Sea Glass, Muddy Boots, and Cemeteries

PUNTA ARENAS, CHILE

I walked along the shore of the Strait of Magellan this morning, under the clearest blue sky I´ve seen in weeks. From the beach littered with rock and bone and shoe leather and plastic and tires, I picked up bits of sea glass. Though in reality, these bits of weathered glass are likely from bottles carelessly thrown on the beach in recent months, in a place such as this one, steeped in a rich history of exploration and discovery, it is impossible not to imagine a more interesting story for these bits of green and blue glass. As I drop another piece of pale blue glass in my pocket, I conjur up stories of shipwrecks, and imagine the glass sunk deep in the strait making its way to the surface and kicked about in the surf. Before long, I have a pocketful of the salty pieces, and retreat to the esplanade above.

I made my way back towards town, choosing my path carefully, navigating around the remnants of last month's flood. I step gingerly over the slick mud, taking small deliberate steps as though walking on ice, accutely aware that a fall would mean a very filthy pair of pants (a significant risk when one only has one pair).  Close to the water, it is hard to tell whether some streets are paved at all, and the mud stains 10-12 inches high on the building walls show just how bad the flooding must have been. On a few corners, I pass groups of city workers in blue jumpsuits and muck boots shoveling the great piles of mud into the backs on tiny flatbed trucks. Where this mud will end up, I have no idea. Closer to the square, the mud all but disappears, and using a curb I try to wipe as much mud from my shoes as possible before stepping into a bookstore.

In a port town that sees hoardes and hoardes of tourists and foreign transients each year, I am surprised by the lack of bookstores selling books in English. Bookstores in general seem scarce here, though there have been a number of shops with books about the area, which I would gladly read. I have never read Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia (though this seems to be an American travel classic, more than a regional one), and would love to read more about Darwin's voyage on the nearby Beagle Channel with Fitz-Roy. Alas, even these books are only in Spanish, and though my Spanish reading abilities far surpass my speaking abilities, and certainly my limited comprehension, I am not confident in my ability to read books at this level in Spanish without a dictionary at my side. In one shop, amidst the Spanish books on the indigenous peoples of the area, and the explorers who have passed through, I find a single copy of South, Ernest Shackleton's tale of his own Endurance Expedition in 1914-1916. I know the tale well, having read many other books on the topic, but am not certain that I've actually read his version. I snag the book for twice the U.S. retail price, and am all too pleased to do so. If I were inclined to have heroes, I would put Shackleton at the top of my list. His is surely one of the greatest tales of not only exploration and adventure and survival under dire circumstances, but also great leadership and sound character. There is a lightheartedness to his writing that is certainly a tribute to his attitude in even the worst circumstances, and surely one of the many reasons why not a single person on his doomed expedition perished in the course of two years. (If you don´t know the story to which I refer, I suggest you look into it. Immediately.)

Earlier this morning, I had visited the home of Sara Braun, a 19th century mansion, where there was a display of watercolors depicting Shackleton's long journey from the Weddell Sea to Punta Arenas. Afterwards, I had walked past the home of Charles Amherst Milward, a Brit who lived here in Punta Arenas and was host to Ernest Shackleton when he arrived here after his treacherous escape from the Antarctic, and from where Shackleton coordinated the rescue of his crew on Elephant Island. These are perhaps meager landmarks to such a great man, but still I always find it to be sort of an interesting experience to stand in a place of some importance in history, and ponder the events that took place in these places so long ago. Someday, I´d love to visit South Georgia island, home to the whaling station that was both Shackleton's jumping off point, and salvation at the end of the journey, and where he is now buried, having suffered a heart attack there enroute to Antarctica on a later expedition.

Instead the graves I visited today were more or less anonymous. I walked through the local cemetery. Though perhaps an unusual tourist destination, I found the cemetery to be a peaceful place for an afternoon stroll, amidst giant cedars, fragrant from the recent rain. The names on the often colorful headstones and mausoleums tell an interesting tale, with names from all over the world. Cemeteries are such an interesting peek into local customs as well. Here, family plots are tiny but bear the names of several generations. Unlike in the U.S. where modern cemeteries have headstones flush to the ground to make mowing easier, and have often stringent rules about what can be left at gravesites and for how long, here the plots are often the site of gardens maintained by the family, or covered in the bright colors of plastic flowers, pinwheels, and trinkets. Along the periphery of the cemetery, walls of small marble boxes line the fence. Though I know nothing of Chilean burial customs, when I was in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, I had walked through a very similar cemetery with my local Spanish teacher, who had explained that these tiny mausoleums of sorts along the edges belonged to the working class families who could not afford to purchase a family plot or to build one of the elaborate mausoleums that dotted the cemeteries. Instead, these families paid rent for the space in the cemetery, and with each death in the family, the previous remains were consolidated into tiny boxes and tucked into the marble cases, so that if one were to open one of these rental units, one could expect to find several boxes of bones, each one belonging to a different family member. As with any rental unit, the threat of eviction is real for unpaid bills. As I looked at the names and numbers today, I couldn´t help but think that they reminded me on urban tenement houses.

Cruise on the Beagle Channel

USHUAIA, ARGENTINA

Torres Del Paine National Park

PUNTA ARENAS, PATAGONIA, CHILE

We woke early on our last day in an attempt to see the granite towers at dawn. The towers for which Torres del Paine National Park is named are said to be especially spectacular in the early morning pink light. As I lay there and listen to the rain fall on the tent, and the wind howl through the trees, I was skeptical that we´d get the view we had hoped for. It was well before sunrise, which is not terribly remarkable given the late rising sun at this time of year. We hit the trail in full rain gear before seven and made our way up the steep rocky incline. About halfway up, the trees fall away, leaving us exposed to the brutal winds and driving icy rain. I thought of turning back several times, but having come so far, trodded on. At the top, the towers were just barely visible in the growing light, their peaks swathed in clouds, and clusters of hikers using rocks as meager wind breaks and sipping coffee from dented thermoses. I stayed just long enough to be utterly certain that the weather was not going to improve, and headed downhill shivering in my now soaked clothing. After collecting packs form the campsite, I and my two companions headed down the valley through soggy forests and then over the muddy, rocky slop of the horse trail on the lower hill. It was by far the most treacherous and the most miserable of the 6 days and 53 miles we spent in the valleys of the park. Fortunately, when we reached the bottom of the hill, the hotel staff at the very fancy hotel where we were to catch a bus hardly batted an eye  as we sloshed through the lobby in search of a place to change into dry clothes, and then camped out in their restaurant for nearly two hours, sipping hot chocolate and waiting for our ride.

I sat by the window watching the rain fall, glad to be dry once again, and lamenting just a little that the weather on our final day was not nearly as spectacular as the day before. Though over the course of six days we had a bit of everything- snow, rain, fierce winds, warm sun and cold nights- our fifth, and second-to-last day had been especially noteworthy. We had set off early that morning too, just as the sun was rising over the hills. In the east, the horizon glowed pink. As the sky brightened, the sunlight bounced off of the rocks surrounding us, and glinted off the distant glaciers. Behind us, a rainbow arched over the hanging lake, rising out of one of the massive rock monoliths, and plunged into the placid lake below. The days walk, our longest day at 7 1/2 hours, was remarkably still with hardly the faintest breeze, something we remarked on over and over again, comparing the utter calm to the previous two days where we struggled to keep upright when the wind would gust at 60 mph. We walked through open pasture, the result of an old wildfire, and watched the small sturdy horses munching grass. The trail climbed steadily, but the steep sections were mercifully short. We made our way up the valley, the third leg of the ¨W.¨ On the hillsides around us, waterfalls plunged into the icey blue glacial river below. The Magellanic Beech forests practically glowed in the afternoon light, their leaves red and yellow and orange. At one point we caught site of a pair of Magellanic woodpeckers, the largest of the woodpecker species, the male with his distinctive cherry red head. We ended the day as we had every other day: setting up tents, soaking tired feet in icey streams, and boiling water for dehydrated meals.

The week was altogether fantastic, in spite of our soggy ending. Patagonia, so far, has not disappointed, with her jaw dropping scenery and wild weather. From here I will head further south, though my time is extremely limited before I am due north in Buenos Aires in a few days.