SLAUGHTERING INDIANS

ON THE BUS: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
Eight hours to Buenos Aires, look out of the window and the land is flat. We saw a hill four hours ago. We won't see another. I have read the newspaper. I don't have a book. For sport, I list other similarities shared by Argentina and the USA.

The bulk of the population are descendants of comparatively recent immigration (beginning in the late 1890s).

The bulk of immigrants were poorly educated and driven from their birth countries by war, poverty and persecution.

Both countries slaughtered their indigenous population around the same time and mythologised the killers.
Cowboy and gaucho are equally romanticised.
Both gaucho and cowboy duelled and murdered each other, gauchos with knives, cowboys with revolvers.
Both Chacara and Country and Western music celebrate loneliness and the broken heart.
I discussed similarities with an Argentine sociologist in Rio Grande. He wrote his doctoral theses in Arizona. He claimed one essential difference: North Americans are optimists. They believe in a better future.
Argentines are fatalists. They have no belief in a better future.

ARGENTINE/USA

ON THE BUS: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
We are on an airfield one thousand miles long by five hundred miles wide. Farmers have ploughed bits of the airfield, planted crops and a few trees. Travelling by train from NY to Dallas was the same - totally flat. Look out of the window and you wonder what quirk sited a town where it is rather than ten or twenty miles south, east, north or west. The wastage of land is similar. We Europeans treasure every square metre. A business fails, someone rebuilds on the same site. Not so in small town Argentina or in small town USA. Abandoned buildings abound. Land is cheap. Easier to build new on a green site. So the urban sprawl spreads.

MAPUCHE ARE INDEFATIGABLE

NEGUEN: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
I have a three hour wait at the bus terminal for the AndesMar connection to Buenos Aires. I discover that the AndesMar bus takes an indirect route. The direct route taken by other companies is six hours shorter. Damn! However I will see more of the country and I can't change my ticket. The connection is down at the bus terminal's smart Internet cafe. I eat ravioli in the slow-service fast-food restaurant. Service is slow because the male staff are watching football on TV. I chatted with a young Chilean woman on the bus. She is studying Tourism and Hotel management in Buenos Aires. She was home for Chile's national holiday. Her mum gave her a new laptop. Argentine Customs wouldn't let her through without a certificate from Chilean Customs. She was in tears when the bus pulled out. Now I see her pushing a luggage trolley. She spots me and we hug. She tells me she hitched lifts on a couple of trucks and a car - more evidence of the indefatigability of the indigenous Mapuche. The Inca failed to conquer them. The Spaniards failed. Now the Argentine Customs have failed. We sit together. She tells me to prop my foot up on her luggage. The swelling ebbs from the ankle.

A DESERT IS A DESERT IS A DESERT

BUS: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
We have left the mountains behind. The land slopes towards the vast coastal plane. Soil is ochre and brittle. Scrub is dry and brittle. Sparse grass grows in coarse tufts. We pass a Hereford steer. Five minutes later we pass a second. Two horses scavenge for fodder. A few sheep pretend that they don't know each other. So this is a ranch...for a Texan. An Argentine landowner would refer to his estancia. Two steers eight sheep and a couple of horses in ten miles? I'll stick with desert.

PLEASE KILL MY KID

BUS: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
I reach Buenos Aires tomorrow evening, a long bus journey, time to muse. We pass a pickup. A small boy - at most five years old - kneels on the front seat and smiles. This is a mountain road with potholes and patches of wet snow. The city is as bad. Are Moms and Dads ignorant or stupid? Not the type of question that a tourist can ask...

SATIATED DESIRE

ON A BUS: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
I am crossing South America with AnderMar - US$80 from Temuco to Buenos Aires via Neguyen for a fully reclining seat in First class. Mile upon mile of eucalyptus bring me close to tears. Trees are planted in what were rich pasture land and on hillsides already scarred by soil erosion. We climb into the Andes and finally escape the rain. Eucalyptus gives way to plantations of spruce, more food for paper mills. We travel through a long tunnel and emerge on the fringe of the snow line. The bus stops briefly at a charming mountain village, Lonquiney. This is tourism country, horses in paddocks. I spot black face sheep. Snowploughs have left piles of snow along the road edge. The bus slushes through fresh snow. We cross a plain below mountain peaks. A thin scattering of monkey puzzles trees stand in the snow. Ahead lies the Chilean border post. My crutches earn me sympathy and a place at the head of the queue. I chat with a young Chilean woman studying Hotel Management and Tourism at a college in Buenos Aires. Back in the bus and we drive through a sparse forest...A forest of monkey puzzle trees!
We reach the Argentine frontier. I am joined by an Argentine Customs officer as I photograph trees. We laugh together as I relate my disappointed search for the ancient Araucaria in its natural habitat only to find it here travelling by mainline bus. Such is travel, full of surprises...

MONKEY PUZZLE TREES

TEMUCO: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
Temuco is a big industrial city. It is magnificently ugly. It could win prizes for ugliness. Even the central square is ugly. I have consulted two guidebooks. Both recommend that travellers don't stop. I am here to stay a night in Chile's oldest hotel, the Continental. Established in 1888, my guidebooks report that nothing has changed. I telephoned yesterday for a reservation. No one answered. I sent a fax. I give my destination to the cab driver at the bus terminal. The cab driver is nonplussed. He radios base. The Continental has been closed for a year. The driver takes me a modern hotel in the city centre with a US$30 room rate. An elderly woman with a kind face runs reception. I suggest a pensioner's discount and she drops the price to US$12. Next stop, the Tourist Bureau. I want to see 1000 year-old monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria) in their natural habitat. The National Parks are unsuitable for an hoppity old man on crutches. Defeated, I book myself a seat on the morning bus for Buenos Aires.
One bright jewel in a rainy day: a charming bandstand.
The best I can do for dinner is vacuna soup.

CRIMINAL EUCALYPTUS

ON A BUS: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
Today I travel by big bus to Tembuco. We ride through mile after mile of eucalyptus plantation, food for paper mills that pollute the rivers. Has no one warned landowners or Chile's Ministry of Agriculture that eucalyptus sucks all the goodness out of the earth and transforms rich land into an infertile desert?

CHILEAN BREAD

VALDIVIA: THURSDAY: SEPTEMBER 20
Rain drizzles from a grey sky. I walk (hop) along the waterfront to the fish market. Heaps of monster clams and mussels cover concrete slabs. Cormorants and gulls hop on the parapet and lunge the instant a stall holder is distracted. Yesterday I travelled though mile after mile of eucalyptus plantations. Boatmen tell me that the rivers are polluted by pulp factories.
Two oarsmen skull by in racing shells.
Drizzle turns to rain.
I am cold. My ankle aches. Valdivia is depressing. Or I am depressed by Valdivia.
I might cheer up were the sun out and joyful, optimistic students milling in the streets and crowding cafes. I eat grilled fish for supper and drink an excellent local beer blessed with the Real Ale insignia. Back at the hostel I chat with a bright and funny young American woman from San Francisco teaching English at a Chilean school. Her mother is Mexican. She is familiar with Mexico and Central America. Chile depresses her. The food depresses her. Particularly the bread. Her companion is Chinese teaching Chinese at the same school. The Chinese loathes Chilean food, especially the bread. She complains that bread isn't part of her home diet, yet Chinese bread is infinitely preferable to Chile's variety.
I am travelling onward in the morning.

PINOCHET: A GOOD CHAP

VALDIVIA: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
Valdivia is an ugly city in a beautiful location on the delta of two rivers. The orginal city was flattened in 1960 by the stronget earthquake ever recorded. What remains of the old is a fine University and a reputation for sea food. I am here for the food. I arrived yesterday on Chile's national day. All restaurants were closed. However there is a fake Chinese at the city centre shopping mall. I ate shrimp with bean sprouts and rice. Edible. Today I lunch beside the fishmarket at La Perla del Sur. Paila de Marisco is Chile's national dish, shellfish stew: king crab claw, massive mussles, two type of clams, a big limpet, abalone, conga eel, squid.
Good? Yes.
Great? No.
I discuss the deceased General Pinochet with a pleasant woman. She tells me that foreigners don't understand: Pinochet saved Chile from a Communist Dictatorship. Allende surrounded himself with foreigners, Russians, Cubans, East Germans, even Communists from Europe.
I discuss General Pinochet with a young man. I wonder that people's opinions of the good General weren't changed at discovering that he had robbed the country and salted away millions of dollars in foreign banks.
I am told that some have changed their opinions. His true suporters either ignore the evidence or believe the evidence is fraudulent.
Chucking your tortured victims from helicopters into the sea doesn't leave much evidence.
I am shamed that Pinochet remains a Good Chap for some of my fellow Brits, ...

YOUTH HOSTELS

VALDIVIA: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
Riding a bike, I have the freedom to circle the centre for a hotel. On crutches I consulted guidebooks. Airesbuenos International Hostel is recommended. I telephone for a reservation. My room is on the ground floor. US$30 is the most costly of my nights in Chile. No bedside lamp, the only light comes from an overhead energy-saving bulb draped in one of those round Japanese paper shades made in China. The light is too dim for reading anything other than big print. I have to get out of bed to turn the light on or off. The lounge area is a training ground for expeditions to the Antarctic. Breakfast is powdered coffee, no milk, and that factory-made sliced white bread that remains soggy even when toasted. YUK! My fault. Hostels are invariably a ripoff for anything other than a dorm bed. And all the guests are foreigners. Why travel...?

JAILED

ON A BUS: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
Travelling by bus is being in jail: you can't get out. I shouldn't complain: the views from the windows change (and I get a pensioner's discount on the fare). I am travelling by small bus that stops on the roadside to drop and collect passengers. Such country buses give an illusion of freedom. I could get off. I don't through my own choice or indolence or nervousness at finding myself abandoned. We travel through a rich dairy country of green paddocks and woodland. Rain falls steadily. A black and white saddleback sow snouts up a patch of mud beside a small wood hovel.

CONVERSOS

farmhouse and lake

LAGO LLANQUIHUE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
My hosts have arranged for an elderly gentlemen to show me the countryside. He drives an equally elderly eight-seater minibus. We make a fine threesome, creaky but functional. I am in questioning mood. Agricultural land sells for 1,500,000 pesos a hectare - US$3000. Dairy farming is profitable on farms of a hundred hectares or more. US$20,000 builds a good house such as the Golden Boot. The monthly minimum wage is around US$240, a wage on which a Buddhist monk would starve. Chile's Government is Centre Left. Last week two Government Ministers were appointed to the Supreme Court. The Cardinal officiated at a family memorial mass for General Pinochet.
We drive through country that holds continual reminders of northern Europe: rolling hills, green paddocks, trees, dairy cattle, wooden barns and houses.
Spanish Jews who converted to Catholicism in the 16th Century are known to historians as conversos. Lutheran conversos founded a tiny village midway down the lake between Puerto Octay and Frutillar. They built a small church on the landward side of the road. Austrian Catholics arrived some years later and built their church exactly opposite on the lake-side of the road. The churches are built of wood and are indistinguishable. We pass a small hillside cemetery shaded by fine trees. Snowdrops and daffodils have become naturalised and spread between the grave stones.
My family built the first Catholic church in England after the Persecution. The church is in the tiny village of Hanley Swan. Members of the Church of England immediately built a bigger church with a taller steeple. Their church is hideous. Ours is pretty. I shall be buried in the graveyard.

UP-MARKET BROTHEL

view from hotel centinela

PUERTO OCTAY:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

German settlers founded Puerto Octay in 1850 or there abouts. Chile is a Catholic country and the Germans were Catholic - so they claimed and were given land grants.

How long did they pretended to be Catholics and how thorough was their pretence?

Eventually they shed their camouflage and built a Lutheran church. Amusing to discover that the town's one upmarket hotel was built as a brothel. The Hotel Centinela occupies the tip of the peninsular that shelters the town. It has the feel of a turn of the century hunting lodge. Views over the lake are superb. For the better-off, this is the place to stay. I prefer family life at the Yellow Boot.

RESTFUL AND JOYFUL

zapato amarillo

PUERTO OCTAY: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

I am eating proper family breakfast: a family of mother, father and two children. These are the owners and builders of Zapato Amarillo. I have slept in a comfortable bed under a goose-down duvet beside an immaculate bathroom. Everything functions, everything fits, everything is very Swiss. So it should be. It has been designed and built by a Swiss trained as a mechanical engineer. These must be the only doors in Hispanic America which shut with a slight wush of expelled air. Breakfast is enormous: fresh baked bread, butter, homemade jams, eggs from free-range hens, fruit salad, coffee or tea. I am immensely happy. Dominik, eleven, is an artist. His sister, four, is a minx.

GOLDEN BOOT

lake view

PUERTO OCTAY:
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
At over half a million acres, Lago Llanquihue is Chile's second largest lake. I am heading for a small town at the head of the lake, Puerto Octay. The next bus leaves at 11 a.m.The road passes through rolling country reminiscent of my own Herefordshire, a country of small paddocks and woodland, of dairy cattle, sheep, fruit trees. Mimosa and daffodils glow in the Spring sun. Orchards are beginning to flower. Roses and camellias are in bud while early magnolias are already fading. Werner of Casa Cecilia in Puerto Natales has made a reservation for me at Hostal Zapato Amarillo. The owner, another Swiss German, waits my arrival at Puerto Octay's bus station.

PUERTO MONTT

SUNDAY MIDNIGHT: SEPTEMBER 16
The weather has been exceptional. We dock in Puerto Montt twelve hours ahead of schedule. Disembarkation is after breakfast on Monday morning. We say our good byes. The Frenchman is cool. The British students are immensely polite. The two students from the US mooch in their private huddle of near despair. I catch a cab to the bus station.

ANGLO FRENCH WAR

FERRY: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
Our last dinner on board: sadly, we have entered a war zone. Music is the fuse. The Frenchman is incensed by the non-Japanese Brit student's opinion of the Blues. The Frenchman is totally ignorant of the student's opinion. The student is a typical Brit; ten years of school French and he remains monosyllabic. The Frenchman is typical in loathing the supremacy of the English language. He wishes me to translate his contempt for the Brit student's musical taste and knowledge. I have been translating for three days. The student of Japanese parentage and I are enjoying our own conversation. The Frenchman departs for bed in a huff. Too bad. He is a nice man, intelligent - though somewhat dogmatic. His wife left him a few years back. Not for another man. Perhaps his retirement drove her out. No longer a few evenings and weekends. The full Monte. Imagine, three hundred and sixty five days a year. Bernadette would show me the door...

I AM NOT A POLAR BEAR

cambridge students


CHILOE: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
Cloud finally closes in and as we sail up the east coast of Chiloe island. We view the coast through a thin drizzle. We have no complaints; Chiloe suffers or enjoys an average of three hundred days of rain each year. The Belgian woman and Cambridge student of Japanese parents are determined seekers of marine mamals. The student reads the temperature from a large thermometre screwed to the bridge bulkhead: three degrees centigrade above freezing. Good. I thought that I might be sickening for something. Reluctant to desert, I crunch myself into a corner out of the breeze.

NO WHALES, ONLY A LONE SPHYNX

lone sphynx

FERRY PUERTO EDEN:
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
A third morning of brilliant sunshine. I share the bridge deck with two Cambridge University students and a charming Belgian woman. The Belgian scans the sea through binoculars. Both she and one of the students are indefatigable in their search for whales. The student´s parents are immigrants from Japan. They own a Japanese restaurant off Piccadilly on Half Moon Street. I have walked past the restaurant, glanced with longing through the window, accepted the financial realities that forbid my entrance.
The second student studies physics. He wants to study music.
Later I talk with a young couple from the US. The young man is a math student at Cambridge. He has a grant to study at Cal Tech over the summer. Math and physics have always fascinated me: that a mathematician or physicist can have an original thought, think where no one has ever thought before.
The math student should be writing a commentary on an equation. He doesn't understand the equation and doubts that he has the mind for original thought.
His girlfriend studies chemistry at Cal Tech. She has left behind important notes for her summer project. Both are deeply depressed. They cling to their open lap-tops as wrecked sailors cling to a life raft.

HGH SEAS AND SEASICKNESS PILLS

HIGH SEAS: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
The French scientist reports that a friend voyaged on the Puerto Eden last year. Rain fell continually. The coast was barely visible. Our second day on board, not a cloud and a mere breath of breeze. The coast glows in sunlight, snow peaks glitter.
Midday and we face a notoriously stormy sea passage. Twelve hours before we regain shelter. The ferry carries a male medical assistant. He issues pills to combat seasickness. Our guide advises us to stay on deck in the open air; should we suffer badly, take to our cabins and lie in the foetal position.
A dozen heifers moo occasionally in an open truck on the upper vehicle deck. Their ancestors came from Herefordshire - as do I. I wonder how they will fare. Were they fed seasickness pills?
The ferry edges out from behind the islands. We meet a gentle swell.
The swell remains gentle.
This is the calmest passage the crew can recall.
We watch for seals and dolphins and wales.

MONUMENT TO CUPIDITY

FJORDS AND CHANNELS: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
A statue of the Virgin guards sailors navigating the narrows of English Channel. Currents swirl in from the open sea. A wrecked Greek sugar ship from the 1920s perches on a reef mid channel. The wreck is a monument to cupidity.
The Greek captain reported that the sugar melted into the sea.
Insurers asked whether the non-existent sacks had melted.
The captain had sold his cargo in Uruguay.

VALIANT WOMEN

FJORDS AND CHANNELS: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
4 a.m. and the ferry lies off the one village in 1000 kilometres, the village after which the ferry is named: Puerto Eden. Fishing for King crab sustains a community of some one hundred people. Some are mestizo descendants of the original inhabitants. Those "Indians" also lived from the sea. Men built canoes and fished. Women dived naked for mollusks in water a few degrees above freezing. So physically tough and resilient, they died of despair and alcohol.
I wipe the condensation from my window and try to imagine the lives of these modern residents. Twenty or so street light are the only sign of habitation. Sailing north and south, the ferry passes twice a week.

BOOK NOW

FJORDS AND CANALS: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
Book a passage with Navimag now. Out of season would be best for the mature traveller, or the traveller with a distaste for crowds. I have travelled much of my life. The beauty of these fjords is staggering. As always in Patagonia, the clarity of light is extraordinary. Not a house nor single sign of man besmirches the forested shore. Snow caps tower above the forest. The sky is cloudless blue. The barest breeze faintly marks the sea. I look and look and look.
And talk during meals with a retired French scientist who has adopted me as his companion for the voyage.
He is insistent on the superiority of French culture and language (he speaks no other), yet carries four music DVDs of US jazz, Blues and the Doors which he has the Purser play over the DVU.

PRIVATE YACHT

FERRY PUERTO EDEN:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
I am cruising the fjords and chanels of southern Chile on a private yacht. So it seems. We are twelve passengers on a ferry with accommodation and crew for 200. Vast meals of adequate quality are served at a cafeteria in the lounge/dinning room: breakfast at 8 a.m., lunch at 1.30 p.m., supper at 7.30 p.m. Cabins vary in price from economy-dormitory to upper-deck swank. Top berths run at US$690 in a two berth cabin. US$300 buys a dormitory berth. Meals are included. Oldies earn a 20% discount. A guide offers a commentary on geography, fauna and flora in Spanish and English. The ferry sales Friday morning. Arrival in Puerto Montt depends on weather, but sometime between midnight, Sunday, and noon on Monday.

ECSTATIC

NAVIMAG FERRY:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
We sailed at 4 a.m. Dawn and we creep between islets, the channel a bare eighty metres wide. Each island is a Japanese garden of rock tufted with bonsai. The shore is as perfect in proportion and differs only in scale. Above tower the mountains. Rock and snow and ice glow in the early sun. The sea is silk smooth. Duck and moorhens momentarily crease perfect reflections.

FORTUNATE IN CHILE

cute tin cottage


PUERTO NATALES:
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
Puerto Natales exists for tourism and the ferry. Foreigners and outsiders own most of the businesses. Why? Because few locals have capital and banks charge 20% on a business loan or mortgage - extortinate in a stable economy with low inflation.
Casa Cecilia is a way station on the tourist route. The owners (Werner is Swiss, Cecilia Chilean) are helpful beyond the call of duty. Mattresses are plump, water is hot and Werner´s bread baked for breakfast is delicious. How much? US$20 for a single. Two bathrooms are a hop away. Last night I ate good fillet of fish a block off the main square at Esperanza. Add a half bottle of good red: US$$10.
Passengers board the ferry this evening at 8 p.m. A tourist with two good legs would spend the day touring the national park, gazing at volcanoes, frozen lakes, waterfalls. Unfortunately all the highlights are a good walk from the track.
I explore the town on crutches, photograph a couple of cute tin cottages and the church. I walk too far, eat a mediocre lunch in a restaurant packed with locals. Better is a sybaritic chocolate shop/cafe a block back from the waterfront: chocolate brownie served with alcoholic cream and excellent coffee. Better still is the welcome on board the ferry. Our guide for the voyage is a young woman. She shoulders my pack and leads me to a cabin with private bath opposite the lounge restaurant. The cabin is two grades up from that for which I paid! I have four births to myself and a large window. Water is piping hot in the shower. The lavatory flushes.
We sail at dawn.
Time for early bed.

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.