Goodbye Ushuaia

Our trek north has but one road out of here up Highway Three to Rio Grande and then we take a left turn at San Sebastián which is a gas station at the end of the asphalt. There is a gravel road to the northern tip of Tierra Del Fuego where Chile and Argentina meet but we will cross the border at San Sebastián. 

It has been a pleasant three days seeing Therèse and Bernard and we went out to dinner to celebrate the January birthdays of the two women who have known each other for 50 years. 

Photographing food around two French people whose lives are not dictated by social media might  be “un peu gauche” but I did snag my main course, Argentine beef,

…and pudding which was less the parfait advertised and more an ice cream. 

…while Rusty waited on board. 

We drove them back to their hotel where we parked to spend the night at the waters edge. 

The airport to the right and the town in the distance. 

We drank the Armagnac Therèse had brought from France and waited for darkness. Sunset is at 10:15 but it takes ages to get dark and even at midnight you can see streaks of light in the western skies. 

In the morning the van was warm and I was ready to walk Rusty which was just as well because by the time my tea was brewed the skies were going black and a twenty mile an hour gusts were  honking out of the southwest across the channel. 

The weather is variable all right around here. Vicious might be more accurate. I’ll be glad to get far enough north I won’t need long pants anymore. 

Dawdling

We awoke to rain and cold and mud in a campground yesterday but by lunchtime the sun was out and sunshine in Tierra Del Fuego means but one thing: it will be windy. As you can see above the wind did pick up. 

We have Therese visiting from Florida so our days consist of tours and meals out and talking about things with someone who actually knows us from our previous life. We are just visiting her hotel, we still continue to live aboard GANNET2.

Saturday’s plan is to start north with more penguins in our sights. 

2025

We took walks between the downpours, watched the drizzle and listened for fireworks but hearing none we had to conclude our plan was successful. 

Friends were going to come by but lacking a communal space to hang out together protected from the weather we called off any wild socializing and they stayed in their spot up the  road. 

Friends from Florida are due to arrive by plane in Ushuaia so we shall have to tear ourselves away from this muddy paradise, but needs must…and hot showers at last. 

A new year starts out looking much like the old. We shall see. 

Motosierra is a chain saw. Follow me for useful tourist vocabulary lessons in Spanish 

The Malvinas

Argentina pines for its islands and the signs are everywhere, a political message that serves no purpose and to me acts as a reminder that without drama politicians lose the limelight, a state of affairs they cannot stand.

Department of Corrections vehicle claiming jurisdiction in the Falklands where there is hardly any crime:

Before 1982 no one cared about the Falkland Islands and Britain was working out a plan with Argentina to shift the colony onto their balance sheet and good riddance. Back then the islands were operated by the Falkland Islands Company which raised sheep and paid islanders in pounds they could spend at the company store. The Argentine dictatorship was running out of credibility with its people and  decided a quick invasion which Britain would obviously not oppose would restore morale among the restive Argentinian population. A nice quick war drama with a happy ending always raises the ratings as President Putin is discovering. Puerto Argentino (below) is Stanley, much closer to Argentina than Britain as if that mattered in a world dominated by language and culture and human expectations connected by electrons.  

They invaded of course and changed the capital Stanley, a dingy little village into Puerto Argentino the capital of Argentina’s south Atlantic islands newly acquired. They drove on the right, took over the media and dug in before winter shut the southern hemisphere down. Except Britain surprised everyone by taking the colony back by force. The three month long occupation ended with 649 Argentines dead, 255 British and three islanders also perished. 800 British and 1700 Argentines were injured.  11,300 ill equipped Argentinian soldiers surrendered and the dictatorship collapsed into democracy. Hurrah! Good came of bad. Except it didn’t really. A mural remembering the “disappeared” thousands murdered by the Galtieri dictatorship:

The Falklands today are a self sufficient community with immigrants from Chile and Saint Helena mixing it up and they have no communication with Argentina, which is absurd but drama is the fuel of politics and the Argentine democracy has pursued the policy of ostracism and contemptuous  opposition to the sheep herding islanders. To fly to Stanley you have to take a weekly jet from Punta Arenas in Chile and there are plans to start flights from Brazil one day, but not from Argentina. Or you can fly from Britain with a stop on Ascension Island because Britain is so far away geographically. 

Even today Argentina’s economy is a shambles and the trust the country places in their new dramatic president has yet to bear fruit. Inflation is far down but the value of money now is such that ordinary people have no purchasing power. I see people in the supermarkets picking up food they’d like to buy, checking the price and putting it back sadly. We cope with our US retirement dollars but we are just passing through so it’s not a real problem for us well funded overlanders. We don’t eat out as much as we might, we spend less money generally and thus contribute less to the local economy; It’s an awful conundrum.

General Manuel Belgrano, below was a leader in Argentina’s war of independence but the name is better known as the cruiser which was torpedoed and sunk in 1982 with the distinction of being the only ship ever sunk by a nuclear submarine, in this case HMS Conqueror. The ARA Belgrano started life as the USS Phoenix, survived Pearl Harbor and was sold to Argentina. What a tangled web.  

If it were up to me I’d switch off Argentina’s bellicose nonsense and cozy up to the islands. There is no petroleum out there, just tons of squid. The calamari you eat probably came from factory ships licensed by the Falklands government which is economically self sustaining. Britain pays for the defense required only because Argentina won’t sign a peace treaty. If Argentina were smart they’d trade massively with the Falklands, woo them, swamp them with kindness and make them want to end their enforced isolation voluntarily but politics requires drama and a successful seduction isn’t dramatic so even here at the far ends of the earth we can’t escape political posturing. 

Check out this Argentine camper van built like a fortress to fend off robbers. Would you like to be integrated into a country with a feeble currency, massive corruption and the threat of this sort of violence? Me neither but some face saving agreement really needs to be worked out to salve their pride. 

I suppose I could ask why Brazil doesn’t tell France to hand over its colony of French Guyana, or why Canada resists becoming the 51st state or why Mexico won’t get California back or Colombia it’s former province of Panama or Russia Alaska which they sold for a song. To base a claim on a heretofore uninhabited island inhabited only since 1833 by British colonists seems silly to me but it’s a claim that still distracts locals from Argentina’s piteous economic disarray. 

Russia claims Ukraine, Morocco claims Ceuta, Spain claims Gibraltar, Ireland claims Northern Ireland and Trump claims Greenland. And we, those of us just driving through want an easy border crossing, and a pass from the fallout of the events that seem to be screwing up the world. Every day these signs remind me how easy it is to distract voters. 

All politics is local is a phrase that comes to mind, and when I see these signs I am reminded that some issues are distractions, some are critical for development and what goes on when we aren’t looking beggars belief. Worry about the Malvinas so politicians can do what they do best. I hope Argentina is on the path to economic recovery and maybe when they get there all this posturing and dramatics can be replaced with friendship. It sure doesn’t feel like that’s the way the world is going. “For the dreams that were left over there…” is the caption below: 

Happy New Year everyone. May we all see less amateur dramatics and more purpose among our leaders. A vain hope I dare say but the alternative is not something I want to think about today.