PATAGONIA

Patagonia

Our flight from Buenos Aires to Calafate took us to the opposite of Buenos Aires.  Sandy desert with the look of Eastern Washington and a population density of 1.5 persons per sq. km. and many more sheep than people.  Large estancias that are Texas size ranches dot the region that is continually buffeted by the constant winds.   Tree planted by early settlers still appear short and bushy, not like 100 year old trees!  Early settlers also cut trees to create grazing land for their cattle and sheep and they are very hard to grow back due to the adverse conditions and mostly the constant wind.  3 types of tree grown here— a small evergreen called a Lingas (more on them later) tree, calafate, and fire bushes.   The earliest farmers were British, but after Chile declared its independence from Spain in 1818, the area of Patagonia remained pretty well uninhabited except for native peoples.  By 1848, Holland and Portugal were trying to claim parts of Patagonia, so Chile issued an invitation for European, mostly Germans, Spanish, and a few Scandinavians brought their families here.  They were given land, tools, salaries and had one year to make their land productive.  They brought machinery, fruit trees and tried all kinds of farming.  The continuous winter climate proved to be very hard for any kind of farming.  As this trial and error to make the land productive continued, an Irishman brought 400 sheep from the Falklands and not only did they prosper, but they needed minimal people and dogs to run large numbers of sheep.  This free land/ tools/ salary program continued until 1944 when the last group of Yugoslavians arrived.  By 1900, there were 5 million sheep in Patagonia.

 This last group of immigrants included a Croatian named Anthony Bosonovich, who came as a 17 year old post WWII. In 1978 he purchased an estancia at the foot of the Torres de Paines Mountains and thought he’d acquired his dream of being a sheep rancher.  Soon, the area around these mountains was declared a biosphere.  The government of Chile decided that the unique animals, plants and the ice fields surround Torres del Paines were to be preserved.  Also in the early 1980s mountain climbing became fashionable and one of the hot spots became Torres del Paines—three granite towers—in this new park.  Mr. Bosonovich decided to start a resort after a climber knocked on his door to inquire if he could get a bed and some food.  He started with an area for tents and then 9 hostel rooms.                 By 1990, sheep meat and wool production stopped.  Torres del Paines is now a world class resort with 190 rooms, restaurant, 5 mountain lodges with the same service and amenities as the main lodge and 260 horses to take tourist and climbers to locations in the park.  Brosonivich grandchildren are still running Torres del Paines.  350 people work there and live in a village so no need to drive back and forth from Puerto Natales a 3 hr. drive daily.  200,000 people trek to the base of the tower or to mountain lodges yearly.

  Dusk comes at 10:30 PM and the sun is up at 4:30 AM.  There is very little difference between Argentine Patagonia and Chilean Patagonia.  It is a huge area that has remained isolated until recently when mountain climbing and trekking became a popular tourist attraction.  This is one of the richest provinces in Argentine with mining, fishing, sheep ranching creating the main income in addition to international tourism.  It’s a beautiful area, of glacier fed lakes, short bush covered steppes.  Geologically, this was an extremely active area thousands of years ago.  As the Nazca plate slips under the  South American plates the resulting volcanoes and earthquakes  created and continue to create the Andes Mountains to our north.   This area of Patagoia is much younger mountains that were created 60 millions years ago as magma pushed up granite rocks to create the ____________________ mountain range. 

If you’re interested in politics, Argentina has an interesting history from before the Perons and continuing to today with the Kirschners, referred to as “Christina” by our guide, Sylvia..  Both had/have policies that benefited some and really punished others and the country as a whole.  Under the corrupt government of the Kirschners, all non-Argeninian companies were forced to leave, and  Uraguay became list the “Swiss bank” of South America.  Many people put money into these Uraguay accounts in US dollars (a stable currency)  and they go to Uraguay occasionally to pick up money.  The new government of President Maeri is bringing back non-Argentine companies, and people are being encouraged to open  bank accounts in Argentina and move their money out of Uraguay with a 5% tax rate, and the G20 is being held in Buenos Aires next  year. It’s a ­­­­­long ways from the economic crises of 2001 when the Argentine pesos was worth $1 and the black market  flourished with a 60% difference between the official Srate and the black market rate.  The exchange rate is now 8 pesos to the USD.