Fruit for Calafate? And Veg, Too...

Nearly three decades ago, when I first visited El Calafate, the gateway to the Perito Moreno Glacier was a compact village of just a few thousand people with a modest selection of hotels, restaurants and other services. The nearest airport was in Río Gallegos, at least three hours overland.

El Calafate's core is compact and even sheltered, but the town is spreading onto the steppes and along the lakeshore.

The glacier’s presence, though, incentivized a tourist boom that, coupled with a new state-of-the-art airport, has resulted in a sprawling town with many new hotels, restaurants and other services—not to mention housing for an increasing number of permanent residents (one of whom is my cousin, Elisa Rodríguez, who’s a tour guide in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and elsewhere in Patagonia). The town center is still compact, but the old hilltop airport runway is home to a new bus terminal and is gradually filling with new houses, as is the Lago Argentino lakeshore west of downtown.

The wild Río Santa Cruz, whose source is Lago Argentino, is under threat from  two large hydroelectric projects.

That sort of growth—the population now exceeds 20,000—requires a larger food supply, both seasonally and throughout the year, and supermarkets like La Anónima (linked to the historic Braun-Menéndez wool empire) have picked up the slack. It helps that roads have improved dramatically, and that flights from Buenos Aires are frequent but, in an area where environmental issues are paramount—global warming directly affects the glaciers and two large dam projects on the free-flowing Río Santa Cruz are highly controversial—sustainable food might be included among them.

Grilled lamb, on a stake, is a stereotypical Patagonian entree.

In southern Patagonia, the stereotypical diet is meat and more meat—traditionally it’s lamb, grilled on a stake over hot coals. Historically speaking, that’s a by-product of the huge sheep ranches that have occupied almost every acre of land since the “wool rush” of the 19th century. To be sure, are some cattle, but getting fresh fruit and vegetables has always been an issue here. With low temperatures and short growing seasons, root crops like potatoes were viable, along with soft fruits like raspberries and gooseberries, but many items, such as grapes and even fruit trees, were restricted to limited production in conservatories.

The approach to Chacra Las Moras

A row of poplars protects the cherry orchard from fierce Patagonian winds.

That said, on my recent visit to Calafate, I saw the largest fruit and vegetable production I’d ever seen in the region, at Chacra Las Moras, a literal garden spot where my cousin shops for much of her produce. There’s an orchard of cherry trees, sheltered by poplars, similar to what I’ve seen in the more northerly “banana belt” climate of Los Antiguos (Argentina) and its cross-border sibling of Chile Chico.

Currants do well outdoors here.

Strawberry tunnels forever?

There are also currants, raspberries and blackberries outdoors, but most of the cultivation takes place within the largest poly-tunnels I’ve ever seen, where strawberries, lettuce and tomatoes thrive. The warm temperatures inside seemed positively subtropical, but these are vulnerable structures that Patagonian gales can shred in minutes—as has apparently happened. Still, it was refreshing to see this intensive horticulture test the limits to find a niche in a town that needs what it can offer.

Jams and liqueurs on display

More local products at the checkout display

Chacra Las Moras also sells products from other nearby farms, such as calafate jam and liqueurs, and serves afternoon tea. Even for those who don’t purchase anything, it’s open for self-guided tours of what can be done under such challenging conditions.

Cannabis can survive outdoors here, but not - to my knowledge, at least - at Chacra Las Moras.

They do not, however, grow cannabis, which my nephew—soon to leave for Australia—was cultivating on the window sill of his Calafate residence.

Patagonian Pinot Noir.. and Other Oddities

In mid-summer, the vines are lush at Nant-y-Fall

Last year, I wrote about what was then (and still is, for the time being), the world’s southernmost winery. In Argentina’s Chubut province, Viña Nant y Fall lies just across the border from Chile’s whitewater Mecca of Futaleufú but, at that time, its owner/founder Sergio Rodríguez could not yet offer any wines from the young Pinot Noir vines. Everything was in place, but the first harvest was still aging in the tanks.

A roadside sign points the way to Nant-y-Fall

While driving from Argentina into Chile, I first saw Nant y Fall in 2014, when its roadside sign drew my attention. It was, it turned out, was more than just a winery—it was also an offbeat hybrid of motorhome park, campground and farm that stocked and sold products from throughout the area. While its owner/founder Sergio Rodríguez could not yet provide wine on my previous visits, this time I anticipated tasting the product, though there was one glitch—actually getting there from Futaleufú, as I had driven north along Chile’s Carretera Austral.

In early 2014, the vines at Nant-y-Fall were sparse.

A couple weeks earlier, I had walked from Chile Chico to Los Antiguos, Argentina, because a bureaucratic glitch would not allow me to take my car across the border, and the same was true for this visit to the Argentine side of the border. In this case, though Nant y Fall, unlike Los Antiguos, was some 30 kilometers from the border post—not a distance I could walk in an hour or so. I can cycle that distance on pavement but, on an undulating gravel road, it would have taken me several hours.

The Argentine border post at Futaleufú is barely 100 meters from the Chilean side.

Fortunately, after I spoke with Sergio, he recruited his father to pick me up at the border. After leaving my car on the Chilean side and passing through Chilean and Argentine immigration, it was only a few minutes before he appeared. Within half an hour, we arrived at Nant y Fall, where the vines now covered four hectares of low rounded hills and a narrow road led to its namesake arroyo.

Creekside campsite at Nant-y-Fall

Here there are several parking sites for RVs, with picnic tables and grills, and grassy sites for tents that would make it an ideal stopover for cyclists bound to or from Futaleufú (Nant y Fall is only half a kilometer north of the international highway between the Argentine town of Trevelin and the Chilean side), especially if the border’s closed (hours are 8am-9pm in summer, to 8pm the rest of the year). There’s a freestanding building with showers and toilets for campers and RVers, and also a couple rooms—one double with a private bath and a four-bed dorm with shared bath—in the nearby showroom/workshop/garage.

Family suite at Nant-y-Fall

Before returning to Futaleufú, I had a look at other regional products that the winery sells and here, and lunch with a taste of the 2016 Pinot Noir—and then bought a bottle to take back across the border and home to California. It was so recently commercialized that no labels were yet available, so I’ve had to improvise one.

This pioneer Patagonian Pinot awaits the proper occasion.

In March, the winery hosted its initial Fiesta de la Vendimia en Chubut, the showcase for the province’s small but growing wine industry. It’s worth adding that, although Nant y Fall is presently the world’s southernmost winery that may change—on the south side of the international highway there are newly planted vines, though no new winery is yet under construction.

Sergio Rodríguez with visitors at Nant-y-Fall

Walking to Argentina and (Part Way) Back

Many years ago, when I was a geography grad student at Berkeley, my mentor Bernard Nietschmann stressed the significance of participant observation fieldwork in the anthropological tradition of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead and others. I followed his advice, if not quite with his activist immersion, in my own academic work on environmental conservation in northernmost Chile and cultural-historical geography of the Falkland Islands. Since leaving academic life for travel and guidebook writing, I’ve done that to some degree, but a few days ago I had a sardonically amusing experience in that vein.

Chile Chico, as seen from the panoramic overlook of Plaza del Viento

Throughout most of my travels in the Southern Cone countries, I’ve had the advantage of owning an automobile, which has often freed me from air and bus timetables. Last week, though, I found myself in the Patagonian border town of Chile Chico with the need to cross into Argentina for the day without using my car. Unfortunately, the usual minibus shuttles to the town of Los Antiguos have stopped running because of a punitive Argentine tax that makes the route economically unviable, so I needed an alternative means of getting there.

The bus station at Los Antiguos is where many travelers on Ruta 40 start or end their  adventure in Argentine Patagonia.

The border crossing here is an important one for backpackers, as Los Antiguos is the endpoint for buses from the more southerly Argentine Patagonia destinations of El Calafate and El Chaltén (and, conversely, the starting point for southbound travelers on Argentina’s Ruta Nacional 40). With no shuttles, though, travelers without their own vehicles are having to walk roughly four miles (6.5 kilometers) between the Argentine and Chilean border posts, and this is where my “participant observation” comes in.

The Río Jeinimeni separates Argentina (left) from Chile (right)

It’s another six kilometers or so from Chile Chico proper to Chilean customs and immigration—probably less than a mile from the Argentine post as the crow flies, but for the waters of the Río Jeinemeni—so I decided to drive and leave my car there. En route, I saw several backpackers walking toward the border post even though local taxis can take up to three passengers there for about US$10. After parking, carrying only a daypack, I left Chile and started walking south toward the bridge across the river.

As I left Chile, a line of Argentine vehicles waited to cross the border for shopping

Fortunately, it was a mild day with relatively gentle winds and, as I left the border complex, there was a lineup of vehicles waiting to enter Chile (cross-border shopping is a popular activity for Argentines even when there’s no holiday). En route, I met at least ten backpackers, including a 71-year-old Israeli, who were trudging in the opposite direction. After an hour and a half, I reached the Argentine border post and then took care of business in Los Antiguos, updating some key information and paying for a pasta lunch with a packet of Argentine pesos still in my wallet.

The Argentine border post at Los Antiguos

Then I started walking back and, shortly thereafter, I noticed that a series of markers indicated that, for Argentines, a parallel trail to the actual border was part of a “Stations of the Cross” memorial and that I had just passed “Jesus falls down.” My cross wasn’t that hard to bear—I’m not a believer, anyway—but, about a mile from the Chilean border post, an Argentine family in a pickup truck stopped to offer me a lift. Having already walked at least 10 miles, I decided to accept and spoke briefly with them about their shopping trip to Chile Chico—another form of participant observation, I guess, though it made my own story a bit less epic.

Only toward the end of my walk did I realize that, for the faithful, it was part of  a "Stations of the Cross" route

Later, in Chile Chico, I visited a bicycle rental and tour company and learned that they allow clients to ride into Argentina. As a daily recreational cyclist at home in California, I’ve missed that while I’ve been in Chile, and I had to reflect on a missed opportunity.

Had I realized that I could have taken a rental bike across the border, I would have done so