The flight is nightmarish, as we sit right next to the incredibly loud engines, which sputter and stumble menacingly and then roar continuously, putting sleep out of the question. But sleep is important, because the challenge ahead of us is huge. We have arrived in Rio Gallegos, an unpleasant city but one of the southernmost point of Argentina, and have no plans or sense of orientation except to head directly to a famed estancia (ranch) that we have read about. But Patagonia is huge, and it is only when we are all piled into the little rental car speeding out of Rio Gallegos at 4am that it begins to dawn on us what we have gotten ourselves into. But when I say dawn I mean it in a purely poetic sense, as the real dawn is still four hours distant. The arrival is made a bit unpleasant by the fact that Casey discovers that his computer has been taken from his bag on the plane. A casualty of travel, but still supremely annoying. It also explains my bad spelling etc on the last dozen blog posts as I have been writing them on my IPhone. If you have ever written even a short text on one of these monsters you know how terrible it can be, and writing long passages gets harder not easier. So when I write ib ecyemku siege please know that i am trying to write I'm extremely sorry. RIP caseys computer (which apparently right now is in Mexico, according to Caseys Facebook). Back to the epic Patagonian roadtrip: We pick up coffee and 3 CDs in a bleary eyed stupor at a gas station. We had sworn not to sleep (since its a rental car dad unfortunately for him is the only driver and we want to at least keep him company) but sleep is hard to resist. But then the skies start to lighten, and we put on our first CD. Strange perhaps, to find in a gas station, but this selection if Gregorian Chants seems utterly appropriate as we sail across the Patagonian waste. The eerily harmonic voices of divinity twist and twine perfectly, giving the whole experience an even more surreal aspect than it already has. The sun slowly rises over the ocean that lies to the east, and illuminates the strange land around us as we barrel on on smooth paved road (the only on in Patagonia this condition, simply because of oil business). In retrospect it's hard to say quite what we expected from
Patagonia. The name evokes wilderness, certainly, and a certain harshness. But though these are both present perhaps a better defining characteristic is simply the hugeness. Endless flat and stepped land rolling away from us, empty and unspoiled and desolate. Truly empty, for there are only a few towns in it's whole vast expanse, a couple for oil, a few for tourism, a few that fell off the map. But the place pulsates with a sort of strange alien life, made more so when flocks of nandus (ostrich-like birds) and crowds of guanacos (small wild llamas) appear silhouetted on the horizon or, more often, crossing the road. Other than their brief wild spark, the land that we roll across for hours and hours is sparse brush and rock, never a tree, never a mountain. Inside the car things are by no means desolate. We have good food that we brought from Buenos Aires, and we listen to our second CD, 50s and 60s hits. Blue suede shoes, stand by me, rock around the clock, even la bamba float merrily out of the speakers and we sing along, half loving and half dreading each ridiculously cheery song. We stop for about 8 five minute power naps by the side of the road, all my dad needs to continue, but significantly less than I would like. Casey also prepares Mate to go, and extremely unusual occurrence since the ritual of boiling water and camaraderie is normally a very sedentary one. We occasionally see wildlife, like foxes, rabbits, huge deer, and carrion birds. The towns we drive through are bizarre in their tininess and desolation, quite unlike anything we have seen even in middle America. And after 12 long hours of road tripping up Patagonia Route 3, we approach our destination, a small ranch in a bay called Bahia Bustamante, which has recently opened a few small cabins for tourism. The place, as it turns out, was discovered by a man named Alejandro Soriano, a Spaniard in the cosmetic business who needed a bay with lots of seaweed that he could harvest for gel for hair products. This was the perfect bay, so he set up camp. But the seaweed had many uses, from gelatin for milkshakes and ice-cream to shampoo to fertilizer and pet food. Mr. Soriano's business became wildly successful, and the little farm grew into a village of 500, with police, a market, bars, a bakery, etc. The farm expanded to sheep farming as well as seaweed harvesting. But through demand for seaweed stayed strong, and it is still harvested today, the village slowly disintegrated after Soriano's death, and is now a surreal collection of simple whitewashed houses surrounded by trees and flowers and huge barns full of seaweed bales. The whole thing lies in the nook of a bay whose clear blue water laps on a rocky, seaweed strewn shore. Behind the village is the endless Patagonian plain. Bahia Bustamante opened to tourists (with four little cabins and a modest, but lovely dining hall) in 2006, and since then has gained a reputation as an idyllic estancia experience. There are ranches to stay at all over Argentina but, it would seem, few quite like this. Back to our arrival. We slide in on the gravel at 4pm, exactly 12 hours and 1000 kilometers from where we began at Rio Gallegos. We are welcomed in an given a cup of tea and after this, and a restorative shower, we begin to realize what an unusual paradise we have found. The cabins are simple but extremely comfortable with excellent beds and seaweed shampoo. And the beach, though in no way reminiscent of the Caribbean, has a peculiar charm. While dad takes a well earned nap, Casey and I take mate and instruments and go sit on the pebbly shore and play. The mate is sublimely refreshing, and, together with the landscape, feeds the music and otherworldly fuel. Our fingers and the strings are chilled by the evening wind, but the music doesn't stumble, but rather billows out in waves with no obstacle for a thousand miles that could send back an echo. The sky is too big to fill with our little sound, but the sound is bold and clear and true, and is absorbed continually into the vast wilderness. The sun sets in glorious oranges and pinks and creates strange silhouettes as dad comes out to join us and we skip not very flat rocks. We head in to dinner as the light dwindles. As it turns out, the cook here is phenomenal, world class. This first meal consists of excellent malbec, vegetable tempura, and seaweed crepes in cream sauce. The cheerful girl that serves us turns out to be, strangely enough, from Petaluma. Small world it us. After dinner we return to our little cabin and serenade dad with a variety of tunes, ranging from somewhat polished to totally improvised. But he is an excellent audience and it is the perfect end to the day. A day where once again we have made road-trip history