Traveling with the Bills in South America: THE FRESH AIR OF PATAGONIA

October 26

One of my favorite albums from the 1960s featured the songs of the Canadian folksingers, Ian and Sylvia. Their song, Four Strong Winds, has the line: “and the winds sure do blow cold way out there.” They had Alberta in mind, but if you substitute “down” for “out”, you will have a hint of what it’s like to be near the tip of South America, in the land called Patagonia. “Four strong winds that blow lonely, seven seas that run high, these are things that don’t change…..” the lyrics continue, as if the songwriters were right here with us.

The winds put us to sleep at night and wake us up in the morning; winds so strong that it’s hard to walk uphill; winds that blow small waterfalls straight up into the air; winds that keep you away from cliffs for fear you might be blown over; winds that can knock a big Mercedes Benz tourist bus from one lane to the next; winds that buckle the sides of rental cars when the doors hyper-extend; winds so sneaky that they can blow the money out of your pockets. Whatever else you do in life, don’t ever invest in a toupee factory in Patagonia!

Yet, despite the winds, Patagonia is a spectacular place. The topography is as beautiful as it is brutal, as inspiring as it is imposing. There is a special feeling here that comes from the sheer size of the landscape. Even with the winds and the cold I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys big wild places where the works of nature dwarf those of man.

Patagonia’s notorious coast, which has wrecked so many ships, is also one of the most productive marine environments in the world. We visited a refuge where Magellanic penguins swam in from the sea and then waddled in long processions across a tussock grass prairie towards their burrows where their young waited to be fed. Like the penguins, we have also been eating from the sea, having dined on the many marine delicacies that are common here-fish, squid, shrimp, scallops, and, yes, plenty of abalone. These waters have also played an important role in world history. Magellan sailed through here in the 1530s, on his way to the first circumnavigation of the globe. Gazing over the straits which bear Magellan’s name, we thought about the Darwin Range and the Beagle Channel off in the distance, where 300 years after Magellan, the HMS Beagle, with Captain Fitzroy at the helm, carried the young Charles Darwin around the horn. They were on their way to Galapagos and a revolution in the way we think about the world. We also learned that the southern-most part of the continent was first christened The Land of Smoke. But a member of the royal family back in Spain apparently didn’t like the sound of the name so he had it changed to Tierra Fuego, The Land of Fire, surely one of the most beautiful names to appear on any map.

For me, the most powerful parts of Patagonia are those that lie away from the sea, where the land is vast and the views stretch from horizon to horizon, so clean and pure is the air. It’s basin and range country, with a topography somewhat like of the Great Basin in western North America. Wide plains alternate with mountain ranges, to be replaced by more plains and more mountains. But to compare Patagonia to anywhere else is an exercise in futility because the comparisons really don’t compare. Everything here is on steroids. There is a sense of scale and spaciousness that is hard to describe. The huge mountain ranges, for example, that rise up quickly from the plains are made of serrated and jagged peaks, interspersed with glaciers, something like Chamonix in France, but bigger and wider and more impressive. There are clusters of towers and spires here that reach high into the sky, dwarfing those of the Dolomites of Italy and the Tetons of Wyoming. Their smooth granite walls, which attract climbers from all over the world, rival those of Yosemite. The plains between the mountain ranges have numerous lakes and playas, some with stately Chilean flamingoes, their pink forms set against the white glaciers in the distance. Some of these glaciers calve into beautiful turquoise lakes, which remind you of the lakes between Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies, except that here ice bergs from the melting glaciers are blown by the wind down the long lake channels out onto the plains. A huge sky arches overhead, with big white clouds casting shadows as they move over the flatlands. When conditions are right, lenticular clouds that look like flying saucers hover over the mountains. Permeating all this is a sense of remoteness and wildness that has to be experienced to be believed. Coffee table books give you an idea of what it is like, but only an idea.

Much of Patagonia is ranching country, with each estancia (ranch) covering thousands of acres. You can drive across these immense plains for hours on end and never see a building. So infrequent are the estancias, that many of them have their own official road signs, much like a town would in our country. The cattle and sheep that are raised on these holdings put beef and lamb on the dinner plates of Argentina and many other countries of the globe. The lusher, wetter areas support pure-bred Hereford cattle, while sheep work the drier sites. Our visit coincided with the birthing season so there were clean, fresh-minted calves and lambs everywhere.

The gauchos who tend the livestock have their ancestral roots in the Basque country of Spain and France. They wear berets instead of cowboy hats. The lives they lead must be very hard, working out in the harsh elements day after day, mending fences, branding and castrating, herding and chasing strays. Like the cow pokes back home, they also have their own style of music. We listened to some the other night at a mountain lodge. It doesn’t sound like Ian and Sylvia, but if I could understand the lyrics, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear a line or two about the Four Strong Winds.