January 19, 1999 on the bus from Buenos Aires to Santiago

Well, we did it again. We thought we had gotten the best bus to ride for 21 hours. Alas, no. The seats do recline but not enough and somehow there isn¹t as much leg room as it looks. The air conditioning is intermittent and the steward has no interest in two norte americanos. It could be a very long ride.

We arrived in Bs. As. About 11 am on Sat. 16 Jan, crammed our 4 enormous duffles into a new Peugeot taxi and rode at 140 kph weaving in and out of slower traffic, flashing our headlights to warn the sluggards out of the way, into the heart of the city. Very friendly and helpful people at the hotel. We walked to Plaza de Mayo where supporters of Las Madres have painted their symbols all over the place ­ the white kerchiefs las madres wear. We walked & walked.

Dinner at La Estancia. Tried asado criollo. I had "roast suckling pig" ­ greasy ­ not much meat ­ lots of fat & skin. Peg had beef ribs. Better but not much. Overpriced. A lesson. Waiters had been there 30 years and worked like robots. We did discover that the thing to order is lomo ­ steak.

We both crashed about 11PM & slept soundly.

Sunday I awoke feeling pretty bad. We had breakfast. Good stron coffee & fat ladened rolls. Then I had a nap. We ambled to Barrio Recoleta. Upscale shops, street performers, well-endowed and ­displayed women. The cemetery is amazing. Elaborate above-ground tombs for the rich and the famous.

Street performers all in white who move only when someone drops a coin into their hats.

22 Jan.

On Sunday, 17th, we had dinner at a sidewalk café. Not impressive. On Monday walked to bus station & bought tickets for the next day to Santiago. On Tuesday morning we went to the Fulbright office & met Laura Moraña, Norma Gonzales, the director, Renee the accountant and Gabriella Cosentino. Very helpful, friendly people.

While talking with Renee, we decided to opena caja ahorro - savings account ­ with Bansud which has a branch in Esquel. That way the Fulbright commission could deposit our stipend check in Buenos Aires & we could access the money in Esquel. We went to the bank with Renee and encountered major bureacratic hurdles.

Can¹t open an account without a clave de indentificación basically, a social security number. The bank staff were very helpful in looking for a loophole. Renee kept insisting that she had been able to open accounts for other Fulbrighters in a different bank. Lilián Polito, the branch manager, was incredibly helpful, making phone calls and tracking regulations untilo she found something which said that, under certain circumstances, it was possible without a CDI. Then Cynthia did the paperwork. She had troubles because the computer expected a CDI. In the end it was done. We deposited our first stipend check for $3,000 and hoped we would see it again.

During the entire 3 hours Lilián and Cynthia were helping us the bank was a madhouse. Two people were out sick and there were major computer problems so the phones were ringing off their hooks and lines were almost out the door. Not once did we get the impression that we were imposing on the bank. The whole adventure was a major blow to stereotypes of Latinos.

We made it to the bus station with little time to spare. The ride to Santiago was uncomfortable and uneventful. The highlight being a glimpse of the Magellanic Clouds in the crystal clear night sky.

When we got to Chilean customs everybody had to get off the bus. A couple of people completely unloaded the baggage from into a large pile beside the bus. Then we stood around while agents made the rounds taking a cursory look into our carry-on luggage. After that the two young and slightly obnoxious bus stewards demanded that everybody chip in a dollar to pay the folk who had unloaded and were now reloading the bus. Highway robbery! The customs agents didn¹t even glance at that pile of suitcases and duffles. I guess they figured we were too stupid to understand what was going on because they pointedly skipped us as they were going around collecting the one dollar donations.

Our good friend Jaime met us at the station in Santiago. At home we met Jaime¹s wife, Margarita, for the first time and became reacquainted with three of the children.

At dinner Margarita talked a lot about her mother and herself and about their exile after the Pinochet coup in 1973. Unfortunately, our Spanish was not yet up to speed and we understood only part of what she said.

Just before dinner I realized I had left my little hip pack on the bus. It had papers & travellers¹ checks. Jaime made several calls and a few hours later we got a call back to come pick it up at the terminal. It had been on its way back to Buenos Aires but they had been able to find it at one of the first stops still in Chile. Another blow to stereotypes!

Jaime is an economist who has made his living since he returned from exile, as a business consultant. With the crash in the Asian economy he has had very little work and is in pretty tough financial straits. He has been teaching a class in economics at Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH) in the Departament Ingeniera de Metalúrgico ­ mining economics with his interesting flair.

Jaime¹s tiny, 3 storey house is in a declining middle class neighborhood. It was built about 10 years ago but is of such poor quality that it is really looking rundown. There is a small living room / dining room combination and a really small kitchen. Jaime & Margarita have a reasonably sized bedroom. On the second floor are two very small bedrooms and a bathroom. The girls have those two rooms. The third floor is a single small room into which both Christián and Juan Jose crowd when they are their. At times Christián¹s very pregnant girl friend Alejandra stays there as well. There are often other young people passing through for varying lengths of time. Peg and I slept on the floor of Carolina¹s room since she was off camping out on Chiloe.

Jaime, in spite of his fairly upperclass upbringing, maintains his staunchly socialist views. Of course, Margarita is very much a campesina with perhaps even more radical views than Jaime. So, they have had a woman as a housekeeper since they bought the place almost new. She comes a few hours a day, everyday and cleans and does some cooking. Eventhough Jaime is really broke he would never consider letting her go. She is part of the family. More than that, in my view, is a strong socialist conscience to share what you have with others less fortunate. There is virtually no social safety net in Chile so, indeed, such things do depend on individual acts of kindness and conscience.

Christián has just completed his degree in mechanical engineering and is looking for a job. Juan Jose seems to make a meagre living as a rock climbing instructor and international champion in some kind of climbing competition. Carolina is completing a degree in counseling and young Isabel is just entering the difficult years of puberty and continues to charm her father so he is putty in her hands.

Jaime is looking for a job as well but he is old and he worries his years in exile and his record as a socialist and union activist during the Allende years have marked him.

We drove to Viña del Mar on the coast about 2 hours west of Santiago. Viña is a very upscale resort where the rich and famous have their condos. Jaime¹s mother and step-father have their top floor condo near the beach. They don¹t talk a lot about politics.

We had a pleasant dinner with them and enjoyed the fact that our Spanish was so much better than when we first met them 5 years ago.

The next evening we got on a bus for the overnight ride south to Osorno. We still didn¹t manage to get the kind of truly luxurious bus we had in mind. Five years ago Jaime¹s sister who is a travel agent arranged the same trip for us on a bus with 2 stewards, a meal better than any US domestic airline with good Chilean wine and almost fully reclining seats. At least it was better than the bus from Buenos Aires.

We got into Osorno about 7:30 and then had to sit around for two and a half hours to catch a bus to the Argentine city of Bariloche. Along ride through beautiful country. Once again we had to go through the bureaucrats on both sides of the border.

We got into Bariloche about 4PM and bought tickets for the 6 PM bus to Esquel. More time hangin¹ out at the bus station. Lots of young backpacker type tourists. Bariloche and the nearby Parque Nacional Nahuelhuapi are favorite destinations for Argentine and Chilean students during their summer break.

Not too many people on the bus. The young driver had the radio cranked way up listening to really offensive, loud music. After a while I finally asked him to turn it down. He just turned it off with no hassle.

The road between Bariloche and Esquel is pretty desolate. At some point we heard a loud warning buzzer go off in the cockpit and we pulled over to see what was the problem. Peg and I had visions of spending the night under the stars. Fortunately, whatever the problem was, was fixed promptly and we were on our way. Both the driver from Osorno and this one stopped more than once to pick up hitchhikers.

When we arrived in Esquel Juan Manuel Martinez and Nestor Camino were waiting for us with 2 cars to haul us and our stuff. Off to Hosteria Los Tulipanes where the bed was small and sagged in the middle ­ standard accomodation, and the breakfasts were great.

Lunch the next day at the home of Juan Manuel¹s friend Maria Elena. Juan and Maria Elena seem very friendly and eager to make our stay a good one. Of course, all communication is in Spanish. I¹m doing reasonably well but it is tougher for Peg.

Spent time with Juan Manuel talking about several invitations he has received for me to make presentations at other universities. He is eager to make all the arrangements. I just have to make some decisions about how much I want to do.

We have to get used to places being closed between about 12 or 1 PM and 4 or 5. It¹s easy to miss lunch.

We had a small asado at Maria Elena¹s with her kids, Juan Manuel and his kids and Beatriz Perez and her offspring. Maria Elena has a special room in her house for the barbecue with a large indoor charcoal grill. Argentines are serious about the barbie.

We got our gear organized so we could leave most of it in Esquel and take along just enough for travel and backpacking. Juan Manuel gave us a ride to a campground in P.N. Los Alerces just over an hour from Esquel. A nice place with lots of campers and loud music until about midnight.

In the morning it was raining but we packed up a began the trudge up the road to Hostería Futalaufquen ­ an overpriced resort hotel on the shore of the lake of the same name, where we planned to buy tickets on the return launch which we would catch after the 20 km hike to Lago Kruger. We got the tickets for 3 days hence and stopped for coffee and scones. We were charged $19!!!

We found the trailhead near the Hostería and began our trek. We ekpt up a reasonable pace for a couple of out-of-shape, middle-aged hikers. A long uphill climb through bamboo thickets was uninspiring. By now we were getting tired and wet. Still raining. Getting late. I was really becoming exhausted. Peg was hanging in well. A stop for a snack helped. Eventually, we ame to the low pass we had to cross. The trail down the other side seemed almost vertical. Switchbacks were non-existent. We wanted to stop but there was no place even close to level. We descended very carefully on the slippery trail as rain continued to fall. Peg¹s walking stick and a bamboo staff she found for me were really helpful. Finally, we reached the bottom about 8 PM. After eleven hours we were two thirds of the way along a trail the guidebook said would take 8 hours. We were both exhausted. Pitched the tent and went to sleep without dinner.

Next morning we were debating about whether to finish the hike or wait another day. Peg had one of her cardiac arrythmia attacks so, we just hung out on the beach on the lake drying out. Nice day, windy, some sun. Saw 3 blak vultures a flicker and a hawk similar to a cooper¹s.

About 7 PM we were getting ready to fix dinner when a guardia parque showed up in a small boat. He wanted to see our hiking permit. We had not even considered the need. After some discussion in rapid-fire Spanish it was clear we had to leave. He told us to pack up, that he would be back soon to pick us up.

An hour and a half later he took us to the other side of the lake next to the road. Spent the night & next morning hitched a lift back to park HQ at Villa Futalaufquen.

Checked into the campground, had lunch and hiked 5 km to Hostería Futalauquen to try to get back our dollars for the return boat ride. Clearly an unusual request. The girl at the desk couldn¹t make the decision. She told us to check back after 6PM when Guillermo would be there.

Back at the campground, there was Juan Manuel, his two boys and Maria Elena. They had come by to see if we¹d been washed away by the rain. It was good to see them.

Back to the hostería with them. Guillermo was there and after more discussion during which he gave some bull shit reasons for not giving us a refund, it was agreed that we could use them at a later date on a different trip ­ this time to Alerzal Millenaria ­ a reputedly spectacular ride to a grove of 2,000 ­ 3,000 year old Alerces. Probably in March.

Spent the night at the campground, caught the collectivo next day for Esquel, checked into Hostería Angelina run by Sr. Scaglione & his wife.

1 March, 1999

Greetings from Esquel, Chubut, Argentina at latitude 43 degrees south, nestled in the eastern foothills of the Andes. We are staying in a cabaña which the university has rented for us. It¹s great to finally be in a Œplace of our own¹ where we can spread out our stuff and put the duffel bags and backpacks away. We¹ve had six weeks of travel time- 80 hours of bus rides ­ not including the wait time. Our most recent ride brought us home to Esquel from El Calafate (850 kilometers south of here). It was a 2-day ride in a microbus, almost all of which was on gravel roads. After 13 hours the first day we did stop at a hotel for the night. The thing is it¹s a big area down here, not many roads, not many towns, not many people and it takes time to get from one place to the next. You can¹t just hop on a plane either. Buses are THE important mode of transportation. Traffic on these 2 lane roads is low. On the first day of our recent trip we counted 16 cars, 1 semi and 3 bicyclists from 11 AM to 10PM (the bicyclists are all crazy gringo tourists who don¹t mind pedaling against 30-40 mph winds for a couple of hundred kms between settlements).

Here¹s a recap of our last 3 weeks on the road. We left Esquel on Feb 8th by bus to Comodoro Rivadavia, a city on the Atlantic coast (8 hr bus ride) to catch a plane out of there the next morning for El Calafate. Comodoro Rivadavia is the center of the petroleum industry in Argentina. That¹s about all we can say at this point since we got there at 9 PM and left the next morning at 9. We flew on LADE (Linea Aérea del Estado) which is the military airline. The plane was a twin engine turbo-prop. When we arrived in El Calafate the wind was blowing a lot and continued to do so the entire 3 weeks. The pilot made an impressive cross-wind landing.

We immediately headed from El Calafate to spend the night camped a few miles from the foot of an enormous glacier. One of the few glaciers in the world which is still advancing, Glaciar Perito Moreno periodically forms a dam which creates a large lake, several square miles in extent. Every few years the dam gives way with an impressive rush of water. Unfortunately for us, we missed the exciting event; it must have last occurred a year or so back.

Back in Calafate we prepared for several days of backpacking in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares to visit Cerro Torre and Monte Fitzroy, the two largest in a series of enormous granite spires which attract rock climbers from all over the world. They are indeed magnificent sights. Cerro Torre particularly appears to be polished rock making it rank as one of the most challenging climbs in the world. We took a bus to El Chaltén from whence we hiked to the camp near the base of Cerro Torre. The peaks are surrounded by glaciers. We camped cheek by jowl with hordes of other trekkers in a grove of trees which helped break the wind. The couple next to us were from Vancouver, BC. Because the equivalent of the National Park Service provides only one smelly, inconvenient outhouse the most prominent flower is the pungent White TP. Yeeeech!!

Near Monte Fitzroy a similar campground had fewer people and an equally impressive view. A 500m climb up to the Monte Fitzroy Lookout at Laguna de Los Tres gave us a close-up view of Monte Fitzroy towering 2000m above us. Spectacular. The trail was a mess, though, and no switchbacks.

We hiked back to Calafate and there caught a bus to the southern end of Lago del Desierto, the scene of border skirmishes between Argentina and Chile in the 1970¹s. It is a beautiful, long and narrow lake sandwiched between two high mountain ridges. The top of the western ridge is covered by glaciers and, as we hiked the 10 km to the north end of the lake where the border patrol maintains a tiny garrison we frequently could hear the sound of chunks of ice falling off of those glaciers. That evening as the wind started to pick up we could see out on the lake sheets of water spray blown several hundred feet in the air as gusts picked up water from the relatively smooth surface of the lake! Fortunately, that phenomenon was induced by a narrowing of the lake where the rock on either side came close together and we were spared the full fury of the wind.

We met a nice young couple from Buenos Aires. Hiked back to the south end the next day where we camped to wait for the bus the day after that to take us back to El Chaltén and ultimately, to El Calafate. This was a place where on a busy day maybe 20 cars came through.

In El Calafate we had our clothes washed (not possible to find a self-serve laundry) and headed to Puerto Natales in Chile. As soon as we got to Pto Natales we used the magic ATM machine to withdraw some $ in Chilean pesos & then bought a ticket for a tiny micro-bus to take us to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, not to be confused with the Argentine peak Cerro Torre which is named after an Italian climber. Torres del Paine means Towers of the Paine. We crammed 12 people into a 10 pass van with most of our gear on the top under a too-small tarp as it started to rain and began the 3 hour ride to the park. We had put all of our gear inside plastic bags inside our packs so only the outside got wet and covered with mud.

Once we got to the park we had to take another small bus to the campground. (Transportation is never easy.) Next morning we hiked from the campground up to a viewpoint from where we could see the Torres ­ again an awesome set of rock spires surrounded by glaciers and wind. After another bus ride we arrived at Park headquarters from whence we took another van to the trail head to hike to a more remote part of the park. We camped along the Rio Pingo. Instead of hordes of people, there were only 2 other couples, one couple was from Santiago and the other couple was from Switzerland. It was a beautiful area with great views of the Cuernos del Paine that had a layer of black shale covering their almost white granite base.

Unfortunately, most of the next day was spent in our small tent due to rain. We watched the river rise at least a foot in a 24-hr period. We saw a pair of Torrent Ducks diving and feeding in the river. They look a lot like Harlequin ducks. After hiking back to the ranger station where we stashed our packs, we took a little walk over to the base of Lago Grey which is filled with icebergs from Glaciar Grey. Usually there is a boat ride available up to the glacier but not this year because the lake is filled with icebergs. After picking up our packs, we hiked out to the road to hitchhike back to the Park headquarters 12 km away. We waited for an hour in 50 mph winds. The third car picked us up. Thank goodness. From there we caught the bus back to Pto Natales.

We had an extra day in Pto Natales before we had to start the trip northward to Esquel so we rented a car and drove out into the country. Finally, we could stop whenever we wanted to. Although, the weather was still rainy, with low clouds (similar to Bellingham) we enjoyed the day in the car. For people who are used to getting into a car and going whenever they want to, all this bus riding has required quite a mind-switch.

Both El Calafate and Puerto Natales are small tourist towns full of packpackers from all over the world. Both places had internet access of sorts ­ with slow connections.

Esquel (pop. 23,000 approx.) is in a beautiful area surrounded by hills. Our cabaña is about 1 mile from the center of town and the one main grocery store. Since we have no car that means a lot of walking. There are 3 main 2-way roads and the rest are all one-way. There are NO stoplights or stopsigns so it¹s sort of a game of chicken at every intersection. Time seems to be a bit slower here except when people get in their cars. The pedestrian has no rights at all. Pedestrians are invisible! Another mind-switch. There seem to be no traffic laws. Speeds on the main streets of town range from maybe 20 MPH to 50. Four-wheelers are on the roads with cars. Motorcycles have no mufflers and occasionally find need to ride on sidewalks.

Most stores and some restaurants close up at 1:00PM for several hours for lunch and siesta. The stores re-open around 4 or 5 and then are open Œtil 9:30 or 10:00PM. The restaurants might not re-open until 9 or 9:30PM. People eat late - 10 or 11 seems to be normal. Another mind-switch.

It¹s enjoyable to walk around town discovering new places - bakeries, hardware stores, fruit and vegetable stores. There are lots of roses and other flowers in bloom in private yards. There seem to be quite a few houses (small) being built.

The cabaña is an A frame. It has a TV (one channel has movies in English)and a telephone. The main room is a combination LR, DR, and kitchen. There is another small bedroom and the bathroom on the main floor. Upstairs there are 2 small bedrooms, one with a double? bed and one with 2 twin beds. The best thing about the cabaña is that it comes with DAILY cleaning service and clean towels. And we¹ve been sending out the laundry because there is no laundromat nearby. Since Jim is working my main jobs have been getting groceries, cooking dinner and reading.

Jim¹s Spanish (Castellano in Argentina and Chile) is coming along much better than mine. We do need to look for a tutor.

On Monday, Jim made his first presentation (short!) in Spanish to a group of about 35 teachers. He survived.

We are almost completely out of touch with news of the world. We did find a fairly recent TIME magazine in which we learned that the Senate acquitted Bill and that we are all much better for the experience. We know that Mt. Baker has had record snowfall and that Bellingham has had record rain. We don't know much else so we would appreciate what ever news you care to share.

March 31, 1999

Warning! what follows is long and rambling. It is probably boring and will make you fall asleep. Delete it now and save yourself the hassle.

Dogs. Lots of dogs. It seems that every one of the 23,000 people who live in Esquel have their own dog. Of course, it would be somehow unnatural to neuter the critters so there is an unending supply. They are the most noticeable in the middle of the night when they are out carousing. Apparently, the pumas don't come down into town from the mountains.

An amazing thing about this sabbatical is that we have some time to think! Aside from the mental exhaustion attendant with speaking in an unfamiliar tongue my brain is going to get tired from thinking so much. Without the gazillion trivial things which occupy my time at the university and without travelling everyday there is not much else to do. Not that I am complaining. It is a delightful experience. I can spend time thinking about my profession and my goals. I can spend time reading books - not just cheap novels but books on the history of science, the teaching of science and other fields of science.

I also have time to learn about and contemplate a different culture and a different academic system. I never knew I had it so good!

The people of Esquel have been unfailingly friendly and helpful. The fact that we make an effort to communicate in Spanish is almost always appreciated. We have heard more than one story about Norte Americanos who make absolutely no effort to speak in Spanish. One teacher colleague talks about two rico gringos she has known for some years who come every year to their estancia (bought for the magnificent trout stream) who have never uttered a word of Spanish, not even hola.

However, if we go into a tourist place that is used to catering to English speakers, it can be difficult for us to practice our Spanish.

By necessity, we have become accustomed to the typical daily calendar, although we do eat a reasonable breakfast unlike most Argentineans. Lunch around 2 or 3 PM and dinner maybe 8:30 or 9:00 (that's a bit early). We tried doing the afternoon siesta. It was great but then we couldn´t sleep at night.

We recently met a fellow who had been a manager on an estancia of approximately 1,000,000 acres! He lost his job when Bennetton (the clothing people) bought the place. They are now protecting it for the environment. In general, ganaderos (ranchers) used to make reasonable $ off of sheep but the market is long gone. Many turned to cattle but it takes of the order of hundreds of acres for one beef so they too have turned to the tourist business. For the most part the owners don't live on the land. They are, or aspire to be, jet-setters living in Buenos Aires. One third of the country's 33 million people live in Buenos Aires.

My university has a total of about 300 students, very few actually in physics, but a reasonable number who are enrolled in a forestry engineering program which requires some physics. For the most, part my colleagues put their energy into a program for teacher enhancement and efforts to improve public schools. That's a real challenge. Elementary school teachers are paid about $400/ month. No increments for longevity or education. Secondary teachers are paid the handsome sum of $1,000/ month. Which is great in comparison to the elementary people until one realizes that the cost of living here is essentially the same as in the U.S. At least, it is not Buenos Aires: one figure I have seen, told me that the cost of living there is about 1.3 times what it is in Seattle!

During the first week in April I will be returning to the US to interview for a faculty position at the University of Arizona where the College of Sciences is establishing a new Science Education Group not unlike the group at Western. It's a long shot and we might not accept a job even if offered, but, If they want to shell out the $2k to get me there who am I to complain? It will at least give me a chance to buy some spices and other essential foods which don't exist here.

The food here is good but boring. Relatively few vegetables in the stores. The soy sauce tastes like mildly salty water. Can't buy any of the spices for Indian cooking. Dried chili has little flavor. I did find, just the other day, some fresh chilies which seem to be jalapeños. No peanut butter!!! We can buy decent olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Fresh mushrooms are hard to get but they do have some interesting dried mushrooms that have an intense, sweet flavor; they turn out to be very good in spaghetti sauce.

It is starting to get cold. This morning my pocket thermometer showed 45 degrees F in our cabaña. By 12 noon the temp inside was up to 75. Insulation in buildings is an uncommon thing and the heater is not real good. We´ll be having the second heater turned on in the next few days.

When I return from the US, I will give a short 4-day course on physics education at a university near Buenos Aires. After that Peg will meet me in Buenos Aires where we will spend a few days. Then we will take several days to travel about 1700km south eventually ending up in the small port city of San Julián where I will present another short (shorter) course at the university there. After that back north to another port, Comodoro Rivadavia, the location of the main branch of the Universidad Nacionál de la Patagonia. I will give a very short presentation there before we head back to Esquel around the end of April. I was supposed to give two other talks at schools in the greater Buenos Aires area but decided that it would be just too much since, as usual, everything is in Spanish.

It is mentally exhausting to listen and speak in Spanish all the time because we have to concentrate so hard. There is no way to listen passively as so many of our students do. If we are to hear anything we must concentrate carefully and engage little translation machines in our minds. Speaking is even more difficult, although at times, it is not too bad if you don´t try to think about what you are saying and just let it flow. Of course, there are some potential pitfalls there!

We recently visited a local school and met a number of teachers from the surrounding area who are taking correspondence courses in basic science. It was impressive to meet and talk with these dedicated people who are paid absolute shit wages for teaching the children of this country. Good folks, eager to learn, very interested in the teaching situation in the US.

Consider mailing a package in Argentina. A few days ago Peg agreed to do a favor for a couple of young American travelers. She was to mail a small parcel to family in Buenos Aires while they were backpacking in the national park. She found a box at the grocery store, taped it carefully and put on the mailing address. At the post office we are told that the box must be wrapped in plain brown paper and then tied and sealed with some hokey aluminum seal. We can purchase the paper and have the package sealed in a nearby store. Back at the post office she has to fill out an extensive questionnaire about where the package is to go and who she is. She has to include her passport number !!! Argentineans must include the equivalent of their social security number! Talk about Big Brother. Fortunately, most of the time the bureaucracy is too muddled to make much use of such but there have been times in the recent past when the heavy hand of big brother was all too efficient.

Speaking of which....a major preoccupation, seldom expressed, is that some aspects of those bad old days could return. Nobody really trusts the government or the military. Add that to the more mundane fear that the double- and triple-digit inflation for which Argentina was so famous in the 70's and 80's could return and you can partly understand why, for instance, people don't seem to be into quality construction of buildings. What's the point? You could lose it all tomorrow anyway.

On Saturday we took a bus into Parque Nacional Los Alerces to Lago Menendez and from there took a boat excursion to an area at the head of the lake that has very big old trees...Alerces (Fitzroya cupressoides) which are somewhat similar to the giant sequoias. We saw one that was 2600 yrs old and very big - 2.2 meters in diameter. There is one about 4000 years old but NOBODY gets to go see it. Most of this park is off limits in order to protect these last remaining alerces. The trip was fascinating, and the guide had lots of good info...we even understood a lot of it. According to the LP guide book, the peaks of the park don't exceed 2300 meters, hence westerly storms from Chile dump 3 meters of rain annually to support the lush growth of this humid Valdivian rainforest in the western part of the park on the Chilean border. There are the alerces, several large species of beech trees (all with tiny leaves), Chilean incense cedar, another type of cypress, lots of bamboo, and the arrayan which has foliage and the cinnamon-colored, peeling park similar to the madrones. They have a very fragrant tiny white flower. We saw a glacier high up on a peak. Mostly, the glaciers in this area and north are small. They have receded and left all these neat lakes and rivers. There is great fly-fishing around here. Earlier, we met two young guys, one from Montana and one from Ireland, who are working down here as fly-fishing guides.

Went flying for a brief time the other day. Tried to go up in a vintage Luscombe. Before we got into the plane Roy was going to put some more gas in out of about a 30 liter plastic container. As he was trying to boost it up onto the wing the cap came off and poured 100 octane all over him. Didn't seem to phase him. He took off his shirt and we, somewhat more carefully, hoisted the thing up. Then he sucked on a siphon tube and put in about 20 liters. We got in and started it up but the throttle cable broke and it would only run wide-open. So we shut it down and Roy made arrangements with his son for us to go up in the Cessna 180 his son flies. I'm a little rusty in the 180 - been about 15 years - but it came back pretty well and we took a nice circuit of Esquel at sunset. Beautiful! Daniel, Roy's son, said as we were flying over a small local lake that he had caught rainbow trout weighing 8 kilos in the lake! I believe it from some of the pictures I¹ve seen.

One Sunday we went with Juan Manuel, Marie Elena, Christina and Oscar (2 teachers in JM's project) to a dam nearby for a picnic. It was very enjoyable and I even understood quite a bit. We women had some good conversation, too. It mostly feels pretty solitary here for me.(I'll probably come back really weird.) Marie Elena started school yesterday. She has a class of 26 children. She says 2 have big learning problems. It's the inclusive model here as well, I guess. But she says she doesn't have the training for them. Have we heard this before?

I don't mind the cooking at this point because I don't have much else to do. I'm racking my brain, though, because I don't have any cook books. The selection of vegetables and fruits is pretty limited. They do have one kind of potato, yellow onions, green and red peppers (thank god) tomatoes, lettuce, chard, eggplant, cabbage, not much in the way of mushrooms, but they do have garlic, and butternut squash (our favorite). Fruits are really basic: green and red apples, bananas, oranges, sometimes grapes, plums, lemons. I expect that is more than you wanted to know! I'm curious to know how much more limited it gets in the winter. We entertained one Friday evening. We had Juan Manuel and Marie Elena over for dinner. I made a dish with lentils, onions, chicken and garam masala (we had some with us) and squash and salad. This place is really sort of like camping though! We can't have more than 6 with us because that's all the dishes and silverware there are.

Congratulations! if you got this far without falling asleep.

May 16, 1999

I should have written sooner 'cause half the interesting things I've thought of to say have completely evaporated from my aging brain. We've been busy and there is much to tell so, once again, here's the warning that perhaps you should just delete this message now and save yourself the trouble.

Interesting political things are happening in Argentina. The most obvious and easily understood by naive foreigners such as Peg and I is the fact that apparently under pressure from the World Bank, the government has announced cuts in the budget which particularly affect education. Now, if you recall from a previous note that the education budget already is practically indistinguishable from $00.00, then you can get a sense of how upsetting this might be. The education minister resigned. That seems to be a pretty major step since now she has cut herself out of the loop of graft and corruption which everyone assumes pervades every office of the government.

The newly appointed minister says that there really aren't any cuts just rearrangements. Sound familiar? The president says there aren't any cuts and that those who say there are, are liars. The main candidate for president in the upcoming elections has told his supporters in the congress to vote against the cuts.

All of the schools in the country were closed in protest today. There are protest in the streets in every city where there is a public university. Buenos Aires has huge protests going on in the streets.

Even here in Esquel the University and all schools closed today and perhaps 500 people marched in the streets in protest. An interesting observation during the march was the traffic control by the policía. There wasn´t any. So there was a street full of marchers surrounding cars that were slowly driving through the crowd. Apparently, with so many people, pedestrians are no longer invisible so there were no accidents.

I sat through a couple of meetings where I could understand a reasonable amount of what was said. The discussions sounded familiar. The need to educate the public about the importance of education and the role of the university. Will people understand the mission of the university?

Enough of politics.

I spent the month of April travelling. I spent four days interviewing for a faculty position at the University of Arizona but apparently they were not dazzled so we are planning to remain in the Great Northwest. The flight to Tucson was a killer. We drove 300 kms to Bariloche where we spent the night. I caught a flight the next day to Buenos Aires. Hung out for 8 hours in the Bs. As. airport - booooring. Got on a plane at 9:30 PM for Miami. Arrived in Miami about 5 AM. Hung out for 4 hours in Miami. Caught a plane for Dallas. Quick connection for Tucson where I found it was snowing!

I enjoyed visiting with my brother, Hall, and his family in between interview sessions.

A few days later I got back to Buenos Aires, spent the night and caught a bus for Olavarría where I did about 15 hours worth of presentations about science education in the U.S. mostly involving some hands-on activities so I didn't have to torture my audience with my broken Spanish so much. Seemed to go over reasonably well. Hands-on activities are pretty uncommon here. Most learning at whatever level comes from a textbook or lecture.

At the university there are usually no texts for the students to buy. Professors put on reserve in the library a selection of their own books which students can check out for short periods. Needless to say, copyright laws are totally ignored.

Well, Olavarría is in the Pampa Húmida - the damp part of the famous pampas- so it is flat as a Kansas parking lot. There is a pimple on the landscape a hundred meters or so above the surrounding flatness which gives some relief. Other than agriculture the big industry is the production of cement. Other than my course, the 4 days I spent there were pretty boring.

I met Peg in Bs. As. where we spent 4 days. We enjoyed ourselves mostly wandering around some of the interesting barrios around the central part of the city. One afternoon we took a cab to La Boca a colorful, historic neighborhood reputed to be the home of the tango. It is also the home of the Boca Juniors soccer team - one of a dozen or so world class teams based around Buenos Aires. We hadn't realized that there was a game that afternoon. Imagine a soccer stadium with close to 100,000 rabid fans. Fortunately, we arrived in La Boca about the time the game was starting so we had about an hour and a half before we had to skedaddle to avoid the after-game riots. The place was full of cops.

The most interesting thing was watching a couple dancing the tango on the street. This is an interesting and difficult dance which, when done right, is a marvel to watch. They did it right!

Minutes before the game let out we got on a 50 passenger bus with 70 people and headed for el centro where our hotel was located.

That night we went to Cafe Tortoni, a 140 year old Buenos Aires tradition. There we watched a tango show and listened to a tango singer. It was good but would have been better if the amplifier had been turned down about 10 decibels. The dancers were good too but we like the street performers better.

We flew out of Bs. As. for Trelew near the famous Peninsula Valdés on the Atlantic coast where, during the right season one can see dozens of Right Whales, thousands of elephant seals, tens of thousands of sea lions, and hundreds of thousands of Magellanic (Jackass) penguins. Needless to say, this was not the right time of year. We rented a car and drove the circuit around the barren peninsula and managed to see penguins, sea lions and female elephant seals but in much reduced numbers. Of course, we saw many guanacos (like llamas), many choíques or ñandú (lesser Darwin´s Rhea) - ostriches. We also say 4 maras an increasingly rare rabbit-like creature that is actually closely related to guinea pigs and nutria.

Trelew, Puerto Madryn where we actually stayed, and several other nearby towns were all founded by Welsh settlers who came to the region as early as the mid 1800´s. I can´t imagine what they must have thought when they first laid eyes on the barren shores of Patagonia.

In Puerto Madryn Peggy decided to try seafood after the waiter assured us that, really, this was the best around. Well, we think that a goodly number of places around Puget Sound don´t handle their seafood correctly. Here it is much worse. We´ll stick with beef and chicken which don´t need to be exquisitely fresh to be good. The butcher shops have sides of beef and lamb just hanging out at room temperature. They get by with that because there usually is enough turnover to keep things from going bad. The problem with fish is you just can´t keep it like that.

In Comodoro Rivadavia we were supposed to meet a person from Universidad de la Patagonia Austral in the town of Puerto San Julian. The morning he was supposed to meet us we got a phone message that, on his way to pick us up, he had hit a large native rabbit and destroyed his radiator. We had to wait until 8 o´clock that night for a bus to San Julián. We arrived at 2:30 AM. We had a little free time the next day to get organized then I presented four hours of hands-on science to local teachers and professors. The day after we went 8 hours. It was a great group and I really enjoyed myself. I know my Spanish is poor but it is greatly satisfying to be able to get along for 8 hours teaching a group of eager people.

The bus back to Comodoro Rivadavia left at 3:30 AM!!!! We arrived about 9 o'clock and checked into the hotel - and slept. Next day we met my colleagues Juan Manuel and Beatrice and got a tour of the main branch of the Universidad de la Patagonia. Next day two different presentations. Then, on a Saturday morning, we headed back to Esquel.

We stopped along the way to visit a petrified forest.. Huge trees, millions of years old.

Just as we were getting settled back into a routine and I was getting ready to sit down with my colleague Juan Manual to work out a collaborative venture on applying writing as a tool to learn physics, his mother fell and broke her leg. She lives alone in a city a very long way from here and he is her only child. So he is off nursing her. Since the university was closed last week it has been a little slow for us but not without interesting adventures.

We finally rented a car for the next month. The cost of renting a car here is close to 3 times what it would be in the U.S. At least part of the excuse lies with 2 government tariffs. Even though there is no Argentine automobile industry to protect they levy a tax of about 40% on all imported cars - virtually all the cars in Argentina. On top of that they charge a value added tax of 21% on everything in sight. This doesn't quite add up to the exorbitant rates we are asked to pay but I guess we are helping to stimulate the weak economy.

Now, we didn't rent this car from Hertz or Avis. It comes from a local travel agency with a fleet of three beat out 1995 Renault 9's. I am still trying to get a spare tire that holds air. They did change all four tires to something that looks reasonably new. Tires are pretty important here for two reasons. One is that the majority of roads are gravel and thus pretty hard on tires. The other is that, on the highway, people drive at around 140 - 150 kilometers per hour and if they have a blowout at that speed they are toast or, perhaps, I should say, scrambled eggs. High speed, roll-over accidents appear to be reasonably common. We just loaf along on the highway at 100 km/hr. That's about 60 mph. But, we do drive on lots of bad gravel roads.

So, with our new rental car we planned a trip over, reportedly, really bad roads to the small town of Chaitén on the Pacific coast of Chile. We asked the rental agency what we had to do the be allowed to take the car out of AR. since we had read in our guidebook that foreigners might have trouble doing so. They said all we needed was a bit of notarized paperwork for which they would charge only $50. I told the guy to stuff it and he quickly agreed that we wouldn´t have to pay for it at all. I picked up the form which basically says that the true and legal owner of the car gives us permission to take it out of the country.

Well, as we tried to leave Argentina the nice lady asked how long we had been in Argentina. We said, "Oh, about 3 months." She said, "sorry, you can't take the car out of the country." According to this delightful personage, unless we have lived in AR. for a year we can't, as foreigners, take a car out of the country. ?????????? We have given up trying to find any rationale for this.

As we were having this conversation with the customs lady in the tiny office at the very remote border crossing the two soldier types who are the immigrations officials were listening carefully. As I was trying to express myself creatively in Spanish they asked the lady, wasn't there some way we could legally take the car out of the country? She finally allowed as how we needed a different piece of paper and if we only had the correct piece of paper from the customs office in Esquel where we are living we could take the car out of the country.

We left without getting arrested and drove for the rest of the day through some spectacular scenery in Argentina. On returning to Esquel and the rental agency, where we read them the riot act for not providing us with the right red tape, we learned that they had never before had this kind of problem. They actually seemed sincere.

At this point we await the results of the conversation between the rental agency and customs. Of course, I am, theoretically, supposed to spend most of my weekdays at the university so we don't know if we will be able to make this trip into a part of Chile with horrible roads but spectacular scenery.

The thing is that this agency and the one other one in town do, in fact, rent cars all the time to foreigners who take them through this very same border crossing with no trouble. We are trying to reconstruct our visit with the customs lady to figure what we did to get on her wrong side. I have dealt with enough sanctimonious customs and immigrations people both in Latin America and in the good old U. S. of A, to know to take on an obsequious and ingratiating humor and to be prepared, in general, to kiss ass when needed. Perhaps it was just a bad day for her.

Have I told you about mate (ma-tay)?? Mate is a bitter herb made from the leaves of a relative of our holly plant. The drinking of mate is an everyday ritual all over Argentina and in parts of Paraguay and Uruguay. I don't know just how the tradition arose but it is all-pervasive. A small cup traditionally made from some kind of gourd, is filled with the almost powdered herb. A silver straw-like bombilla is inserted and then hot, but not boiling, water is poured into it. The brew is then sucked through the bombilla. Next, the "server" pours in more water and passes it on the another person who drinks the gourd dry. (It doesn't really hold all that much. Just a few good pulls on the bombilla.) The gourd is passed around in this manner to any number of people.

The ritual is everywhere. Go to a meeting and half the people will have their gourd, a bag of mate and a thermos filled with hot water. Mate cups will be circulating almost continually. Even in a university class there is mate going around, occasionally being passed to the instructor.

In gas stations there are large hot water dispensing machines with advertising for various manufacturers of mate.

Well, it is something of an acquired taste. Not bad. But, I don't think we'll be bringing bags full back to the states.

Speaking of rituals, another is the charming greeting which consists of kissing the right cheek of each other. This is very common between men and women, between women and, even, between men. The first time I encountered this was some years ago visiting our friend Jaime in Santiago, Chile. I was introduced to a beautiful young lady, one of Jaime's nieces, and she proffered her cheek to me expecting to be kissed but I didn't have a clue about the ritual so it was a bit of an awkward scene. At times here, this kissing can reach almost comical proportions. Imagine a get-together of, say, 30 people, all of whom know each other and normally greet with a kiss. The number of possible combinations is huge so it can take some time to get things started.

We are looking forward to Sara and Andrew's visit in about 2 weeks. They will be here for about 10 days. Then it will be time to pack up and head for Bs AS for a couple of days. We plan to be back in Bellingham on June 17.

Don't know if we'll get around to composing another of these or not. Hope you've enjoyed this one. We'll be in touch.

June 17,1999

Three days before we left Esquel I tried to send this message only to find that, for some reason, our internet service provider had cut us off!! That's another Argentina story without total resolution.

We arrived in Bellingham on Thursday afternoon and are now trying to reinhabit our house and beat back the weeds. We are happy to be here and will talk with you personally soon.
____________________________________________

Well, a few of you have encouraged me to write more so, just like a puppy who follows you home after you pet him, a few words of encouragement only serve to generate more letters.

Now that I have my own car I can drive to the university when I choose. If I go about class time then invariably there will be students hitch-hiking so I give them a ride.

I realized today as I was observing Beatriz teach a class on thermodynamics that the scene in the classroom looks very much like a typical US high school class. The instructor has an agenda - in Beatriz' case I thought it was a well-thought-out, appropriate agenda - the students have their own. There is continual movement and there are always side conversations going on. And, of course, the mate is always being passed around. When Beatriz posed what I thought were very good questions to the class and waited and waited for a response the students knew they could out-wait her. So, for the most part, they sat there without engaging their brains and waited for her to give in. When she finally got a glimmer of a response from one student she accepted that and pressed on.

This last is an all-too-familiar scenario even in our college classrooms. The problem as I see it is not so much with the students but with the instructor. In this case Beatriz outperformed most by actually waiting a significant amount of time for a response but she lost the psychological play. She did not insist on a response from the students and she did not insist that they all give her questions serious consideration. An instructor must make it clear that an answer is expected and doggedly persist until one is ventured. Of course, if you are really serious about involving the class in thinking, one response is not enough; other students need to answer the same or a slightly different question. If this is not done, then the majority of the class will learn to rely on a few eager individuals to bail them out so they don't really have to think about things after all.

Needless to say, this is all very frustrating for me. It reminds me too much of having to visit student teachers in high school classroom in Washington and suffer through the same kind of class. Here I have not found a way to insert myself into one of the classes in such a way as to demonstrate different approaches. One problem of course is the language and another is that I still don't really understand some things about the organization of the course and the academic system. When I have tried to make suggestions I am usually countered with some reasonable sounding argument why what I suggest won't work. I know that it may not be easy but ways can be found to force students to become engaged.

Another interesting observation is that, in class today, I felt as though I was understanding close to 100% of Beatriz' lecture but, when I listen to students talking between themselves I understand maybe 10%. Very frustrating. It is much easier to carry on a one-on-one conversation than it is to participate in a rambling group discussion. It certainly helps that I already know the content of the lectures but usually, speaking or listening to an individual on whatever topic is not too difficult.

The saga of our attempt to drive a rental car to Chile continues. On Monday I went to the customs office in Esquel with the owner of the travel agency from which we have rented the car. There who should we meet but the nice lady who turned us back at the border. We ended up speaking with 3 different people; the final person appeared to be the chief. What I understood was that, for rental cars, the rental agency had to have some kind of prior arrangement with the customs office for us foreigners to take a car out of the country and that neither of the rental agencies in Esquel had such an arrangement. Harold, the owner of the car, had never heard of it. Well, he asked the head honcho if some special arrangement could be made for us. She seemed favorably disposed and, in fact, when it came out that Harold himself was the owner of the car, not the corporation, the situation seemed to change. (After that Harold was pretty eager to make sure I knew that the whole situation was not his fault but that of the overzealous bureaucrat we met at the border.)

In the end, she said we could cross the border with the car. When I told her that I didn't trust the system she politely assured me that she would take care of it and that if I would like to I could notify her in advance of our proposed crossing and she would make doubly sure.

So, right now I am not sure whether she is making an exception to the first rule we were confronted with or if there is some obscure loophole having to do with who the registered owner of the vehicle is. When I went by the office today to notify her that we would try to cross again this Saturday she was not there and I talked with a completely new person.

You might imagine that I was apprehensive about the outcome given my close to zero faith in such bureaucracies in whatever country you like. I could just see this guy giving us a completely different answer and screwing up the whole deal. He wanted to see our paperwork which, fortunately, I didn't have with me. He did say that if Rosanna indeed said it would be ok then not to worry. ¡Right! I still want to run it by her again. I would just like to visit the office when no one else but her is there.

Think about how much you trust US customs then multiply that by a foreign language and you get the idea.

I went back again, this time with the rental agency guy in tow and we encountered not Rosanna but the man mentioned above. He very carefully read the paperwork and said ¨Fantastico.¨ No problem.

So we made plans to try again that weekend.

On Friday we took a trip in the other direction to visit a high school in the remote village of El Maitén (a kind of tree). There, we were the center of attention. It seemed the whole school was waiting for us. I was there to make a presentation about color and light to students in the physics and math classes. The students were reasonably attentive and interested. I enjoyed the time anyway. We went out to lunch at the local restaurant where our group was the only business to be had.

After lunch we took a short hike with the principal of the school and her husband who teaches math and with the physics teacher and his English teacher wife.

We drove back to Esquel in the dark - watch out for stray cattle and sheep on the road. Next day off to Chile.

¡Success! We crossed the border into Chile this weekend - a trip which was well worth the effort. We were confronted by the same customs agent as before. She very carefully read all our paperwork and then found something urgent to do in the back office for 15 or 20 minutes while we waited. When she came back to us she announced that we could have the car out of Argentina for no more than 48 hours. This was news to us but didn't really hamper our plans. She acted surprised that we didn't know about this new restriction. Perhaps this was something else I misunderstood but I don't think so. She filled out a form in quadruplicate which I was obliged to sign and we were on our way with three copies.

A hundred meters down the road we came to Chilean customs and immigration. Shivering in a completely unheated building we went through routine stamping of passports and official automobile documents. Both the Chileans and Argentineans are very worried about the transport of agricultural products across the border so we had to fill out a form about what goods we were carrying. It said very clearly that we had to report among other things, meat, milk or their byproducts. So I dutifully checked yes. The inspector was a little annoyed to find that all we had was a small chunk of cheese. The thing is you never really know what is meant and sometimes what is meant changes.

We drove through the spectacularly beautiful valley of the Rio Futaleufú for about 150 km to the town of Chaitén which sits on a small bay on the Pacific. The valley and the entire region is reminiscent of British Columbia or southeast Alaska. High, glacier covered peaks and narrow river valleys with very fast water. Many of the rather poor houses are picturesque constructions with wood shingles made from local trees on both roof and walls. We drove past perhaps 5 or 6 small aserraderos (sawmills) where the shingles were made. The construction style was like that on the rather more famous island of Chiloé which sits just to the west of Chaitén.

The roads, of course, are all gravel of varying quality. In the narrow river valleys they are necessarily likewise narrow and winding. On the flatter ground nearer the coast they widen a little. Part of our route was over General Pinochet's grand strategic project, the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway) to open-up the south of Chile to greater settlement in order to secure it against expansionist threats from Argentina. Hmmmmmm.

The Carretera in this region is really not used much by commercial traffic, in part, because there are two stretches where the road isn't and one must use ferries. In fact, at this time there is so little traffic that the ferries only run on a regular basis in the summer. Apparently, buses and trucks that need to go from south to north cross into Argentina several hundred kilometers further south and drive on Argentine roads to Bariloche where they cross back into Chile.

We checked into a small motel in Chaitén which had had perhaps a dozen guests during the month of May and then strolled around the town and along the beach. It was pretty cold and we had foolishly not brought more clothes since we were going to be near the sea where the temperature should be warmer. It turned out that the small gas heater in the room was woefully inadequate for the task particularly when it ran out of propane. The owner changed the tank and provided us with an auxiliary heater which did the job.

I went out to watch the sunset with a faint hope of seeing the famous Green Flash for only the second time in my life. There were a few small clouds on the horizon as well as the island of Chiloé, just barely visible, so we thought the chances were small. Well, just as the last of the sun´s disk was about to disappear below the horizon, I lifted my binoculars and ¡bingo! there it was - the brilliant emerald green of the Flash.

(The green flash is an effect due to refraction of the sun's light in the atmosphere which is most apparent when the sun is low in the sky. Shorter wavelength light - blue and green - is bent (refracted) more than the longer wavelengths - red and yellow. As the sun is disappearing over the horizon the last light we see has been bent around the earth and, because they are bent the most, the last light we see, if conditions are just right, will be green or even blue. The blue is really rare in part due to another phenomenon which is the scattering of light of short wavelengths much, much more that longer ones. This, in fact, causes the blue sky but that is another physics lesson. If you want to see the flash yourself pick a clear day and a spot on the seashore to wait for sunset. Watch the sun go down. In the last second or so before the sun disappears from view the brilliant yellow-orange may turn to green if you are lucky. Binoculars are a big help but, of course, you must wait until the sun is practically gone if you want to avoid frying your eyes.)

Dinner was in a tiny restaurant with an inadequate wood stove. There were perhaps ten men there huddled around several tables watching a soccer game on TV. (You are never far from a soccer game here.) The menu was written on the wall but they only had a few of the items listed. We opted for the salmon which, to the consternation of the waitress, we insisted on having without salt. We shivered in wait for the dinner occasionally taking our turn in front of the wood stove. We were served enormous slabs of reasonable good salmon which had been fried until almost moisture was gone.

Next day we headed north over another stretch of the Carretera past a small beach with a few of the shingled houses and several colorful wooden fishing boats pulled up on the shore; past a spectacular mirror lake which showed a double image of the mountains just beyond; over small wooden bridges and eventually past a sign of a new character indicating the existence of a hiking trail a few kms on. Constructed trails are a rarity and advance warning of their existence is even less common.

We had crossed into the lands of Doug Tompkins, the US founder of the Esprit clothing company who sold out for a handsome profit and invested some of his gains in threatened lands in Chile. He owns over 250,000 hectares of land (that's just shy of 1000 square miles, folks!) in a band which runs from the Argentine border to the sea. This is not altogether an uncontroversial thing. Here some rich foreigner has come in and bought for a relative song, land which the former owners thought was fairly worthless but which now, in a sense, cuts Chile in half.

There are four different trails from the road through the thick colihue bamboo which can make, for example, the Hoh rain forest look like open country. We hiked short distances on two and the full loop of one which goes through a grove of ancient alerces, about which I think we have spoken earlier. These enormous and very slow growing trees are similar in appearance to redwoods or our cedars. They make great shakes and shingles. The largest specimen we saw was certainly over 3 meters in diameter and at least 1500 years old. Alerces are protected in two national parks one in Chile and one in Argentina and in Tompkins' reserve.

At the end of the road we came to Caleta Gonzalo which, before Tompkins, must have been nothing more than the Carretera Austral running into the ocean. Caleta Gonzalo sits on the edge of a narrow fiord which cuts another 15 km into the Andes. It is the sometime terminal for a ferry to Puerto Montt and Puerto Hornopirén to the north along the Carretera. Now it includes several nice tourist cabins, a restaurant, an airstrip, a trailhead which leads up to yet another beautiful waterfall and a free refugio (dormitory) for local residents - all courtesy of Doug´s Pumalín Foundation. Further up the fiord there is apparently a small community which serves as a demonstration project for sustainable agriculture which might help lead the local communities out of poverty. It is really all a very impressive undertaking.

We are fond of bread with some body to it, preferably wholewheat. The character of breads in Argentina and Chile varies from town to town but it tends towards the wonderbread style, with luck however, you can find a kind of light french style loaf. We have found much better than average bread in surprising places, Caleta Gonzalo being one of them. Before returning to Chaitén we stopped in the almost deserted restaurant to get a cup of coffee which in Chile is almost always a cup of hot water and a container of nescafé. Here we were offered the choice between café instáneo or café café and, would we like anything else? Anything else being local bread, jam and cheese. We filled up and bought a loaf to take along.

We drove back to Chaitén in the dark hoping to see some exotic wild animals but, alas, nothing. We went to the place we had spent the night before but they were closed and, we had left with unclear plans, so we hadn´t kept the room. We found lodging in the creaking old Hotel Mi Casa where the owner of German descent was pleased to have someone on whom to try out a few English phrases. He assured us that a great breakfast was included with the lodging. Next morning we did have a pretty good breakfast including, for the first time on our travels, scrambled eggs.

We hit the road back to Argentina, crossed the border with no problems and got back to Esquel in the middle of the afternoon.

A few days later, on Wednesday, we got back in the car and headed 300 km north to the resort town of Bariloche where I wanted to visit Ernesto Martinez, a physicist with an interest in education whom I had met several times at meetings in the US. And, we were going to meet Sara and Andrew who were to arrive from Santiago, Chile on Sunday. We drove through 30 or 40 km of pretty good snow storm where the highway had climbed into the mountains but managed to make it ok to Bariloche.

Ernesto invited us to stay at his house where he had lots of space since only one kid still lived at home and his wife had moved out to live in a small cabin on the property. When we got there a young couple from England who were hitch-hiking around South America had just returned to the house after having been snowed out on a short backpacking trip into the mountains.

One of Ernesto's daughters had met them on a bus and invited them home several weeks before and when they returned to Bariloche they had an open invitation to stay.

Ernesto's family has a cosmopolitan nature never seen in the US. His estranged wife is Swedish; two of his kids learned to speak when he was in Germany working on his Ph.D., so their first language is German. They speak Swedish because their mother does. They speak English because the rest of the world does. And they speak Spanish because they live in Argentina. Of course, Ernesto and his wife, Doro, speak all of those languages and who knows what else.

I visited El Centro Atómico de Bariloche where Ernesto works and where, 50 years ago, Juan Perón, at the urging of a fugitive German scientist, set up a facility to bring Argentina into the Atomic Age. Now the lab is engaged in research in solid state physics and in training PhD´s in physics and nuclear engineering.

We learned that our kids were not going to arrive in Bariloche until Monday so we hung out in Bariloche for a couple of days taking advantage of Ernesto´s hospitality.

One day trip into the mountains took us into a narrow valley with lakes and rivers and, at the head of the valley, a high peak, Cerro Tronador, on the border between Chile and Argentina which is covered by glaciers. Spectacular scenery.

On Monday we went to meet the kids. They weren't on the bus!! Travel here is not quite as tightly organized as in the US. The kids couldn't make bus reservations all the way through from Santiago to Bariloche. They had to take an overnight bus from Santiago to Osorno, Chile and then find a bus from there to Bariloche.

In the meantime we asked the several bus companies that had connections with Chile when buses would arrive from Osorno. From our info we assumed the kids would be on a particular bus. When they didn't show up we began asking more questions of other bus companies and found that another bus would soon be arriving from Osorno and - there they were - just as happy to see us waiting as we were to see them.

Okay. This missive is already too long and, besides, we are leaving Esquel in 48 hours on our way back to Ferntown. We will spend Sunday night in Buenos Aires then take a trip across the Rio de la Plata to Colonia, Uruguay for two days and a night of sight-seeing then back to B.A. for another night. We catch a United Airlines flight for Miami at 9:30 Wednesday night. We should arrive in Bellingham about 1:30 PM on Thursday, June 17.

But, wait! I have to tell you a little about the asado (barbeque) we had last Saturday as kind of a going away event. Eighteen adults and eight children were expected so we bought about 8 kilos of beef, 10 kilos of chicken, several more kilos of sausages, 10 liters of wine and lots of bread. Of course, that wasn't enough so everyone brought a salad or desert to share.

Over an enormous indoor barbeque the meat was put on to cook. I managed to hold aside the two excellent t-bones I had bought for Peg, Andrew, Sara and me and let the choice pieces of flank steak that the Argentineans prefer take precedence. Perhaps an hour and a half later, shortly after 10 PM, I slapped on our t-bones for 5 minutes a side and we all sat down to gorge ourselves. Everybody was happy. I even tried morcilla, an unexpectedly tasteless blood sausage. We had some vegetables that Andrew grilled and the deserts, including some of Andrew's chocolate chip cookies, were great. A couple of the children bounced off the walls for the entire party and a couple crawled under the table and went to sleep. We managed to end the event by about 2 AM.

We're through now, Bye.