And, yes, I will bring this BLOG up to date with tales of fjords and ice caps, delicious fish, good wine and chocolate brownies doused in brandy cream. And I will post photographs, including one of my naked ankle which right now is as fat as an old elephant´s trunk. Yuk!
I would be in a worse state but for an excellent mattress at Hostal Casa Cecilia.

PUNTA ARENAS: CITY OF HOPE

PUNTA ARENAS:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11

I am arrogant and impertinent in judging a town on the evidence of a single day. I have hobbled a few blocks, bought tickets for bus and ferry, found a bank that accepts my VISA card (Banco Santander).
EL Chocolate is a chocolatierre a block from the main square at Bories 852. I sit at a table in the window, sip hot chocolate, people watch and read the newspaper. The hot chocolate is orgasmic. I ask a cab driver where he would eat fish the day before pay day. He drives me to the waterfront. Up three steps into a four-table workman's cafe: shellfish stew sets me back $3 and is delicious.
And evidence of optimism?
Trees newly planted in gardens and in the sidewalk. People plant trees because they believe in a future.
Freshly dug flower beds are a further sign.
Builders at work embellishing homes.
Parks free of rubbish.
People want to be here. 90% of people in Rio Grande want to be somewhere else.
No building in Rio Grande is worthy of a second look. No one cares.
People are proud of Punta Arenas, proud of the architecture - as they should be. Those first estancia owners in the 19th century built splendid mansions on the back of a boom in wool. The cathedral is charming. Modern domestic architecture is simple and in keeping with the past: clapboard or corrugated, sloping roofs, dormer windows, fresh paint. And trees: avenues of trees, squares shaded by trees, gardens with trees. On this Spring day the sea sparkles blue at the south end of every street, the first emerald shoots glow on garden shrubs, roses are in bud. I am joyfully free as I hobble on my crutches. Drivers stop at every intersection and wave me across. Such acts of courtesy are jewels in an old man's journey. Thank you, people of Punta Arenas, thank you for a great day..

TATY´S HOUSE

plaza and cathedral

PUNTA ARENAS: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
Of all my travels last year and this, TATY'S HOUSE offers the greatest home comforts. Pay attention anyone travelling to Punta Arenas. Claudia has only five rooms. Call or email well ahead for a reservation.
TEL: (61) 241525
MAIL: reservas@hostaltatyshouse.cl
Check out the web site at www.hostaltatyshouse.cl

I soaked in a hot bath this morning. The ankle is back to normal, back of the calf a little stiff. Breakfast waited me in the kitchen. Claudia found me at the computer in the sitting room.
"You're up early."
"Quarter past nine?"
"Quarter past eight," Claudia corrects.
Time in Chile is an hour behind Argentina. No wonder I found restaurants closed last night.

PUNTA ARENAS

wool boom mansion



PUNTA ARENAS: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10


The bus stops on the same block as the Tourist Bureau. A change bureau operates on the corner. The young lady at the tourist bureau calls hostals. Hostal Taty's House is a block down and four blocks east on O'Higgins, then a block south at Maipu 1070. US$20 is more than I would normally pay. US$20 is cheap for Paradise. The room is big, the bathroom is vast, the mattresses are perfection (trust in the opinion of one who suffers from a bad back).
Hostal owners come in three categories. Those who offer the minimum that they can get away with. Those who calculate a reasonable norm. The very few who truly care for their guests and add those small touches that make the guest feel at home.
Claudia is the best of the third category.
Vases of dried spring flowers in bedroom and bathroom, scented candles, thick towels...I could go on and on.
Walking from the Tourist Bureau, I begin to tire on the last block - pain in the outside of the ankle and back of the calf. Claudia tells me that restaurants open at 8 p.m. I walk up O'Higgins. Everything is closed. I walk on and on. The pain increases. I realise that I am following the same pattern that lead to my downfall when riding on ice. I turn back to the hostal, take off my sock and elastic bandage. The ankle is red and swollen. Dumb...
Forget dinner.
I lie in the glory of a warm bed and watch cable TV.

GREYS OF GLORY

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
This is my goodbye to Tierra del Fuego. I will remember clarity of light, immense distances. Today the sky is every shade of grey from charcoal to near white. Rain softens the greens and greys of the moors. Hills on the eastern horizon glow topaz blue. The dirt road follows a valley through hills reminiscent of the Scottish borders. Wind and weather has rounded every crest. Burns overflow their banks. The lee side of a hill has broken away under the weight of rain; a curved pink cliff rises above the fallen waves of grassed earth. Fifteen guanecos stand on a ridge by the road side. Wild geese face west into the wind. Hereford cattle face east towards our homeland. Spring approaches. Geese pair. Freshly sheared sheep cringe beneath low scrub. Horseman are blue balloons in rain suits worn over puffa jackets and pants. A small drive-on ferry crosses the Straits of Magellan. Sun sneaks between the clouds and transforms the sea into a shimmering sheet of aluminum foil, pale side up.

OFF

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Tecni Austral runs a bus service to Punta Arenas from Rio Grande six days a week. The bus leaves at 9 a.m. and arrives at 5 p.m. The fare is US$25.
The bus is half empty. A double seat to the rear enables me to prop my feet up on the arm rest. Meeting a truck, the driver slows. Not so the truck driver - not so any of the truck drivers.
We climb the last hill before the Chilean border, the hill where the truck ran me down.
I am an old familiar to immigration and customs at both Argentine and Chilean frontiers - no queues for Grandfather Hoppity-hop, merely congratulations at being mobile.

LOST WEEKEND

mobile phone marginales

and my new hat

RIO GRANDE: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
I have been going stir crazy. I need to be out of here. Each new act of kindness adds to the pain of separation from new friends soon to be my past and adds to the guilt of wishing to be gone. My Friday barbecue was saddened by the ex-future's absence. Saturday Carlos from the Petroleum school drives me to his novia´s home for beer, tapas and conversation. Graciela cooks a delicious stew of squid and shrimp. The ex-future, Graciela, Pedro of the viviendas and I eat at the kitchen table. Sunday I join in devouring a final meat mountain with the Sunday gang at the ex-future's car port. The doctor´s novio has copied the files from my laptop to CDs. The mobile-phone marginales present me with freshly crocheted black woolly hat. I will be gone in the morning. How will I cope?

SIZE DOESN'T MATTER

goodbye dinner

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
The Argentine Pumas whipped France in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup and I am giving a barbecue tonight for all the guests at the Hotel Argentino. My intention is to give a barbecue tomorrow night. Wires have become crossed. No matter…Or the matter is out of my hands.
Javier takes me shopping. I suggest ten chickens. Javier says five. These aren’t battery-bred half-water English chickens from Tesco supermarket. These are Catholic Mission raised Tierra del Fuego chickens. No water, all flesh, size of a mini-turkey. Around US$4 a bird.
Next comes Tierra del Fuego beef: nine and a half kilos of skirt at US$1.30 a kilo.
I select a kilo of strawberries and fresh cream for the ladies.
Yes, Argentine strawberries are BIG.
Argentine apples and pears are the size of a small melon.
Pick big back home and you eat fruit without taste (eat fruit in The US and none of it has taste).
Not so in Argentina. Best apples I have ever tasted. Good pears. Superb strawberries. Yum Yum Yum!

HOPPITY HOPPITY HOP

kitchen corner with Javier


RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
I walk alone to the bank. The bank is two blocks uphill the far side of the six-lane Avenida San Martin. I use the crutches at the intersections and to lean on a couple of times while taking a short rest. A security guard beckons me to the head of the queue at the cash machine. From the bank, I take a cab on a shopping spree: two pairs of boxer shorts and a big holdall, shampoo and a couple of throwaway razors.
The ankle is fine. However, the instep hurts as the tendons restretch.
What more can I write from the kitchen at the Hotel Argentino?

UNDESERVED REWARD

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
Pepe visits in the evening. He declares the bone fully healed. I am to have an x-ray taken tomorrow. I must start exercises at the weekend.
"Don’t be obsessive with the exercises," Pepe warns as he demonstrates - dumb advice to give an obsessive.
My healed bone is Pepe’s victory, proof that he was correct in his argument with Doctor Lopez. I am rewarded with dinner at the Posado de los Sauces, Rio Grande's most expensive restaurant (though I don’t see the menu). Food is unquestionably the best. They serve fish. Fresh fish. Fish that has never seen the inside of a freezer!
Pepe orders for me Black Hake, a south Atlantic fish caught on long line deep down (1500 metres). The fish is perfectly grilled, the steamed vegetables are crisp, wine (a ten-year-old red) is divine.
The other guests?
Estancia owners, visiting foreign businessmen, upper echelon oil employees.
Pale skinned? Yes, of course.

VILE FOOD

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
We made it to the fake Chinese tonight. Why did we make it to the fake Chinese? What possible reason exists? Unless in a competition to discover the worst food in the world?
All you can eat from a buffet for US$7.
The food? Fried everything in a batter designed to retain oil. Even the empanadas are fried. Press with a knife and oil spurts. Some dishes are recognisable: whitebait, squid. Others require a guess. Are those oil-dripping wraps of semi-burnt batter meant to be Spring rolls?
Were I to notify the Union of Chinese Chefs International, they would send an assassin.
Prawns?
Don’t be silly.

FAKE CHINESE

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
No x-rays. Pepe says that an x-ray delays healing by up to two weeks. I must walk with the aid of crutches for a few days. I can leave for Chile on Saturday. Tonight we celebrate. Prawns are essential. Javier drives. The Chinese restaurant is closed. It was closed last week at midday.
"Chinese work three-hundred and sixty-five days in the year," declares Javier. "These aren't proper Chinese."
We go to the corner Chilean for a choice of meat, meat or meat - and drink beer.

CAST OFF

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
Pepe finds me lying on my bed. He has a steak knife, scissors and newspaper. He bangs my cast a couple if times. "Any pain?"
"Not on the broken side," I reply.
Pepe is uninterested in pain on the unbroken side. He saws the cast, splits it and taps the broken bone. "Pain?"
"No," I say.
"Stand," says Pepe.
I stand.
"Any pain?"
"No," I say.
Pepe gives me a bear hug. No more cast. He wraps the leg in an elastic bandage.
I thank him.
He says, "Thank yourself," and taps his temple. "You did the curing. Cure comes from the head."
If so, Pepe governed my thoughts with his energy and determination. He gave me belief.

KITCHEN CORNER

sweet maginale at work


RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
Observations from the corner by the old iron kitchen range:

1) Modern marginales (those who were called hippies in my youth) carry mobile phones.

2) Most music is conducive to thought. Rap is an exception; the aggressive beat is too intrusive.

I HATE ARGENTINES - THEY MAKE ME WEEP

doctor and novio


RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
I am a manic depressive. I have learnt tricks that snap the mental circle. Skiing works. Ski a black run, reach the bottom, ski it again. An hour and your only worry is whether your legs will hold up. Right now I can't ski. I can't even travel and a depression has threatened over the past couple of days. I sit in my corner. A young doctor and her novio enter the kitchen. They give me a gift-wrapped packet. The packet contains CDs of Tango and the Misa Criolla and a beautifully illustrated edition of the great poem of Argentina's gauchos, Martin Fierro. The edition includes the English translation and a dictionary of gaucho slang.
I am overwhelmed by generosity and thoughtfulness.
The doctor holds me in her arms while I weep.
Damn these Argentines.

NON EVENT

RIO GRANDE: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1
I am satiated with meat. I lie on my bed and do leg exercises. A cab was to collect me. No cab has arrived. I have been uninvited to the meeting of academics. I may be to blame. I ran a dummy run on one of the organisers.
I said that my knowledge of Argentina was very limited.
1) Are people suffering from hunger?
2) Is the independence and integrity of the judicial system assured?
3) Is the Government clean of corruption?
All else is a distraction, a Roman Circus...

BIRTHDAY PARTY

RIO GRANDE: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1
For his birthday, the ex-future is our guest for lunch at the Hotel Argentino. What I can I write of an Argentine birthday lunch? Heaps of barbecued beef are immense rather than merely large. We eat a cake, we drink toasts and we sing the Spanish version of Happy Birthday.

DANGER IN GOOD INTENTIONS

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 31
I haven’t shaved since the accident. Wooly is the image. I need sprucing. Javier drives me to a hairdresser who works in her front room. The hairdresser is in Spain for three months. Her replacement is an overweight teenager.
Retreating would hurt the girl’s feelings and might hurt Javier’s feelings. I have been equally imprisoned in church on the southern leg of this journey. Enter during a service, the priest remarks an unfamiliar face. Leave, he may obsess into the night. Did he fail to save a soul from eternal damnation? I have knelt and stood through three masses in succession in a city of many Hispanic Colonial churches. How can I deny a teenage hairdresser?
The beard first: the girl approaches with an electric trimmer. Zip and a bald patch marks my right cheek.
I made the same mistake ten years ago when trimming Jed’s hair. Jed remains unforgiving. I am more liberal. I say, "That isn’t quite what I imagined."
The girl says, "This is the first time I’ve cut a beard."
Her tone suggests I am to blame.
The bald patch is too wide to hide. Shaving my cheeks is the only option. I reach for the clippers.
The girl is forlorn. She is already severely overweight. I imagine her going on an eating jag. She says, "Can I cut your hair?"
"A very light trim. Very light," I ensist.
The girl is nervous. Snip go the scissors. Blood drips from a gash in her palm. She emits a small screech and vanishes in search of a bandage.
Javier and I muffle hysteric laughter.
Javier produces a cold beer – a true friend.
All is well…Though I look a little strange. Or not that strange. There is a similarity to my father-in-law!

GOOD SHOES ARE A LIFT

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 30
Back home I search charity shops for good English Church’s shoes hand made in Northampton. I wore a pair of Church’s on the ride south from Mexico last year. They survived staying at my friend’s estancia on the Rio Dulce. A dog ate a shoe on a previous visit; Church use fine-tasting English leather and Eugenio has large dogs (see last year’s BLOG). The shoes survived 22,000 kilometres on a bike. They survived rain and snow and the heat of the engine. They survived six months in Snr. Preto’s cold store in Ushuaia. A good polish and they looked as good as new. Now the left shoe has the sole raised 3 cm to match the rised heel on the cast. The shoe looks kind of cute. I could have the other shoe raised and be as tall as my two younger sons – nearly as tall. Just a thought. I’m not sure that I enjoy being looked down at…Our youngest, Jed, claims I'm shrinking.

TALL STEMS, HIGH PRICES

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY: AUGUST 29
Javier and I are taking Graciela to dinner at the local Chinese. I hope to eat prawns. Pepe drops by. His wife’s Landrover has been serviced. He has a better idea than the Chinese. He drives to a new restaurant on the seafront. The owner is a friend of Pepe’s. Everyone is either Pepe’s friend or Graciela’s friend or Javier’s friend. Rio Grande is that type of town. The restaurant is big and smart. Restaurant prices are governed by the height of the wine glass stems. These glasses are tall, the tablecloths are thick and starched. Diners at other tables are different from most people in town. They are paler skinned.
Pepe departs with the owner to select wine from the cellar. He chooses a 2004 Malbec, excellent. We eat calamari in batter crisply fried, mussels in garlic sauce, ravioli. Javier gluts on an ice-cream cup that would fill a milk pail. Pepe drops us back to the hotel. Graciela and I chat in the kitchen for a couple of hours. Not much travel for a Travel BLOG but a good evening…

FIDELISMO

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29
Never before have I watched myself perform in Spanish on TV. Now I have a CD of Sunday’s program. My actions are disturbingly familiar. Where have I seen that exaggerated raise of eyebrows, the opening wide of eyes, hands spread to proffer a self-evident truth to a captive audience?
I search my memory.
The conceit that invests a superior being?
No! No, surely not.
Truth is unavoidable.
I have been imprinted by those years in Cuba, imprinted by those four-hour speeches.
Fidel, over the years, has become a caricature of Fidel.
I am a caricature of the caricature.

WOW!

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 28
My appologies to my readers: I am slightly inebriated. Pepe came by. He made me walk on the bad ankle, stand one footed on it, declared the break mended. He will change the cast, have new xrays, enforce high intensity rehab and have me out of here on 8th September.
How do I feel?
Immensely grateful.
Immensely relieved.
I have been scared of coming out of this as an invalid and a drag on my beloved wife.
Right, that's enough truth.
Anyone for tango?

FALKLANDS/MALVINAS

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 27
I am returned to my corner of the kitchen at the Hotel Aregentino, back to the cast iron range. An overweight professor visits. Will I be the guest speaker at a reunion of mostly academics Saturday afternoon? The Minister of Education is expected as a guest.
I agree because he comes via Graciela’s office.
I agree because I am flattered.
I agree because I am a Brit and educated to be polite.
I agree because I have drunk only one cup of coffee and my mind is fully functional.
Then he says, "Some will question you on the Malvinas."
Oh, shit…
I sit for an hour or so questioning myself as to how I should reply.
At least I am faced with a more acute concern than my Spanish verbs.
Later a cab comes to take me to sign the VISA chit for my wheelchair. An oil worker accompanies me. We discuss whether I will be safer with crutches or a walker. Walkers are more stable. They don’t work on stairs. Elevators are scarce in the hotels I frequent. I’ll decide next week.

TRUCKS MAKE ME NERVOUS

TOLHUIN: SATURDAY, AUGUST 26
We have glutted on barbecue chicken and admired the lake in brilliant sunshine. Cloud closes in and we drive back at night in heavy snow. Truck traffic is heavy. A couple of trucks have lost traction on an upslope and come to a halt. The ex-future is a good driver and we are safe in his big double-cab 4x4 pickup. However trucks make me nervous – trucks on ice. Scared of losing traction, the drivers hit the hills at speed and keep going no matter what lies ahead. Weird, I will be happy to be back in the Hotel Argentino tucked up in my own bed with my foot propped up on a stiff pillow.
My own bed, that’s the weird bit: pretending to be home because I want so badly to be home.

STAR OF TOLHUIN TV

TOLHUIN: SATURDAY, AUGUST 26
I am on TV this afternoon. The program goes out live. Three of us sit in the log cabin in front of the wood stove. One is a gaucho poet in the true Argentine tradition (though he is Uruguayan): early sixties, thin as a stick, white moustache, black Basque beret and silk neck scarf fastened with a gilt broach. He has been conversing with trees and horses and bottles of red wine for fifty years. His voice carries a rythm as he talks to the camera of nature’s gifts and nature’s cruelties…While I cruelly picture bit-part Country and Western performers in the B movies of my youth.
To my right sits a musician. A good guitarist, he plays a classical introduction. Later he plays a great tango.
Most of the program is focused on me, the English writer with the broken foot. I talk, I answer questions and worry that I am using the wrong verb tense.
Later the musician asks for my thoughts on the Malvinas.
Duck and run…

GLUTTED ON MEAT

roboloco
graciela holds harmonica

TOLHUIN: SATURDAY, AUGUST 25
We sit on solid benches at a solid table in the shorefront window of the log cabin. An enormous wood stove warms us. As does red wine. The ex-future is a great barbecue cook. We snack on a sausage or two. Then we eat meat. We eat more meat. Then we seriously eat meat. First comes the thin end of the skirt. Then the middle thickness. Finally the thick end. Finally? A steer has two skirts. We recommence at the thin end of the second skirt…
Roboloco is with us.
Glutted, we drink a little more red wine and listen to Robo’s guitar, his harmonica and his patter. He is a natural entertainer. He knows all the party tricks and performs them with brilliant elan. The ex-future’s daughter is in heaven as he pulls his mouth askew with a long black hair plucked from Luisa’s head.
And I am in heaven for an old man with a broken foot. I am amongst friends who will remain friends for life. Robo presents me with a copy of his book recounting the pedallo marathon. The gang add signatures and comments to the front page. I lie in bed and listen to three sets of gentle snores and worry that the crutches will slip on the tiles when I make the next trip to the bathroom. Getting up in the night is an old man’s complaint…

LAGO FAGNANO

log cabin canasta club

TOLHUIN: SATURDAY, AUGUST 25
The town of Tolhuin is known as the heart of Tierra del Fuego. It occupies a rise at the head of Lake Fagnano and lies in the mountains midway between Rio Grande and Ushuaia. Virgin forest encloses the town and much of the population work at the timber mill. Others are employed in tourism. Roboloco owns four cabins and a campsite down on the lakefront. An ablutions block with hot and cold showers and clean lavatories serves the campsite. A commedor near by caters for those who don’t cook. For those who do cook, there are heaps of firewood and huge barbecues. The view down the lake is superb. Snow caps rise above dark forest while the light continually changes on the lake as does the colour of the water, dark blue, light blue, slate grey, pale smoky grey. Birds of prey spiral leisurely overhead. A pair of duck fly by and skid into land, feet splayed, on the dark, silky-surfaced lagoon that lies behind the strip of paddocks along the foreshore. Graciela and Luisa are playing cards in the cabin. I am outdoors in my wheelchair. Graciela has wrapped me in a grey blanket. The ex-future is tending a mountain of meat behind me while his daughter plays a complicated game with small dolls. A continual swell breaks and sucks at the pebble beach. The blanket makes me feel old. I am old. Tough shit!

ROBOLOCO

TOLHUIN: SATURDAY, AUGUST 25
I travel by pizza delivery bike. I have been accused of lunacy. Good!
Graciela, the ex-future and his daughter (6), Schoolteacher Luisa and I spend the weekend in a beachfront cabin on Lake Fagnano. Our host is a serial lunatic. As a teenager he rode a 50cc mobillette from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia: 3000 kilometres. Aged forty, he pedalled a pedalo the circumference of Lake Fagnano. Picture the lake. It fills a narrow trench in the mountains and is 117 kilometres long. It runs west to east. The prevailing wind blast from west to east. The weather changes in minutes, dead calm to a gale, bright sunshine to driving snow. Ten-foot waves smash onto pebble beaches. This is no place for a pedalo. Little wonder that Roberto Daniel Berbel is known locally as Roboloco.

MENACE IN THE FOREST

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 24
We are going away for the weekend. Graciela has rented a cabin in the forest. The forest is inhabited by wolves and bear and mountain lions and packs of wild savage dogs. I will sleep seated in my chair facing the cabin door with a shotgun in my lap.
Or we will confront vast quantities of meat on the grill and I will inhale vast quantities of second-hand cigarette smoke.
Which is most dangerous?
Pepe states that Tierra del Fuego stock trek vast distances in search of fodder: the meat is cholesterol free.
Pepe raises cattle and sheep on a 17000-hectare estancia.
Should I believe him?

TOWARDS FREEDOM

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 24
Pepe believes the bone is heeling. Xrays delay the heeling. For now he will leave the cast as it is. In ten days he will split the cast and make a further inspection. The cast will be replaceable. Take it off and I can bathe myself. Put it on and I can put some weight on the foot. I can travel. I must cut my possessions to a minimum. I must make a list. First I must be able to carry my crutches on the chair.

HEY, MY LOVELY, CARE FOR A RIDE?

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 22
I am mobile. Pepe had brought a wheelchair. It is a 2008 model drophead sports-coupé of a chair. I do spins. I weave between the tables in the hotel lounge. I make for the kitchen. The wooden doorsill is vertical barrier one centimetre in height. Buff! I back up and attack the sill at speed. Double Buff!
Pepe watches contemptuously.
The art is to lean back on the approach, then forward as you touch the sill – so Pepe instructs me.
I try. Further failure.
I reach for my crutches. More failure - I am trapped by the footrests.
This chair is a deluxe model. It offers many options. I must study the mechanics.

A NEED TO FORGET

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 22
I am in position, back to the iron rage. A mini cab driver sits opposite at the kitchen table and sips mate.
He is in his fifties. He is from the north. He and his wife have been in Tierra del Fuego for three weeks. She works in a shop. He drives from 7 in the evening to 7 in the morning. Back home there is no work for fifty-year-olds. They had a good life before the crisis of 2001/2. They owned a small house in town and a weekend cottage. Their children expected to attend university. The crash came and the good life ended. In those two years only the rich survived, those with hoarded capital hidden abroad. I travelled through Argentina for six weeks last year. Now I have been here for more than a month. Never have I overheard people talk of those years.
I mention this to three women.
"We want to forget," answers one.
"Yes, we want to forget," agrees the second.
Silence apart from the suck of tin straws in mate…The third says, "There is so much that we wish to forget."

KICKED BY A DOCTOR

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22
Pepe drops by. He has had a haircut. The result resembles Tierra del Fuego’s pastures: short and blown tufty by the wind.
Pepe asks if my ankle hurts.
How to differentiate between ache and pain?
Pepe believes in direct action. He wears work boots. He swings his artificial leg and hacks the underside of my foot. "Does that hurt?"
"No."
He raps me on the ankle. "Does that hurt?"
"No."
"Good," he says.
I say, "Sometimes it aches in the night."
"Of course it does," says Pepe. "It rests against hard plaster."
I feel foolish. "Right," I say.

GUILTY OF THOUGHT CRIME

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 21
I have been sitting in the kitchen, back to a warm old cast-iron range. Fellow residents drop scraps of information. X tells of his father, a writer arrested during the military dictatorship and condemned to ten years in jail. Police ransacked the family home once or twice a month, turned everything upside down, deliberately imprinted their prisoner’s children with fear. At the change of Government, the father was released under amnesty.
X is a close friend of Graciela. They have known each other for years. Graciela learns from me of his father’s arrest.

FACADE

three sages
javier, fernando & me

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 21
I have been skimming Thorn Tree, the message board for travellers sponsored by Lonely Planet. Many young travellers seek a beach to hang out on with other young travellers, some place cheaper than back home. I wonder what they learn of the countries through which they travel. What do they learn of the people?
Argentina is a favourite of young travellers. They trek the national parks, admire the forests, mountains and glaciers, enjoy the laughter and party spirit of the people.
What they experience is a façade.

DUMB GENERALISATIONS

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 21
Each hour I lie on my bed and do leg lifts. Today I achieve three consecutive series of thirty lifts. While exercising, I cogitate on a piece I have been asked to consider on the difference between young travellers and us oldies. Here is one quick generalisation. Young travellers journey alone by day and gather in the evening to swap war stories. Oldies enjoy exploring in a group with a knowledgeable guide by day and separate in the evening into couples and foursomes

ILLICIT ENRICHMENT

Argentine snack

RIO GRANDE, SUNDAY, AUGUST 19
Have I made the right decision? Time will tell. Meanwhile I am invited to Sunday lunch by the ex-future novio. Javier drives. We eat in the carport. Warm weather tyres fills one corner by the doors, bits of machinery, planks, kindling, logs. The wood grill runs the full width of the back wall. The long table is loaded with meat: beef, blood sausage, ordinary sausage.
Fellow guests are the Sunday gang. The pregnant grandmother spends the first hour indoors preparing salads: one of Brussel sprouts in olive oil, the other of eggplants and onion, also in oil.
Conversation centres on the previous Governor. He bought votes by creating 7000 non-existent jobs for his supporters. Now he, his wife and brother-in-law are charged with illicit enrichment and the Province must beg funds from Central Government.

MUM, DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE?

mum and son

RIO GRANDE:

FRIDAY, AGUGUST 17
I drink my morning coffee and watch Graciela watch her younger son complete an application form at the kitchen table. For Graciela this is a rare moment of relaxation. She is content to watch and love. Then, maternal, she points to an empty box on the form that requires a date.
I might be watching Bernadette and our eldest boy back home.
At what age do sons stop bringing home their application forms for Mum’s advice?
And do Mums ever have sufficient energy to stay awake during the showing of a DVD?
Bernadette and I have been together for nearly thirty years. I don't recall Bernadette ever staying awake through an entire film.

Graciela slept through three showings of The Last King Of Scotland earlier in the week. Last night she nodded off to Apocalypto.

PHLEGMATIC BRIT

pepe sculpting

RIO GRANDE:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16

I have chosen the limp. Pepe adds that I will sense the approach of rain in the joint. The plaster requires two full days to dry. Once dry, I can rest the heel on the ground, though not put weight on the foot. Balancing will be easier. Pepe says I can travel in less than four weeks, more than three weeks. By Monday I can go for drives, visit the country. He will get me a wheelchair.
I have occupied the spare bed in Graciela’s bedroom for ten days. A further three weeks is too great an imposition. Pepe and I speak English together. I tell him that I must find somewhere to stay.
He translates for Graciela.
Graciela says, "Why do you want to make my life more difficult? In my room, you are convenient for me."
I try to express my thanks.
Pepe squeezes my hand. "Simon, it is impolite to thank friends."

I find that I am weeping.
So much for the phlegmatic Brit…

DILEMMA

RIO GRANDE:
THURSDAY, AUGUST 16
Pepe arrives from his estancia to build a new cast, more of a boot with a wooden arch support and rubber heel. He drives me to the hospital in his truck and wheels me to the orthopaedic unit. Doctor Lopez is the Consultant. The two men examine the latest x-rays. A minute shift of the bone is evident. Lopez advocates screw and wire, a full cast for three months and a further month of rehab. Pepe argues that I am 74, that I don’t have four months. That keeping me immobile is a recipe for disaster.
The decision is mine.
I am not good at decisions.
My wife, Bernadette, is the other side of the world.
Graciela hasn’t come to the hospital. She knew there would be an argument. Both doctors are friends.
Pepe drops me back at the hotel. He will return in the afternoon.
Time for thought.
I suspect that Dr Lopez’ solution would be medically perfect.
Pepe is less interested in perfection. He lost his right leg from above the knee in a bike crash. He suffered a stroke and lost some of the feeling in his right hand and can no longer operate. He can run a large estancia, ride his Triumph 750 or a horse. He has rehabilitated himself and has a medical practice specialising in long term rehabilitation. He is closer to my age than Lopez, suffers from the same impatience with his own physical frailties and is an expert on living life to the full.
Take his route and I may limp a little. However I will complete this journey.
Chose the screw and wire and what do I risk? An old man’s shuffle instead of a limp and no book…
I talk with Graciela. She agrees.

PARTY TIME AT THE HOTEL ARGENTINO

javier - front right

vaguely inebriated

RIO GRANDE:

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15
Javier, the oil driller, is barbecuing a few dozen chickens in the yard - party time at the Hotel Argentino. We are celebrating the arrival of two Spanish pedal bikers from Valencia. The bikers have ridden from Buenos Aires via Bariloche, Monson and Calfate, then across into Chile and back via Porvenir to Rio Grande. Tomorrow they will head for Ushuaia. One is a salesman, early forties, handsome, voluble, lots of charm. The forty-day bike ride makes a great tale for his customers and will boost sales. The second biker is younger by ten years, an odd job man in the modern sense: basic electrician, basic plumber, painter and decorator, simple carpentry. He is the more thoughtful of the two and talks little. The Spaniards complain of ruthless Argentine truck drivers, of being forced off the road. I prefer a different image: the kindly driver who held me in his arms and called me brother.
My neighbour at table eats two full chickens. I drink more than one glass of red wine.
The Spaniards party to 5 a.m. They are on the road at seven. Such men were the Conquistadors…

CRASH CURE

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15
These are facts. I suffered back pain throughout the three months prior to leaving the UK and in my first weeks in the Argentine. I received four treatments from an excellent osteopath and two treatments from a sports therapist. The pain continued.
I get hit by three trucks and the pain ends. Eight days have passed since the crash. I feel confident in writing of a cure. I suspect this cure is a one-off and am reluctant to include this piece in my weekly column for 50connect.
50connect is a leading web site for mature citizens. Imagine hundreds of back-pain sufferers hobbling into the main highway in search of a curative truck.
Meanwhile Pepe has inspected the new x-rays. I have a date at the hospital tomorrow morning. Pepe will change the cast.

X-RAYS

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 14
Graciela is not pleased that I went to the restaurant yesterday. She knows that I took a knock on the foot. She threatens to telephone Bernadette. Meanwhile she takes me to the hospital to have fresh x-rays taken. Going anywhere with Graciela is a kiss-fest. Half the town are friends. The other half long to be.
I sit in the x-ray table while Graciela explains that she cares for me to be rid of me. I am to be more careful. I agree and pay US$5.50 for the x-rays.
A lady doctor examines the picture and reports all well with the ankle. She is not an orthopaedic surgeon. Pepe will give his opinion on Thursday.

ARGENTINES EAT

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 13
I may have remarked in a previous BLOG on the massive quantity of food Argentines eat, in particular, the vast amount of meat. I escaped at lunchtime. Not far, a mere hop to the corner restaurant. Fernando, Javier, Pepe and Carlos were my guests. Carlos and Javier ordered churasco: a plate-sized chunk of grilled meat surmounted by two fried eggs and piled with thick potato chips. Fernando preferred Milanese: the two slices of breaded meat required folding to fit the plate, two fried eggs and the potato mountain. Pepe and I had the midday special: spaghetti with meat sauce plus a hunk of stewed beef. Add an excellent bottle of red wine and the bill came to US$32.

YELLOW PRESS

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 12
I long for books. I have been lying in bed and thinking of the vile headlines in the British yellow press during the Falklands/Malvinas war. Much of the British Press is owned by foreigners of very dubious morality. Odd that successive Governments should permit such people to manipulate public opinion.
Murdoch terrified Blair.
Perhaps, Brown, a historian rather than a lawyer, and a child of the manse, will be more courageous. Meanwhile I am cared for with immense kindness by Graciela and her gang.

EX-FUTURE NOVIO

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
Graciela’s ex-future novio, Fernando, has been out to the frontier in his 4X4 pickup to collect the bike – the road was ice free. The back end of the bike is a mess. Xavier advises trucking the bike to the Honda Agency in Buenos Aires. The future is taking shape. I can take the bus to Puerto Natales in Chile and the ferry north to Rio Montt and bus north to Santiago. From Santiago I get the bus across northern Argentine, visit Paraguay, then bus south to collect the bike in BA and continue up through Uruguay into Brazil. Meanwhile Pepe has brought crutches. I am not good on crutches. My balance is uncertain. Maybe the painkillers are to blame. Hopefully I will improve.

JAMES ROBERTSON-JUSTICE

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
Graciela has many friends. She has summoned an orthopaedic surgeon friend to offer a second opinion on the ankle. In his early sixties, Pepe is a one-legged mini version of James Robertson-Justice. He divides his life between a medical practice in Buenos Aires and a 17000 hectare estancia in Tierra del Fuego. In Buenos Aires he rides a 1970s Triumph 750. The leg was victim of a bike crash.
Pepe examines the x-rays. He is against pinning. The operation will delay recovery. Four weeks in plaster with no weight on the foot, a further month taking things carefully…

NIGHTYMARES AND FEMALE LOGIC

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
I was smashed awake three times in the night as the bike slid from under me and my shoulder hit the ice. To get to the bathroom, I use a chair as a walker. Graciela points out that I am in her room so that she can help me to the bathroom. I hate waking her. She says my pushing a chair across the floor is a more stressful awakening than being asked quietly for help. Many thousand years of human history have witnessed men resisting such female logic. Graciela says I snore.

WONDROUS FRIENDSHIPS

this morning, farewell...

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
Graciela drives me back to the Hotel Argentino. I am discussed in the third person by Graciela and her novio and by various massive workers off the oilrigs. I am referred either to as little grandfather or little old man. The little is a term of endearment. The decision is taken unanimously and without a vote. I am to sleep in the spare bed in Graciela’s room. There is a bathroom and the room is conveniently adjacent to the kitchen. I have run out of humour. My ankle hurts and I am beginning to fade. I am put to bed in my striped pyjamas. I lie beneath the sheets and wonder at my fortune, yes, that I am alive and so little damaged, but far more fortunately, to be in the care of such extraordinary friends. Why should they, these Argentines, each one with his or her own problems, care for an old Englishman? My only connection to them before visiting Rio Grand for the second time was a single November evening last year at the end of my ride south from Mexico. Graciela and I sat in the kitchen and talked of life and hopes and loves and sorrows late into the night. We talked of our children and of our fears for them. I spoke of my longing to return home, of how much I missed Bernadette. I have reached an age where I am no longer suspect. Sexuality no longer creates a barrier. Truth is more easily discovered. Friendships come more easily and are both more precious and more wondrous.

PLASTER CASTED

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
The orthopaedic surgeon examines the x-rays. The truck parted the round bit of what I think of as the anklebone. The surgeon advises pinning it back in place - plaster for two months, a further month of minimum activity. He applies the plaster. I enquire as to the cost.
The doctor says, “Your insurance will pay for it.”
I explain that insurance companies don’t insure old men of seventy-four who chose to ride motorcycles the length of the Americas.

X-RAYS ARE SCARY

Riding the eighty kilometres to the Chilean frontier took four hours. The ambulance returns me to Rio Grande in an hour. I am x-rayed from head to toe. I hate being x-rayed. Will they find something seriously frightening? The operator reports that my ankle is broken.
I am wheeled to a doctor’s office. The doctor says, “You have damaged your thorax.”
“My ankle.”
“No, your thorax.”
“My ankle,” I insist.
The x-rays arrive. The doctor holds them up to the light. “Your ankle is broken.”
I am about to reply, “No, my thorax.”
Graciela arrives. I must behave.
She says, “So, little grandfather, what have you done?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Broken his ankle,” the doctor says.
Graciela ought to be exasperated.

SECOND ASSAULT

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
The nurse at the Aid post is a warm, kindly, overweight grandmother.
She takes my temperature and my pulse and my blood pressure. I ask if I am alive. The Chilean cop says, “You shouldn’t be.”
I say, “It is something to boast of, being hit by three trucks.”
My hysteria contaminates both Argentine and Chilean cops. Raucous is an accurate description as the nurse removes my thermal suit.
To get at my ankle she has to cut through three sets of thermal underwear.
I beg her to be careful with the scissors.
She binds my ankle, helps me to the ambulance and straps me onto a stretcher.
I am being taken to the hospital in Rio Grande. The nurse holds my hand. She wants to give me a shot. I decline.
The driver skids on a rut.
She falls on me – a second assault.

STUPID OLD FOOL

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
This end of Tierra del Fuego is a treeless moreland of tough tufted grass. The clarity of light foreshortens the vast distances and hills seem no more than ridges sculpted and scoured by the incessant wind. Fifteen kilometres of dirt roads separate Argentine and Chilean frontier posts. The road follows the coast. The sea is grey green and fringed with foam. Ponds and lakes are iced.
The trucks hit me two kilometres short of the Chilean border. Two Chilean cops load me and the bike into a double cab 4X4 pickup. I make inane remarks and find the remarks hilarious. I doubt if I make much sense. The Chileans want rid of me. They determine that I do the sensible thing: return to the emergency clinic at the Argentine frontier. Both cops are young. The driver drives one-handed; the pickup fishtails on ice.
I ask if they are friends with the Argentine cops.
“Certainly we are friends, good friends. Difficulties are made by the politicians.”

HIT BY THREE TRUCKS

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
I got hit by three trucks today. I am unlikely to write a better opening in my remaining years. I am fortunate to be writing. I intended riding from Rio Grande to Porvenir in Chile and take the ferry across the Straits of Magellan to Puerto Arenas. Monday evening I checked with men working on the oil fields near the frontier. They reported the road clear. Unfortunately snow fell on the high ground during the night. Sections of the road were sheet ice. A sensible man would have turned back. I had been in Rio Grande a week. I had said my goodbyes. Retreating would have been unmanly. I fell twice before the trucks got me. Two of the trucks were on a trailer pulled by the prime mover. I was riding very slowly on an incline and, where possible, keeping to patches of bare tar or gravel. The truck came from behind. The driver sounded his klaxon. I may have tried to swerve off the road. I don’t know. The truck hit my back wheel. The bike tipped. I was trapped astride the bike beneath the truck’s front fender. We slid for forty metres. The driver clambered down from his cab, a tall man in his late forties, grey hair. He expected to find me dead. He was close to weeping at discovering me alive. He and his mate pried the bike free. Could I stand?
I wasn’t sure.
I said, “Let me rest a little.”
I wiggled toes and fingers. I bent legs and arms. Everything functioned. My write ankle hurt. Nothing else. I rolled onto my belly and knelt, supporting myself on the truck fender. The driver helped me to my feet. He held me in his arms, named me brother. He should have called me a damn fool for riding a motorbike in winter on Tierra del Fuego, a double damned fool for attempting to ride on ice.
I said what every Englishman of my generation would say in similar circumstances, “I’m so sorry. Please excuse me…”

WHITE SANDS - ARENA BLANCA

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 7
Argentine TV is lamentable. People read. A steady stream of customers enters the book shop up the street from the Hotel Argentino. In England, few bookstores outside major cities would equal the choice in books. I order a Spanish translation of White Sands published in Buenos Aires. The book is a farewell gift to Graciela. The owners of the store ask me to sign one of the central pillars. Any visiting author would be flattered with the same courtesy. Later I meet with the lawyer. We talk of the judical system. He says, Integrity and independence of the judicial system are the foundations of society. Here there is neither.

MEAT

RIO GRANDE: SUNDAY, AUGUST 6

Rio Grande is an oil town. Xavier is a driller. He has been working rigs for nearly thirty years and is excited now at bringing in a well as he was when he began. He is a short man with a full short greying beard, permanent twinkle and lopsided smile. He drives me to Sunday lunch at Fernando's home. Fernando started as engineer on ships servicing offshore rigs before founding his own maintence business. Pedro installs security systems. Other guests are a third generation lawyer, a head of department in the Provincial Government together with pregnant wife and two-year-old grandchild.
The official is within the system. The lawyer is disgusted by endemic corruption. They differ in politics. The confrontation across the table is indirect. I almost miss it. Fernando is tending meat at the charcoal grill full width of what would be a narrow patio in a warmer climate but here is roofed with a transparent thermal palstic. Pedro is opening bottles of red wine. Xavier is twinkling. The official's pregnant wife is feeding her granddaughter. The lawyer pushes his chair back and is gone.
We eat meat and drink good red wine until evening. Back at the hotel I fall asleep in an arm chair.

TOO FEW WOMEN IN RIO GRANDE

RIO GRANDE: SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
Few people in the US have roots or local loyalties. People emmigrate from East to West and back in search of promotion. Make more money, and they move house from a $100,000 salary neghbourhood to a $150,000 neighbourhood, from $150,000 to $200,000. Move, move, move...A society of gypsies.
Tierra del Fuego is somewhat similar. The island is populated by incomers. Most are men. Women take their pick. Three sit at the bar. One believes herself too tall. She watches another young woman. This second woman is dressed in some sort of fashion work suit in pale beige. She plays the coquette, displaying her shape, pursing her lips for a kiss from a tall, handsome novio. Yet there is a hollow core to her confidence. She wields her beauty, yet knows that she is not beautiful, merely moderately pleasing - condemned outside Tierra del Fuego to play a different roll. Perhaps a wallflower...
The tall young woman is envious, yet sees the hollowness.

NIGHTLIFE IN RIO GRANDE

RIO GRANDE: SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
We are four in the pub on Saturday night, three men and Graciela of the Hotel Argentino. Pub? So the sign says. The oblong space is in a new building. Rental as a hardware store or shoe shop would seem more likely. Pub it is.
We sit at a corner table beneath a photograph of Rio Grande in the thirties. For Rio Grande, Thirties is antique - as it would be for much of the US. Other similarities come to mind. Political Parties represent loyalties rather than philosophy. Xavier, a driller for nearly thirty years, sites control as the only political aim. The leader of his union has exercised control for twenty years. He owns a yacht, various houses and property.
Two nondescript young men sit at the bar. They attempt jokes with the waitress and are ignored. How many times will they visit the pub? Will they eventually recognise that they will never belong, never be insiders.
Graciela, Xavier and Pedro are insiders.
The pub owner kisses and chats.
Other arrivals pay respects.
Pedro takes the car and fetches some king of cable for the music system.
Yes, we definitely belong.
The tab of under US$20 covers a bottle of wine, beers, tea for Graciela and coffee.

DEFEAT

RIO GRANDE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
I have been defeated here in Rio Grande. Puchero was the victor. Puchero is a stew. It is served in two deep bowls. One bowl contains the meat: half a chicken less the limbs, a huge chunk of beef, a large section of oxtail, chorizo. The meat swims in a broth and is surrounded by three types of dried beans, small, medium and butter. The other bowl contains the vegetables, also in a broth: more beans, cabbage, onion, pumpkin, carrot, potato. This is a single serving. Immagine these two huge bowls of food set before you. Even the fiercest appetite quakes.
Let me recomend a small cafe in Rio Grande frequented by oil workers on their week off: San Martin 86. The owner is Chilean. His Puchero, though grotesque in quantity, is delicious. Add two beers and the bill came to US$7.

LIVERPOOL PUB

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

British Institutions fade away. The Liverpool Pub one block back from the sea was a wreck when I was here last November. Police were searching the rear yard. The building is graced now with a new name: DISCO LAMAR and is freshly painted in two tones of blue. The yard at the back requires attention.

COUSINS EVERYWHERE

parking the Honda

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3
Rio Grande has doubled in size over the past few years to a town of 75,000. It continues to grow. I wander along the waterfront. A woman at the Municipal Cultural Centre is proud to show me the theatre. The theatre has seats for 450. The ceiling is curved and of varnished wood. The Cultural Centre works closely with local schools.
I walk a little further. A sign outside a new house bears the architect’s name: Simon Thomson. I call his cellular and we meet for coffee at a gas station.
Simon is a young man reared here in Tierra del Fuego where his father is a ranch manager. Simon is qualified from the University of Buenos Aires three years ago and already offered more work than he can handle. He worked as a fishing guide during vacations. Both his maternal and paternal families have been in the Argentine for three generations. He is the fourth. He is a distant relative by marriage of my distant cousin, Tony Deanne.

UNLOADING

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3
The truck from Ushuaia arrives at midday with my bike. The driver and I unload while Graciela takes photographs. Imagine manhandling a Harley Davidson. We’d need a crane.

HOTEL ARGENTINO

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 3
Graciela, owner of the Hotel Argentino, underwent surgery three weeks ago at the Italian hospital in Buenos Aires. She is a small, dark, vivacious woman, eternally optimistic (think Ibiza in the 60s). She greets me with voluble affection. We sit in the kitchen, drink coffee and exchange views.
Views in Argentina don’t vary much: Politicians are a bunch of thieving liars.
Her hotel is a popular base with workers from the oil fields who work two weeks on and one week off. Late evening and there is a crowd in the kitchen. They all have tales. An electrician relates having to pay half his earnings back to the contractor. Wine circulates, bread, mozzarella. Her operation has put Graciela on a strict diet. I eat alone at the corner restaurant, a vast steak, salad and beer for £4. Idiot, I leave my jacket on the back of the chair. I return for it later. The lights are off. A bunch of kids are drinking beer and already midway drunk.
English? To whom to the Malvinas belong? Argentina, right?
I answer, To those who live there.
No, no. The Malvinas are Argentine.I say, Argentina has something more valuable than the islands. You have the best footballers in the World.
Confrontation evaporates.

CONVENIENT FOR TRAVELLERS

USHUAIA: THURSDAY, AUGUST 2
This is a special for travellers leaving Ushuaia. Transportes Montiel run minibusses to Rio Grande. The bus picks passengers up at their hotel and delivers them to where they wish to go in Rio Grande or vicar versa. Busses run every two hours through the day. The fare is 40 pesos (£8) – 10 pesos more than the standard bus and far more convenient.
Address in Ushuaia: Deloqui 110. Telephone: (02901) 421366.
Address in Rio Grande: 25 de Mayo 712. Telephone: (02964) 420997.
Yesterday I bought a waterproof thermal work-suit at a store for non-tourists: £12. My bags are already full so I wear the suit on the bus – also my boots. I sit up front beside the driver. The distance to Rio Grande is 200 kilometres. We hit packed snow and patches of ice for some ten kilometres as we cross the mountains behind Ushuaia. Perhaps another twenty kilometres has clear strips between strips of snow. The remainder is clear. The driver is sure I can ride safely from Rio Grande to the frontier.

TROPHIES

Pablo is on the right

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
Argentines have a great passion for silver gilt and gold gilt sporting trophies. Most of the trophies are mounted on fake marble pillars. Pablo’s trophies run the full length of the wall above the workbench and pack the space above a large cupboard. No doubt there are more in the house.
The workshop only functions in the evenings. Bikers collect round the stove, work at the bench, sip maté. A couple of the bikers have ridden north to Colombia. None have shipped their bikes on into Panama.
I would enjoy receiving a degree of admiration.
Mostly they think I’m nuts.
My boots are much admired.
“Italian,” one of the bikers comments. “Waterproof. You can’t buy Alpinestars in Argentina.”
One of Pablo´s sons, a student, arrives direct from a three month holiday touring South America. Everyone talks travel costs.
In Ecuador the son survived on US$15 a day.

PICKET

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
Avenida San Martin is Ushuaia’s Bond Street. A picket (not telephone company employees) blocks half the road on the same block as the police station. An oil drum serves as a stove. I mention to the strikers that my eldest son, Antony, is a Trotskyite Union official. I mention that he collects Union badges. A dark woman retorts that they can’t afford badges – my son must be collecting from capitalists.

ARGENTINA, LAND OF PICKETS

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
The employees of the national telephone company are on strike. There is no internet connection. I can’t mail my column. Nor can I check for emails from my editor, Clare. She has been on holiday. The m/s of my new novel was part of her holiday reading. I expect her to hate it. Expecting disdain for my writing is a permanent state.
Perhaps it comes of being dyslectic and of a generation in which dyslexia wasn’t recognised and corporal punishment was standard treatment for lazy spelling.
Teachers didn’t bother reading my work.
Aged sixteen, I was grateful to be taken out of school.
Bernadette says that I am 74 and should have gained confidence.

SKIRT

big sandwich

USUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
The soup is finished. For late lunch I order a serving of beef off the grill at a workman café. Home in Herefordshire we barbecue skirt. I buy direct from the abattoir where the butcher hangs beef for a minimum of eighteen days. Hanging tenderises the meat. The chunk I am served in Ushuaia must have been cut off an aged ox while it was still running wild. I struggle to hack off the corners with a saw-bladed steak knife. The juice has flavour. I chew and chew and watch the short-order cook prepare three sandwiches. First he whisks a couple of eggs onto the hot plate and adds two slices of ham. A slice of breaded veal goes on top of the ham followed by a thick slice of cheese. The whole is dumped in half of a fat French stick. Add mayonnaise, pin with a couple of toothpicks and serve.
I have given up chewing the meat and eat the salad.

INTEGRATION

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
The President of the Argentine is on a State visit to Mexico. Today’s newspaper publishes a discourse President Kirchner presented to the Mexican Senate. In the speech he attacks the Bush Administration for building a wall along the border. Not only is the wall an insult to Mexico, it is an insult to all the peoples of the world. President Kirchner lectures the United States on integration. President Kirchner is as white as a founder member of the Augusta National Golf Club. So is President Kirchner’s wife and possible future President, Senator Christina Kirchner - as are President Caldaron of Mexico and his wife. The front page of La Nacion carries a photograph of President Kirchner and his audience of Mexican senators. The senators are white.
On Argentine TV, brown faces are restricted to news programs.
Not even the servants in Mexican soaps are indigenous.
Both Presidents might set integration as a goal for domestic broadcasting – though criticising the United States wins more votes.

END OF THE WORLD

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1
A Portuguese woman resident in Brighton, England, takes my photograph in front of the Municipal END OF THE WORLD sign. The woman has been given a Round-the-World holiday as a fortieth birthday gift.
She is an incompetent photographer.

Or I am a lousy subject…

TEENAGER COMMUNICATION

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1
I call a friend in Rio Grande, Graciela, owner of the Hotel Argentino. Graciela has been in Buenos Aires. I left my number at the Gran Hotel Espana with the kid she had left in charge at Rio Grande. Graciela didn’t call. I learn now that she had flown to BA for emergency surgery. Dumb kid should have told me! Kids don’t tell. A message left at my home is as likely to get through as a message in a bottle dropped in the Sargasso sea.
I have a bus ticket to Rio Grande tomorrow.
A truck will be dropping the bike at the Hotel Argentino in early evening. Total cost: 140 pesos or £22.

SOUND ADVICE

USHUAIA: TUESDAY: JULY 31
Two young women and a young man staff a shop specialising in up-market ski clothes. One of the women is from Bogota, Colombia. She is in Ushuaia with her novio. They are working their way round the world. The rate of pay here and the falling Argentine peso suggest that they will be in their mid-fifties before they get home. I tell the Colombian that Popayan is probably my favourite city in Hispanic America. Her novio comes from Popayan. We have established a link
The other two sales staff are from the north of Argentina. Most workers in Ushuaia come from the north. The Argentine woman offers me maté. Argentines drink maté instead of tea. What is it? An infusion of green sludge sipped through a tin straw from a tin cup. Sipping maté without grimacing is an art.
We discuss rates of pay and unemployment up north and the general corruption. The man says that most native Ushuaians have jobs in local Government. The owner of the store works in Government.
I tell the trio of Pablo’s 2000 pesos. The young man advises me to put the bike on a truck to Rio Grande. People in Rio Grande are different to Ushuaians. They aren’t so greedy.

DUMB AS FISH

USHUAIA: TUESDAY, JULY 31
Sandwiched between the mountains and the Beagle Channel, Ushuaia suffers the characteristics of an island. One of these characteristics is the belief that outsiders are as dumb as fish and serve the same purpose. Pablo gives me a quote for transporting the bike to Porvenir: 2000 pesos. Over £300!!!!
He tells me that the road from the frontier is black ice and deep potholes: that trying to ride would be suicide.
I reply that paying 2000 pesos would be suicide.
I need an alternative.
I also require a Balaclava.

WIND CHILL

north coast of Beagle Channel
trees permanently bent

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
The bike is ready. Pablo has fitted new tires more suitable to snow and dirt roads. He produces a wind speed/temperature conversion table. Add 50 kph to a temperature of –2 and I would be riding at –26. Pablo will call a friend for a quote for transporting me and the bike to Porventur. A ferry runs from Porventur to the Chilean mainland where I can load the bike on a truck north to Puerto Natales.

CAMERAS CAUSE BLINDNESS

south across the Beagle Channel USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 31
I would enjoy reporting that I saw sealions and seals and dolphins and whales and cormorants and Imperial petrels in the Beagle Channel. I SAW nothing. I was too preoccupied with either spotting a good photograph or photographing. A half-gale blasted spray across the decks and the saloon windows. Ducking the spray and taking photographs produced interesting shots of the sky and bits of cabin and slugs slithering on rocks that only I know are sealions.

sealion or slug?

However I did see marginally more than a youthful foursome of fashionably-clads. They had one of those digital cameras with big, old-type bodies that Pro photographers carry. They ordered from the bar and photographed each other posing with drinks. We sailed and they slept.

Darwin didn't carry a camera. He used his eyes. Looking south across the channel, he saw the end of the Andes hooking round to the East.

CORMORANTS

cormorants on a rock in the Beagle Channel

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
Last November I crossed the immensity of Patagonia pretty much on cruise control. I had travelled for six months. I was cold and permanently tired. Ushuaia was the end. I stored the bike and headed for the airport.
Now Ushuaia is the beginning and I have sufficient energy to do the tourist things. Today I buy a ticket for the afternoon cruise on the Beagle Channel. The wind is blowing midway to a gale. The cruise boat is a twin-decked sixty-foot catamaran. I sit in the lower observation saloon, drink coffee and watch the cormorants. These are of the rock variety. They have white throats and bellies and are smaller than those that fishermen use in the Far East. The sea inside the harbour is smooth as slate. Every few seconds the cormorants duck their heads in the sea. Is the weather too warm? Or are they looking for fish?
They dive for fifty seconds or more. Surfacing, they paddle themselves almost clear of the water, stretch their long necks and wriggle. The catch is a swelling that passes down the throat. Two unpleasant grey gulls buzz the cormorants a couple of times before landing beside them. Cormorants float low in the water. The gulls float very high and remind me of paper sailboats my brother and I used to fold out of single sheet of paper and race down the burn.

PARADISE

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
Argentines don’t do mornings and they don’t change the clocks. First light is around 8.45. The sun finally rises between two mountains around 10.15. The cabin glows. I have bathed, made breakfast and am on my second pot of coffee. I sit in bright sunshine at the table in the bow widow and gaze up at the peaks. If you stay at the Casa Galeazzli-Basily, book the new cabin, sit out on the deck in the sun and accept that you are close to Paradise. As to the bathroom, I have it whipped. The water pressure is high. Open the bathroom taps too far and the water races through the geyser without getting hot. Open the taps too little and the gas won’t light. It takes a few minutes of a morning to perfect the flow. The bath fills and I bask, legs vertical, feet resting up the wall. Picture a dead bloated bodily-bald cow and you have the image – though cows don’t have beards. As to the lavatory, having to lift the cistern top when you flush is no big deal. The top is ceramic. Don’t drop it.

SO WHAT?

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
Today’s front page headline in LA NACION: only 9% of Argentines have faith in the country’s judiciary.

Did I mention the theatre on the waterfront?

Typical of original Ushuaia architecture - now mostly replaced by totally tasteless concrete.

FACISTS, CORRUPTION AND GOOD FOOD

USHUAIA: SUNDAY, JULY 29
A Basque policeman on holiday invites me to dinner. He is not an undercover cop. He has the physique of a toned tank and is six-foot-four inches on bare feet. Disguising him would be a tough assignment. Separatists murder cops in the Basque region. I suggest that big must be a disadvantage. He answers that the size of the target is immaterial: the separatists use bombs.
He has an Argentine friend, a woman, whose parents emigrated from the Basque region.
I have been at the judicial police this afternoon to collect my deposition on the Buenos Aires pickpockets. I make a social error in remarking that the police were friendly and helpful.
In her cynicism, the Argentine Basque is typical of Argentines. All politicians are thieves. All cops are crooked. All judges are corrupt. All Peronistas are Fascist pretending to be Socialists.
We dine at an eat-all-you-can restaurant down town. We serve ourselves from a vast array of what used to be called hors d'euvre in my youth and are now commonly referred to as starters: a dozen different salads, tongue, hams, whitebait, chorizo, salami. Whole sheep, spread flat, spatter over a charcoal pit. Massive chunks of beef smoke on a grill together with offal and black pudding. There are puddings for those who want something sweet and have room. We order one of the more expensive wines on the list, an excellent heavy read Merlot. Cost for three? $40…