I'm serial about this. I'm SUPER serial.
Well, i'm here in Ushuaia. The southernmost city in the world, with the
possible exception of a Chilean burg over the Beagle Straits called Puerto
Williams, which I presume is squeezed out as its population is a paltry 1500.
This does seem a trifle unfair and arbitary, but i guess it stops a family of
hermits (a possible non-sequiter) setting up an inbred shanty town in the South
Georgia Islands and stealing the tourism limelight from Ushuaia.
Ah, looking again, it seems Puerto Williams is a naval base, which seems a good
reason to discount it; Ushuaia is the furthest south people have really chosen
to live, without the threat of desertion charges hanging over their heads.
And, although the amount of signs bragging about the distance to Alaska, Buenos
Aires and Tokyo is large, and the main street is a flurry of North Face
stockists and open ovens with splayed (spatchcocked?) chickens roasting
happily, the city isn't just centred on tourism like a lot of Alpine towns.
There is a quarry on the way to the national park, some kind of industrial shiz
happens here, and there is some kind of container ship action happening in the
bay. Also a couple of, quite honestly, knackered looking military vessels are
sitting around in the bay, one of them listing at what, even to my land-lubbery mind,
appears an unadvisable angle.
Not that I'm knocking the Argentinian spirit for the reclaimation of the Falklands/Malvinas, which appears pretty strong, at least amongst the graffiti-spraying population, who may or may not
be the ones in control of military policy; i don't know how these social
divides work over here. Admittedly, and we're on sketchy ground here, my
limited Spanish interprets most of this sentiment as less 'We'll wade through
inglese blood to seize what is ours' and more 'They will return to us in a
triumphant but nice manner'. Afraid I haven't covered much, or indeed any of
this in my documentation of pretty graffiti i have seen - not sure why this has
become such a big cause of me getting my camera out, but it has.
Also, when my presence in town reached the populace, there were, as you would
expect, spontaneous street demonstrations. Of joy, I think.
Not actually sure what the real reason was. Tried to find out, but my spanish
wasn't up to the task. Friendly chaps though. So a shout out to whatever the
cause is! I'm assuming it's not a violent syndicatist-fascist movement.
Ushuaia is, despite this good-natured bit of unrest (they had their own police
siren going off in the building behind them, the actual police were conspicuous
by their absence), is not a bad place at all. Some of the buildings, like the
ultra-modern airport terminal, and a lot of the hotels, have a kind of
scandinavian look to them, but there are also a lot of almost shanty style
corrugated iron and haphazard breeze block constructions. Basically, indulging
my statistcal geek for a minute, most of Patagonia has GDP per capita of around
$30,000 per year, Buenos Aires is around $13,000/year, and the most northerly
provinces have a GDP of around $3,000/year. So, Ushuaia has grown
substantially in recent years, with a lot of different barrios growing up.
Even so, when I use the phrase 'shanty town' in connection with Ushuaia, it is
not even remotely similar to the closely packed barrios in certain parts of
Buenos Aires; these are larger constructions on the whole, with a hell of a lot
more space around them, merely that the materials and styles have something
similar to them.
Anyways, enough socio-economic banter for one blog post. I went to the Tierra
del Fuego National Park on Sunday. I went on bike. ON BIKE! The bike seemed
to have survived its various sojourns in aircraft holds pretty well, and I soon
had it assembled. Due to my front rack (used for carrying saddlebags) not
turning up before I left the UK, and indeed not turning up at all, even now, I
had decided to get one in Buenos Aires. I left this somewhat late in my stay,
and it swiftly became clear that I couldn't find one. This is not a crucial
point, as i would mostly be using this for extra food and miscellaneous
storage, and would probably encourage me to pick up various unnecessary
paraphanaelia en route. So, pared down, I set off on Sunday. The road to the
NP (national park, i'm not typing it out each time) swiftly turned into a
non-tarmaced road; a few corrugated sections, but mostly hard packed earth,
with dust eddying romantically into the air with passing cars and minibuses.
This may be, as the area points out, the 'Fin del Mundo', but it's not an
unsubscribed or unpopular idea, and people are eager to get a piece of it. As
indeed, am I.
In the usual Ushuaian way, the day had started off (for me at least, as I'd
celebrated with a few drinks the night before) at 10am, overcast, with a flurry
of snow, and 25mph gusts of wind. By the time I was an hour down the road, it
was bright sunshine, although still with the ever-present gusts of wind. It
was only 20-25km to the end of Argentinian Route 3 in Lapataia (more a
geographical idea than a place - apart from a police building, there is nothing
there), although, unlike a British motorway, it ends in a dusty car park with a
few wooden bollards. And there you see this resplendent spectacle before you,
I then cycled onto the wooden boardwalk so I could see the bay,
It was a pretty busy location, and one that did not lend itself to shouting
vengance at the all-swallowing ocean, or to shaking my fist and cursing
Neptune, as I may well have upset several of the children posing for photos.
The opportunity has not gone however, for when I set off in earnest tomorrow, I
plan to cycle down past East Harberton and camp out there, at the end of the
Beagle Straits, where the southern reaches of the Atlantic will be visible, and
I can indulge in such strange and unplaceable fantasies.
All the same, the TdF NP was a good place. Camped out for the first time on
the trip, made a pretty damn good fire, ate a lot of salami, and made what may
become my signature dish; spaghetti, tuna, and a stock cube. I enclose photos
below.
Wild horseeeessss, couldn't draaage me awaaaay......
(authors note, horses may not be as wild as pictured. In fact, almost certainly not wild.)
Ah, the one problem. Bit of a wobble on the rear cassette on my bike.
Tightening the cassette has worked to a point, but still more of a wobble than
I would like. I'm no master mechanic, which some might say is a major drawback
on a trip like this, but wobbles on the rear cassette (particularly when the
freewheeel is engaged) do happen, and hopefully this won't be a big problem.
If it is, I'll have to get to a town, and order a new cassette/freewheel/hub as
the situation warrants, but hey, towns are not too far apart, and this
hopefully will not become an issue.
Anyway, the plan for the next week is to go from Ushuaia > East Harberton > Rio
Grande > San Sebastian > Chilean border > Porvenir > ferry to Punta Arenas >
Puerto Natales. This will be aroundabout 770km, but I'm not planning to rush
it, and will probably take a day half way through, particularly if I find some
incredible spot for hiking or just chilling out around the tent, so this could
well extend to eight or nine days cycle, depending on the state of the roads.
I also meant to spend some time talking about the Museo Fin del Mundo, which
has some fascinating photos of the Yaghans tribe, who were the indigenous tribe
in the south of Tierra del Fuego when the Europeans arrived here. The usual
pattern of attempted missionary conversions and aggressive 'high population
density' diseases took its toll, and I believe there is now only one Yaghan
woman alive and still speaking the original language, It is worth pointing out
that although most of us in the UK abhor the 'imperialist' idea of missionaries
saving the savages from their sin (and I harbour no religous beliefs myself),
the missionaries were often the only Europeans who attempted to protect the
indigenous peoples from the rapaciousness of capitalism, which usually sought
either to exterminate the peoples, or to force them to work as indentured or
incredibly poorly paid workers.
The Yaghans are now famous mostly for the fires they lit, as these were seen
from ships navigating the Beagle Straits (thus the Land of Fire, Tierra del
Fuego), and the fact that they lived in these parts naked. Naked. It is damn
cold here in late spring, with the temperature generally aroundabout 10C in the
daytime, and 3-4C at night, and the ever present gusting wind chills you to the
bone. The winter is not as cold as you might expect, being more of a general
0C kind of deal, and not the ridiculously cold northern continental style
winter, but you can understand how hard it must have been to survive naked. To
be honest, I don't quite understand why they were naked - the museum shows
their bows and arrows, their kayaks, their fishing techniques, and a people in
possession of such technology surely had no technical reason not to use
sealskin/feathers to construct clothes. However, I have not researched this
properly, and will do so in future. Maybe this is just a noble savage myth.
Maybe they were only actually naked in ceremonies, not in everyday life.
Either way, there are some photos which are reminiscent of the Blair Witch
Project in their sepia tinted, low definition way, masked people deep in the
primeaval forest, acting out unknown rituals. There are also heroic photos
with bands of hunters arraigned in furs (because of European influence? Or are
these the northern tribes who wore furs? Should have done more research), and
my favourite one, people listening to a story.
Right, am reasonably full of wine right now, and I haven't checked any of this
for sense or grammar or any of that shit, so I'll call it a day now. Things
may get more philosophical or elegaic when I'm camping alone with time to think
and evolve some kind of 'style', but for now you're just left with this. Hope
this isn't too much self-indulgent bullshit, and at least I've left you with
some facts about GDP per capita. Take care, dave x
PS There are a fuck load of dogs in Ushuaia. A FUCK LOAD. Like 4 dogs per
person.
