(Chile)...The editor of one of the magazines within the publishing company I work for just returned from a few days in Argentina and Uruguay. I mentioned to him before he left that perhaps a day trip from Buenos Aires to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay would be fun and worthwhile, and, indeed, he received the same recommendation from two Argentines he met while down there. It is like Buenos Aires used to be, they told him.
So, my editor friend went, but he was not so impressed. He said the colonial district comprised only shops, with handicrafts so basic as to be amusing, such as ordinary notebooks decorated with pictures cut out from magazines. The beaches are gorgeous there, he added. He also said that he was happy he now can tick off Uruguay from his list of places-to-go. I still want to go to Colonia, and, indeed, if one comes there from Argentina, Colonia cannot be avoided. Still, perhaps the idea is to plan to travel farther in land after Colonia.
All the travelogues I have seen written on Uruguay have the writer invariably travelling along the coast road to the towns of Carmelo, Dolores, Mercedes, Fray Bentos (of canned-meat fame; I think I remember the Fray Bentos company of the same name almost disappearing following a salmonela outbreak that no one could definitely prove started at its factory, in the 1970s) and Paysandú, before crossing back to Argentine soil. There must be another way, one that would also avoid Punta del Este. One town I keep hearing about is Tacuarembo, which hosts an annual gaucho festival, but who knows what is to be seen there outside the festival month of March. The editor in question brought me a wonderful gift, a disc of plastic that on one side says Islas Malvinas, with a picture of the Falkland Islands coloured blue, white and blue after the Argentine flag, and on the other, the words Para Siempre Argentinas, or Forever Argentine.
It is fantastic, but in order not to tempt fate I will keep it to one side during the World Cup Finals, which begin this Friday in Germany. The Falkland Islands — okay, the Islas Malvinas — must seem like the end of the world. I think the father of a friend of mine has been there. I have not, but I have been to Puntas Arenas in Chile, which must have a similar feel. I can report that at this Patagonian outpost, almost as far south as you can go on mainland South America, certainly the last spot of any size, the End of the World is marked by a broken-down roundabout of the children's-playground variety that sits on a stony beach looking out at a grey stretch of the Magellan Strait beneath a darker grey sky and pointing towards the wilderness of Tierra del Fuego.
I recently read about the "savage" Tierra del Fuegians in a wonderful travel adventure called Sailing Alone Around the World by Captain Joshua Slocum that I saw a few days ago was one book always recommended by Arthur Ransome, the writer of the wonderful Swallow and Amazons (http://www.humboldt1.com/ar) series of books that I devoured as a child. Ransome once said, "Boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once." Quite right. Swallows and Amazons, as well as the Coot Club series by Ransome, was my introduction to reading, and I remain forever grateful. Slocum had several adventures with the Tierra del Fuegans; I just saw many postcard displaying ancient photos of costumed members of a now-extinct race.
Punta del Arenas is a delightful place. A central square with a small cathedral to one side leads to a wonderful eerie museum, the Braun-Menéndez Mansion, that once was the house of local entrepreneurs. Grim-faced ancestors dot the dark-wood walls, and around and down the back of the house is a wonderful café that should be more frequented. I walked up and out of town, to its suburbs, and bumped into my guide, Yerko Vera Mella, who invited me to his house and then to his mother's house where I met said mother and his sister, who was looking after his newborn baby. Everyone welcomed me. When I was young in northwest Kent we played a game on the roundabout at the Erith Rec, a local park.
It was called "London." The game would start by everyone chanting L O N D O N spells London, and then the person who was the "catcher' would try and tag the other players who were standing around in different spots on the roundabout, which, unlike the one photographed above, had open metal sides that joined to a point above our heads. Keeping this frame intact were three levels of horizontal metal tubes, and these were the ones players could stand and manoeuvre around on, doing so as the roundabout span around rapidly. Altogether a very dangerous game, it seems to be now. Back in Punta Arenas, a steep, nontarmacked road led farther out of town and ended at a halfbuilt boat that when finished — if ever finished — will take days and days to be dragged to reach the sea. It looked like an arc, and who is to say it wasn't.
The path — actually I was making me own paths by this time — ran through a small wood and down through some narrow streets lined with bungalows and untidy gardens. A small army garrison protected the area from the threat of Argentina, and occasionally I would see a scraggle of camouflaged youngsters stumble down the steep roads towards town and to the spot where I have no doubt the world comes to a halt.