Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 27, June 6, 2022
Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 27, June 6, 2022 A zero day (did not walk except from the campground to the service station/ cafe then to the Kinlochewe hotel). Had breakfast at the cafe run by wonderful people with a nice set-up and great sausage and bacon buns. As usual with people in this country, […]
In Patagonia Day 35
In Patagonia Day 35 Valdivia—Niebla—Valdivia Today I was re-reading Eduardo Kohn’s book on forests and anthropology, and came to a section on anxiety I had forgotten. He uses a personal story about risk while traveling to unpack Pierce’s semiotics and begin to work out his idea of forest thinking and an anthropology “beyond the human.” […]
In Patagonia Day 31
In Patagonia Day 31 Castro—Puerto Varas The bus to Puerto Varas was long but uneventful, except a marker buoy mid-channel on the ferry ride covered with seals sunning themselves. I am glad I visited Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, Puerto Montt, and Castro before coming here as I would have gotten a completely different sense of […]
In Patagonia Day 29
In Patagonia Day 29 Castro—Cucao Today I crossed Chiloé from Castro to the village of Cucao, following the footsteps of Darwin and Chatwin, though they both chose to avoid difficult roads by taking a boat across the lakes. As Chatwin notes, the island is nearly bisected by two long narrow lakes starting a few kilometers […]
In Patagonia Day 17
In Patagonia Day 17 El Chaltén —Poincenot Campground As is often the case with full day trekking, it was a day with a split personality. None of these sections involve any real distance, so I caught the 9:30 shuttle to the trailhead, accompanied by a number of folks including two American couples with a baby […]
In Patagonia Day 16
In Patagonia Day 16 El Chaltén Thoreau called Katadhin a “cloud machine,” a well-deserved appellation though the day Bennett, Tom, and I summited to finish the Appalachian Trail, it was perfectly clear. We could see what seemed the entire state of Maine. Mount Fitzroy is also a cloud (and wind) machine. Today was one to […]
In Patagonia Day 12
In Patagonia Day 12 Puerto Natales—Mylodon Cave—Puerto Natales In a glass case at the Salesian Museum in Punta Arenas are two pieces of mylodon hide. Although extinct for at least 10,000 years, the fur looks fresh as if the animal were killed this year. Bruce Chatwin begins his book In Patagonia describing a piece of […]
In Patagonia Day 11
In Patagonia Day 11 Grande Paine—Puerto Natales This morning the sun came up over the ridge as brutally strong winds whipped up Lago Grey, dragging aloft a fine mist which made rainbows. One of the most common words in The Voyage of the Beagle is “wind,” but of course that’s to be expected in a […]
In Patagonia Day 8
In Patagonia Day 8 Puerto Natales Time is heaped up helter-skelter in Patagonia. As the Beagle circled the land and Darwin took numerous excursions into the interior, the great naturalist puzzled over the geology he encountered. I always associated his thought with biology—mammals, birds, earthworms—but most of the Voyage is about rocks, specifically speculation about […]
In Patagonia Day 6
In Patagonia Day 6 Punta Arenas — Puerto Natales I was thinking today about the couple of pages Hemingway wrote on the craft of writing that were to be part of “Big Two-Hearted River.” As I recall, he wants to write the way Cezanne painted—daubs of paint invoking the scene (apples I think) rather than […]