The Argentine wilderness and Argentines in the wild

Stretching north from the Beagle Channel along the Argentine-Chilean border is Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, a 630 square kilometer of wilderness that encompasses beaches, mountains, lakes, and rivers. Nate and I spent a few days camping and hiking there, after scratching a more ambitious trek we had planned on account of too much snow and cold weather.

The park offered no treks as rugged or challenging as the one we were going to do on Isle Navarino, but we enjoyed the chance to explore the Fuegian ecosystems and observe Argentines on the trail (Mate everywhere! Even on mountaintops! And fires to heat water for mate kept burning round the clock!) In three days we hiked essentially every trail in the park, taking in some spectacular views from mountanintops, and some mundane ones of the Chilean border, which was marked only with a small metal tower. Where was the barbed wire? The guards with guns? The barking dogs? Who is preventing the smuggling of wine between rival countries? I don't know. We also enjoyed camping in the twee-est campsite ever, where pairs of brightly colored birds circled our tent constantly and a flock of bunnies scampered nearby. It felt like a Disney cartoon version of nature.

Perhaps the best thing we saw in the park were some middens left by the Yamana. The Yamana were a tribe who lived in Tierra del Fuego until their civilization was devastated by the arrival of Europeans, who hunted all the sea lions the Yamana relied on, gave them diseases, and attempted to civilize them, but only succeeded in making them more vulnerable to the harsh environment. Almost all that remains of the tribe are these old campsites we saw: the mounds are old trash heaps that formed over generations around the entrances to their huts. They consist mostly of mussel and limpet shells left over from long ago meals and formed a windbreak and protection for the Yamana's homes. -EMW

The Hunt for Solvente Industrial

Since leaving Buenos Aires, we've been trying to camp roughly five nights to every two spent indoors. As a result, we've been leaning on our camping stove pretty hard. An MSR Whisperlite, it's a pretty common device that runs on white gas. And although the fuel is no sweat to procure in the good 'ol U.S.A., here in Argentina it's become among the best (worst?) of our standing jokes.

We first realized we had a problem on our hands during our final few days in Buenos Aires, when no one in the city had a clue what we were talking about. We checked camping stores, hardware stores, and gas stations in four different neighborhoods to no avail. Even a trip to an establishment named Todo Gas proved a bust. Finally, Google led us to a solution--stop asking for stove fuel, white gas, or anything of that sort. Our particular "open sesame" was "industrial solvent"--solvente industrial.

We headed to a gas store (yes, a gas store) in Belgrano and asked for a bottle of the stuff. The little old man behind the counter was immediately suspicious. "Why do you want it?" he demanded. We explained about our stove. "Yes, but it is very flammable. If you drop your cigarette in it, it will go boom." Not seeing how flammability and stove fuel were mutually exclusive, we begged him for it anyway. "It's too dangerous" he insisted, and immediately began pulling plastic Coke jugs full of kerosene, butane, and other equally dangerous fuels out of obscure corners of his dimly lit store. We held firm and he finally agreed to sell us a tiny bottle. He warned us eight more times not to smoke over the open container, and once not to hit our heads on the way out.

Because we quickly ran out of the first batch, we went looking for more solvente industrial in Trelew. The guy at the service station said to check the hardware store, and the guy at the hardware store said to check a place called Casa Lloyd. With zero confidence, we trudged over. "Buen dia, tiene solvente industrial?" I asked the elderly woman behind the counter. "Do you speak English? For the love of God, if you speak English, speak English," she said. She was apparently of Welsh extraction.

She asked what we needed, and I explained about the white gas. She immediately pulled down a bottle of alcohol. We could tell that it wasn't it, but also that she really wanted it to be. "I'm sure that isn't it," I told her. "I know it's called solvente industrial." Finally, after much protest, she agreed to pull down another bottle. It said solvente industrial across the front. "This is it!" I said excitedly. She showed me the name and advised me to write it down. "That way you can just ask for it directly and save yourself a whole world of trouble." Yes, something like that. -NSH

Tierra del Fuego

Nate and I spent a night camping at the Estancia Harberton, a historic farm 90 kilometers from Ushuaia, the world's most southerly city. We arrived after some complex negotiations with a shuttle driver who seemed perplexed by our desire to go to Harberton one day and return the next. She finally agreed to drive us and return to pick us up the next day. She drove us the two hours to Harberton, keeping up a running commentary on the countryside, industry in Ushuaia, the arrival of the beaver to Tierra del Fuego, and recommended excursions in the area. For every topic she had a brochure, a photograph, or a beaver skull for us to look at, which she fished out of a backpack next to her, significantly more engaged in giving us a thorough tour than in keeping her eyes on the twisting, shoulderless gravel road.

Harberton was established on land given to the missionary Thomas Bridges in 1886 by the president of Argentina, in gratitude for Bridges' work establishing a mission and the first permanent settlement on Tierra del Fuego. Owned now by the fourth generation of Bridges, the estancia was a working sheep farm until 1995, when a particularly harsh winter killed most of the flock. Now it's mainly a site for visitors and home to a scientific research station and museum that boasts the world's largest collection of marine mammal skeletons.

When we arrived, the tea house attendant rustled up for us some ancient camping registration forms printed some time in the last century. Camping is apparently not in high demand, and when we arrived at the campsite, four kilometers from the main house, we found we had the place to ourselves. We shared it only with the occasional Fuegian fox and flock of upland geese. We spent a cold, windy night there, waking up to snow and sleet. Our tent stayed dry through it all, which was something of a first.

A student living at Harberton and doing research took us on a tour of the museum, explaining how to remove rotting flesh from a whale carcass (with soap and water), what the rarest marine mammals are, and why the museum has so many pilot whales. She also showed us the lab, where closets full of animal skeletons are stored, asking us to avert our eyes from the scientists' living quarters, which she said were too messy to be seen. She took us to a telescope she had set up to look for dolphins in Harberton Bay. She has not seen any yet.

"Patagonia, She Is A Harsh Mistress!"

Puerto San Julian is advertised as the best place to break up the enormous bus trip between Trelew and Rio Gallegos which, if true, must mean that all other points in between are unthinkably bleak. We woke up in time for the bus to drop us off here, and for the attendant to give us a pretty sympathetic frown. It's not like the town isn't rich in history--Magellan and Drake both executed mutiners in the bay, and Darwin passed through (he had some pretty rotten things to say about the place). Not a lot seems to have happened since Drake's first mate was drawn and quartered, however. Most of the businesses were shuttered up along the main street, although all three of the tourist offices kept diligent hours (one fewer than there were actual tourists, Emily observed).

We spent awhile walking around the waterfront, which is littered with tufts of wool and sheep carcasses marking the remains of an old slaughterhouse. Eventually the wind (which is difficult to stand up in) started driving us crazy, so we decided to see if an asado would cheer us up. A kind butcher in town pulled a lamb down off a meat hook and cut us generous portions with a bone saw. After acquiring carbon and a copy of last week's (month's?) paper for tinder, we were rolling.

Things picked up immensely in early evening, when a woman who leads wildlife boat tours swung by our campsite and asked if we wanted to see penguins. A tall, stoic man wearing gaiters gave us piggy-back rides into the surf, dropping us into a speedy, lightweight Zodiac craft. Minutes later we were on a long gravel bar snapping photos of fluffy penguin chicks and trying not to let the wind blow us into any nests. After reboarding the boat, we zoomed over to where Thomas Doughty was hanged to watch cormorrants, terns, and steamer ducks fly and waddle about. The birds fly in long, frustrated arcs every time the wind gusts, which is often.

The bus to Ushuaia didn't leave until 2 am, so we killed time the next afternoon at The Sportman, a bar that looks like it wouldn't be out of place in Northern Wisconsin. At three o'clock (siesta time) about a dozen old men arrived and began playing a furious dice game at the counter. Nobody even looked up when the power went out. -NSH

Tea and Beer Cans

After we'd had our fill of watching sea lion placentas being ripped apart by gulls, we continued south to explore towns in the Chubut province of Patagonia. In 1865, 153 emigrants from Wales sailed their ship the Mimosa (we are both particularly fond of this name) to Puerto Madryn, where they proceeded to establish a small community and, eventually, radiate outwards to the surrounding towns of Trelew, Gaiman, Rawson, and Dolavon.

From our base in Trelew, we hopped a commuter bus to Gaiman to see just what this clash of cultures looks like. We were not disappointed—-the town of roughly 5,000 inhabitants is relentlessly charming. Dusty and windswept, with wide streets and scrubby vegetation, the place could almost be some Western frontier town if not for the rose bushes, neatly manicured lawns, and tea houses scattered through the village center.

We visited two sites that pretty aptly illustrate the weird and wonderful cultural disconnect. El Desafio is a 5-acre living museum—-an outdoor, outsider art sculpture garden built from thousands of pieces of refuse. The place was built by an octogenarian named Joaquin Alonso, called "The Dali of Gaiman" by our guidebooks, but actually a mild-mannered man who shook each of our hands and complained about the heat. We walked through what felt like miles and miles of rusted beer can flower patches and polka dotted cars until Alonso's daughter corralled us into a gift shop of sorts, where she proceeded to talk to us about everything from Tehuelche art to her recent vacation to Egypt.

An hour later we were sipping tea and stuffing our faces with cake at Ty Nain, a tea house in the village center. Rusted Winchester rifles, antique cannons, and yellowing newspaper clippings covered the walls, and because we had the place to ourselves, we spent awhile surveying the collection. The piece-de-resistance was definitely the pair of 19th century porcelain poodles on the mantle—-artifacts that survived their voyage on the Mimosa. When Emily reached out to pet one, I gasped in horror, certain that we were going to be responsible for causing 150 years of Welsh-Argentine history to smash into a million pieces on the floor. Fortunately, she was very careful and we finished our tea and left without incident. –NSH

Hotel Touring Club, Trelew

After camping in Puerto Madryn, we decided to treat ourselves to real beds and hot showers while we visited the Patagonian towns of Trelew and Gaiman. We booked a room in the Hotel Touring Club, a historic hotel in Trelew that once served as a hideout for Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place while they were travelling incognito in Argentina.


Both the bar and the hotel at the Touring Club retain an appealing historical atmosphere, from the grand faux marble bannisters in the lobby, to the hundreds of dusty bottles behind the bar, to the ancient and untiring owner who spent eighteen hour days behind the bar, and who looked like she had served Cassidy herself when he made his stop in Trelew. The bar service was classy too. We had drinks there one night: Nate ordered a martini, and the white-coated waiter presented him with one empty glass, one bowl of ice with tongs, one spritzer of seltzer, and an entire unopened bottle of vermouth. He grinned at us as he placed them on the table and said, "Help yourself! One, two, three drinks, as many as you like." Not exactly a martini, but an amusing substitute.

The Circle of Life

We arrived in Patagonia a few days ago, having survived our eighteen hour bus trip. Yay! The highlight of the bus trip may have been the Lion King music videos featuring Elton John badly superimposed on scenes from the movie.

In Patagonia, we're staying in Puerto Madryn, a small city built on a beautiful port. While the town developed around shipping and industrial activities like aluminum fabrication, the main business these days is tourists like ourselves, who come to checking out the marine wildlife.

We took a day trip to Peninsula Valdez, a wildlife sanctuary 60 km from Puerto Madryn, to see said animals. The peninsula was pretty spectacular: on the drive there, we saw nandu (an ostrich like bird) and guanaco (a llama like animal). On the peninsula itself, we viewed penguins, the only continental colony of elephant seals, and sea lions. While we were most interested in the penguins and elephant seals, it was the sea lions that captured our hearts. We had arrived a particularly good time for watching them, and our tour guide told us that we would see them fighting, swimming, and eating. And, she added, "Perhaps even a birth! Why not!"

As it turns out, we did get to see a birth and as an added bonus, a flock of seabirds devouring the placenta. We were also treated to the sights of sea lions fighting and copulating, all accompanied by the unique musky smell of sea lions in heat. Ah nature, so magical! The other animals were comparatively calm: the elephant seals were in fact so docile I initially mistook them for driftwood. -EMW

Bye BsAs!

Nate and I are leaving town today, abandoning the increasingly hot confines of Buenos Aires for Patagonia, which weather.com has been promising will be much cooler. We spent yesterday and today packing and agonizing over what we absolutely had to take with us, trying to keep our backpacks down to a manageable size. In a few hours we’ll be hanging out in Retiro, the insane main bus terminal in Buenos Aires, waiting for our 18-hour bus ride to Puerto Madryn to depart. We sprung for the more comfortable cama seats for this ride, so hopefully we'll be able to get some sleep in between whatever crappy Hollywood romantic comedies our bus driver has selected for us. -EMW

Muy Hygge

Members of the Smith-Hogan-Dunn family will be pleased to know that while I missed our family’s annual Heritage Night (a post-Christmas Danish dinner and drinking binge), I did not forgo my yearly obligation to guzzle aquavit. To celebrate our final night in Buenos Aires (at least, our last night for quite awhile), Emily and I paid a visit to Olsen, a chic Scandinavian restaurant in Palermo Viejo. The food was great, and the atmosphere had a transformative effect––a complete getaway from the overwhelming bustle of B.A.

Our appetizers are pictured above––five kinds of smorrebrod and five shots of vodka. Fortunately, our waiter was kind enough to substitute two of the vodka shots for aquavit––that wonderful drink that tastes like a combination of caraway seeds and battery acid. For a main course, I had baked pork with a fruit and beer sauce accompanied by dill mashed potatoes. Emily had warm smoked trout with capers, pears, and mushrooms.

All of this was after an epic day of last-minute errand running, including finding a place to buy white gas for our camping stove. It’s safe to say we won’t be eating like this again for quite some time. -NSH