All the letters posted here under this date are from our extended trip to South America. Carol is a Spanish teacher who received a Sabbatical to Study and travel in S.A. I took unpaid leave and basically played the Gigolo, which was a pretty cool gig.
Since this was before what has become the de facto method of communicating, to wit, email, whenever we could find computer centers with Macintosh computers, I would write, save it to a floppy, print out one copy, go to a "copy center," and finally mail out 15 copies which were then distributed to family and friends.
There was so much to say, but limited time and resources. Not like carrying my laptop and writing when each night.
The letters read from top to bottom in this dated post. The first letter below is the first letter we sent.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Finally on the Long and Winding road
Hey Everybody:
Here we are in Santiago, Chile and I found a place which would let me use their Macintosh computer so you can actually read my writing.
The trip down was long and tiring, but we arrived on Thursday the 31st. We changed planes in Asuncion, Paraguay and got our first introduction to South American "efficiency" at the airport, where we all had to make connecting flights. It is called Asuncion International and we expected something like SFO. What we got was a terminal building which had one counter about 20 feet long and 4 cubicles each one for a different destination. 200 people all trying to get into 4 lines, sort of. Anyway it all got done with a minimum of bent feelings. The rule is: be patient and don't get uptight. It will all work out in the end. Everybody really rolls with the punches. Time is not the life-threatening factor that it seems to be at home. We went to dinner the other night and were told that we would be picked up at 4:00 p.m. and they assured us that they had told the driver 4:00 "la hora de Norte Americano" as opposed to getting there when they got there.
We finally arrived in Santiago and had to walk about 8 blocks to our hotel. Well, my suitcase weighs 68 pounds and Carol's 59. She also has a 40 carry-on and I have the camcorder bag stuffed full. So here we are packing the lot down the street. Millions of taxi drivers go by offering rides. We have $5,000 in cash strapped to our legs and we wouldn't pay the 50 cents it costs for a taxi ride. We exhausted ourselves and said, "Never again."
The room is small but comfortable. The bathroom, however, has a 2 foot by 2 foot shower with a piece of linoleum hanging by twine as the back and left side of the shower. It kind of curves around in a circle with the shower curtain encompassing the other two sides. We felt like the little girl in the 50's who fell down a well shaft and was trapped. Try showering in that condition and you get the idea. Add to that the fact that there was no cold water, only the hot tap worked. I say worked, but more truthfully it went from very hot to very cold with little warning. So with practice, more sensitive parts of the body had to be washed and rinsed at certain times. With the smallness of the shower, there was no way to move away from the extremes of temperature and it made for an exciting first night. Our hotel is on what we call Auto Repair Road. One shop sells nothing but reflectors, another sells door handles, while another has hoses.
The food is terrific. We found a little restaurant near the hotel. We both had a fish platter with salad, 2 sodas, a beer and mineral water. The total bill was $4.
The Chileans are a terrific people. Cultured, good looking, patient, and friendly. There is a calmness about them which we often do not associate with a Latino personality. The educational system is very strict and difficult. In fact, American students who live here but have been educated in the states usually cannot pass the entrance exams and must be sent back to the states to go to school. This quality educational system makes for a certain air of confidence about the people. They have been wonderfully helpful always taking time to show directions and aid when necessary.
Jim's law #47 is that you can tell a lot about a people by the way they drive their cars. The Chileans are really patient. We went three days before we heard anybody honk their horns. We have not seen any accidents and drivers actually wait for people when crossing the street, even against the light. We asked one if the happiness we sensed in the people was a natural part of the Chilean's personality or Simply a post-Pinochet rejoicing. He looked around and then answered " A little of both.:" But they do seem to be a very resilient people, very strong in character. Classy is a good word to use. all levels of society help another. For instance, at the restaurant we eat at, each night there has been a different homeless person who has appeared in from the restaurant. Each time, the cook or waiter has taken food out to them. Not leftover food either, but rather they make up a platter and a big mug of coffee and take it to them. There seems to be a feeling of mutual understanding. Imagine what would happen if a transient waited outside Carmen's or Le Bistro. They would call the cops on him for vagrancy. But here everybody seems to understand that life is not always easy, and they help each other.
We were warned repeatedly that thieves abound in South America. the first night I dropped a $5 U. S. bill in the subway. A man picked it up and gave it back to em. Carol and I had not noticed either the dropping of the money nor the man pick it up. The person was obviously a man who could use the money, but still he gave it to us. Well, it just points up that if you spend your life being paranoid about something bad possibly happening, then you could make your life really miserable. We still will be cautious, but we can't allow ourselves to see everybody as potential thieves. It takes away from seeing them as people.
It is great to have time to do things slowly. Our trips with the students have been wonderful. We have made contact with people who I hope will be our friends forever, but everything was so organized. We had so much to see and so little time to see them Yesterday morning we spent four hours looking for a shop which sold little paper tubes to ship some posters home for Carol's classroom (after all, this is work, not play). We walked the streets asking people. They sent us here and there. Each time the shop was out of them, or didn't have them in the first place, but we saw all kinds of things we would never have seen when you are on a tour seeing just the tourist spots.
Travel, after all is people. If you spend your whole trip seeing things and not meeting people, you have not seen anything very important and you haven't learned a thing. To this end, we have had some great experiences. The mother of two students we have had in class (Carla and Cecelia Paredes) happened to be here and wanted us to come over for "Tea." They picked us up at four in the afternoon and we didn't get home until 11 that night. We arrived at the house and pretty soon another couple arrived, then another and another until there were 13 all together. Tea is a very big thing here. People use it as their social time. Lunch is the big meal of the day, but tea is the time when friends and family talk. And talk they do, mixed in with a lot of food. It really is an evening meal, but they don't call it one. One thing led to another and we all decided to get together the following evening at another house. They sang, danced, told stories, joked with each other, and cried over events which had occurred in the past. It was an incredible insight to family life here. There is a closeness to the family unit which I find enviable. If American families talked to each other as much as Chilean families do, we wouldn't have the family problems we have.
I love being in third world countries. There is a vibrancy to life and the people. When people live so close to the edge of survival, it gives a little more meaning to the important things and all the bullshit becomes just that - meaningless. Staying alive is the struggle. Having another electronic remote controlled toy somehow doesn't seem to matter.
We head south tomorrow Tuesday, the fifth for Conception and on down to the lake district. We have reservations on a boat which will take us to a famous glacier which comes to a fjord, The Laguna San Rafael. It is very popular and we could only get reclining seats, not cabins. It is only for two nights and well worth the time. The alternative, being not able to see it at all. We will be on board the 17th - 19th. I have no idea how long the mail takes from here so we may very well be doing this when you receive the letter. Anyway, we would love to hear from as many of you who are still speaking to us after hearing how we are slaving here in the 80° temperatures and missing school as much as we do.
After all the books we read and the time we spend planning, it would be easy to be disappointed. Sometimes when you look forward to something for so long, it can never live up to expectations. This is not the case here. It is a wonderful place and we have only seen one city. By getting to the country and seeing some of the variety, it can only get better. We were given the names of some friends of those we visited the other night who, we were told, will be very offended if we do not show up for a visit. I get the feeling that this is what happens with South American hospitality. It just kind of snowballs and you have the opportunity to have a myriad of experiences with different kinds of people. We'll try to keep you informed, but we wanted to get a letter off right away and let everybody know that, in fact, we are actually here and not just hiding out.
Take care and we will see all of you soon.
Here we are in Santiago, Chile and I found a place which would let me use their Macintosh computer so you can actually read my writing.
The trip down was long and tiring, but we arrived on Thursday the 31st. We changed planes in Asuncion, Paraguay and got our first introduction to South American "efficiency" at the airport, where we all had to make connecting flights. It is called Asuncion International and we expected something like SFO. What we got was a terminal building which had one counter about 20 feet long and 4 cubicles each one for a different destination. 200 people all trying to get into 4 lines, sort of. Anyway it all got done with a minimum of bent feelings. The rule is: be patient and don't get uptight. It will all work out in the end. Everybody really rolls with the punches. Time is not the life-threatening factor that it seems to be at home. We went to dinner the other night and were told that we would be picked up at 4:00 p.m. and they assured us that they had told the driver 4:00 "la hora de Norte Americano" as opposed to getting there when they got there.
We finally arrived in Santiago and had to walk about 8 blocks to our hotel. Well, my suitcase weighs 68 pounds and Carol's 59. She also has a 40 carry-on and I have the camcorder bag stuffed full. So here we are packing the lot down the street. Millions of taxi drivers go by offering rides. We have $5,000 in cash strapped to our legs and we wouldn't pay the 50 cents it costs for a taxi ride. We exhausted ourselves and said, "Never again."
The room is small but comfortable. The bathroom, however, has a 2 foot by 2 foot shower with a piece of linoleum hanging by twine as the back and left side of the shower. It kind of curves around in a circle with the shower curtain encompassing the other two sides. We felt like the little girl in the 50's who fell down a well shaft and was trapped. Try showering in that condition and you get the idea. Add to that the fact that there was no cold water, only the hot tap worked. I say worked, but more truthfully it went from very hot to very cold with little warning. So with practice, more sensitive parts of the body had to be washed and rinsed at certain times. With the smallness of the shower, there was no way to move away from the extremes of temperature and it made for an exciting first night. Our hotel is on what we call Auto Repair Road. One shop sells nothing but reflectors, another sells door handles, while another has hoses.
The food is terrific. We found a little restaurant near the hotel. We both had a fish platter with salad, 2 sodas, a beer and mineral water. The total bill was $4.
The Chileans are a terrific people. Cultured, good looking, patient, and friendly. There is a calmness about them which we often do not associate with a Latino personality. The educational system is very strict and difficult. In fact, American students who live here but have been educated in the states usually cannot pass the entrance exams and must be sent back to the states to go to school. This quality educational system makes for a certain air of confidence about the people. They have been wonderfully helpful always taking time to show directions and aid when necessary.
Jim's law #47 is that you can tell a lot about a people by the way they drive their cars. The Chileans are really patient. We went three days before we heard anybody honk their horns. We have not seen any accidents and drivers actually wait for people when crossing the street, even against the light. We asked one if the happiness we sensed in the people was a natural part of the Chilean's personality or Simply a post-Pinochet rejoicing. He looked around and then answered " A little of both.:" But they do seem to be a very resilient people, very strong in character. Classy is a good word to use. all levels of society help another. For instance, at the restaurant we eat at, each night there has been a different homeless person who has appeared in from the restaurant. Each time, the cook or waiter has taken food out to them. Not leftover food either, but rather they make up a platter and a big mug of coffee and take it to them. There seems to be a feeling of mutual understanding. Imagine what would happen if a transient waited outside Carmen's or Le Bistro. They would call the cops on him for vagrancy. But here everybody seems to understand that life is not always easy, and they help each other.
We were warned repeatedly that thieves abound in South America. the first night I dropped a $5 U. S. bill in the subway. A man picked it up and gave it back to em. Carol and I had not noticed either the dropping of the money nor the man pick it up. The person was obviously a man who could use the money, but still he gave it to us. Well, it just points up that if you spend your life being paranoid about something bad possibly happening, then you could make your life really miserable. We still will be cautious, but we can't allow ourselves to see everybody as potential thieves. It takes away from seeing them as people.
It is great to have time to do things slowly. Our trips with the students have been wonderful. We have made contact with people who I hope will be our friends forever, but everything was so organized. We had so much to see and so little time to see them Yesterday morning we spent four hours looking for a shop which sold little paper tubes to ship some posters home for Carol's classroom (after all, this is work, not play). We walked the streets asking people. They sent us here and there. Each time the shop was out of them, or didn't have them in the first place, but we saw all kinds of things we would never have seen when you are on a tour seeing just the tourist spots.
Travel, after all is people. If you spend your whole trip seeing things and not meeting people, you have not seen anything very important and you haven't learned a thing. To this end, we have had some great experiences. The mother of two students we have had in class (Carla and Cecelia Paredes) happened to be here and wanted us to come over for "Tea." They picked us up at four in the afternoon and we didn't get home until 11 that night. We arrived at the house and pretty soon another couple arrived, then another and another until there were 13 all together. Tea is a very big thing here. People use it as their social time. Lunch is the big meal of the day, but tea is the time when friends and family talk. And talk they do, mixed in with a lot of food. It really is an evening meal, but they don't call it one. One thing led to another and we all decided to get together the following evening at another house. They sang, danced, told stories, joked with each other, and cried over events which had occurred in the past. It was an incredible insight to family life here. There is a closeness to the family unit which I find enviable. If American families talked to each other as much as Chilean families do, we wouldn't have the family problems we have.
I love being in third world countries. There is a vibrancy to life and the people. When people live so close to the edge of survival, it gives a little more meaning to the important things and all the bullshit becomes just that - meaningless. Staying alive is the struggle. Having another electronic remote controlled toy somehow doesn't seem to matter.
We head south tomorrow Tuesday, the fifth for Conception and on down to the lake district. We have reservations on a boat which will take us to a famous glacier which comes to a fjord, The Laguna San Rafael. It is very popular and we could only get reclining seats, not cabins. It is only for two nights and well worth the time. The alternative, being not able to see it at all. We will be on board the 17th - 19th. I have no idea how long the mail takes from here so we may very well be doing this when you receive the letter. Anyway, we would love to hear from as many of you who are still speaking to us after hearing how we are slaving here in the 80° temperatures and missing school as much as we do.
After all the books we read and the time we spend planning, it would be easy to be disappointed. Sometimes when you look forward to something for so long, it can never live up to expectations. This is not the case here. It is a wonderful place and we have only seen one city. By getting to the country and seeing some of the variety, it can only get better. We were given the names of some friends of those we visited the other night who, we were told, will be very offended if we do not show up for a visit. I get the feeling that this is what happens with South American hospitality. It just kind of snowballs and you have the opportunity to have a myriad of experiences with different kinds of people. We'll try to keep you informed, but we wanted to get a letter off right away and let everybody know that, in fact, we are actually here and not just hiding out.
Take care and we will see all of you soon.
Learning the Travel Rules
Feb. 8th
Temuco, Chile
We are in the land of the kissing. It seems to be the national pastime. Women kiss everybody on the cheek. Once if they don't know you, and twice if they do. Men shake hands with each other and kiss the females. Little kids kiss everybody - both male and female. When families get together it takes hours just to get past all the kissing. Then just when you think conversation can continue, somebody else comes in and the whole thing gets going again.
Chile looks like a combination of California and Mexico. Set between two mountain ranges, the coast range on the west, and, of course, the Andes to the east. It is much like our Sierras and Coast range, only on a much grander scale. We pass grape vineyards, peach orchards and fields of corn along the way. It would be easy to mistake where we were. But add to that scenery, the Hispanic architecture and you realize this is not the San Joaquin Valley.
Riding on Chilean trains you have two options. One is economico where seats are first come, first served, and the other is Salon, where everybody has a reserved seat. If you ride economico with la gente then you may have one, two, or three people to share a seat with, not to mention all the standees. In this case, we choose Salon. Chilean train rides are a little like sitting on one of a water bed with someone at the other end pushing their foot deep in the mattress. At one point luggage came raining down upon us. Luckily, all the kids were running up and down the aisles or someone might have been injured. We sat across from a family with two young daughters, 6 and 7 years old. They had a patti-cake game they played with Chicle (gum) as the operative word. Since we had brought two boxes of Care Free Bubble Gum with us just for such cases, we gave a pack to the girls and we thought we were going to die of hysterics watching those two kids try to blow bubbles. They finally got the hang of it and just like kids everywhere popped on and on. We video taped them and I don't think they had ever seen themselves on film before because they wanted to watch themselves over and over. the parents were very interesting people and it make the 300 miles and 10 hour journey much easier to bear. I'm gonna have some fun with this gum. By the end of the trip we were "Tia and Tio" and, when we left to go our own directions there were, of course, kisses all around.
This country gets around town, and from city to city, by bus. There must be four buses for every person. They're like sheep in Australia. they range from modern, luxury buses, like the ones in which we travel in Europe, to some you don't think will make it to the next corner. But they all cost the same and everybody seems willing to get on the next one passing. They just took 2,600 of them out of commission in Santiago, and judging from some of the ones which are left, I can only imagine what the retiree were like.
We visited Lirquen, a small fishing village near Conception. It took an hour by bus to get there and cost a staggering 35 cents. Bus rides are a real trip, both literally and figuratively. there are bus stops, of course, but they make little difference. If you are walking and you bus comes by, they will stop and pick you up, no matter you are. Conversely, where ever you want off, tell the guy who rides shotgun and who takes the money and the bus comes to a screeching halt. Lirquen is very small and isolated and obviously doesn't get many tourists. Everybody who passed us would look at us for a long time. Kids would come up yelling "You are welcome," or "Thank you." in English, phrases which they had obviously learned in school (all students must take English classes beginning the 7th grade in public schools, and in 1st grade in private schools). We began to take a picture of one of the streets and a bus driver pulled up with a bus full of people and told us that if we would only walk down this way and up that hill we could get a nice view of the entire village. We did and it was.
The town was made up of old, wooden houses, but again Chilean pride comes to the fore. Inside they were immaculate. People do what they can here. They may be very poor, but they will not be dirty if they can help it. They take pride in their clothes as a matter of personal dignity. Children are always very well dressed.
We traveled on down to Temuco and today while waiting for the bus to leave for a small village called Chol-Chol we went down to the market area. We filmed all the produce, beef and the millions of things they sell at such places. there was a very old lady who looked like she had seen the better part of this century, drinking tea from the traditional bowl with the metal straw as they do here. When I went by with my camcorder she stuck out her tongue at me. I was really surprised, because most people want us to take their picture. She obviously did not want me to film her. I kept on walking and filming other things. On the return Carol smiled at her and she smiled back. I stopped and asked her if I had her permission to take her picture. She said that I could for 500 pesos ($1.75). I said that I would give her 100 pesos, she countered with 200 and it was a deal. She had such a great face, I wanted to have it on film. It was great. While I fumbled for my coins, she asked if we were Argentineans as most people assume. When we said that we were from California she gave us a sly smile and said, "Oh so your the ones fighting for oil (Desert Storm)." I assured her that at least I wasn't, and that my son was in the gulf. Her hostility immediately vanished. She got very concerned, and gave us each a flower. She went from protagonist to mother in an instant. It was a great moment.
So often we assume that poor people are less knowledgeable, informed, and probably inferiors just because they are poor. This old, poor woman was as sophisticated as anyone I know and certainly as wise. Her hostility had turned to understanding and she felt empathy for a father concerned about his son.
We went on to Chol-Chol and it was like a scene out of the old west. The Huasos (Chilean equivalents to gauchos) still ride their horses in the street, ox-carts are the mode of transportation around town. All streets are dirt and only occasionally do you see a car or a TV antenna. they do have electricity, but the town is a bit of a time warp. We got some great pictures.
Each place we go to seems to be the highlight of the trip so far. We have been traveling for less than two weeks, but have had one fantastic experience after another. We hate to skip any of the towns in-between one place and another because we know that they hold experiences which we must inevitably miss.
Temuco, Chile
We are in the land of the kissing. It seems to be the national pastime. Women kiss everybody on the cheek. Once if they don't know you, and twice if they do. Men shake hands with each other and kiss the females. Little kids kiss everybody - both male and female. When families get together it takes hours just to get past all the kissing. Then just when you think conversation can continue, somebody else comes in and the whole thing gets going again.
Chile looks like a combination of California and Mexico. Set between two mountain ranges, the coast range on the west, and, of course, the Andes to the east. It is much like our Sierras and Coast range, only on a much grander scale. We pass grape vineyards, peach orchards and fields of corn along the way. It would be easy to mistake where we were. But add to that scenery, the Hispanic architecture and you realize this is not the San Joaquin Valley.
Riding on Chilean trains you have two options. One is economico where seats are first come, first served, and the other is Salon, where everybody has a reserved seat. If you ride economico with la gente then you may have one, two, or three people to share a seat with, not to mention all the standees. In this case, we choose Salon. Chilean train rides are a little like sitting on one of a water bed with someone at the other end pushing their foot deep in the mattress. At one point luggage came raining down upon us. Luckily, all the kids were running up and down the aisles or someone might have been injured. We sat across from a family with two young daughters, 6 and 7 years old. They had a patti-cake game they played with Chicle (gum) as the operative word. Since we had brought two boxes of Care Free Bubble Gum with us just for such cases, we gave a pack to the girls and we thought we were going to die of hysterics watching those two kids try to blow bubbles. They finally got the hang of it and just like kids everywhere popped on and on. We video taped them and I don't think they had ever seen themselves on film before because they wanted to watch themselves over and over. the parents were very interesting people and it make the 300 miles and 10 hour journey much easier to bear. I'm gonna have some fun with this gum. By the end of the trip we were "Tia and Tio" and, when we left to go our own directions there were, of course, kisses all around.
This country gets around town, and from city to city, by bus. There must be four buses for every person. They're like sheep in Australia. they range from modern, luxury buses, like the ones in which we travel in Europe, to some you don't think will make it to the next corner. But they all cost the same and everybody seems willing to get on the next one passing. They just took 2,600 of them out of commission in Santiago, and judging from some of the ones which are left, I can only imagine what the retiree were like.
We visited Lirquen, a small fishing village near Conception. It took an hour by bus to get there and cost a staggering 35 cents. Bus rides are a real trip, both literally and figuratively. there are bus stops, of course, but they make little difference. If you are walking and you bus comes by, they will stop and pick you up, no matter you are. Conversely, where ever you want off, tell the guy who rides shotgun and who takes the money and the bus comes to a screeching halt. Lirquen is very small and isolated and obviously doesn't get many tourists. Everybody who passed us would look at us for a long time. Kids would come up yelling "You are welcome," or "Thank you." in English, phrases which they had obviously learned in school (all students must take English classes beginning the 7th grade in public schools, and in 1st grade in private schools). We began to take a picture of one of the streets and a bus driver pulled up with a bus full of people and told us that if we would only walk down this way and up that hill we could get a nice view of the entire village. We did and it was.
The town was made up of old, wooden houses, but again Chilean pride comes to the fore. Inside they were immaculate. People do what they can here. They may be very poor, but they will not be dirty if they can help it. They take pride in their clothes as a matter of personal dignity. Children are always very well dressed.
We traveled on down to Temuco and today while waiting for the bus to leave for a small village called Chol-Chol we went down to the market area. We filmed all the produce, beef and the millions of things they sell at such places. there was a very old lady who looked like she had seen the better part of this century, drinking tea from the traditional bowl with the metal straw as they do here. When I went by with my camcorder she stuck out her tongue at me. I was really surprised, because most people want us to take their picture. She obviously did not want me to film her. I kept on walking and filming other things. On the return Carol smiled at her and she smiled back. I stopped and asked her if I had her permission to take her picture. She said that I could for 500 pesos ($1.75). I said that I would give her 100 pesos, she countered with 200 and it was a deal. She had such a great face, I wanted to have it on film. It was great. While I fumbled for my coins, she asked if we were Argentineans as most people assume. When we said that we were from California she gave us a sly smile and said, "Oh so your the ones fighting for oil (Desert Storm)." I assured her that at least I wasn't, and that my son was in the gulf. Her hostility immediately vanished. She got very concerned, and gave us each a flower. She went from protagonist to mother in an instant. It was a great moment.
So often we assume that poor people are less knowledgeable, informed, and probably inferiors just because they are poor. This old, poor woman was as sophisticated as anyone I know and certainly as wise. Her hostility had turned to understanding and she felt empathy for a father concerned about his son.
We went on to Chol-Chol and it was like a scene out of the old west. The Huasos (Chilean equivalents to gauchos) still ride their horses in the street, ox-carts are the mode of transportation around town. All streets are dirt and only occasionally do you see a car or a TV antenna. they do have electricity, but the town is a bit of a time warp. We got some great pictures.
Each place we go to seems to be the highlight of the trip so far. We have been traveling for less than two weeks, but have had one fantastic experience after another. We hate to skip any of the towns in-between one place and another because we know that they hold experiences which we must inevitably miss.
Smarter travelers than the gringos
Feb 23, 1991
Coyhaique, Chile
I think you are in luck. I found a computer place here in Coyhaique which means no handwritten letter. Chile uses Acer computers from Taiwan, and I am attempting to boot up my past history with Tandy and IBM systems to type this to you.
Each day has been an adventure in itself with new and unexpected events making each day something special. for the last two weeks we have been in the lake district of Argentina and Chile, shuffling back and forth between the two. There are hundreds of lakes with dozens of them being "Tahoe" sized. We have left paved roads behind us and as we wend from lake to lake and town to town, we did so in a cloud of dust. It was difficult to see beyond the narrow ribbon of gravel in front of us. Forests, thick with vegetation closed off anything beyond the first five feet of trees. Then, all of a sudden, a little glen with a farmhouse and a goat climbing on a woodpile, a beautiful waterfall, or a crystal clear stream crossing beneath the road would come into view, offering the only hint that life existed beyond. It was like looking through the lens of a camera which opened periodically from its closed position.
Because of our time constraints, we missed out on our chance to climb the volcano which we had hoped to climb. We had to get here to Coyhaique to catch our boat to the glacier. We have been staying in private homes rather than hotels. It is much cheaper, averaging $6 a night per person, and it also gives us the chance to meet many more people than we would otherwise and see how they live. We have made videos in some of the homes which should show South American life better than just words.
Traveling from Chile to Argentina brought lots of changes. The Argentines are a much more excitable people in comparison to the calmness of the Chilenos. It was first manifested crossing the street on foot. Obviously, the significant Italian population in Argentina did not lose their aggressiveness behind the wheel simply because they changed continents.
Whereas Chilenos have meshed their different cultures into a more or less homogeneous population, in Argentina they have remained much more separate. Italians marry Italians and Germans marry Germans. Many Argentines we talked to seemed to feel this was a major problem in the country for it pits one section of the people against another. Each group wants to help their own. I must state right now that these statements are based on limited experience and I am looking forward to spending more time in Argentina and talking to others to bet a better handle on Argentina, but there does seem to be some serious problems in Argentine unity.
They seem to have a genuine admiration for Chile, even thought they are political rivals in South America. Unlike Argentina, Chile has been remarkably stable, both politically and socially, the military takeover in 1973 notwithstanding. Chile has a long history of democracy. They like to compare themselves to the U. S. in that respect. The military held power for 17 years until 1990 when they peacefully and calmly went back to civilian rule and held democratic elections. It is not often that the military voluntarily gives up power.
Argentina, on the other hand, has a long history of instability. Economically, for instance, when we left home the monetary unit called the "Austral" was trading at 5,000 to $1. In the three weeks we have been her in South America, it has shot up to 9,300 to $1. To compensate, prices have doubled but salaries remain the same. Obviously, this causes a lot of unrest, name calling, and genuine panic. Teachers have not been paid for January as yet because the government does not have the money to pay them. People on fixed incomes simply get the shaft. We will spend another month in Argentina and hope to learn a lot more.
We had a wonderful 50 minute flight here. Arriving in Patagonia is really a study in contrasts. We flew over the Andes and to our west was the ocean, and to the east, Patagonia. In the space of 50 miles we went from flat, dusty, windy plains like Wyoming to lush forests, mountains and the Pacific Ocean. We landed in a small town of 500 people named Balmaceda. The airport serves large jets because it is the only flat land in the area. 30 miles away is Coyhaique with 40,000 people, but with mountains all around, there is no place to land jets. It seemed so strange to look down and see this landing strip in the middle of nowhere. When we landed, we discovered the other aspects of this isolated post.
There are no baggage carousels here. Baggage handlers bring in the luggage and everybody shouts for their own bags. After all that was sorted out, we needed to find our transportation to Coyhaique. Everybody was scrambling around outside, but the two dummy gringos were trying to read the guide book to see how to bet from point A to point B. There were two vans which seemed to be getting a lot of attention, and after using our combined IQ's and college educations, it finally occurred to us that maybe all these people might just know what they were doing and that maybe we should ask someone just what the scoop was. It turned out that the two vans were the only transport to Coyhaique and that they were full. But nothing is really ever full here in South America. There is always room for two more. Luggage was rearranged, people squeezed a little closer together and we were off. Since all the rearranging took time, we were the last vehicle to leave. In addition to the other van, there were several private cars picking up friends and relatives. But, not to worry, our driver followed no one. After 10 miles, we passed all the other vehicles. We were all happy. We would get there first, spend less time on the dusty, gravel road, and get out of the heat first. We obviously chose the correct vehicle. As we passed all the other vehicles we all smiled and waved at the occupants of the other vehicles because we were the friendly type, not because we were smug. But the occupants of the other cars only glared back. Those cars were obviously filled with sullen, dour types, not at all friendly.
Ricks of hay were being stacked, oxen-drawn carts brought the hay in from the fields, cows ran loose and were chased down by gauchos on horseback, and streams criss-crossed the landscape as we worked our way through the gap in the Southern Andes. The area was once forested with fir and pine, but they were cut down by the ranchers for more room to graze their cattle herds. They were left to decay in the southern sun and the landscape looks like some abandoned game of giant pick-up sticks with dead tree trunks scattered whichever way they fell. The windshields of all the cars looked like homes to families of spiders, or the result of gang warfare in L.A. They were pock-marked everywhere with streaks of cracks streaming out like spider webs. Since all roads at this end of the world are gravel all windshields look like this.
We are making good time and we are a happy lot. The only negative notes expressed are by our driver when a loud "Thwack" rings out as we pass an occasional car going in the opposite direction and the windshield takes another direct hit and his vision is reduced even more.
We were 12 miles from our destination when the van gave a shudder, a noise like a cuisinart running amok, arose from the back left of the van and we literally ground to a halt. 12 miles from your destination is 12 miles from nowhere. The main springs had broken from the constant strain. We all got out and then had to watch as all the cars we had previously passed now came whizzing by us. But something had happened to the occupants of those cars. All those stony glares from before had been transformed. They smiled happily at us as they slowed down to check out the problem, determined that it was not life-threatening, and continued on their way. Finally, the other van came by, and after some hard bargaining, it was decided that he would return to pick us up. It is like a wolf pack returning for orphaned cubs. Nobody is abandoned, no one is left behind. It is just another day in Patagonia.
Our trip to the glacier began at 3:00 p.m. when we were told to be there to board the ship. Then it Was decided that we would board ship at 6:30 and leave at 8:00. We actually boarded at 7:00 and left at 9:00. Time is a relative factor here. The boat carries 370 passengers, 350 of whom have reclining seats to sleep on as opposed to beds. Actually, they sort of tip back as opposed to recline, but that is how the shipping company advertises them. The sleeping area is a little like a 747 cut across the middle and the two halves laid on top of one another.
Again we are lucky. We have three seats for the two of us on a side aisle since the extra seat is unoccupied. Small problems exist since whoever designed the seats, did not work for Lazy boy. They anchored the arm rests in place so they cannot be raised out of the way and the lever which adjusts the seat backs sticks up abut 8 inches above the seat between the chairs. this prevents us from stretching out horizontally.
Chilenos do not eat early. The first of five seatings for dinner begins at 9:30 and the last one starts at 11:30. After the last passenger has been bed, there is a fiesta on board and South Americans can give new meaning to the phrase "Party Hearty." Things seemed to slow down around 2 a.m. except that by now the little kids, who are still up of course are really wired. The fiesta, accompanied by much singing, whistling, stomping of feet, and shouting didn't seem like it would ever end. Thank god they turned the lights out at 1:30.
We finally realized why we saw so many people carrying foam mattresses and sleeping bags on board. They spread them out everywhere on the floor. It looked like pictures from the Shiloh battlefield. There were bodies everywhere on the floor. To pee in the middle of the night was a real adventure.
After much experimentation, at 3 a.m. we rigged up a makeshift bed on the floor for Carol and I assumed a modified fetal position around the arm rests and levers. The partyers returned about 3:30, filled with pisco sour, the national drink.
Now, with everybody settled in for the night, the snorers have a captive audience. This is obviously the time they have been waiting for. There are two main ones near us. One female and one male. They respond to each other like frogs across the pond on a still night. at 6:30 it all ends and everybody is stirring because breakfast is starting. Don't these people ever sleep?
Such is life in South America for Carol and Jim. We wouldn't have it any other way and are having the time of our lives.
Coyhaique, Chile
I think you are in luck. I found a computer place here in Coyhaique which means no handwritten letter. Chile uses Acer computers from Taiwan, and I am attempting to boot up my past history with Tandy and IBM systems to type this to you.
Each day has been an adventure in itself with new and unexpected events making each day something special. for the last two weeks we have been in the lake district of Argentina and Chile, shuffling back and forth between the two. There are hundreds of lakes with dozens of them being "Tahoe" sized. We have left paved roads behind us and as we wend from lake to lake and town to town, we did so in a cloud of dust. It was difficult to see beyond the narrow ribbon of gravel in front of us. Forests, thick with vegetation closed off anything beyond the first five feet of trees. Then, all of a sudden, a little glen with a farmhouse and a goat climbing on a woodpile, a beautiful waterfall, or a crystal clear stream crossing beneath the road would come into view, offering the only hint that life existed beyond. It was like looking through the lens of a camera which opened periodically from its closed position.
Because of our time constraints, we missed out on our chance to climb the volcano which we had hoped to climb. We had to get here to Coyhaique to catch our boat to the glacier. We have been staying in private homes rather than hotels. It is much cheaper, averaging $6 a night per person, and it also gives us the chance to meet many more people than we would otherwise and see how they live. We have made videos in some of the homes which should show South American life better than just words.
Traveling from Chile to Argentina brought lots of changes. The Argentines are a much more excitable people in comparison to the calmness of the Chilenos. It was first manifested crossing the street on foot. Obviously, the significant Italian population in Argentina did not lose their aggressiveness behind the wheel simply because they changed continents.
Whereas Chilenos have meshed their different cultures into a more or less homogeneous population, in Argentina they have remained much more separate. Italians marry Italians and Germans marry Germans. Many Argentines we talked to seemed to feel this was a major problem in the country for it pits one section of the people against another. Each group wants to help their own. I must state right now that these statements are based on limited experience and I am looking forward to spending more time in Argentina and talking to others to bet a better handle on Argentina, but there does seem to be some serious problems in Argentine unity.
They seem to have a genuine admiration for Chile, even thought they are political rivals in South America. Unlike Argentina, Chile has been remarkably stable, both politically and socially, the military takeover in 1973 notwithstanding. Chile has a long history of democracy. They like to compare themselves to the U. S. in that respect. The military held power for 17 years until 1990 when they peacefully and calmly went back to civilian rule and held democratic elections. It is not often that the military voluntarily gives up power.
Argentina, on the other hand, has a long history of instability. Economically, for instance, when we left home the monetary unit called the "Austral" was trading at 5,000 to $1. In the three weeks we have been her in South America, it has shot up to 9,300 to $1. To compensate, prices have doubled but salaries remain the same. Obviously, this causes a lot of unrest, name calling, and genuine panic. Teachers have not been paid for January as yet because the government does not have the money to pay them. People on fixed incomes simply get the shaft. We will spend another month in Argentina and hope to learn a lot more.
We had a wonderful 50 minute flight here. Arriving in Patagonia is really a study in contrasts. We flew over the Andes and to our west was the ocean, and to the east, Patagonia. In the space of 50 miles we went from flat, dusty, windy plains like Wyoming to lush forests, mountains and the Pacific Ocean. We landed in a small town of 500 people named Balmaceda. The airport serves large jets because it is the only flat land in the area. 30 miles away is Coyhaique with 40,000 people, but with mountains all around, there is no place to land jets. It seemed so strange to look down and see this landing strip in the middle of nowhere. When we landed, we discovered the other aspects of this isolated post.
There are no baggage carousels here. Baggage handlers bring in the luggage and everybody shouts for their own bags. After all that was sorted out, we needed to find our transportation to Coyhaique. Everybody was scrambling around outside, but the two dummy gringos were trying to read the guide book to see how to bet from point A to point B. There were two vans which seemed to be getting a lot of attention, and after using our combined IQ's and college educations, it finally occurred to us that maybe all these people might just know what they were doing and that maybe we should ask someone just what the scoop was. It turned out that the two vans were the only transport to Coyhaique and that they were full. But nothing is really ever full here in South America. There is always room for two more. Luggage was rearranged, people squeezed a little closer together and we were off. Since all the rearranging took time, we were the last vehicle to leave. In addition to the other van, there were several private cars picking up friends and relatives. But, not to worry, our driver followed no one. After 10 miles, we passed all the other vehicles. We were all happy. We would get there first, spend less time on the dusty, gravel road, and get out of the heat first. We obviously chose the correct vehicle. As we passed all the other vehicles we all smiled and waved at the occupants of the other vehicles because we were the friendly type, not because we were smug. But the occupants of the other cars only glared back. Those cars were obviously filled with sullen, dour types, not at all friendly.
Ricks of hay were being stacked, oxen-drawn carts brought the hay in from the fields, cows ran loose and were chased down by gauchos on horseback, and streams criss-crossed the landscape as we worked our way through the gap in the Southern Andes. The area was once forested with fir and pine, but they were cut down by the ranchers for more room to graze their cattle herds. They were left to decay in the southern sun and the landscape looks like some abandoned game of giant pick-up sticks with dead tree trunks scattered whichever way they fell. The windshields of all the cars looked like homes to families of spiders, or the result of gang warfare in L.A. They were pock-marked everywhere with streaks of cracks streaming out like spider webs. Since all roads at this end of the world are gravel all windshields look like this.
We are making good time and we are a happy lot. The only negative notes expressed are by our driver when a loud "Thwack" rings out as we pass an occasional car going in the opposite direction and the windshield takes another direct hit and his vision is reduced even more.
We were 12 miles from our destination when the van gave a shudder, a noise like a cuisinart running amok, arose from the back left of the van and we literally ground to a halt. 12 miles from your destination is 12 miles from nowhere. The main springs had broken from the constant strain. We all got out and then had to watch as all the cars we had previously passed now came whizzing by us. But something had happened to the occupants of those cars. All those stony glares from before had been transformed. They smiled happily at us as they slowed down to check out the problem, determined that it was not life-threatening, and continued on their way. Finally, the other van came by, and after some hard bargaining, it was decided that he would return to pick us up. It is like a wolf pack returning for orphaned cubs. Nobody is abandoned, no one is left behind. It is just another day in Patagonia.
Our trip to the glacier began at 3:00 p.m. when we were told to be there to board the ship. Then it Was decided that we would board ship at 6:30 and leave at 8:00. We actually boarded at 7:00 and left at 9:00. Time is a relative factor here. The boat carries 370 passengers, 350 of whom have reclining seats to sleep on as opposed to beds. Actually, they sort of tip back as opposed to recline, but that is how the shipping company advertises them. The sleeping area is a little like a 747 cut across the middle and the two halves laid on top of one another.
Again we are lucky. We have three seats for the two of us on a side aisle since the extra seat is unoccupied. Small problems exist since whoever designed the seats, did not work for Lazy boy. They anchored the arm rests in place so they cannot be raised out of the way and the lever which adjusts the seat backs sticks up abut 8 inches above the seat between the chairs. this prevents us from stretching out horizontally.
Chilenos do not eat early. The first of five seatings for dinner begins at 9:30 and the last one starts at 11:30. After the last passenger has been bed, there is a fiesta on board and South Americans can give new meaning to the phrase "Party Hearty." Things seemed to slow down around 2 a.m. except that by now the little kids, who are still up of course are really wired. The fiesta, accompanied by much singing, whistling, stomping of feet, and shouting didn't seem like it would ever end. Thank god they turned the lights out at 1:30.
We finally realized why we saw so many people carrying foam mattresses and sleeping bags on board. They spread them out everywhere on the floor. It looked like pictures from the Shiloh battlefield. There were bodies everywhere on the floor. To pee in the middle of the night was a real adventure.
After much experimentation, at 3 a.m. we rigged up a makeshift bed on the floor for Carol and I assumed a modified fetal position around the arm rests and levers. The partyers returned about 3:30, filled with pisco sour, the national drink.
Now, with everybody settled in for the night, the snorers have a captive audience. This is obviously the time they have been waiting for. There are two main ones near us. One female and one male. They respond to each other like frogs across the pond on a still night. at 6:30 it all ends and everybody is stirring because breakfast is starting. Don't these people ever sleep?
Such is life in South America for Carol and Jim. We wouldn't have it any other way and are having the time of our lives.
El fin del mundo - it'a a long way from Poland
March 10
Ushuaia, Argentina
They call this area "El Fin del Mundo," and it really looks the part. We are only about 600 miles from Antarctica and this is the southernmost city on earth, but more about that later.
When I last wrote we were at the glacier and since then we have visited others as well. They are enormous structures, sometimes over a mile wide and several hundred feet high. They constantly crack and groan. There is a constant noise which emanates from them and they give off what sounds like gunfire on a continual basis. You'd think that someone was in the middle of it with a rifle. the colors are a deep blue which seems to be translucent. Huge chunks break off of them with enormous roars and huge wakes are created in the water below. One of the small launches on which we went from the mother ship was almost swamped by a wave from a huge chunk which we estimated to be about the size of a school auditorium;.
But to get here to Ushuaia proved a logistical and logical problem which provided us with a hilarious incident involving one of the flowers of Brazil named Sandra.
We had taken a jeep for a four hour trip on Tuesday to catch a ferry which left only on Wednesday to catch a flight which left only on Thursday. Any break in the connection meant a week's delay or a very long 18 hour bus ride. All went well or at least as well as one can reasonably hope for in this part of the world. We caravaned in the jeeps, and one of them broke down. No surprise! We had to wait until it was fixed since on one is left behind down here. It could be disastrous. We still made the ferry all right, but problems arose making the flight. First of all, we wound up in a small town near the border of Chile and Argentina. Since it is not a major crossing point, there was no regular bus schedule to the border or to the next larger town on the Argentine side where we could catch another bus to a still larger town and the airport. Sometimes the bus came by to see if there were passengers and sometimes it didn't. An Argentine couple who had been staying at the same house as us in Coyhaique made arrangements to get a taxi to take them across the border. They came back to pick us up, but by that time our numbers had swollen. In our jeep there had been two Canadians in their 20's and a 75 year old lawyer traveling in the same direction as us;. The five of us decided to see if we could get some transportation to see some prehistoric caves in the area. We had also met Sandra from Brazil and her male Chilean traveling companion. Anyway, the taxi came for us, but there was not room for all of us. It was decided that the two Canadians and I would walk to the border and the rest would ride, since it was only two miles to the border crossing. Six miles and 2 1/2 miles later, we crossed the border and arrived at the Argentine town to try to get to the airport town. By this time Carol and Sandra were fast friends and were really enjoying each other's company. The new problem was that the plane left the next morning at 11:00 a.m. and we had to be at the airport at 10:00, but the bus didn't leave in time to get us there. Sandra decided to take matters into her own hands. She began to flag down pick-ups driven by men which did not have anybody else in them and try to convince the men to take us to the airport the same evening. That woman, she is 28, can move her body in some very subtle, but extremely effective ways. She finally convinced an old Argentine of about 105 to take us there. But two hours later he had not shown up. She found out his name, where he lived, and went to his house. Before she left his house, she had a commitment that he would show up at the hotel at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, would take us to the airport, wait there for the plane, and if we couldn't get on the flight, would take us to the bus station and wait there until we were assured of getting on the long distance bus. All this for $4 per person, the same price as the local bus which wasn't going to get us there in time anyway.
The next morning at 7:55 there he is, hat in hand, literally. He insisted that Sandra sit next to him with Carol sitting by the window. The five males rode in the back and off we went in search of the airport. I thought that Carol would die laughing later when she related the story of the ride in the pick-up cab. Apparently he old man did not sleep well that previous night. He kept wondering what it would be like driving the next morning with Sandra sitting next to him all the way. We was convinced that she was some kind of a witch since she had found out his name and where she lived. Carol took a picture of the two of the them together, and he was a sight. He stood very erect, put his arm around Sandra, and with his other hand put his hat to his heart. He made Carol promise to send him the picture. He later reminded her of her promise and just before he left us for the final time, reminded her of it again. In the end, there was only room enough on the plane for two people. The first person to write back and correctly guess who got the plane ride and who got the 18 hour bus ride wins a free picture of Sandra.
That was the end of Sandra, or so we thought at the time. The bus ride was long and tiring, but we finally made our destination, and we arrived at Calafate with the two Canadians, Wayne, Bruce, and the Colorado lawyer, Paul. The five of us were to spend the next week together and we all had a lot of fun laughing about Sandra and "Her way with men." Carol assured Wayne and Bruce that Brazil is filled with women like this.
In Calafate, we stayed in the home of a 75 year old woman and her 80 year old husband. Both are very spry and lively. He is an artist who works with wood and does beautiful word. We filmed much of it with him talking about his past. She runs the house and takes in guests, does their laundry, and works in the garden. Paul had a hole in his pant which she mended. We teased him about what his wife would say in Colorado.
We wanted to visit a famous glacier near Calafate, but the tour buses were filled. So we found a taxi which would take us there. The only problem was that it could hold no more than the five people and with the driver we were six. No problem, he gave us his car keys and off we went for the day. It was great to have the flexibility of setting our own time schedule and stopping when we wanted.
We also met an Argentine family with three kids. During one day when there was a lot of rain and we were all stuck together in a shelter, we filmed the three kids for Carol's classes (remember we're working) and they were great fun. The 14 year old boy enjoys computers and he and I are going to spend some time working on some Macintosh's in Buenos Aires when we get there next week. The parents are great and want us to come over for a barbecue when we arrive.
After the week together Wayne, Bruce, Paul Carol and I each went our own ways. Paul went to Antarctica. We could have gone, too, but decided against it. Wayne and Bruce? Well, when last seen they were making their way towards Brazil.
Carol and I went to the Torres del Paine National Park where we filmed rheas, flamingos, foxes, and gorgeous guanacos. To get to the guanacos in the park we had to walk about three miles where we got a ride in the back of a pick-up for another 20 miles and then film. By this point it was about five in the afternoon and we had a very long walk back since there didn't seem to be any return traffic. We began and had some beautiful scenery to help us forget how tired we were. We had walked about eight miles when another pick-up came along and took us all the way back to the hotel. It had been raining for 14 days straight in the park, but for the time we were there, the weather was great and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Yukon all put together.
At our next stop, in Puerto Natales, Chile we stayed in a private house owned by a lady who runs a zapateria, a shoe shop. Throughout South America people live in rooms attached to their place of work. To get to our room we went through the zapateria. She takes in travelers, as many people do down here, and runs the shop. She learned to make shoes when she was 15 and has been doing it for 50 years. She sends boots to Texas and shoes to Israel, all hand made on equipment which looks like hand-me-downs from the industrial revolution. We filmed the shoemaking process and the workers doing their specialties. We interviewed her and her son and then asked if she would like to see the video. Of course she did, and I went to our room to get the proper connections to the TV. When I returned to the room all the workers were sitting there like it was a theater with their hands folded in their lap and sitting very erect in anticipation of seeing something they had never envisioned, themselves on television. I just said "Showtime" and enjoyed watching them more than I did the video. It looked like a scene from one of my classes, except that they all behaved.
Our next stop was 150 miles south to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in Chile. It is very cold and damp, much like the Oregon coast. Here we went to a penguinera, a penguins hatching area. We really enjoyed ourselves. We were absolutely the only people there, and it was wonderful to have the whole place to ourselves. The penguins live in shallow burrows about a foot below ground. They are shy and all run, at least as well as a penguin can run, when you approach them. We got some great pictures of them in their bunkers as well as coming in and going out to sea. At one point there was one which couldn't find a home in which to hide when we approached. He went from one burrow to another but there was no room at the inn. He finally found one, but was huddled close to the front, so I told carol to pet him. She now has two very distinct cuts on her right index finger, living proof to the fact that: 1. Penguins do have some sort of teeth, and 2. They do not like to be petted. Anyone interested in: 1. Hearing Carol scream, 2. Hearing Jim laugh, and 3. Seeing Carol glower at Jim can watch our penguin movie.
We have finally left Patagonia for the last time. We kept criss-crossing it for weeks. There are several truths which can be told about the area. The wind always blows, hard; there are no trees for thousands of miles; all cars have broken windshields since all road are gravel at best, and all cars have non-functional mufflers and therefore, sound like growling, angry beasts as they bounce down the road.
We got a standby flight for half price to Ushuaia and had a beautiful flight down until it got very, very rough. The passengers all became very quiet. A jet crashed across the channel last week killing 20 people and everybody was very nervous. As we attempted to land, the pilot suddenly pulled up and we were forced to fly to another airport awaiting the end of the turbulence. It turned out there was a violent hail storm and after an hours wait, we finally landed without incident to loud applause on the part of the passengers. Actually, Carol and I really enjoyed the whole thing. I never once believed we were in real danger, and even if the plane crashes, you're only dead. It not like it's anything permanent.
While walking to the tourist bureau to try to find a new place to stay (we didn't like our room) we saw this pretty woman waving and jumping up and down. As we got closer, we recognized her as, of course, Sandra. She and Carol picked up, seemingly without a break where they had left off weeks earlier. Sandra had shed her Chilean Friend (he had no spirit) and had taken up with a Swiss for a while and was now with a fellow Brazilian. She told us of a place she knew of, and it was fantastic. It is a fully self-contained apartment. It has a kitchen, our own bathroom, and a heated bedroom. All for the same price we were paying for a closet the other place called a bedroom. Last night, I fixed fried chicken and gravy, mashed potatoes, squash and a salad. Carol made an apple pie and we can't tell you how wonderful it is to have the capability to totally set our own schedule. The apartment is practically new and very, very wonderful.
The apartments are owned by an expatriate Pole, now 80 years old and his Chilean wife. What a fascinating man he is. He was captured by the Germans during WWII and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. He survived that, only to be "Liberated" by the Russians and sent to a forced labor camp in Siberia. He was there for two years before he escaped. Since he could speak Russian, he engaged the guard in conversation and then, with a homemade knife, killed him. Nine Poles escaped and everybody split up. He has no idea what happened to the others, but he began a 10 year odyssey by walking for weeks until he reached Iran, and from there made his way to Africa and what is now Uganda. He stayed there until he could afford the passage to England, and finally decided that he wanted to get as far away from Europe as was possible. Looking at a map, he decided that Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego was that point and has been here for 35 years. With the democratic movement in Poland he is going to make one last pilgrimage to his homeland and take two of his sons with him to see Poland. He has not been there for 50 years There is no bitterness in him towards anything or anybody. He does not feel guilty about what he was forced to do nor does he have animosity about how others have treated him. Carol and I just sat there and listened to him for hours. Of course, we filmed him. His wife is so sweet, just a good person in every sense of the term. With people like these that we keep on meeting, it is easy for you to see why this trip is becoming so very important to us and will be part of us forever.
Tomorrow we goon a boat ride to see some more penguins, sea lions, and possibly whales. As I hope you can all see, everything is going swimmingly for us, and we are meeting tons of people and filming most of them. Right now, I am sitting in a computer lab (5 machines) at the local high school. I started this letter yesterday, but teachers came by since school starts next week and we began comparing notes, like all teachers everywhere. In the end we filmed an interview with them on education in Argentina.
It this is the end of the world, then it's not all that bad. It is cold, but has a natural beauty which is awe inspiring. It seems so different from the humid tropics which await us later in the trip. I know this will not be our last visit to the "End of the World."
Ushuaia, Argentina
They call this area "El Fin del Mundo," and it really looks the part. We are only about 600 miles from Antarctica and this is the southernmost city on earth, but more about that later.
When I last wrote we were at the glacier and since then we have visited others as well. They are enormous structures, sometimes over a mile wide and several hundred feet high. They constantly crack and groan. There is a constant noise which emanates from them and they give off what sounds like gunfire on a continual basis. You'd think that someone was in the middle of it with a rifle. the colors are a deep blue which seems to be translucent. Huge chunks break off of them with enormous roars and huge wakes are created in the water below. One of the small launches on which we went from the mother ship was almost swamped by a wave from a huge chunk which we estimated to be about the size of a school auditorium;.
But to get here to Ushuaia proved a logistical and logical problem which provided us with a hilarious incident involving one of the flowers of Brazil named Sandra.
We had taken a jeep for a four hour trip on Tuesday to catch a ferry which left only on Wednesday to catch a flight which left only on Thursday. Any break in the connection meant a week's delay or a very long 18 hour bus ride. All went well or at least as well as one can reasonably hope for in this part of the world. We caravaned in the jeeps, and one of them broke down. No surprise! We had to wait until it was fixed since on one is left behind down here. It could be disastrous. We still made the ferry all right, but problems arose making the flight. First of all, we wound up in a small town near the border of Chile and Argentina. Since it is not a major crossing point, there was no regular bus schedule to the border or to the next larger town on the Argentine side where we could catch another bus to a still larger town and the airport. Sometimes the bus came by to see if there were passengers and sometimes it didn't. An Argentine couple who had been staying at the same house as us in Coyhaique made arrangements to get a taxi to take them across the border. They came back to pick us up, but by that time our numbers had swollen. In our jeep there had been two Canadians in their 20's and a 75 year old lawyer traveling in the same direction as us;. The five of us decided to see if we could get some transportation to see some prehistoric caves in the area. We had also met Sandra from Brazil and her male Chilean traveling companion. Anyway, the taxi came for us, but there was not room for all of us. It was decided that the two Canadians and I would walk to the border and the rest would ride, since it was only two miles to the border crossing. Six miles and 2 1/2 miles later, we crossed the border and arrived at the Argentine town to try to get to the airport town. By this time Carol and Sandra were fast friends and were really enjoying each other's company. The new problem was that the plane left the next morning at 11:00 a.m. and we had to be at the airport at 10:00, but the bus didn't leave in time to get us there. Sandra decided to take matters into her own hands. She began to flag down pick-ups driven by men which did not have anybody else in them and try to convince the men to take us to the airport the same evening. That woman, she is 28, can move her body in some very subtle, but extremely effective ways. She finally convinced an old Argentine of about 105 to take us there. But two hours later he had not shown up. She found out his name, where he lived, and went to his house. Before she left his house, she had a commitment that he would show up at the hotel at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, would take us to the airport, wait there for the plane, and if we couldn't get on the flight, would take us to the bus station and wait there until we were assured of getting on the long distance bus. All this for $4 per person, the same price as the local bus which wasn't going to get us there in time anyway.
The next morning at 7:55 there he is, hat in hand, literally. He insisted that Sandra sit next to him with Carol sitting by the window. The five males rode in the back and off we went in search of the airport. I thought that Carol would die laughing later when she related the story of the ride in the pick-up cab. Apparently he old man did not sleep well that previous night. He kept wondering what it would be like driving the next morning with Sandra sitting next to him all the way. We was convinced that she was some kind of a witch since she had found out his name and where she lived. Carol took a picture of the two of the them together, and he was a sight. He stood very erect, put his arm around Sandra, and with his other hand put his hat to his heart. He made Carol promise to send him the picture. He later reminded her of her promise and just before he left us for the final time, reminded her of it again. In the end, there was only room enough on the plane for two people. The first person to write back and correctly guess who got the plane ride and who got the 18 hour bus ride wins a free picture of Sandra.
That was the end of Sandra, or so we thought at the time. The bus ride was long and tiring, but we finally made our destination, and we arrived at Calafate with the two Canadians, Wayne, Bruce, and the Colorado lawyer, Paul. The five of us were to spend the next week together and we all had a lot of fun laughing about Sandra and "Her way with men." Carol assured Wayne and Bruce that Brazil is filled with women like this.
In Calafate, we stayed in the home of a 75 year old woman and her 80 year old husband. Both are very spry and lively. He is an artist who works with wood and does beautiful word. We filmed much of it with him talking about his past. She runs the house and takes in guests, does their laundry, and works in the garden. Paul had a hole in his pant which she mended. We teased him about what his wife would say in Colorado.
We wanted to visit a famous glacier near Calafate, but the tour buses were filled. So we found a taxi which would take us there. The only problem was that it could hold no more than the five people and with the driver we were six. No problem, he gave us his car keys and off we went for the day. It was great to have the flexibility of setting our own time schedule and stopping when we wanted.
We also met an Argentine family with three kids. During one day when there was a lot of rain and we were all stuck together in a shelter, we filmed the three kids for Carol's classes (remember we're working) and they were great fun. The 14 year old boy enjoys computers and he and I are going to spend some time working on some Macintosh's in Buenos Aires when we get there next week. The parents are great and want us to come over for a barbecue when we arrive.
After the week together Wayne, Bruce, Paul Carol and I each went our own ways. Paul went to Antarctica. We could have gone, too, but decided against it. Wayne and Bruce? Well, when last seen they were making their way towards Brazil.
Carol and I went to the Torres del Paine National Park where we filmed rheas, flamingos, foxes, and gorgeous guanacos. To get to the guanacos in the park we had to walk about three miles where we got a ride in the back of a pick-up for another 20 miles and then film. By this point it was about five in the afternoon and we had a very long walk back since there didn't seem to be any return traffic. We began and had some beautiful scenery to help us forget how tired we were. We had walked about eight miles when another pick-up came along and took us all the way back to the hotel. It had been raining for 14 days straight in the park, but for the time we were there, the weather was great and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Yukon all put together.
At our next stop, in Puerto Natales, Chile we stayed in a private house owned by a lady who runs a zapateria, a shoe shop. Throughout South America people live in rooms attached to their place of work. To get to our room we went through the zapateria. She takes in travelers, as many people do down here, and runs the shop. She learned to make shoes when she was 15 and has been doing it for 50 years. She sends boots to Texas and shoes to Israel, all hand made on equipment which looks like hand-me-downs from the industrial revolution. We filmed the shoemaking process and the workers doing their specialties. We interviewed her and her son and then asked if she would like to see the video. Of course she did, and I went to our room to get the proper connections to the TV. When I returned to the room all the workers were sitting there like it was a theater with their hands folded in their lap and sitting very erect in anticipation of seeing something they had never envisioned, themselves on television. I just said "Showtime" and enjoyed watching them more than I did the video. It looked like a scene from one of my classes, except that they all behaved.
Our next stop was 150 miles south to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in Chile. It is very cold and damp, much like the Oregon coast. Here we went to a penguinera, a penguins hatching area. We really enjoyed ourselves. We were absolutely the only people there, and it was wonderful to have the whole place to ourselves. The penguins live in shallow burrows about a foot below ground. They are shy and all run, at least as well as a penguin can run, when you approach them. We got some great pictures of them in their bunkers as well as coming in and going out to sea. At one point there was one which couldn't find a home in which to hide when we approached. He went from one burrow to another but there was no room at the inn. He finally found one, but was huddled close to the front, so I told carol to pet him. She now has two very distinct cuts on her right index finger, living proof to the fact that: 1. Penguins do have some sort of teeth, and 2. They do not like to be petted. Anyone interested in: 1. Hearing Carol scream, 2. Hearing Jim laugh, and 3. Seeing Carol glower at Jim can watch our penguin movie.
We have finally left Patagonia for the last time. We kept criss-crossing it for weeks. There are several truths which can be told about the area. The wind always blows, hard; there are no trees for thousands of miles; all cars have broken windshields since all road are gravel at best, and all cars have non-functional mufflers and therefore, sound like growling, angry beasts as they bounce down the road.
We got a standby flight for half price to Ushuaia and had a beautiful flight down until it got very, very rough. The passengers all became very quiet. A jet crashed across the channel last week killing 20 people and everybody was very nervous. As we attempted to land, the pilot suddenly pulled up and we were forced to fly to another airport awaiting the end of the turbulence. It turned out there was a violent hail storm and after an hours wait, we finally landed without incident to loud applause on the part of the passengers. Actually, Carol and I really enjoyed the whole thing. I never once believed we were in real danger, and even if the plane crashes, you're only dead. It not like it's anything permanent.
While walking to the tourist bureau to try to find a new place to stay (we didn't like our room) we saw this pretty woman waving and jumping up and down. As we got closer, we recognized her as, of course, Sandra. She and Carol picked up, seemingly without a break where they had left off weeks earlier. Sandra had shed her Chilean Friend (he had no spirit) and had taken up with a Swiss for a while and was now with a fellow Brazilian. She told us of a place she knew of, and it was fantastic. It is a fully self-contained apartment. It has a kitchen, our own bathroom, and a heated bedroom. All for the same price we were paying for a closet the other place called a bedroom. Last night, I fixed fried chicken and gravy, mashed potatoes, squash and a salad. Carol made an apple pie and we can't tell you how wonderful it is to have the capability to totally set our own schedule. The apartment is practically new and very, very wonderful.
The apartments are owned by an expatriate Pole, now 80 years old and his Chilean wife. What a fascinating man he is. He was captured by the Germans during WWII and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. He survived that, only to be "Liberated" by the Russians and sent to a forced labor camp in Siberia. He was there for two years before he escaped. Since he could speak Russian, he engaged the guard in conversation and then, with a homemade knife, killed him. Nine Poles escaped and everybody split up. He has no idea what happened to the others, but he began a 10 year odyssey by walking for weeks until he reached Iran, and from there made his way to Africa and what is now Uganda. He stayed there until he could afford the passage to England, and finally decided that he wanted to get as far away from Europe as was possible. Looking at a map, he decided that Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego was that point and has been here for 35 years. With the democratic movement in Poland he is going to make one last pilgrimage to his homeland and take two of his sons with him to see Poland. He has not been there for 50 years There is no bitterness in him towards anything or anybody. He does not feel guilty about what he was forced to do nor does he have animosity about how others have treated him. Carol and I just sat there and listened to him for hours. Of course, we filmed him. His wife is so sweet, just a good person in every sense of the term. With people like these that we keep on meeting, it is easy for you to see why this trip is becoming so very important to us and will be part of us forever.
Tomorrow we goon a boat ride to see some more penguins, sea lions, and possibly whales. As I hope you can all see, everything is going swimmingly for us, and we are meeting tons of people and filming most of them. Right now, I am sitting in a computer lab (5 machines) at the local high school. I started this letter yesterday, but teachers came by since school starts next week and we began comparing notes, like all teachers everywhere. In the end we filmed an interview with them on education in Argentina.
It this is the end of the world, then it's not all that bad. It is cold, but has a natural beauty which is awe inspiring. It seems so different from the humid tropics which await us later in the trip. I know this will not be our last visit to the "End of the World."
Carol and Jim have a fight
26 March 1991
Buenas Aires
Well, it was bound to happen. Spending 24 hours a day and months on end with each other, little disagreements are bound to happen, and Carol and I have had our first major fight of the trip. We were in Ushuaia at what they call El Fin del Mundo, and we were listening to a lecture on the Ona indians. The lecturer said that one of the traditions of the now extinct indians was that the men fished while the women rowed the canoes. I simply mentioned that I thought it sounded like the firm foundation of a good, working marital arrangement and that was all it took. Carol countered that she wished the indians were not extinct because she wanted to teach those women to get the men to stick their own oars in the water. But in the end it was all smoothed over and we are now back on speaking terms. I am sure that you are all relieved to hear that.
I wish there was some nice, easy way to describe Argentina like there was to Chile. There, everything could be categorized: Clean country, things worked, and if they didn't, they got fixed, stabled government and economy. Things just seem to be the opposite here.
Everything is in chaos here, but it is so alive, so vibrant, that in spite of all the problems the nation has, it is impossible not to be impressed with the spirit of the people who just keep on going in spite of what seems to be overwhelming odds. For instance: Economically, things could not be worse. The currency is now worth half of what it was just one month ago. In the time we have been here in Bs. As. prices have jumped 10-20 percent across the board, and this follows a general doubling just before we arrived. Everything for sale is quoted in $U.S. because the Austral means nothing from one day to the next. They are trying to formally "dollarize" the economy. When you ask the price of something from seats in the concert hall to the price of sweaters, they are quoted in dollars. Prices of cars and houses listed for sale in the newspaper are listed in dollars. People want to be paid in dollars for goods and services they provide, and there seems to be little hope that things will improve. The people believe things will only get worse.
Because of these problems, there is a real brain drain here. People with all the know-how leave the country. There are not enough trained professors to stock the universities because so many of them have left, and the ones who have stayed have gone to private universities, so that essentially there is no longer any public higher education in the nation. This has always been one of the strong points of the nation: Free public education for as long as you continued to study. Quality elementary and secondary schools are now almost entirely private too, because the state schools simply do not pay a living salary to teachers.
Unity: This country definitely is not together. We ask so many people why, and the answers are as varied as the individuals answering, but they all agree that they are not together. The only time they were, they seem to agree, was during the "Malvinas (Falklands) War", and even that turned out to be a rip-off. Up until the very last day, they were all told that they were winning, and then the ugly shock that they got their collective buns whipped was a terrible blow. It had the effect of making unity an even more difficult task, because they all felt so used over the war. At the end of the war, all the soldiers were flown back to Argentina at night. No mention was made of them in the papers, all those killed were buried on the Falklands, and overnight, all the medial went from nothing but stories of the war to absolutely nothing about it. Last week the papers told that for the first time since the war was over, the parents of the soldiers killed were able to go to the islands and visit the graves of their sons, husbands, and loved ones. NINE YEARS LATER!!! Up to this time, the people could only grieve. As a parent whose son was in the Gulf, this was an especially touching story.
Contrasted with the Falklands conflict, what they refer to here as the "Dirty War" is still a touch story here. That is where during the 70's up to 80,000 young boys and girls in their early 20's were kidnapped by the military junta and about 20,000 of them were never heard from again. To this day the mothers of those never accounted for still march demanding the truth. Rent the Video "The Official Story" for a realistic picture of that period.
But enough negatives. There are many positive items to talk about as well. The best of which is the Levezzi family. We met them in Calafate. We had to agree, it wasn't hard to do, to call them when we got to Bs. As. There are three children. Marcela is celebrating her 11th birthday with us tomorrow at a local restaurant and is a real live wire. A totally free spirit, the kid of kid that every teacher would love to have in their class because she would add so much. Pablo is 14 and very interested in computer. I brought him down to the Apple outlet here (where I'm typing this letter) and he and I had a great time together. He had never worked with a Mac before, and they let me use a color monitor and he really freaked. It was great. And there is Maria, A serious 16 year old who loves to draw and writes her own comic books. Mom is a teacher (in a private school of course) and dad is an electrical engineer. They display a unity and closeness which seems to be so common here. I think that their's is special, but they do not. They are just an average family, socially at least. Obviously, professionally they are not average. They had us over for an "Asada" the other night. That is the Argentine equivalent of a barbecue. In a city of 12 million, barbecues are held on rooftops. They picked us up at 7:30 and I thought, "Oh well, we will eat and be home around 10. We finished eating at one in the morning and when we finally got home at three we just could not believe it. It was like Monday morning traffic. I mean everybody was out. There were traffic jams, the late movies were just starting, and there were thousands, hundreds of thousands of people just walking the streets. Suzi, the mom, said "It's early, let me take you by and show you my school." Right lady, I always visit schools at three in the morning. These people are just incredible. Not only adults, either, little kids are out, teenagers, everybody. We old folks went home and went to bed. All I know is that no matter what problems the country has, with people like the Lavezzi family, Argentina is in great shape. We consider all of them to be our very good friends. If we didn't have any other reason to return to South America (we do) they would be reason enough.
The Argentines operate their traffic by what Carol calls "Supply and Demand Traffic Control." Bs. As. is made up almost entirely of one way streets. The large boulevards, up to 12 lanes are two way, but smaller Avenidas six lanes and under are all one way. There seems to be a law that there are traffic lights only on streets with four lanes or more. So to get across the street the people, or cross traffic, simply begin piling up until there is a slight break, or until some brave soul is willing to stick his neck out and then there is a massive surge of pedestrians or cars in cross traffic, again until there is a slight break or some brace soul..............etc. And this goes on from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 in the morning, and that is not a typing error.
There seems to be a serious shortage of material here for women's clothing. They are about six inches too short at the top, most of them being the off the shoulder type, and about a foot short at the bottom. Half of the women walking down the street are either pulling their blouses up or their skirts down. The other half should. Well, at least one of us thinks they should, anyway.
About the only thing that is not expensive here is food. There are many "Tenador Libre" places here. Literally translated it means "Free Fork." What it really means is that they are all you can eat places. We get vegetarian places for $3 with drinks and dessert included, and Chinese or other smorgasbord types at dinner for $2. no drink or dessert. We porked out for the first week, and finally asked, "Why are we doing this to ourselves." We now have one or the other for lunch and skip dinner entirely.
We have been attending school in the evenings, while Carol also has private lessons with a very cultured and well informed woman during the day. She gets to talk about the things she wants to talk about and has really honed in on Argentine literature and culture. She writes voluminous notes. One whole session was about the tango. The heart and soul of Bs. As.
It has been great to stay in one place for a while, but we are getting antsy to get rolling again. Mail has been sporadic. We had mail forwarded to us at Puerto Madryn, but it is taking about three weeks time, not two as we anticipated. We have heard from Jackie, Dennis, Several from Angie (daughter), my mom, Mickie, Amy, and the Vaters. If others of you have written, well keep trying. We would love to hear from you.
We went to a soccer match here, complete with barbed wire fences and a filled moat to keep the fans off the field. The visiting team has to come out from an air filled tunnel and doesn't appear to the public until they are well out of throwing range. This is for their own safety. The fans shout taunts at each other all game, and you wonder who is actually watching the game. It was great fun, but you wonder who can afford to go. The tickets cost $18 a piece. Everything is really expensive, except for the food.
I had my usual fight with the American Embassy. Bastards they are, and I don't care who hears it. When I was young and traveling, I felt the same way and nothing has changed in 30 years. I wanted to see if there were any messages left for me about my son, following the way, and was informed that they don't accept letters or messages. They return all to the sender. They wouldn't even check for me. I have always felt that as an American citizen, the embassy was totally a waste of time unless you lose you passport. They are not for Americans. They are there for the people trying to get visas to get into the country, but are useless to their own citizens. from some of the conversations around the room while there, my feelings are not isolated.
The American kids we see traveling around here by backpack are, by and large, very good ambassadors for our country. I can't say the same thing for the adults, but the young ones are great. They mix well and don do a big, "Hey, I"m an American" number.
We ran into Paul, the 75 year old lawyer from our last letter. He was supposed to be in Antarctica, but the boat sank before they left and obviously, he never made it. We ran into him on the street 2000 miles from where we left him.
We bailed from Ushuaia by flying for 1,000 miles but Carol made me tough it out instead of wimping out, and we did another 22 hour bus ride. After the first one, I swore I'd never do another one. I said it again. Who knows?" Next week is my 50th birthday, I'm going into mourning somewhere in Uruguay. We leave in two days to hit the road again.
Everything is wonderful here. I have not left the Lavezzi's yet, but I already miss them. I really want to polish my Spanish so that I can talk more with Carlos (dad). Argentina has been wonderful. I didn't know what to expect after our first short visit. But you really can't compare countries. Each has their own strength and differences, and each is wonderful. You just have to get to know the people. Luckily we have.
Hope all of you are well. This is Easter vacation for many of you and we thing of all of you. Carol had a dream about Marty at school the other night.
Two months down, and it is going fast.
Love to most of you, Ha!
Jim and Carol
Buenas Aires
Well, it was bound to happen. Spending 24 hours a day and months on end with each other, little disagreements are bound to happen, and Carol and I have had our first major fight of the trip. We were in Ushuaia at what they call El Fin del Mundo, and we were listening to a lecture on the Ona indians. The lecturer said that one of the traditions of the now extinct indians was that the men fished while the women rowed the canoes. I simply mentioned that I thought it sounded like the firm foundation of a good, working marital arrangement and that was all it took. Carol countered that she wished the indians were not extinct because she wanted to teach those women to get the men to stick their own oars in the water. But in the end it was all smoothed over and we are now back on speaking terms. I am sure that you are all relieved to hear that.
I wish there was some nice, easy way to describe Argentina like there was to Chile. There, everything could be categorized: Clean country, things worked, and if they didn't, they got fixed, stabled government and economy. Things just seem to be the opposite here.
Everything is in chaos here, but it is so alive, so vibrant, that in spite of all the problems the nation has, it is impossible not to be impressed with the spirit of the people who just keep on going in spite of what seems to be overwhelming odds. For instance: Economically, things could not be worse. The currency is now worth half of what it was just one month ago. In the time we have been here in Bs. As. prices have jumped 10-20 percent across the board, and this follows a general doubling just before we arrived. Everything for sale is quoted in $U.S. because the Austral means nothing from one day to the next. They are trying to formally "dollarize" the economy. When you ask the price of something from seats in the concert hall to the price of sweaters, they are quoted in dollars. Prices of cars and houses listed for sale in the newspaper are listed in dollars. People want to be paid in dollars for goods and services they provide, and there seems to be little hope that things will improve. The people believe things will only get worse.
Because of these problems, there is a real brain drain here. People with all the know-how leave the country. There are not enough trained professors to stock the universities because so many of them have left, and the ones who have stayed have gone to private universities, so that essentially there is no longer any public higher education in the nation. This has always been one of the strong points of the nation: Free public education for as long as you continued to study. Quality elementary and secondary schools are now almost entirely private too, because the state schools simply do not pay a living salary to teachers.
Unity: This country definitely is not together. We ask so many people why, and the answers are as varied as the individuals answering, but they all agree that they are not together. The only time they were, they seem to agree, was during the "Malvinas (Falklands) War", and even that turned out to be a rip-off. Up until the very last day, they were all told that they were winning, and then the ugly shock that they got their collective buns whipped was a terrible blow. It had the effect of making unity an even more difficult task, because they all felt so used over the war. At the end of the war, all the soldiers were flown back to Argentina at night. No mention was made of them in the papers, all those killed were buried on the Falklands, and overnight, all the medial went from nothing but stories of the war to absolutely nothing about it. Last week the papers told that for the first time since the war was over, the parents of the soldiers killed were able to go to the islands and visit the graves of their sons, husbands, and loved ones. NINE YEARS LATER!!! Up to this time, the people could only grieve. As a parent whose son was in the Gulf, this was an especially touching story.
Contrasted with the Falklands conflict, what they refer to here as the "Dirty War" is still a touch story here. That is where during the 70's up to 80,000 young boys and girls in their early 20's were kidnapped by the military junta and about 20,000 of them were never heard from again. To this day the mothers of those never accounted for still march demanding the truth. Rent the Video "The Official Story" for a realistic picture of that period.
But enough negatives. There are many positive items to talk about as well. The best of which is the Levezzi family. We met them in Calafate. We had to agree, it wasn't hard to do, to call them when we got to Bs. As. There are three children. Marcela is celebrating her 11th birthday with us tomorrow at a local restaurant and is a real live wire. A totally free spirit, the kid of kid that every teacher would love to have in their class because she would add so much. Pablo is 14 and very interested in computer. I brought him down to the Apple outlet here (where I'm typing this letter) and he and I had a great time together. He had never worked with a Mac before, and they let me use a color monitor and he really freaked. It was great. And there is Maria, A serious 16 year old who loves to draw and writes her own comic books. Mom is a teacher (in a private school of course) and dad is an electrical engineer. They display a unity and closeness which seems to be so common here. I think that their's is special, but they do not. They are just an average family, socially at least. Obviously, professionally they are not average. They had us over for an "Asada" the other night. That is the Argentine equivalent of a barbecue. In a city of 12 million, barbecues are held on rooftops. They picked us up at 7:30 and I thought, "Oh well, we will eat and be home around 10. We finished eating at one in the morning and when we finally got home at three we just could not believe it. It was like Monday morning traffic. I mean everybody was out. There were traffic jams, the late movies were just starting, and there were thousands, hundreds of thousands of people just walking the streets. Suzi, the mom, said "It's early, let me take you by and show you my school." Right lady, I always visit schools at three in the morning. These people are just incredible. Not only adults, either, little kids are out, teenagers, everybody. We old folks went home and went to bed. All I know is that no matter what problems the country has, with people like the Lavezzi family, Argentina is in great shape. We consider all of them to be our very good friends. If we didn't have any other reason to return to South America (we do) they would be reason enough.
The Argentines operate their traffic by what Carol calls "Supply and Demand Traffic Control." Bs. As. is made up almost entirely of one way streets. The large boulevards, up to 12 lanes are two way, but smaller Avenidas six lanes and under are all one way. There seems to be a law that there are traffic lights only on streets with four lanes or more. So to get across the street the people, or cross traffic, simply begin piling up until there is a slight break, or until some brave soul is willing to stick his neck out and then there is a massive surge of pedestrians or cars in cross traffic, again until there is a slight break or some brace soul..............etc. And this goes on from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 in the morning, and that is not a typing error.
There seems to be a serious shortage of material here for women's clothing. They are about six inches too short at the top, most of them being the off the shoulder type, and about a foot short at the bottom. Half of the women walking down the street are either pulling their blouses up or their skirts down. The other half should. Well, at least one of us thinks they should, anyway.
About the only thing that is not expensive here is food. There are many "Tenador Libre" places here. Literally translated it means "Free Fork." What it really means is that they are all you can eat places. We get vegetarian places for $3 with drinks and dessert included, and Chinese or other smorgasbord types at dinner for $2. no drink or dessert. We porked out for the first week, and finally asked, "Why are we doing this to ourselves." We now have one or the other for lunch and skip dinner entirely.
We have been attending school in the evenings, while Carol also has private lessons with a very cultured and well informed woman during the day. She gets to talk about the things she wants to talk about and has really honed in on Argentine literature and culture. She writes voluminous notes. One whole session was about the tango. The heart and soul of Bs. As.
It has been great to stay in one place for a while, but we are getting antsy to get rolling again. Mail has been sporadic. We had mail forwarded to us at Puerto Madryn, but it is taking about three weeks time, not two as we anticipated. We have heard from Jackie, Dennis, Several from Angie (daughter), my mom, Mickie, Amy, and the Vaters. If others of you have written, well keep trying. We would love to hear from you.
We went to a soccer match here, complete with barbed wire fences and a filled moat to keep the fans off the field. The visiting team has to come out from an air filled tunnel and doesn't appear to the public until they are well out of throwing range. This is for their own safety. The fans shout taunts at each other all game, and you wonder who is actually watching the game. It was great fun, but you wonder who can afford to go. The tickets cost $18 a piece. Everything is really expensive, except for the food.
I had my usual fight with the American Embassy. Bastards they are, and I don't care who hears it. When I was young and traveling, I felt the same way and nothing has changed in 30 years. I wanted to see if there were any messages left for me about my son, following the way, and was informed that they don't accept letters or messages. They return all to the sender. They wouldn't even check for me. I have always felt that as an American citizen, the embassy was totally a waste of time unless you lose you passport. They are not for Americans. They are there for the people trying to get visas to get into the country, but are useless to their own citizens. from some of the conversations around the room while there, my feelings are not isolated.
The American kids we see traveling around here by backpack are, by and large, very good ambassadors for our country. I can't say the same thing for the adults, but the young ones are great. They mix well and don do a big, "Hey, I"m an American" number.
We ran into Paul, the 75 year old lawyer from our last letter. He was supposed to be in Antarctica, but the boat sank before they left and obviously, he never made it. We ran into him on the street 2000 miles from where we left him.
We bailed from Ushuaia by flying for 1,000 miles but Carol made me tough it out instead of wimping out, and we did another 22 hour bus ride. After the first one, I swore I'd never do another one. I said it again. Who knows?" Next week is my 50th birthday, I'm going into mourning somewhere in Uruguay. We leave in two days to hit the road again.
Everything is wonderful here. I have not left the Lavezzi's yet, but I already miss them. I really want to polish my Spanish so that I can talk more with Carlos (dad). Argentina has been wonderful. I didn't know what to expect after our first short visit. But you really can't compare countries. Each has their own strength and differences, and each is wonderful. You just have to get to know the people. Luckily we have.
Hope all of you are well. This is Easter vacation for many of you and we thing of all of you. Carol had a dream about Marty at school the other night.
Two months down, and it is going fast.
Love to most of you, Ha!
Jim and Carol
Max Sennat taxi escapade
We are now in Asuncion, Paraguay as you can see from the postmark, but that information will have to come in the next letter. First I have to catch you up on Uruguay and for postage purposes, I have to keep this to four pages. I am working here at Apple headquarters for Paraguay. All the Apple outlets in south America have been more than willing to allow me time to use their machines and share some thoughts with you. Now if only some of you would share your thoughts with us. Hint!! Hint!!
We arrived in Montevideo after a three hour trip across a sea of chocolate mousse known as the Rio de la Plata. It is really incredible. It felt like we wer sailing across a pudding bowl and we expected to see Bill Cosby and a bunch of kids all with spoons in their hands spring out of the water. It truly is that color from all the erosion which takes place upstream, and we're talking three hours across the river.
Immediately upon landing things were different. It's only across the river, but everything was more tropical. The first thing we noticed about a change in personality between the Argentinos and Uruguayos was when the bus driver announced that there would be no smoking on the bus. All the Argentine buses had similar signs on board, but since a large number of the total population and a disconcerting number of young people smoke, everybody simply ignore the signs. We were traveling toward Montevideo when the bus came to a screaming halt. We thought that something drastic must have happened, but the driver came in a huff to the back of the bus announcing sternly, "I told you, there would be no smoking." We knew that we would like Uruguay. And like it we did. The flora wasn't the only change. The styles are not nearly as chic and the shops not as up to date. Bs.As. is so style conscious. In Montevideo, it just didn't seem to be important.
The climate is not nearly as humid which made it possible to have a hotel of "Lesser quality." Actually, it was the pits, but it was cheap and central, $12 a night. Air conditioning was not necessary as it had been in Bs. As.
Another change was the for the first time we saw blacks. We couldn't remember seeing any in Chile and very few in Argentina. There were just as many slaves sent to Argentina as to Brazil, but because they were poor and so many of them were in the military, they fought many of Argentina's wars and most were killed. In Uruguay, with its proximity to Brazil, the black population has stabilized, and they add a joy of life which really sparkles.
It was Easter week when we arrived and that means fiesta time in Uruguay, particularly gaucho fiestas. I always think of Argentina when I think of Gauchos, but we saw many more in Uruguay. We went to rodeos, barbecues, and had a great time. When we were walking aroun the campgrounds, we saw thousands of people camping and in particular the blacks had their own music and dancing and obviously were having the best time of all. When we filmed their music and dancing, they would absolutely perfom for us. The people of South America never met a camera they didn't like. The people were very poor and their food meager, but they insisted upon sharing it with us. We had honored them by taking their picture, and they had to honor us by sharing what they had. I've said it befor, the poorest people are always the most generous.
Everywhere in South America you see people with their "Mate" (ma-te). It is a bitte herb which they drink from a hollowed out gourd. The mate itself looks like ground alfalfa (tastes like it as well). They carry thermos bottles around with them and pour boiling water into the gourd which mixes with the mate and they drink it through a metal straw. We have seen it all through the continent, but never in the massive numbers of the Uruguayans. Everybody drinks the mate. At fiestas they have 50 gallon drums with fires underneath to heat the water inside the drums. They have rigged a spout in the bottom of the drum and people come and buy hot water to refill their thermos. It is not to my taste, but it took me a year of drinking coffee in college before I could honestly say that I enjoyed that, so it is hard to judge.
Geographically, this Nebraska sized nation is either beaches or rolling hills. The highest point is less than 1500 feet, so it was a change coming from the Andean areas we have been in. But the beaches are magnificent. I can't say the same for the look of the ocean, but the fine sand and mile after mile of spotless beaches were exceptional. One day I put on my swimming trunks and just ran barefooted right at the shore line for miles and miles. Well, actually, for parts of miles and miles. It was beautiful.
Carol had a 40 minute interview which we taped with the president of "Manos del Uruguay." It means simply the hands of Uruguay. It is an organization started 22 years ago to organize the creative talent of the rural women who wre very poor and who had no outlet for their work. It is a cooperative venture and they all share in it the same. The president makes the same as the women who spin and weave. they do everything by and and it is the most gorgeous I have ever seen. Carol, since she knows about the fiber arts was particularly impressed. We went out and saw the women in the countryside working, and Carol came away wanting to get back to her spinning and weaving. The president has only a 3rd grade education, but this lady is no dummy. Extremely literate and astute in business-wise, she can serve as president for only two years, at which time somebody else will be elected for the next term. Other groups in South America have tried to emulate the experiences, but it is unique.We came away $200 lighter but many suitcase pounds heavier.
Politically, Uruguay is really confusing. For instance, they developed the best and earliest of the social systems in South America. By1915, Uruguay had nationalized the public services, controlled heavy industry, had free medical service for all, old age pensions, unemployment pay, legal status for illegitimate children, free and compulsory education, abolished capital punishment, and de-established the church. All this by 1915.
I remember that when I was in school, Uruguay was a model of how things could be. Well, things change. Most people blame the politicians, but by the late 60:s and early 70:s things had begun to disintegrate. "Everything was too easy," they told us. Nobody really realized that to maintain such a system required a lot of foresight. The roads fell into disrepair, the bureaucracy was interminably slow, inflation soared, and people began to talk about change. Some people did more than talk, and like many Latin American countries, a Castro-inspired group called the "Tupamaurus" gained a lot of public support. While their ideals were lofty, like many movements, they in the end resorted to terrorist tactics, and revolution was in the air.
Finally, no surprise in Latin America, the military took over and began a very harsh and repressive reign. In Chile, then Argentina, and now Uruguay, the pattern has been similar. Civil strife to improve life leads to military rule. Democracy has been reinstated now, and they have a democratically elected government. As an example of how repressive the military regime was, whenever a group of "Manos" women got together to weave their sweaters and shawls, they had to have a policeman present because they might be plotting revolution.
Once again, we hit the jackpot people-wise. One of Carol's students, Alissa Harris mentioned to her one day that while her mom was in high school, she had a foreign exchange student from Uruguay live with them for a year, and that they had remained friends for the last 25years. We were given names, addresses, and presents to deliver and spent some wonderful days with Laura and her family. They live in a small resort town called Atlantida right on the coast, of course. The setting and people wre magnificent. They were so kind to us. They took us all around, fed us, put us up for the night, and once again, we have new friends who we will see again. Laura's father is the governor of the district and both he and her mother are two very lively, bright-eyed people who only find good in the world. Laura found a prince of a man to father her five children and this family unity thing, again, was made very obvious to us. We certainly have lost something at home with our hurry-scurry lives which take us all in different directions. These people have something a whole lot more important than material success and social prominence.
Laura made it possible for us to visit schools and we had an opportunity to film in them as well. Our kids would die, but all the students here wear some kind of uniform. I can just see our 7th grade boys having heart failure that they had to wear a knee-length white smock with a big blue bow tied in the middle under their chin. The thing is none of these kids mind it. Since everybody does it, it is no big thing. They don't run home and tear them off as soon as possible. Talk about overcrowed schools. There is one school for the 7th - 12 grades, and the kids all go at different times. Laura has two daughters who go from 8 a.m to noon, a daughter who goes from noon to 4 p.m., a son who goes from 1 to 5 p.m., and a daughter who goes from 4 to 8 p. m. Four of them in the same school. Triple session. The school runs from 8 in the morning until 8 at night. Our kids would climb the walls at having to be in school at seven in the evening.
Right now in Montevideo they are having a problem with attendance. Not with themidle and poorer classes, but with the rich kids. More than 50% of them miss more than 50 of the 180 days of school. This is only with the upper classes and they are trying to figure out why. Editorially speaking, I believe that like a lot of kids who have it easy, it is had for them to see the advantage of having to make it on their own. I also wonder how long countries down here can maintain customs which are centuries old in the face of an onslaught of overwhelming influx of outside culture, particularly North American culture. TV shows, movies, fashions, fads. The whole works. I certainly am not convinced that it is a good thing. I only know that it is happening and is not about to change with the technological advances making this globe a lot smaller than it is.
I had my 50th birthday in Punta Del Este, that playground of the rich and famous in Uruguay. Miles and miles of beaches, magnificent homes with really different architecture, huge hotels, and just for my birthday enjoyment, casinos. I expected to see Robin Leach, I don't know if that is how he spells his name, but it should be. I had eagerly looking forward to my birthday here since we figured out that was where we would be. I wanted to have some fun for my birthday and gamble a while. Well....
I got an equivalent of $40 in chips with which to start. Chips? I got one! Since it is the off season, there were only three of us in the whole casino and the other two were playing roulette. I wanted to play craps, a teacher at our school, Jane Walsh, had taught me how to play in December, but they don't play that here, so I headed for the blackjack table. I had the whole table and the dealer to myself, great. I converted my one chip into smaller ones and now I had three chips. Two worth $15 each and one worth $10. I wanted chips worth smaller amounts. I mean I want the $2 table, right? Wrong! The minimum bet is $15. After two hands of blackjack, I no longer have enough moneyto bet. So I headed to the roulette table where the other two guy are playing. I converted my $10 chip into five chips worth $2 each. Not wanting to spend my total wealth all at once I placed three of my yellow chips covering the corners of four numbers. Well, the other guys were not playing my game. They were in a world of their own. Seriously, they bet between $500 - $600 s pop. They threw their green and red chips all over the board and kept throwing them until the croupier said, "No mas." My poor little spots of yellow looked embarrassed to be in among the sea of red and green. It was really pitiable. They looked at me like "What in the hell are you doing here." These two had so many numbers covered with multiple chips there was no way they could lose everything. When the number was announced, there was a massive raking of chips and returning of multiple red and green chips, but my poor yellows disappeared forever. It took me about 2 1/2 minutes to go from the birthday boy to the stupid fool who should stay on the porch if he can't run with the big dogs. I walked away depressed, poorer, and probably not any wiser than when I entered. I left Punta del Este the next morning not looking back.
We left Uruguay and headed for Paraguay. It took us back into Argentina for the fourth time. It is difficult to move around here without crisscrossing it. we got a taxi to take us from the border town of Paysandu, Uruguay to Colon, Argentina. I sat in the front seat with the teen-age driver, he insisted on it that way. The woman, after all, belongs in the back. When we got out at the bus station at Colon, I realized that I had forgotten our "Bible," as it is referred to among travelers down here. The South American Handbook is an invaluable source of information ranging from hotels and restaurants to laundries to what to do with whom and at what cost. We had to have it back. With 30 minutes left before the only bus of the day left, carol jumped into another taxi to chase the first taxi back to the border. But wait, here comes the kid in the first taxi back with the book. He saw it on the floor of the front seat and came back with it. Only Carol doesn't know that, and she is chasing some phantom taxi back to the border. So the first taxi tears off chasing the taxi which is chasing him. It was all very surrealistic, like something out of "It's a Mad Mad World." I thought about getting into another taxi and chasing after Carol, but that seemed a little too weird, so I just held firm. Faster and faster Carol's driver went because he can't see the first taxi. Finally, at the border they find out that the first driver had not recrossed into Uruguay and they retraced their steps trying to find him. They did, because he had to stop when his windshield wipers fell off. It had begun to rain and he was forced to turn them on, always a chancy event. This tells you something about the condition of taxis down here. It all got sorted out, the bus was ten minutes late, which gave Carol enough time to get back and off we headed for Paraguay, bible in hand.
One other thing about Uruguay. Because they do not have any auto industry here cars are VERY expensive (The absolute cheapest is a stripped down model of Fiat from Brazil for $12,000) particularly on a Uruguayan Salary, they keep cars going forever. We saw many model A fords. Since Laura's husband is my age, he and I had a great time spotting cars from our high school days and trying to be the first one to correctly identify the 55 ford (not a 56 Dennis) or the 57 Chevy. It was maravilloso, as they say. One night a family was attempting to start a '49 Hudson. The battery was not up the the task so the wife and daughter got out to push while the husband sat behind the wheel and "Popped" the clutch. (Sounds like the Onas with their fishing). They were not getting very far, so I began pushing, another passerby joined in, and the engine caught with a sputter and they were off. It was great. I mean how many more times in my life am I going to be able to push a Hudson.
Well, they are about to close for the weekend here so I have to close up myself. I will write about Paraguay, which is just now coming out from 35 years of dictatorship under Stroessner. We are still having a wonderful time and it is every bit the great adventure that we had hoped it would be. We are learning much and it is certainly money and time well spent. Take care and we will, fortunately or unfortunately, be home before very much longer. It seems to be going very quickly.
Love to all, (except Al)
We arrived in Montevideo after a three hour trip across a sea of chocolate mousse known as the Rio de la Plata. It is really incredible. It felt like we wer sailing across a pudding bowl and we expected to see Bill Cosby and a bunch of kids all with spoons in their hands spring out of the water. It truly is that color from all the erosion which takes place upstream, and we're talking three hours across the river.
Immediately upon landing things were different. It's only across the river, but everything was more tropical. The first thing we noticed about a change in personality between the Argentinos and Uruguayos was when the bus driver announced that there would be no smoking on the bus. All the Argentine buses had similar signs on board, but since a large number of the total population and a disconcerting number of young people smoke, everybody simply ignore the signs. We were traveling toward Montevideo when the bus came to a screaming halt. We thought that something drastic must have happened, but the driver came in a huff to the back of the bus announcing sternly, "I told you, there would be no smoking." We knew that we would like Uruguay. And like it we did. The flora wasn't the only change. The styles are not nearly as chic and the shops not as up to date. Bs.As. is so style conscious. In Montevideo, it just didn't seem to be important.
The climate is not nearly as humid which made it possible to have a hotel of "Lesser quality." Actually, it was the pits, but it was cheap and central, $12 a night. Air conditioning was not necessary as it had been in Bs. As.
Another change was the for the first time we saw blacks. We couldn't remember seeing any in Chile and very few in Argentina. There were just as many slaves sent to Argentina as to Brazil, but because they were poor and so many of them were in the military, they fought many of Argentina's wars and most were killed. In Uruguay, with its proximity to Brazil, the black population has stabilized, and they add a joy of life which really sparkles.
It was Easter week when we arrived and that means fiesta time in Uruguay, particularly gaucho fiestas. I always think of Argentina when I think of Gauchos, but we saw many more in Uruguay. We went to rodeos, barbecues, and had a great time. When we were walking aroun the campgrounds, we saw thousands of people camping and in particular the blacks had their own music and dancing and obviously were having the best time of all. When we filmed their music and dancing, they would absolutely perfom for us. The people of South America never met a camera they didn't like. The people were very poor and their food meager, but they insisted upon sharing it with us. We had honored them by taking their picture, and they had to honor us by sharing what they had. I've said it befor, the poorest people are always the most generous.
Everywhere in South America you see people with their "Mate" (ma-te). It is a bitte herb which they drink from a hollowed out gourd. The mate itself looks like ground alfalfa (tastes like it as well). They carry thermos bottles around with them and pour boiling water into the gourd which mixes with the mate and they drink it through a metal straw. We have seen it all through the continent, but never in the massive numbers of the Uruguayans. Everybody drinks the mate. At fiestas they have 50 gallon drums with fires underneath to heat the water inside the drums. They have rigged a spout in the bottom of the drum and people come and buy hot water to refill their thermos. It is not to my taste, but it took me a year of drinking coffee in college before I could honestly say that I enjoyed that, so it is hard to judge.
Geographically, this Nebraska sized nation is either beaches or rolling hills. The highest point is less than 1500 feet, so it was a change coming from the Andean areas we have been in. But the beaches are magnificent. I can't say the same for the look of the ocean, but the fine sand and mile after mile of spotless beaches were exceptional. One day I put on my swimming trunks and just ran barefooted right at the shore line for miles and miles. Well, actually, for parts of miles and miles. It was beautiful.
Carol had a 40 minute interview which we taped with the president of "Manos del Uruguay." It means simply the hands of Uruguay. It is an organization started 22 years ago to organize the creative talent of the rural women who wre very poor and who had no outlet for their work. It is a cooperative venture and they all share in it the same. The president makes the same as the women who spin and weave. they do everything by and and it is the most gorgeous I have ever seen. Carol, since she knows about the fiber arts was particularly impressed. We went out and saw the women in the countryside working, and Carol came away wanting to get back to her spinning and weaving. The president has only a 3rd grade education, but this lady is no dummy. Extremely literate and astute in business-wise, she can serve as president for only two years, at which time somebody else will be elected for the next term. Other groups in South America have tried to emulate the experiences, but it is unique.We came away $200 lighter but many suitcase pounds heavier.
Politically, Uruguay is really confusing. For instance, they developed the best and earliest of the social systems in South America. By1915, Uruguay had nationalized the public services, controlled heavy industry, had free medical service for all, old age pensions, unemployment pay, legal status for illegitimate children, free and compulsory education, abolished capital punishment, and de-established the church. All this by 1915.
I remember that when I was in school, Uruguay was a model of how things could be. Well, things change. Most people blame the politicians, but by the late 60:s and early 70:s things had begun to disintegrate. "Everything was too easy," they told us. Nobody really realized that to maintain such a system required a lot of foresight. The roads fell into disrepair, the bureaucracy was interminably slow, inflation soared, and people began to talk about change. Some people did more than talk, and like many Latin American countries, a Castro-inspired group called the "Tupamaurus" gained a lot of public support. While their ideals were lofty, like many movements, they in the end resorted to terrorist tactics, and revolution was in the air.
Finally, no surprise in Latin America, the military took over and began a very harsh and repressive reign. In Chile, then Argentina, and now Uruguay, the pattern has been similar. Civil strife to improve life leads to military rule. Democracy has been reinstated now, and they have a democratically elected government. As an example of how repressive the military regime was, whenever a group of "Manos" women got together to weave their sweaters and shawls, they had to have a policeman present because they might be plotting revolution.
Once again, we hit the jackpot people-wise. One of Carol's students, Alissa Harris mentioned to her one day that while her mom was in high school, she had a foreign exchange student from Uruguay live with them for a year, and that they had remained friends for the last 25years. We were given names, addresses, and presents to deliver and spent some wonderful days with Laura and her family. They live in a small resort town called Atlantida right on the coast, of course. The setting and people wre magnificent. They were so kind to us. They took us all around, fed us, put us up for the night, and once again, we have new friends who we will see again. Laura's father is the governor of the district and both he and her mother are two very lively, bright-eyed people who only find good in the world. Laura found a prince of a man to father her five children and this family unity thing, again, was made very obvious to us. We certainly have lost something at home with our hurry-scurry lives which take us all in different directions. These people have something a whole lot more important than material success and social prominence.
Laura made it possible for us to visit schools and we had an opportunity to film in them as well. Our kids would die, but all the students here wear some kind of uniform. I can just see our 7th grade boys having heart failure that they had to wear a knee-length white smock with a big blue bow tied in the middle under their chin. The thing is none of these kids mind it. Since everybody does it, it is no big thing. They don't run home and tear them off as soon as possible. Talk about overcrowed schools. There is one school for the 7th - 12 grades, and the kids all go at different times. Laura has two daughters who go from 8 a.m to noon, a daughter who goes from noon to 4 p.m., a son who goes from 1 to 5 p.m., and a daughter who goes from 4 to 8 p. m. Four of them in the same school. Triple session. The school runs from 8 in the morning until 8 at night. Our kids would climb the walls at having to be in school at seven in the evening.
Right now in Montevideo they are having a problem with attendance. Not with themidle and poorer classes, but with the rich kids. More than 50% of them miss more than 50 of the 180 days of school. This is only with the upper classes and they are trying to figure out why. Editorially speaking, I believe that like a lot of kids who have it easy, it is had for them to see the advantage of having to make it on their own. I also wonder how long countries down here can maintain customs which are centuries old in the face of an onslaught of overwhelming influx of outside culture, particularly North American culture. TV shows, movies, fashions, fads. The whole works. I certainly am not convinced that it is a good thing. I only know that it is happening and is not about to change with the technological advances making this globe a lot smaller than it is.
I had my 50th birthday in Punta Del Este, that playground of the rich and famous in Uruguay. Miles and miles of beaches, magnificent homes with really different architecture, huge hotels, and just for my birthday enjoyment, casinos. I expected to see Robin Leach, I don't know if that is how he spells his name, but it should be. I had eagerly looking forward to my birthday here since we figured out that was where we would be. I wanted to have some fun for my birthday and gamble a while. Well....
I got an equivalent of $40 in chips with which to start. Chips? I got one! Since it is the off season, there were only three of us in the whole casino and the other two were playing roulette. I wanted to play craps, a teacher at our school, Jane Walsh, had taught me how to play in December, but they don't play that here, so I headed for the blackjack table. I had the whole table and the dealer to myself, great. I converted my one chip into smaller ones and now I had three chips. Two worth $15 each and one worth $10. I wanted chips worth smaller amounts. I mean I want the $2 table, right? Wrong! The minimum bet is $15. After two hands of blackjack, I no longer have enough moneyto bet. So I headed to the roulette table where the other two guy are playing. I converted my $10 chip into five chips worth $2 each. Not wanting to spend my total wealth all at once I placed three of my yellow chips covering the corners of four numbers. Well, the other guys were not playing my game. They were in a world of their own. Seriously, they bet between $500 - $600 s pop. They threw their green and red chips all over the board and kept throwing them until the croupier said, "No mas." My poor little spots of yellow looked embarrassed to be in among the sea of red and green. It was really pitiable. They looked at me like "What in the hell are you doing here." These two had so many numbers covered with multiple chips there was no way they could lose everything. When the number was announced, there was a massive raking of chips and returning of multiple red and green chips, but my poor yellows disappeared forever. It took me about 2 1/2 minutes to go from the birthday boy to the stupid fool who should stay on the porch if he can't run with the big dogs. I walked away depressed, poorer, and probably not any wiser than when I entered. I left Punta del Este the next morning not looking back.
We left Uruguay and headed for Paraguay. It took us back into Argentina for the fourth time. It is difficult to move around here without crisscrossing it. we got a taxi to take us from the border town of Paysandu, Uruguay to Colon, Argentina. I sat in the front seat with the teen-age driver, he insisted on it that way. The woman, after all, belongs in the back. When we got out at the bus station at Colon, I realized that I had forgotten our "Bible," as it is referred to among travelers down here. The South American Handbook is an invaluable source of information ranging from hotels and restaurants to laundries to what to do with whom and at what cost. We had to have it back. With 30 minutes left before the only bus of the day left, carol jumped into another taxi to chase the first taxi back to the border. But wait, here comes the kid in the first taxi back with the book. He saw it on the floor of the front seat and came back with it. Only Carol doesn't know that, and she is chasing some phantom taxi back to the border. So the first taxi tears off chasing the taxi which is chasing him. It was all very surrealistic, like something out of "It's a Mad Mad World." I thought about getting into another taxi and chasing after Carol, but that seemed a little too weird, so I just held firm. Faster and faster Carol's driver went because he can't see the first taxi. Finally, at the border they find out that the first driver had not recrossed into Uruguay and they retraced their steps trying to find him. They did, because he had to stop when his windshield wipers fell off. It had begun to rain and he was forced to turn them on, always a chancy event. This tells you something about the condition of taxis down here. It all got sorted out, the bus was ten minutes late, which gave Carol enough time to get back and off we headed for Paraguay, bible in hand.
One other thing about Uruguay. Because they do not have any auto industry here cars are VERY expensive (The absolute cheapest is a stripped down model of Fiat from Brazil for $12,000) particularly on a Uruguayan Salary, they keep cars going forever. We saw many model A fords. Since Laura's husband is my age, he and I had a great time spotting cars from our high school days and trying to be the first one to correctly identify the 55 ford (not a 56 Dennis) or the 57 Chevy. It was maravilloso, as they say. One night a family was attempting to start a '49 Hudson. The battery was not up the the task so the wife and daughter got out to push while the husband sat behind the wheel and "Popped" the clutch. (Sounds like the Onas with their fishing). They were not getting very far, so I began pushing, another passerby joined in, and the engine caught with a sputter and they were off. It was great. I mean how many more times in my life am I going to be able to push a Hudson.
Well, they are about to close for the weekend here so I have to close up myself. I will write about Paraguay, which is just now coming out from 35 years of dictatorship under Stroessner. We are still having a wonderful time and it is every bit the great adventure that we had hoped it would be. We are learning much and it is certainly money and time well spent. Take care and we will, fortunately or unfortunately, be home before very much longer. It seems to be going very quickly.
Love to all, (except Al)
Paraguay - Stroessner and Mennonites
April 25, 1991
Once again, Hello:
We are driving down a black asphalt ribbon totally surrounded by the green called "Brazil" and heading toward a meeting with that Brazilian vixen named Sandra who two months ago so bedeviled that old Argentine man that he still probably hasn't slept properly. The moment we crossed the border into Brazil, it was obvious that it was going to outstrip everything else both in size and ambience. Brazil is just that much more than all that surrounds it. Our first introduction was at Iguazu Falls, and they were everything we had hoped them to be. The single most impressive natural sight I have seen anywhere in the world. So often when you look forward to something as much as we did to Iguazu you can come away disappointed. The reality can't live up to the hype. Well. Not Iguazu. The power and immense size of the falls is enough to blow the mind of even the most seasoned traveler. Add to those, the overall setting and the bird life, and you have something which is simply incredible. I was given two "Stretch" cameras before we left, each with 12 pictures on it. I decided to use them for special shots of nature and make a nice montage of the results. To make them last, I decided to take no more than two shots of any one subject. Ha, I took five of Iguazu. I just couldn't stop myself. Each step seemed to bring new and different aspects of the falls which I just couldn't resist. I will pay for this indulgence down the line, I'm sure.
But enough of Brazil for now. If I don't write of Paraguay now, memories will be gobbled up by Brazil and harder to recall.
The western press portrays Paraguay as poverty stricken downtrodden population ruled by a tyrant dictator who is hated by his people. Other South Americans make jokes about the Paraguayans and feel superior (mostly the Argentines, but they feel superior to everybody). It simply is not the truth. It is true that Paraguay is a poor country. But poverty is a relative term at this end of the world. We have seen poverty all around us on this trip and we certainly saw it in Paraguay. Once again, I am faced with the realization that my having so much means that others can have so little. The fact that one person like myself can live as I do, by necessity, condemns dozens, hundreds, to live here as they do. Again I am faced with the frustration of having so many people asking for money or food, and to whom do I give one or the other. I can't, or at least won't give to all and even if I could, or did, it would still not solve the fundamental problems of people her. I do, however, honestly feel that the Gulf War and the apparent tremendous popular support for it notwithstanding, the U.S. and other rich nations could do a better job of helping alleviate the world's poverty than they do. If we spent only a fraction of the money to improve live which we spend on instruments of death those instruments would not be needed. The programs which we have now do very little to improve the lot of the people. They are administered not by the poor, but by bureaucrats who rip off the money and improve their already fine lifestyle and the money never gets to the people who need the help.Time and time again, we have been told what a joke the aid programs are.
So Paraguay is poor, but the people are certainly not downtrodden. In their history they have bounced back from horrendous difficulties. In the war of the Triple Alliance, for example, this California-sized nation took on Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay (Paraguay was coming to the defense of Uruguay, which had been invaded and conquered by Brazil). When it was over, five years later, the population was desimated. Of the original 800,000 Paraguayans, only half that number was left alive. 55% of the women were killed and 95% of the entire male p9opulation died. Of the 400,000 males at the beginning of the war, only 14,000 were left alive, and of those only 2,100 over the age of 20 survived. Talk about shaping the future of a country.
Paraguay is just now coming out from under 35 years of stronghanded dictatorship under Alfredo Stroessner. He was one of the most reviled dictators in the American press, but the people of Paraguay do not feel that way. "Okay," so they say, "He had a human rights problem, but he kept the country stable, and he kept the communists out." Paraguay is one of the few S.A. countries not to experience tremendous turmoil in the '60's and '70's. He was overthrown when, they say, he got too old and sick to be effective and those around him, seeing the end coming, tried to steal everything in sight while they could. But the people don't blame Stroessner. That is very strange. Usually there is a national celebration when a country comes out from the shadow of dictatorship, but not in Paraguay.
The country has the smallest percentage of Spanish blood in South America and is basically Bilingual. Guarani, a lovely, lilting language is now studied in France and Belgium because of its musical qualities in the language of choice outside Asuncion, the capitol of 600,000 people. The population of the country is only 4 million. Guarani is now a required language in the public schools.
Besides the Spanish, of course, another major group which has had an impact on life in Paraguay is the Mennonites. They originally fled to Paraguay from soviet Russia in 1927 because they don't believe in war or serving in any military, peaceful or otherwise, and Paraguay is very much removed from mainstream politics. Because Mennonites everywhere in the world speak German, they have arrived in large numbers from many places in the world and can immediately fit in with the other Mennonites. Most, however, come from Germany and Canada. They now have their own "Colonies," which are exempt from many Paraguayan laws. The Mennonites have their own hospitals, co-ops, electrical companies, and, in short, have set up a state within a state. We went to the heart of Mennonite life here, Philadelphia, Pa. Only here it's spelled Filadelfia and the Pa. stands not for Pennsylvania, but for Paraguay. We took a night bus, and it was like going to sleep in Paraguay and waking up in Germany. German is the language of the streets and many of the Mennonites don't even speak Spanish. A Mennonite missionary from Pennsylvania with whom we talked says that the people are surprised to find out there is another Philadelphia. the Mennonites here are more worldly than elsewhere. You can buy beer, rent R-rated movies, some of the kids smoke pot, and the teen-aged girls, with the help of teen-aged boys, become pregnant. But they have carved out a remarkable life for themselves in the middle of a vast harsh, untamed wilderness called the "Chaco."
But problems do exist. They have been here for 60 years and, when asked, they tell you that they feel Paraguayan, but they do everything to separate themselves from Paraguayan life, and many of the Paraguayans resent it. They respect the Mennonites for what they have accomplished, but they don't like the separation. When Mennonite teenagers date Paraguayans, they are shipped off to Canada. Isolated like they are in the Chaco, the young have forgotten many of the lessons of the pioneers and 30% of the boys leave for Canada within one year of high school graduation. The pioneers carved this society out of nothing. But the young people would rather pay on of the local Guaranis a small pittance, stand around like an overseer and, watch the work be done.
There becomes a "Master-worker" mentality in such situations. There is some real concern among the Mennonites about their future. They were favorites of Stroessner, obviously a German himself, because they developed the Chaco, but now there are rumblings about making them serve in the military. All other Paraguayan males serve for one year and eight months beginning at age 17. Well, on paper all serve. As in all South American countries, the rich, powerful, and educated find ways to avoid military service unless they desire it for a career, and that leaves the poor and uneducated to fill the ranks of the army.
The guarani indians represent a special problem to organized society. By their large numbers they form a majority of the population, but they have been nomadic for thousands of years. Their basic philosophy has always been "If you have food for today, there is no reason to worry, since tomorrow isn't here yet." They are a beautiful people with an easy manner and a quick smile. there is an innocence to their nature which is attractive, but for a country which is trying to modernize, it can be a problem.
Bus rides continue to be a "trip" literally and figuratively. I am writing a rough draft of this letter on our way to Sao Paulo, but right now we are broken down, again, on the side of the road. We have had flats, engines which quit, loss of tire tread, and a number of unusual problems which can add delay and frustration. That's the way it goes down here. On one of our day trips to a small town called Itaugua where the woman make beautiful lace, we were so packed in that the driver couldn't see anything except straight ahead. The conductor who collects money shuttles back and forth between the front door and the back door shoving people in or out. Loading and unloading cargo, live and otherwise goes on continually. When everybody and everything is, more or less, on or off the bus, the conductor whistles (a sharp, shrill whistling ability is written into the job description) and off we go again for another jaunt. You never know how far you will get before someone wants on or off. Actual bus stops are a joke because buses stop anywhere. If you want on, you simply wait until the bus is close enough to you that you can read where it is going and then stick out your arm. Since the bus at that point is almost past you, it comes to a quick, shuddering halt and you run anywhere from 10 to 50 yards to catch it and it starts up again. When you want to get off, you yell, "Baja" meaning "Stop the damn thing, I want off here."
You could literally live a full life on these buses. All four-food groups will be offered for sale during your ride by someone of age six or above who jumps on the bus touting the nutritional and savory qualities of the item for sale. When they have milked the bus as much as they can, they get off and wait for the next bus going in the opposite direction, only seconds away. They hawk their wares on these buses all day long and probably never stray more than a mile or two from home.
Not to worry if you spill some of the food on your clothes because on jumps a guy selling the stain remover. He spills some sort of red dye on his shirt sleeve, rubs some of the magic remover on it and Voile, it's clean again.
All sorts of reading material are available: newspaper, magazines, complete sets of medical encyclopedias, and books.
Can't get your food open? No problem! On jumps the guy selling complete sets of tools, you might or might not, need in your kitchen. He gives samples to everybody on the bus and then goes back and collects either the product or the money. The system works because it is used everywhere. People either pay for the products or give them back.
Speaking of paying, when you buy something in a store, say a notebook, you don't give the money to the clerk. He or she writes up the tag in triplicate, you take the copies to the cashier (the only one to handle money in the store), pay for the notebook, take two of the stamped receipts to a different clerk who has wrapped the product, give him one of the receipts and pick up your purchase.
When it rains in Paraguay, it really rains. They get 40 inches of rain a year in the Chaco, but they get it in bunches and then nothing for weeks or months. they got 12 inches of ran in five days last month, and it hasn't rained since. We went through the most incredible lightning storm we have ever seen just before we arrived in Paraguay. For 48 hours, the sky was a continuously blinking strobe light with only a couple of seconds delay before the next window-rattling clap of thunder. Rumblings for 30-40 seconds at a time were normal. Nature really is at work down here.
To explain how many problems a poor nation like Paraguay faces is a monumental task, but I would like to relate a situation which I believe is symptomatic of the overall picture. Carol had to receive official permission from the Ministry of Education to visit schools here. So we talked to the woman in charge of Secondary Education for the entire country. "No problem," she said, "Just write up a proposal and take it to the "Technology Department" to have it officially transcribed. Well, the technology department isn't filled with state of the art computers. In fact, they have one typewriter, manual, for all official documents. And this is the National Ministry of Education. For the entire floor dealing with secondary education, there are only two telephones. the Director of Secondary Education has one, and everybody else lines up to use the other. There simply is not the money for these types of conveniences. For someone who returns to a small school with a full lab of 32 Macintoshes and where there is a mac in every classroom, it was a very telling lesson on why countries like Paraguay have a difficult time modernizing.
Our time in Paraguay came to an end and we left with a fondness for the country and its people, and the anticipation that Brazil lay ahead. That chapter next, stay tuned.
Once again, Hello:
We are driving down a black asphalt ribbon totally surrounded by the green called "Brazil" and heading toward a meeting with that Brazilian vixen named Sandra who two months ago so bedeviled that old Argentine man that he still probably hasn't slept properly. The moment we crossed the border into Brazil, it was obvious that it was going to outstrip everything else both in size and ambience. Brazil is just that much more than all that surrounds it. Our first introduction was at Iguazu Falls, and they were everything we had hoped them to be. The single most impressive natural sight I have seen anywhere in the world. So often when you look forward to something as much as we did to Iguazu you can come away disappointed. The reality can't live up to the hype. Well. Not Iguazu. The power and immense size of the falls is enough to blow the mind of even the most seasoned traveler. Add to those, the overall setting and the bird life, and you have something which is simply incredible. I was given two "Stretch" cameras before we left, each with 12 pictures on it. I decided to use them for special shots of nature and make a nice montage of the results. To make them last, I decided to take no more than two shots of any one subject. Ha, I took five of Iguazu. I just couldn't stop myself. Each step seemed to bring new and different aspects of the falls which I just couldn't resist. I will pay for this indulgence down the line, I'm sure.
But enough of Brazil for now. If I don't write of Paraguay now, memories will be gobbled up by Brazil and harder to recall.
The western press portrays Paraguay as poverty stricken downtrodden population ruled by a tyrant dictator who is hated by his people. Other South Americans make jokes about the Paraguayans and feel superior (mostly the Argentines, but they feel superior to everybody). It simply is not the truth. It is true that Paraguay is a poor country. But poverty is a relative term at this end of the world. We have seen poverty all around us on this trip and we certainly saw it in Paraguay. Once again, I am faced with the realization that my having so much means that others can have so little. The fact that one person like myself can live as I do, by necessity, condemns dozens, hundreds, to live here as they do. Again I am faced with the frustration of having so many people asking for money or food, and to whom do I give one or the other. I can't, or at least won't give to all and even if I could, or did, it would still not solve the fundamental problems of people her. I do, however, honestly feel that the Gulf War and the apparent tremendous popular support for it notwithstanding, the U.S. and other rich nations could do a better job of helping alleviate the world's poverty than they do. If we spent only a fraction of the money to improve live which we spend on instruments of death those instruments would not be needed. The programs which we have now do very little to improve the lot of the people. They are administered not by the poor, but by bureaucrats who rip off the money and improve their already fine lifestyle and the money never gets to the people who need the help.Time and time again, we have been told what a joke the aid programs are.
So Paraguay is poor, but the people are certainly not downtrodden. In their history they have bounced back from horrendous difficulties. In the war of the Triple Alliance, for example, this California-sized nation took on Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay (Paraguay was coming to the defense of Uruguay, which had been invaded and conquered by Brazil). When it was over, five years later, the population was desimated. Of the original 800,000 Paraguayans, only half that number was left alive. 55% of the women were killed and 95% of the entire male p9opulation died. Of the 400,000 males at the beginning of the war, only 14,000 were left alive, and of those only 2,100 over the age of 20 survived. Talk about shaping the future of a country.
Paraguay is just now coming out from under 35 years of stronghanded dictatorship under Alfredo Stroessner. He was one of the most reviled dictators in the American press, but the people of Paraguay do not feel that way. "Okay," so they say, "He had a human rights problem, but he kept the country stable, and he kept the communists out." Paraguay is one of the few S.A. countries not to experience tremendous turmoil in the '60's and '70's. He was overthrown when, they say, he got too old and sick to be effective and those around him, seeing the end coming, tried to steal everything in sight while they could. But the people don't blame Stroessner. That is very strange. Usually there is a national celebration when a country comes out from the shadow of dictatorship, but not in Paraguay.
The country has the smallest percentage of Spanish blood in South America and is basically Bilingual. Guarani, a lovely, lilting language is now studied in France and Belgium because of its musical qualities in the language of choice outside Asuncion, the capitol of 600,000 people. The population of the country is only 4 million. Guarani is now a required language in the public schools.
Besides the Spanish, of course, another major group which has had an impact on life in Paraguay is the Mennonites. They originally fled to Paraguay from soviet Russia in 1927 because they don't believe in war or serving in any military, peaceful or otherwise, and Paraguay is very much removed from mainstream politics. Because Mennonites everywhere in the world speak German, they have arrived in large numbers from many places in the world and can immediately fit in with the other Mennonites. Most, however, come from Germany and Canada. They now have their own "Colonies," which are exempt from many Paraguayan laws. The Mennonites have their own hospitals, co-ops, electrical companies, and, in short, have set up a state within a state. We went to the heart of Mennonite life here, Philadelphia, Pa. Only here it's spelled Filadelfia and the Pa. stands not for Pennsylvania, but for Paraguay. We took a night bus, and it was like going to sleep in Paraguay and waking up in Germany. German is the language of the streets and many of the Mennonites don't even speak Spanish. A Mennonite missionary from Pennsylvania with whom we talked says that the people are surprised to find out there is another Philadelphia. the Mennonites here are more worldly than elsewhere. You can buy beer, rent R-rated movies, some of the kids smoke pot, and the teen-aged girls, with the help of teen-aged boys, become pregnant. But they have carved out a remarkable life for themselves in the middle of a vast harsh, untamed wilderness called the "Chaco."
But problems do exist. They have been here for 60 years and, when asked, they tell you that they feel Paraguayan, but they do everything to separate themselves from Paraguayan life, and many of the Paraguayans resent it. They respect the Mennonites for what they have accomplished, but they don't like the separation. When Mennonite teenagers date Paraguayans, they are shipped off to Canada. Isolated like they are in the Chaco, the young have forgotten many of the lessons of the pioneers and 30% of the boys leave for Canada within one year of high school graduation. The pioneers carved this society out of nothing. But the young people would rather pay on of the local Guaranis a small pittance, stand around like an overseer and, watch the work be done.
There becomes a "Master-worker" mentality in such situations. There is some real concern among the Mennonites about their future. They were favorites of Stroessner, obviously a German himself, because they developed the Chaco, but now there are rumblings about making them serve in the military. All other Paraguayan males serve for one year and eight months beginning at age 17. Well, on paper all serve. As in all South American countries, the rich, powerful, and educated find ways to avoid military service unless they desire it for a career, and that leaves the poor and uneducated to fill the ranks of the army.
The guarani indians represent a special problem to organized society. By their large numbers they form a majority of the population, but they have been nomadic for thousands of years. Their basic philosophy has always been "If you have food for today, there is no reason to worry, since tomorrow isn't here yet." They are a beautiful people with an easy manner and a quick smile. there is an innocence to their nature which is attractive, but for a country which is trying to modernize, it can be a problem.
Bus rides continue to be a "trip" literally and figuratively. I am writing a rough draft of this letter on our way to Sao Paulo, but right now we are broken down, again, on the side of the road. We have had flats, engines which quit, loss of tire tread, and a number of unusual problems which can add delay and frustration. That's the way it goes down here. On one of our day trips to a small town called Itaugua where the woman make beautiful lace, we were so packed in that the driver couldn't see anything except straight ahead. The conductor who collects money shuttles back and forth between the front door and the back door shoving people in or out. Loading and unloading cargo, live and otherwise goes on continually. When everybody and everything is, more or less, on or off the bus, the conductor whistles (a sharp, shrill whistling ability is written into the job description) and off we go again for another jaunt. You never know how far you will get before someone wants on or off. Actual bus stops are a joke because buses stop anywhere. If you want on, you simply wait until the bus is close enough to you that you can read where it is going and then stick out your arm. Since the bus at that point is almost past you, it comes to a quick, shuddering halt and you run anywhere from 10 to 50 yards to catch it and it starts up again. When you want to get off, you yell, "Baja" meaning "Stop the damn thing, I want off here."
You could literally live a full life on these buses. All four-food groups will be offered for sale during your ride by someone of age six or above who jumps on the bus touting the nutritional and savory qualities of the item for sale. When they have milked the bus as much as they can, they get off and wait for the next bus going in the opposite direction, only seconds away. They hawk their wares on these buses all day long and probably never stray more than a mile or two from home.
Not to worry if you spill some of the food on your clothes because on jumps a guy selling the stain remover. He spills some sort of red dye on his shirt sleeve, rubs some of the magic remover on it and Voile, it's clean again.
All sorts of reading material are available: newspaper, magazines, complete sets of medical encyclopedias, and books.
Can't get your food open? No problem! On jumps the guy selling complete sets of tools, you might or might not, need in your kitchen. He gives samples to everybody on the bus and then goes back and collects either the product or the money. The system works because it is used everywhere. People either pay for the products or give them back.
Speaking of paying, when you buy something in a store, say a notebook, you don't give the money to the clerk. He or she writes up the tag in triplicate, you take the copies to the cashier (the only one to handle money in the store), pay for the notebook, take two of the stamped receipts to a different clerk who has wrapped the product, give him one of the receipts and pick up your purchase.
When it rains in Paraguay, it really rains. They get 40 inches of rain a year in the Chaco, but they get it in bunches and then nothing for weeks or months. they got 12 inches of ran in five days last month, and it hasn't rained since. We went through the most incredible lightning storm we have ever seen just before we arrived in Paraguay. For 48 hours, the sky was a continuously blinking strobe light with only a couple of seconds delay before the next window-rattling clap of thunder. Rumblings for 30-40 seconds at a time were normal. Nature really is at work down here.
To explain how many problems a poor nation like Paraguay faces is a monumental task, but I would like to relate a situation which I believe is symptomatic of the overall picture. Carol had to receive official permission from the Ministry of Education to visit schools here. So we talked to the woman in charge of Secondary Education for the entire country. "No problem," she said, "Just write up a proposal and take it to the "Technology Department" to have it officially transcribed. Well, the technology department isn't filled with state of the art computers. In fact, they have one typewriter, manual, for all official documents. And this is the National Ministry of Education. For the entire floor dealing with secondary education, there are only two telephones. the Director of Secondary Education has one, and everybody else lines up to use the other. There simply is not the money for these types of conveniences. For someone who returns to a small school with a full lab of 32 Macintoshes and where there is a mac in every classroom, it was a very telling lesson on why countries like Paraguay have a difficult time modernizing.
Our time in Paraguay came to an end and we left with a fondness for the country and its people, and the anticipation that Brazil lay ahead. That chapter next, stay tuned.
Brasileros, South America's most vibrant people
May 1, 1991
Greetings to All:
When last we wrote we were on our way to meet Sandra in Brazil. It was nice to se her again. She bought her new boyfriend alon so that I would have somebody to talk to which habe the ahd Carol a chance to do their thing without having to worry about anythird party. The two of them picked up right where they left off and the gabed the whole night. Her new boyfriend wanted ot know how long the two of them had known each other since they seemed like old friends. Sandra told Carol that here she is, 28 years old, a university graduate, an architect, and she had only known this guy for three days and he was already telling her how she should plan and organize her life. No problem with her taking care of herself, however.
Brazil is thes incredible place where everything is run at about 150%. We asked Brazilians why the country was so different from the others in S.A. and they just laughed and said. "It's Brazil, that's all." They also said that theynever notice the life of the country until they leave and then everything seems so slow, the people so dead, and dull. Brazilians seem to have this feeling that the only thng that is important is right now. That gives them this wonderful joy of living, but it is also the same trait which causes them to fail to plan for tomorrow. It is both a blessing and a curse, and you feel the life of the country the moment you enter it.
One of our ex-students came to Brazil as an exchange student and so fell in love wih the place that she now lives here permanently and is planing on marrying a Brazilian. Kim Genschmer was really a Brazilian when she was 13, but just didn't know it until she came down here. She fits in so well.l She really hit the jackpot with one of her host families. One of the sons is now her fiance. We wanted to look her up and had imformed her that we would call when we arrived. She attends a university about 20 minutes away from the family and when we called, her "Mother-in-law" answered the phone. she came to pick up at the bus station and would not hear of us staying at a hotel. they brought out coffee (that's Brazilian coffee, realllly liquid sugar, very thick and very strong), and within 20 of talking with her, she had our next week plananed. WE would go to their beach house on Wednesday and stay overnight so that we could visit a beautiful area along the coast. On Friday, upon our return, we would go to the farm and visit there, and it just so happened that the grandfather of this family was being honored in Rio on Saturday night with his picture being put on the new monetary note being issued, so we had to go the the dinner and celebration with them on Saturday. On Sunday was a birthday party and the whole family would be there so we had to come, tool. This is the way they are. You walk in, and immediately, you are one of them. It was great to relax in a home for awhile.
Some family history. The grandfather who was being honored was named Vital Brazil. He is the one who discovered the anti-venom snake preventative. He had several friends die from snake bites and wanted to do something about it and experimented with the venom. Nobody took him seriously until in 1915, while in NYC for a conference, a man was bitten and nobody could save him. Somebody remembered that there was this Brasalian in town and why not try anything. He saved the man's life and became a big hero in Brazil. He went on to found several clinics and is the father of all such medicine and research. He had 22 children by two wives, the first one died, no surprise. One of his son's was named Ruy. A family crisis brought one of Vital Brazil's cousin's family with 19 children to live in this house and one of those children was a girl named Alda. Alda was three when she came to live there and Ruy was four. They are now 79 and 80 and have been married for 60 years. Not only that, but tghey became boyfriend and girlfriend almost immediately. She loves to tell the story that he kissed her for the first time behind the curtains when she was seven years old, and they have been together ever since. Old and stooped now, they still kiss when passing the hallway. She still pats him on the backside, and you would think they just became lovers. It is so wonderful to see. One of Ruy and Alda's sons is Tirso Vital Brazil and it is in his home that we stayed.
After our wonderful week we wre back on our own. Travelling across Brazil is like riding on this green carpet. Everything is green: mountain tops, valleys, just this lush richness to the entire country. The highways are dangerous as hell, everybody seems to be in such a great hurry in Brasil, afterall there is no tomorrow. Traffic accidents are everywhere. There is a group called the "Angels of the Ashpalt," stationed every few kilometers which rush to the aid of traffic victims. They are kept very busy. Along the way we passed many motels. NOthing unusual about them until we asked Kim and Alvaro about them. They laughed because motels in Brasil are trysting places. Very private, they have names like The Edan, Shrangrai-la, The Ideal, Valentine, and so forth. The rooms rent for four hour blocks. You drive in to a private garage, the carport door rolls down so tht nobody can see your car, you order food and, or drink, over the telephone. They are delivered in a kind of dumb-waiter system, and when it is time to leave, you ring the office, a light comes on near a window, it opens up and a hand is thrust into your roomwith the bill. You then put your hand into the blackness on the other side of the windo with the money, the window closes, you get into your car and drive off. All very private, all very discreet. They are everywhere which makes onbe think that there is a lot of trysting going on. supposedly, the occupants of the rooms are over the age of 18, but kids use them a lot. If they have a driver's license, they have access to them.
Which only in part accounts for the pregnancy rate here in Brasil. Kim and Alvaro had this long discussion about whether 80% or 90 % of the girls are pregnant when they get married. I won't quibble, lets just take the 80% figure. The two of them could only think of one girl who was not pregnant when she got married in the four years that they have been going out. Birth control pills are available, but Kim's theory is that if they take the pills then it is the same as admitting that they plan on having sex. By not taking the ppills, they only have sex as a spur of the moment thinng, and that is very different in their minds. It is not just a problem with the lower economic groups. Kim and Alvaro's group is definitely middle to upper class and it is the same.
The position of women is improving but still remains in the dark ages. The 60 Minutes show where a man can kill his wife and escape punishment is still true and it is hard for women to be taken seriously. Statements like "That is a very intelligent thing to say, considering you are a woman," are the norm and it is hard to move up in a male dominated society.
In Rio we were warned so much about our personal safety that we were continually on guard. We didn't have anyproblems, but the stres really wears on you. The warnings didn't just come from trvellers who had been robbed, but from Brasilians as well: "Don't wear any jewelry of any kind. Take off your wedding rings, if they can't get them off, they'll cut your finger off. Don't speak English to each other - it identifies you as a tourist. Don't walk on the outside of the sidewalk- they drive by with big hooks and hook your purse from their cars. Beware of anyone with a rolled up newspaper - it hides a knife or a gun. Don't let strangers talk to you. Don't accept rides incars. don't ride the buses, and above all, when you are robbed have some money on you, because if they are going to take the time to rob you, they expect something. If you have nothing, they get angry and violent. As I said, in the end, we did not have any problems, but when people are poor, they do desperate things.
Brasilians are very active. We stayed 1/2 block from Ipanema Beach and on weekends and holidays, they close off the street and everybody and their pets are out running, biking, skateboarding, walking with the dogs, or pushing prams all day long. They start about 6:30 a.m. and it continues long after dark. During the week, they just use the sidewalk, but they are the most health conscious people we have ever seen.
The beaches, and there are many, in Rio are filled with surfers, swimmers, fishermen with nets casting into the water, and of course there are "The bodies." Men sculpted in stone strutting their stuff, and women in bikinis held together with 4 pound test fishing line. All the women wear these suits from age 8 to 80. One girl about 21 passes you and you say, "Oh, my God," then a woman of 75 passes you with the same kind of bikini on and again you say "Oh, my God." All levels of the titilation scale are reached on Rio's beaches.
We went to see a soccer game in the huge 250,000 capacity Maracana Stadium. It was an internaional match between a Rio team and one from Buenas Aires. The home team won and the ride back on the bus was one of the wildest events of this entire trip. Everybody packs into the buses until there is absolutely no room for anyone else, and then another 20 muscle their way on. No room inside, no problem, jump up nd grab the windows, and off we go down the road with people hanging out the windows, their feet inside and the rest of their body outside. People hanging on to the bumpers, and everybody screaming and singing the local team's song for the entire ride. Everybody shouts at the driver to stay on the left so that more people can cram on. The light turns red, but the drivers screams on through it to the wild cheers of the riders. We pass some girls sitting on a bench, even wilder cheers and songs that I don't really understand, but I really do. We pass a police checkpoint and everything gets very quiet until we pass and then delirious joy erupts.Ass this happens at about 45 miles an hour through Rio's curvy, bumpy streets.Everybody expects the bus to tip over and when the curve is successfully negotiated, what else but more wild cheering and singing. All this singing is supposed to be accompanied by clapping, but when you are hanging one with one hand, yor can't clap, so you bang on the bus. With closed fist, with feet, with whatever you are carrying.By the end of the 40 minute ride across town, the bus is a shambles. The plastic interior is broken, seats have been torn up, and all the time, the driver just drives on, never looking back. Stupid he is not.
The normal bus fare in Rio was 56 Cruzieros. Except that there are not czs in single demonations, so you give, 110 120 for two people, whatever you have. Change never comes back. There is an area in the back of the bus where you can ride for free, so even the poor people can get around.
There is no such thing as change in Brasil, becuae nobody ever has any. Instead of change you get pieces of candy, razor blades, bubble gum, phone tokens, and any other item of inconsequential value which you don't really want, but the alternative is to get nothing. It is just the way things run in Brasil and nobody gets upset about it.
The poverty of Rio is a never forgettable sight. If you have a cardboard box, then you have a gome. Any projecting wall has whole families living under it. At dark, the mattresses roll out on the street and you have to pick your way around them, even in fashionable area like Copacabana and Ipanema. The hills, or favalaqs, are about as bad as they get anywhere in the world. Even the police won't go into them. They have their own laws and rules. Rio is a fantasy and dark reality all at the same time.
Education is the hope of the future, but in Brasil the hope is dim, for the education system is a ripoff of the poor. a number of years ago the government decided to subsidize the private schools. The reality of this was that tuition to public schools was reduced so now that the middle class as well as the rich could afford private education. Not only that, but private schools could now afford to pay their teachers significantly higher salaries and so all the gook teachers went to the private sector and the public schools were left with the poorest, (financially) kids, and the poorest (quality-wise) teachers.
Our week in Rio came to an end and we headed off for Brasilia, 700 miles to the west. This artificial capital of the country has very stuning architecture, the latest in urban planning, and some of the best minds in Brasil living there. It is also a dead city. A monument to the fact that when it comes to a city having a life of its own, it can't be planned into it. On the weekend, everybody who can afford it, heads for Rio or Sao Paulo, or anywhere where people actully live and not just work. People living in Brasilia asked us what we thought of it, and all we could say was that it was very pretty, very interesting, but didn't seem to have any life to it. They would laugh and respond that it didn't, and that it was the biggest joke in Brasil. The fact that all the great cities of the world are great cities because over the years they have developed personalities, individual neighborhoods which reflect the people. Brasilia has everythging perfectly planned, and it's dead.
Our last experience in Brasil was the Pantanal. This huge swamp is the size of Texas and is a wonderful sanctuary of bird and animal life. We had really been looking forward to seeing it and we were not disappointed. We saw two different aspects of it. We took a taxi ($100) to a hotes down the Pantanal highway. You can only get down it part of the year because it floods and the one story hotel was great. Wonderful meals, alligators right outside your room (the hotel is built out over the water) and the calls of so many different birds that you could hear but never see. At the other end of the spectrum, we joined up with a Brazilian guide who took us with him, his assistant, 5 Israelis, an Englishman a German girl, a Japanese boy, Carol and I, and the cook, who said that he was crazy. A;ll 13 of us in a modified short bed, narrow body pickup. People hanging out everywhere. 4 inside the cab, 4 in the bed of the pickup, 4 on top of the roof of the cab with their feet hanging down over the windshield (for better vision) and one riding on the hood of the truck. The cook is crazy? Hell, we were All crazy. We went back into the swamp for three days of terrible sanitary conditions barely tolerable food, (the cook IS crazy), dirty living accommodations (everybody in the same soom with hammocks and awful beds, and wild rides through the swamp, and loved every moment of the whole experience.
The whole area is filled with cattle ranches and is one of the few areas where man and nature really co-exist to the benefit of each. The ranchers have put up all kinds of signs "When you fire a gun, all you kill is nature." "If you burn a match, all you can harvest is ashes," and the like. So we rode all around the ranches, our guide was born on one of them and knows all the people out there.
We would be tearing across the land, when the brakes would slam on, Rudy, the assistant, would run off and come back with some exotic animal. We dug up, literally, armadillos, chased down wild boar, coatis, climbed trees trying, unsuccessfully, to catch monkeys, caught 6 foot alligators (using the blue thong of the Japanese as bait), found a 20 foot anaconda eating a 5 foot alligator, saw wild deer capibaras, rhea, and an extraordinary variety of animals which we will not soon forget. The pickup, we were told, had "Yellow fever." It got delirious and just kind of went all over the road whenever it wanted. But in the end we made it back asfely and whe whole experience was all we wanted it to be and was a wonderful sendoff to Brazil.
About Bolivia, next time,
Greetings to All:
When last we wrote we were on our way to meet Sandra in Brazil. It was nice to se her again. She bought her new boyfriend alon so that I would have somebody to talk to which habe the ahd Carol a chance to do their thing without having to worry about anythird party. The two of them picked up right where they left off and the gabed the whole night. Her new boyfriend wanted ot know how long the two of them had known each other since they seemed like old friends. Sandra told Carol that here she is, 28 years old, a university graduate, an architect, and she had only known this guy for three days and he was already telling her how she should plan and organize her life. No problem with her taking care of herself, however.
Brazil is thes incredible place where everything is run at about 150%. We asked Brazilians why the country was so different from the others in S.A. and they just laughed and said. "It's Brazil, that's all." They also said that theynever notice the life of the country until they leave and then everything seems so slow, the people so dead, and dull. Brazilians seem to have this feeling that the only thng that is important is right now. That gives them this wonderful joy of living, but it is also the same trait which causes them to fail to plan for tomorrow. It is both a blessing and a curse, and you feel the life of the country the moment you enter it.
One of our ex-students came to Brazil as an exchange student and so fell in love wih the place that she now lives here permanently and is planing on marrying a Brazilian. Kim Genschmer was really a Brazilian when she was 13, but just didn't know it until she came down here. She fits in so well.l She really hit the jackpot with one of her host families. One of the sons is now her fiance. We wanted to look her up and had imformed her that we would call when we arrived. She attends a university about 20 minutes away from the family and when we called, her "Mother-in-law" answered the phone. she came to pick up at the bus station and would not hear of us staying at a hotel. they brought out coffee (that's Brazilian coffee, realllly liquid sugar, very thick and very strong), and within 20 of talking with her, she had our next week plananed. WE would go to their beach house on Wednesday and stay overnight so that we could visit a beautiful area along the coast. On Friday, upon our return, we would go to the farm and visit there, and it just so happened that the grandfather of this family was being honored in Rio on Saturday night with his picture being put on the new monetary note being issued, so we had to go the the dinner and celebration with them on Saturday. On Sunday was a birthday party and the whole family would be there so we had to come, tool. This is the way they are. You walk in, and immediately, you are one of them. It was great to relax in a home for awhile.
Some family history. The grandfather who was being honored was named Vital Brazil. He is the one who discovered the anti-venom snake preventative. He had several friends die from snake bites and wanted to do something about it and experimented with the venom. Nobody took him seriously until in 1915, while in NYC for a conference, a man was bitten and nobody could save him. Somebody remembered that there was this Brasalian in town and why not try anything. He saved the man's life and became a big hero in Brazil. He went on to found several clinics and is the father of all such medicine and research. He had 22 children by two wives, the first one died, no surprise. One of his son's was named Ruy. A family crisis brought one of Vital Brazil's cousin's family with 19 children to live in this house and one of those children was a girl named Alda. Alda was three when she came to live there and Ruy was four. They are now 79 and 80 and have been married for 60 years. Not only that, but tghey became boyfriend and girlfriend almost immediately. She loves to tell the story that he kissed her for the first time behind the curtains when she was seven years old, and they have been together ever since. Old and stooped now, they still kiss when passing the hallway. She still pats him on the backside, and you would think they just became lovers. It is so wonderful to see. One of Ruy and Alda's sons is Tirso Vital Brazil and it is in his home that we stayed.
After our wonderful week we wre back on our own. Travelling across Brazil is like riding on this green carpet. Everything is green: mountain tops, valleys, just this lush richness to the entire country. The highways are dangerous as hell, everybody seems to be in such a great hurry in Brasil, afterall there is no tomorrow. Traffic accidents are everywhere. There is a group called the "Angels of the Ashpalt," stationed every few kilometers which rush to the aid of traffic victims. They are kept very busy. Along the way we passed many motels. NOthing unusual about them until we asked Kim and Alvaro about them. They laughed because motels in Brasil are trysting places. Very private, they have names like The Edan, Shrangrai-la, The Ideal, Valentine, and so forth. The rooms rent for four hour blocks. You drive in to a private garage, the carport door rolls down so tht nobody can see your car, you order food and, or drink, over the telephone. They are delivered in a kind of dumb-waiter system, and when it is time to leave, you ring the office, a light comes on near a window, it opens up and a hand is thrust into your roomwith the bill. You then put your hand into the blackness on the other side of the windo with the money, the window closes, you get into your car and drive off. All very private, all very discreet. They are everywhere which makes onbe think that there is a lot of trysting going on. supposedly, the occupants of the rooms are over the age of 18, but kids use them a lot. If they have a driver's license, they have access to them.
Which only in part accounts for the pregnancy rate here in Brasil. Kim and Alvaro had this long discussion about whether 80% or 90 % of the girls are pregnant when they get married. I won't quibble, lets just take the 80% figure. The two of them could only think of one girl who was not pregnant when she got married in the four years that they have been going out. Birth control pills are available, but Kim's theory is that if they take the pills then it is the same as admitting that they plan on having sex. By not taking the ppills, they only have sex as a spur of the moment thinng, and that is very different in their minds. It is not just a problem with the lower economic groups. Kim and Alvaro's group is definitely middle to upper class and it is the same.
The position of women is improving but still remains in the dark ages. The 60 Minutes show where a man can kill his wife and escape punishment is still true and it is hard for women to be taken seriously. Statements like "That is a very intelligent thing to say, considering you are a woman," are the norm and it is hard to move up in a male dominated society.
In Rio we were warned so much about our personal safety that we were continually on guard. We didn't have anyproblems, but the stres really wears on you. The warnings didn't just come from trvellers who had been robbed, but from Brasilians as well: "Don't wear any jewelry of any kind. Take off your wedding rings, if they can't get them off, they'll cut your finger off. Don't speak English to each other - it identifies you as a tourist. Don't walk on the outside of the sidewalk- they drive by with big hooks and hook your purse from their cars. Beware of anyone with a rolled up newspaper - it hides a knife or a gun. Don't let strangers talk to you. Don't accept rides incars. don't ride the buses, and above all, when you are robbed have some money on you, because if they are going to take the time to rob you, they expect something. If you have nothing, they get angry and violent. As I said, in the end, we did not have any problems, but when people are poor, they do desperate things.
Brasilians are very active. We stayed 1/2 block from Ipanema Beach and on weekends and holidays, they close off the street and everybody and their pets are out running, biking, skateboarding, walking with the dogs, or pushing prams all day long. They start about 6:30 a.m. and it continues long after dark. During the week, they just use the sidewalk, but they are the most health conscious people we have ever seen.
The beaches, and there are many, in Rio are filled with surfers, swimmers, fishermen with nets casting into the water, and of course there are "The bodies." Men sculpted in stone strutting their stuff, and women in bikinis held together with 4 pound test fishing line. All the women wear these suits from age 8 to 80. One girl about 21 passes you and you say, "Oh, my God," then a woman of 75 passes you with the same kind of bikini on and again you say "Oh, my God." All levels of the titilation scale are reached on Rio's beaches.
We went to see a soccer game in the huge 250,000 capacity Maracana Stadium. It was an internaional match between a Rio team and one from Buenas Aires. The home team won and the ride back on the bus was one of the wildest events of this entire trip. Everybody packs into the buses until there is absolutely no room for anyone else, and then another 20 muscle their way on. No room inside, no problem, jump up nd grab the windows, and off we go down the road with people hanging out the windows, their feet inside and the rest of their body outside. People hanging on to the bumpers, and everybody screaming and singing the local team's song for the entire ride. Everybody shouts at the driver to stay on the left so that more people can cram on. The light turns red, but the drivers screams on through it to the wild cheers of the riders. We pass some girls sitting on a bench, even wilder cheers and songs that I don't really understand, but I really do. We pass a police checkpoint and everything gets very quiet until we pass and then delirious joy erupts.Ass this happens at about 45 miles an hour through Rio's curvy, bumpy streets.Everybody expects the bus to tip over and when the curve is successfully negotiated, what else but more wild cheering and singing. All this singing is supposed to be accompanied by clapping, but when you are hanging one with one hand, yor can't clap, so you bang on the bus. With closed fist, with feet, with whatever you are carrying.By the end of the 40 minute ride across town, the bus is a shambles. The plastic interior is broken, seats have been torn up, and all the time, the driver just drives on, never looking back. Stupid he is not.
The normal bus fare in Rio was 56 Cruzieros. Except that there are not czs in single demonations, so you give, 110 120 for two people, whatever you have. Change never comes back. There is an area in the back of the bus where you can ride for free, so even the poor people can get around.
There is no such thing as change in Brasil, becuae nobody ever has any. Instead of change you get pieces of candy, razor blades, bubble gum, phone tokens, and any other item of inconsequential value which you don't really want, but the alternative is to get nothing. It is just the way things run in Brasil and nobody gets upset about it.
The poverty of Rio is a never forgettable sight. If you have a cardboard box, then you have a gome. Any projecting wall has whole families living under it. At dark, the mattresses roll out on the street and you have to pick your way around them, even in fashionable area like Copacabana and Ipanema. The hills, or favalaqs, are about as bad as they get anywhere in the world. Even the police won't go into them. They have their own laws and rules. Rio is a fantasy and dark reality all at the same time.
Education is the hope of the future, but in Brasil the hope is dim, for the education system is a ripoff of the poor. a number of years ago the government decided to subsidize the private schools. The reality of this was that tuition to public schools was reduced so now that the middle class as well as the rich could afford private education. Not only that, but private schools could now afford to pay their teachers significantly higher salaries and so all the gook teachers went to the private sector and the public schools were left with the poorest, (financially) kids, and the poorest (quality-wise) teachers.
Our week in Rio came to an end and we headed off for Brasilia, 700 miles to the west. This artificial capital of the country has very stuning architecture, the latest in urban planning, and some of the best minds in Brasil living there. It is also a dead city. A monument to the fact that when it comes to a city having a life of its own, it can't be planned into it. On the weekend, everybody who can afford it, heads for Rio or Sao Paulo, or anywhere where people actully live and not just work. People living in Brasilia asked us what we thought of it, and all we could say was that it was very pretty, very interesting, but didn't seem to have any life to it. They would laugh and respond that it didn't, and that it was the biggest joke in Brasil. The fact that all the great cities of the world are great cities because over the years they have developed personalities, individual neighborhoods which reflect the people. Brasilia has everythging perfectly planned, and it's dead.
Our last experience in Brasil was the Pantanal. This huge swamp is the size of Texas and is a wonderful sanctuary of bird and animal life. We had really been looking forward to seeing it and we were not disappointed. We saw two different aspects of it. We took a taxi ($100) to a hotes down the Pantanal highway. You can only get down it part of the year because it floods and the one story hotel was great. Wonderful meals, alligators right outside your room (the hotel is built out over the water) and the calls of so many different birds that you could hear but never see. At the other end of the spectrum, we joined up with a Brazilian guide who took us with him, his assistant, 5 Israelis, an Englishman a German girl, a Japanese boy, Carol and I, and the cook, who said that he was crazy. A;ll 13 of us in a modified short bed, narrow body pickup. People hanging out everywhere. 4 inside the cab, 4 in the bed of the pickup, 4 on top of the roof of the cab with their feet hanging down over the windshield (for better vision) and one riding on the hood of the truck. The cook is crazy? Hell, we were All crazy. We went back into the swamp for three days of terrible sanitary conditions barely tolerable food, (the cook IS crazy), dirty living accommodations (everybody in the same soom with hammocks and awful beds, and wild rides through the swamp, and loved every moment of the whole experience.
The whole area is filled with cattle ranches and is one of the few areas where man and nature really co-exist to the benefit of each. The ranchers have put up all kinds of signs "When you fire a gun, all you kill is nature." "If you burn a match, all you can harvest is ashes," and the like. So we rode all around the ranches, our guide was born on one of them and knows all the people out there.
We would be tearing across the land, when the brakes would slam on, Rudy, the assistant, would run off and come back with some exotic animal. We dug up, literally, armadillos, chased down wild boar, coatis, climbed trees trying, unsuccessfully, to catch monkeys, caught 6 foot alligators (using the blue thong of the Japanese as bait), found a 20 foot anaconda eating a 5 foot alligator, saw wild deer capibaras, rhea, and an extraordinary variety of animals which we will not soon forget. The pickup, we were told, had "Yellow fever." It got delirious and just kind of went all over the road whenever it wanted. But in the end we made it back asfely and whe whole experience was all we wanted it to be and was a wonderful sendoff to Brazil.
About Bolivia, next time,
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