Ghost Towns of Patagonia? A Review of "False Calm"

When the great Charles Darwin looked back on his travels, he displayed a surprising affection for Patagonia’s endless plains: “"In calling up images of the past, I find that the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet these plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless.  They can be described only by negative characters; without habitations, without water, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants.  Why then, and the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my memory?  I can scarcely analyse these feelings; but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the imagination."

A crossroads on the Patagonian steppe

Darwin’s focus was natural history, but he also observed Patagonia’s peoples and cultural landscapes, as he did in his description of the ruins of “Port Desire” (now known as Puerto Deseado): “It was formerly attempted to make a settlement here; but it quite failed from the want of water in the summer, and the Indians in the winter. — The buildings were begun in very good style, and remain a proof of the strong hand of old Spain.” He thought the area almost uninhabitable, though, “As the fate of all the Spanish establishments on the coast of Patagonia, with the exception of the Río Negro, has been miserable.”

María Sonia Cristoff—herself a Patagonian native—might agree with Darwin, but for different reasons. When I first saw False Calm – A Journey Through the Ghost Towns of Patagonia, the subtitle suggested something very different from what I then read about, an area I’d gotten to know pretty intimately over the course nearly 40 years. I had to check the Spanish version—“Un recorrido por pueblos fantasma de la Patagonia”—to clarify exactly what she meant. That wasn’t enough, though, as she wasn’t writing about abandoned settlements like remote Cabo Raso or the old Frigorífico Swift company town near Puerto San Julián, both of which I had visited regularly if not frequently.

Cabo Raso is a genuine ghost town on the coast of Chubut province

The Frigorífico Swift, on the outskirts of Puerto San Julián, is an industrial ghost town.

Cristoff, though, is not interested in nostalgia-laced curiosities in a region renowned for its wildlife and wild Andean backcountry. Rather, she focuses on what I would describe as semi-urban backwaters on the Patagonian steppe that begins just inland from the Atlantic and extends well beyond the limits of Darwin’s vision at Puerto Deseado, and I might call her experience a "stay" rather than a "journey."

Las Heras, one of Cristoff's "ghost towns," survives on fossil fuels.

Personally, I might also call her destinations "backwaters" instead of "ghost towns," and Cristoff is more an ethnographic participant observer of life in settlements like Cañadon Seco (population roughly 900), which is only 14 kilometers from the coastal oil town of Caleta Olivia (population 80,000 or so, which I know fairly well). Except for the inland oil town of Las Heras (population 23,000, which I’ve visited once), most other settlements are so far off the beaten track that I struggled to find them on road maps that showed only gravel tracks in the area.

Cristoff's hometown of Trelew is more prosperous than the towns she writes about.

She gets to know her destinations through residents who seem stuck where they are or, on occasion, are returnees (escapees?) on brief visits to their former homes. Her stories often tell us the darker side of small communities that we know exist but may prefer to overlook. These absorbing but taxing tales almost completely ignore prosperous places like Trelew—the author’s hometown—and nearby Puerto Madryn, which have flourished with the tourist trade, wool, and industries such as aluminum.

That said, this is a worthy counterpoint to Patagonia’s romantic image, as seen from afar or on brief sightseeing tours. I know the translator Katherine Silver slightly and, while I might still quibble with the term “ghost town” in English, it’s perhaps metaphorically appropriate to places whose inhabitants are wraiths even to their fellow citizens who pass through their communities. At the end of the day, the title “False Calm” implies aspects of Patagonian life that short-term visitors are likely to miss but are nevertheless important.

In Patagonia: a Poorly Planned Road Trip

Last Sunday’s New York Times travel section featured Latin America and, but for a piece on Panamá and brief mentions of Belize and Nicaragua, it’s almost entirely on South America. It goes from the top (Colombia) to the tip (Patagonia), and even included a two-page spread on Suriname, an underrated destination that I once covered for a rival guidebook company whose name is best left unmentioned.

I almost always appreciate coverage of a region that gets so little attention from the mainstream press but, that said, an account of a so-called “road trip” through Argentine Patagonia was a botched opportunity. Author Brienne Walsh planned to drive the legendarily desolate Ruta 40 – which I have described as “Patagonia’s loneliest road” - south from Bariloche to El Calafate. In the article, she claims that a well-known international car rental agency would not allow her and a friend to take their vehicle down the route because of safety concerns, specifically “black ice and potholes.”

That’s not totally unreasonable. While I’ve driven this route at least ten times, I’ve never done so in winter. At the same time, it’s not so much the road conditions – much of Ruta 40 is now well-paved and potholes are fewer even in the remaining gravel sections – as the shortage of services.  Beyond Esquel, about 300 km south of Walsh’s starting point, fuel, food and accommodations are even scarcer than in summer.

Thus, Walsh and her companion had to make the long drive southeast across the steppe from Esquel to Comodoro Rivadavia. Even though they did take advantage of the route to visit the remarkable Bosque Petrificado Sarmiento (pictured above), a fascinating petrified forest, before heading south of Comodoro, they wasted much of the limited winter daylight.

In fact, poor planning caused them to miss at least one major attraction. Their hotel porter in Bariloche suggested they visit Puerto San Julián, which they finally skipped in favor of continuing south to Río Gallegos and El Calafate. I can’t disagree with that, especially in winter, but they totally missed the route’s most appealing destination, the dramatic headlands of wildlife-rich Parque Nacional Monte León (pictured above), midway between San Julián and Río Gallegos. While the wildlife is less abundant in winter, the scenery on this brief detour is still rewarding.

Certainly Walsh and her companion deserve credit for visiting the Moreno Glacier in winter, when there are far fewer visitors. But their trip would have gone much better had they started in Puerto Madryn – gateway to the whale-watching site of Península Valdés (pictured above) – and avoided the long drive across the Patagonian steppe. They could still have detoured to the petrified forest and had time to visit Monte León as well. As it was, poor planning led to lost opportunities.

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this space for details.

Sunday Summary

Today’s entry is a series of short items, mostly on Chile, but with reference to Argentina in some cases.

Chilean Gasoline Prices

As elsewhere in the world, Chilean gasoline prices are rising rapidly in the wake of the Libyan crisis - Chile has almost no fossil fuel resources, and must import virtually all of its oil. In Puerto Varas, where I am presently, the price last week rose by 32 pesos (nearly 7 US cents) per liter, and the price for mid-grade premium now stands at 796 pesos (US$1.66) per liter (US$6.30 per US gallon). TV news has interviewed irritated drivers at the pump, but most Chileans seem to take it in stride - except for taxi drivers, whose livelihood depends directly on gas prices. Those prices are set to rise another 20 pesos next Thursday, raising the cost to about US$1.70 per liter (US$6.46 per US gallon) at current exchange rates.

Tsunami Warnings and the Nuclear Option
In the aftermath of Japan’s massive Friday earthquake, the Chilean government has relaxed its tsunami alerts for the coast, but a couple here in Puerto Varas told me the warning cost them a visit to the Puñihuil penguin colonies on the Isla Grande de Chiloé - local operators, rightly, would not take tourists out in small boats in rocky headlands.

Since its own colossal quake and subsequent tsunamis in February of last year, Chile has posted evacuation route signs in exposed coastal areas. It will be interesting to watch, though, the Japanese quake’s impact on Chile’s energy policy - President Sebastián Piñera’s government has discussed nuclear power but, given the near meltdown in Japan and Chile’s own seismic vulnerability, they may well reconsider.

That could have repercussions elsewhere, though. It could give impetus to advocates of the massive hydroelectric dams proposed in the Aisén region, at the expense of its wild and scenic rivers. Such a project would also require major deforestation for transmission lines; either way, the environment could be the loser.

Hora de Verano
In the United States, daylight savings time took effect early this morning and, at present, the time difference with Chile is one hour with New York, two hours with Chicago, three hours with Denver, and four hours with California. Time was, so to speak, that Chile ended its own daylight savings time (“hora de verano”) in mid-March, but it now extends until midnight on the first Saturday of April. Here, in Puerto Varas, that means daybreak does not come until almost 8 a.m.

Presumably, daylight savings time is an energy saving measure, but my guess is that it’s nearly a wash here, as early risers need the power to turn on the lights that they otherwise would have used last night. Of course, in a country with Chile’s latitudinal extent in a single time zone, sunrise and sunset times can vary dramatically from the subtropical north to the sub-Antarctic south.

The Tobacco Wars - Tobacco Losing Again
On my recent drive from Punta Arenas to Puerto Varas, I sped through Argentina as quickly as possible, but I did notice that the Santa Cruz province cities of Puerto San Julián and Río Gallegos have finally enacted tobacco-control laws, so that smoke-free dining there is the rule rather than the exception. Though El Calafate gets hordes of foreign tourists it, surprisingly, does not have such a law, but most of the restaurants in town act as if there were one. Even those that do allow smoking, such as the highly regarded grill restaurant La Tablita, have a well-segregated smoking area, in this case upstairs.

Because Argentina is a federal state, the laws are a patchwork there, varying from province to province. In Chile, they are uniform but much weaker - restaurants do not even have to set aside smoke-free areas, though no one younger than 18 may enter a designated smoking restaurant. With few exceptions, bars and pubs are total free-fire zones.

Nevertheless, that may change soon. According to a survey cited in the online Santiago Times, 78 percent of Chileans support banning tobacco in all restaurants, and Health Minister Jaime Mañalich has announced a measure that should eliminate smoking in enclosed public spaces. Chile is the region’s most egregious tobacco consumer, and the measure is long overdue.

Obama to Visit Chile
Visitors to Santiago should be prepared for heavy security on March 21, as US President Barack Obama pays an official 24-hour visit with his family. Between the 19th and the 23rd, Obama will also visit El Salvador and Brazil, but not Argentina.

Chile to Chile: a Motoring Marathon

On Sunday morning, around 9 a.m., I began a long solo drive that began in Punta Arenas (Chile) and took me to and across the Argentine border at Monte Aymond, proceeded north on coastal RN 3 to Comodoro Rivadavia, and then cut across northwest to the northern Patagonian lakes district. Finally, around 9 p.m. last night, I crossed the Andes from Villa la Angostura via the Paso Cardenal Samoré to spend the night at the nondescript lakeside town of Entre Lagos - a distance of roughly 2,070 km (about 1,280 miles) - in some 60 hours.

Because I was unable to snag a berth on the ferry from Puerto Natales back to Puerto Montt, I had no alternative but to return via Argentina. That may not sound like a great distance to anyone accustomed to driving four-lane freeways in the United States, but two-lane roads in the Southern Cone can be a different matter entirely.

I chose the route in question primarily because it consisted of paved roads, except for the odd bit of construction. That’s a little misleading as to driving conditions, though - RN 3 is pretty good, but segments of Chubut province’s RP 20 are badly grooved and potholed, as are some more northerly sections of RN 40 (I have written about RN 40’s southernmost parts many times).

For almost the entire trip, powerful headwinds and sidewinds that I would estimate at 50 knots with even higher gusts, didn’t much slow my progress. They did, however, eat into my gas mileage and, at the same time, they made it a challenge to stay on the road. With even stronger gusts every time an 18-wheeler passed in the opposite direction, it was all I could do to stay on the pavement, and I can only imagine how motorcyclists and bicyclists might feel simply trying to stay upright.

All that said, this was not the most irksome part of the trip - rather, it was the Argentine police. They’re my longstanding pet peeve, not because of overzealous enforcement (for what it’s worth, I have never seen an Argentine patrol car stop anybody for speeding; for that matter, I’ve rarely ever seen a patrol car on the highway, as opposed to parked alongside the road). It’s not even because they’re notorious for soliciting bribes for minor equipment violations, such as burnt-out brake lights, at roadside checkpoints (that’s not happened to me for a long time). Rather, it’s the time-wasting stops as 20-year-old rookies armed with a clipboards detain dozens of vehicles to write down number plates, check driver’s licenses, and ask each driver where he or she is coming from, and where they are heading.

Apart from the fact that it’s not their business whether I or any other non-felon might be Bariloche-bound, the police have no way of knowing whether or not our answers are truthful. Outside Río Gallegos, I told them I was driving to Alaska; at Sarmiento, I merely said “north” and, when asked if that meant the province of Formosa, I said it meant Canada. In reality, multiplied by the tens of thousands of times it must happen every day throughout the country, this is a pointless waste of resources; cumulatively, the lost time - not to mention the fossil fuels wasted by idling vehicles - is a burden on the Argentine economy.

That said, it’s been worse. In 1979, when I hitchhiked through an Argentine Patagonia then under a vicious military dictatorship, the police outside Puerto San Julián stopped a driver who had graciously given me and another young man a lift north from Río Gallegos. On learning that the other passenger was Israeli, the police took us all to the local station (pictured above) where, for more than an hour, they interrogated him with me as the default interpreter.

Aside from the fact that my Spanish language skills then were inferior to my current fluency, it was not easy to translate the combative Israeli’s “Tell these [expletives deleted] to go [expletive deleted] themselves.” At least, it was difficult to do so in any remotely delicate form, at a time when people often "disappeared" in such circumstances. That sort of flagrant anti-Semitism is thankfully rare in today’s Argentina, but I can never pass Puerto San Julián’s police station without being reminded of that time.