In Patagonia Day 38
In Patagonia Day 38 Pucon—Huerquehue National Park—Pucon Some years ago I spent a year living with my family in Maastricht, Netherlands. While walking Umbro the dog around the neighborhood, I always stopped to puzzle over a tree that was strange to me—contorted branches covered with thick green scaly leaves. On the one hand, it resembled […]
In Patagonia Day 37
In Patagonia Day 37 Pucon Eduardo Kohn has me thinking about paths, cognition, and temporality. The other day I wrote a bit about walking as both depending on and enacting a future. The regularity of rhythm depends on the possibility of continuing, obviously with constant ongoing adjustment—walking is both difference and repetition as well as […]
In Patagonia Day 36
In Patagonia Day 36 Valdivia—Pucon Another transition day (though will be here for a while). Glad to leave Valdivia, not so much because it’s not interesting, as I just had a textbook bad hostel experience. Pretty much the whole crew (including the young women who actually work there) decided to party—so everyone was loud until […]
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 28
In Patagonia Day 28 Castro—Nercón—Castro Castro has real charm but only after some wandering. Yesterday, while hurrying down a sidewalk in the rain while the street venders pulled their wares under the buildings’ overhangs, I passed a round, pudgy boy no more than two, perched on a ledge eating sushi with clear gusto. Later, when […]
In Patagonia Day 27
In Patagonia Day 27 The Eden—Puerto Montt—Castro Woke to the sound of trucks rolling out from deep in the ship’s hold. Some time early in the morning the Eden made port at Puerto Montt, so all the passengers packed up seabags and headed down for one last breakfast. I got coffee and went to the […]
In Patagonia Day 26
In Patagonia Day 26 Chilean coast on The Eden Early on in Moby-Dick, Ishmael is speaking with Peleg and Bildad about shipping on the Pequod. After some slapstick humor about Ishmael’s time in the “marchant service,” Peleg asks him to go aft and tell him what he sees. As I recall Ishmael’s answer is just […]
In Patagonia Day 25
In Patagonia Day 25 Chilean coast on The Eden At some point in the night, The Eden dropped cargo at Port Eden, the only human habitation of this long route. The village of 60 souls doesn’t have a proper pier, so transfer of goods and people is done by lowering the stern ramp (where the […]