I am an island

Latest Chronicle from Tierra del Fuego: when these lines reach you, we will be sailing along Drake Passage, which by the way, the locals prefer to call “Mar de Hoces”. I say “locals,” but I include myself, because one cannot help but feel Hispanic in this corner of Argentina where the people are so nice, or in a few weeks in Punta Arenas in Chile, or perhaps in a few months in the immense Brazil, whose language “agarimosa” echoes my own Galician language! I so love Brassssil!

At a pizzeria in Ushuaia, two smiling girls speak to me in English first, they are looking for a table to sit at, and all tables are full. But I am sitting at a table for four at my computer, so I invite them to sit and share the table. First, we start the conversation in English, which of course is the lingua franca of the Empire. But they are Brazilian and I am Spanish, so in a few minutes we start talking about common things: Vanessa de Oliveira (the Portuguese Oliveira, so familiar to me) who has been a student of my dear friend Nelida Pinon, a Galician from Cotobade. This lady is a universal Brazilian, and the sweetest star of the literary firmament.

-Do you know Nelida Pinon? Vanessa’s surprise is immense, and I think that destiny has made an appointment between us, perhaps in Sao Paulo.

We said goodbye by exchanging contacts, profiles and selfies. I move on and meet up at another tavern with the first official, Oscar Macián Avendaño, who is both a Catalan and a Gallego. This man, instead of eight Basque surnames (like in the Spanish film) has seven generations of diaspora behind him. We are joined by our love of the Spanish author Serrat, the poem “words for Julie”, and an intimate conversation during this lucky afternoon. Next to us sit four loud young people from Huesca. They have come to the oldest tavern in Ushuaia, with its walls covered in messages from several generations before. They have come because their parents were also here at this tavern and they left their own messages on a piece of paper on the wall… and guess what? They found the messages! One of the messages says: “The cure to being a rightist is to travel and to read.” And sure enough, a selfie is taken and sent home immediately via wi-fi.

This is the new Ushuaia my friends, come and see. Soon they will build a giant dam for luxury cruises to dock and already there are thousands of tourists arriving in air conditioned buses scattered around the Lapataia Bay, which thirty years ago, I walked through alone. Back then there was only nature, but now there is a theme park and Visa is coming, and you can pay with your iPhone because they have wi-fi on the island.

Back then, in December 1986, I met the Hungarian naturalist Miklos Udvardy. Miklos was creating a map of the biogeographic provinces of the world which was being developed by the UNESCO. The idea is great: instead of states and borders, the world was divided into 150 phytogeographical provinces, based on ecosystems. “We have to save the resources of the Earth for future generations,” said Udvardy, and sure enough, we still continue with this task.

At Lapataia, myself, Oscar and Arnau hike for four hours along beaches and forests of beech and black cherry trees. This is a great trip worthy of Darwin. This is where Darwin found the evolution of the species, and like him, we are collecting scientific samples: leaves, berries, gems of green slate the same tone as the Laguna Esmeralda. Tierra del Fuego is magic.

Living life fully

Back to Ushuaia, I am offered the local stimulant “mate” at the Patagonian Pleasures pub, and I oblige. As far as pleasure is concerned, I believe that one should let go, even though the bitter infusion keeps me awake that night. At dawn, I found myself reading a book by Perla Bollo, “Soy Isla” (I am an island). This is the story of a journey by a woman walking in Tierra del Fuego. A woman walking alone, fighting against the gregarious gene to herd. We humans are gregarious and herd naturally, but Perla works in solitude against nature. “I don’t need – she writes – more than what I can carry”, and she walks days and days alone, on the snow, with frozen toes on her left foot, and experiences food shortages. She comes to suffer real hunger and spends New Years’ Eve alone in Peninsula Mitre, bathing naked in the icy sea and walking barefoot.

The following quote from the book “I am an Island” is fitting. Especially for my own expedition and because it is Christmas time: “Distance is not only good for getting away. It allows us to change our point of view, to get closer, it redeems us, it makes us forgive ourselves; it makes us grow, forget and find ourselves again. Such great distance makes us feel the human need to get back….”

We said goodbye to the year 2016 by honking the Horn of our vessel, the Sarmiento, and the improvised family made up of the crew and sailors hugged each other. The penguins also have the gregarious gene, they warm each other during the long polar winters. With the New Year, we will sail again towards Antarctica. This will be my third trip to the ice, running from the gregarious gene, as Perla Bollo did. Like her, I am also an island and “my first need is to live every second of my life intensely”.

The four ones from Huesca that I met before, who usually live scattered around the place, have gathered together to spend the holidays in Calafate and Tierra del Fuego: they do not give a damn about Christmas, like Perla and I. But we all continue to celebrate it, probably due to the gregarious gene, or perhaps due to some embers of our childhood still trapped in our emotional web. The four from Huesca, just like my daughters Sandra, Zoraida and Alicia, have their life ahead to live it fully.
The two happy Brazilian girls that I met at the pizzeria, have come to say goodbye at the port of Ushuaia. But the wind gets in the way. A wind of 40 knots closes the Bay where the ship is anchored. So, there will be no farewells. Is it not better this way? Let us hope so, and entrust the course of 2017 to the wind. Remember: “It is the hand of God that shuffles the cards”.

As soon as their plane takes off towards Sao Paulo, the wind calms down and the port is reopened, and so we can go on land. Fate plays with us, I say smiling to the second red Beagle beer, which goes down a treat. I am far from almost everything I love and yet I never felt closer. But I have come to the Antarctic, as Perla Bollo went to Tierra del Fuego, to challenge the gregarious gene. I don’t want to be part of the herd: I am an island.

Tomorrow evening we set sail…