´The Boston Globe´ on our class project with the southern Sudanese diaspora:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/11/lost_and_found/?page=1

The wind was cold and strong when we crossed the blue waters of the strait of Magellan to set the feet on the shores of Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire.







On the right side there was a small wooden hut with a cafe inside and cats all around. On the other - a mine field, full of red flags warning not to advance any further, probably a reminder of the war between Argentina and Chile. It was here, just after leaving the ferry, that our ´Pacheco´ company bus first broke down. They only had to change the tire, though, and we moved on across the steppe... barren wasteland with patches of grass here and there, some sheep and guanacos, some nandu and horses in no man´s land... later there was absolutely nothing at all on both sides of the dusty road, not even paved. Not a single bush for kilometers on end. It then turned out that my companion, peacefully sleeping next to me, was a Latvian guy. His name was Mark and he actually lives in Santa Cruz, not that far from San Francisco. It was so amazing! You have to go to Tierra del Fuego to find a Baltic person! And he was so nice that we chatted and chatted...

However, soon after crossing the Argentinian border the bus stopped again. And this time it was for long. So long that after some time I started to write a diary which I will rewrite here:

Hour 1. Neither the driver nor his assistant has explained people what is wrong with the bus, why we stopped in the middle of nowhere. They are looking at the engine and their grim faces are not a sign of relief, though. People have started getting off the bus. Grasslands all around and a winding road. Nothing more. Once Tierra del Fuego was connected to the rest of Patagonia by land, but later it split... Another bus passing us by stopped to help and the driver´s assistant is now gone. Where to? The rumours go that he went to the next village, some fifteen minutes away, to get the broken piece for the engine. Children are running in the fields, laughing loudly, playing, picking flowers, fighting on the grass... others took their cameras and are making pictures... the rest are smoking or just enjoying some freedom. Because freedom it is. Unlimited. And a small adventure.



Hour 2. The winds are getting stronger. I remember reading somewhere, maybe in some adventure novels for kids, that to survive in this wind of the steppe you should lie down on the ground. And so I did. The wind is was passing above me, but did not make me cold. I was watching the clouds in the clear blue sky. Smelling the short summer flowers. Collecting some stones for my friends back home... The kids are still playing. Others have gone back to the bus and are reading books. Now I have noticed how many Jewish there are on the bus... reading in Hebrew and chatting in a tongue that I do not understand. Ani lo medaberet ivrit. Mark introduced me to his companions that he met in Buenos Aires, they are also all from Izrael, travelling around South America to set their mind free from three years in the army. Interesting that they always choose either South America, or India, or New Zealand and Australia. A tradition. So we are now sitting in a circle in the grass on the side of the road, talking about Argentinian parrillas and Mendoza wine... shall we hunt some sheep or llamas for dinner?But even they are not here... We left them far behind. Nobody and nothing is here, but a few birds and camions passing by and signaling to greet us. The driver is sleeping in his seat.



Hour 3. It´s getting late. Well, after eight in the evening. I don´t have a watch, so knowing time is difficult for me these days... The sun is till up, however, it´s summer and only a thousand kilometers to Antarctida... But the wind is now really freezing, it reaches deep to the bones... we are now lying in the steppe to keep warm... Few kids are still out there, singing and dancing in the winds, which are getting stronger and stronger... We are hungry now (shouldn´t have discussed Argentinian cuisine... ). Someone had a thought to cook some food on the stove, maybe some pasta, even if lighting a fire in this wind seemed so improbable and maybe dangerous. But soon these dreams fade away as the driver has no keys of the baggage storage where our backpacks are. It´s all authomatic. No engine - no backpacks. No hitch-hiking. No tents. No sleeping bags. Nothing. And the bus, which goes only every two days here, has no radio to tell of the accident. Not even mentioning that cell phones are out of network at least in this hinterland. Back to the bus to warm up... Someone says: ´I feel like in a horror movie´. Someone else asks: ´Somebody would like to exchange books? I´ve finished mine.´ I am not even sure what time it is now. But why count it? What will be, will be. We have no tents and are short of food and water, but don´t feel that yet and don´t panic. A lady comes to me and says she went to Brandeis (yes I am wearing my campus sweatshirt and in the bus full of Izraelians I am noticed:)). Nice. No more camions are passing by. Evening has come. Eyes are fixed on the horizon trying to spota coming in the distance... with the help for our bus. It is still fun for me as I am not hurrying anywhere, most probably as many of the people. Somebody would even pay for such an adventure. ´Our company offers getting lost in Tierra del Fuego, the end of the world, for forty dollars´. I might buy such a trip, afterall, why not?.. I wonder how long will it still take... getting back to Chile is impossible at night as the ferries are not working and, besides, it is more than seven hours drive and with not a single settlement on the road, except for the border control post. Moving forward to Ushuaia or at least Rio Grande more south from where we are stuck would also take at least several hours. Unbelievable!.. People are now sharing the remaining food supplies. And smokers are running out of cigarettes... Latest news: we are still waiting for someone with the substitute for the broken piece of the engine.





Hour 4. Still no news from the driver´s assistant, so the bus is now holding a forum to come up with a common decision of what is to be done. One person will accompany the driver to Rio Grande by the next car or camion that passes by. They will make contact with some Argentinian bus company that could send a bus to pick us up. One guy insists that they should also bring food for the kids and for women:) And one little girl even volunteers to go with the driver to save the bus... Very nice kids we have on the bus, so patient and happy about the adventure. And so some of us go out to stop the cars... if there were what to stop... stuck in kilometer sessenta. No network. Just the freezing winds... and no cars... Finally one, but full, approaches us. The woman promisses to call for help once she reaches Rio Grande. Nothing more for now. The sun is about to go down... ´I think the sunset will be very beautiful´, one Izraeli guy tells me. We are back in the bus. No more air to breathe here. But too cold outside in the steppe after the sun went down. Yes, the sunset was beautiful and no, my camera did not catch that beauty.

9.50 PM. A camion stopped. But he has only place for one person. The driver went away... We are all by ourselves, waiting for help from everywhere.

10.40 PM. It´s dark, but the sky is still blue and orange and pink and the clouds are floating towards the horizon. Breathtaking views. The wind has ceased for the moment, but the night brings real Antartican cold. We are sitting in the bus (only making occassional walk-outs to take some fresh air) and chatting about travelling, studies in the U.S., Lithuania and Latvia. Mark says his next destination is India and he will work for a year to save up money for that. Again similar idea. Like that of many travellers. I could probably also get a well-paid job and go everywhere I want, but at the same time I want to and I feel I have to come back to Lithuania and do the hard but emotionally rewarding work there... It´s dark in the bus. We don´t have light. Wait a minute, have to find my flashlight, I knew I will need it.



Midnight. Just before midnight we spotted two, later three lights moving in the distance. Imagine how anxiously we waited - and that waiting took dozens of minutes - frightened whenever the lights disappeared behind some hills... And when they finally were near enough we realized that it is not our bus, that the driver, which came back in a taxi from Rio Grande an hour ago had promissed, but just more cars. But the first one stopped. It was the long-forgotten driver´s assistant and he did have the piece we needed to fix the engine. Now they are working on it. Under the starry skies of the freezing island. Hope to move on soon...

Some time later. It is too late to ask someone the time and Mark also doesn´t have a watch. We are moving south across the steppes towards the eternal light of the Antartida. The adventure took something like six hours or more... Only? Time in neverland stops... Good night!

5 AM. The bus stopped on the waterfront in Ushuaia, Argentinian capital of Tierra del Fuego on the southern shores of the island. It was a cold, blue morning, some people still heading home from the bars, some couples kissing on the sidewalk... And it was raining. People who had not booked rooms stayed in the bus to sleep. I found the street of Antartida Argentina and slept for some hours in the friendly ´Antarctida´ hostel, just across the street from two strip clubs.

While I am travelling in Patagonia, a press release of January 11 cheered Brandeis people up:

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President Jimmy Carter due to speak on campus

Released on January 11, 2007
Contact: Dennis Nealon 781-736-4205 nealon@brandeis.edu

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 10, 2007 -- Former President Jimmy Carter has accepted an invitation from a student and faculty committee at Brandeis University to speak on campus, perhaps as soon as Jan. 23, athough the date may be subject to change.
The Brandeis Faculty and Student Committee for the Visit of President Carter invited former President Carter to "address our community of students and scholars." The former President will give remarks and take questions from audience members. The event will last about one hour and is open to members of the university community only. Space, time and parking limitations, among other logistical concerns, make it impossible to offer public access to the event itself.

A Carter representative said today that the former President had accepted the invitation to visit Brandeis from the Faculty and Student Committee for the Visit of President Carter.

Details of the visit are being worked out with President Carter's staff and more information will be forthcoming. Expect another community email and updates on the main page.

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And so I rode out into the wilderness of the southern Patagonia. A real huaso (Chilean counterpart of the Argentinian gaucho), Juan, was my guide in Torres del Paine nacional park, telling me stories of the horses and uncovering the hidden secrets of nature, like magmic formations, berries and birds... On the trip we met not a single human being... only the horses running free in distant valleys... From the horseback (my creolle horse was called Pistola) I watched the condor in its flight over the snowy peaks of the Andes and down the deep valleys, looking for the flesh of the dead... probably sheep or rodents left by the pumas... there I was... galloping across the blossoming grasslands in the infinite hinterland of the pampa... crossing mountain rivers... racing with the rising winds... witnessing an avalanche on Monte Almirante Nieto, that I climbed the day before... sleeping in an old hacienda overlooking las Torres under the starry southern skies... admiring the guanacos, ancestors of the llamas, that were standing proud on the hilltops, their gaze fixed on the unreachable horizon... eating the blue calafate from the bushes... to come back. To Patagonia. The unending steppes, treacherous silent lagunas, majestic mountain ranges, glaciers and fjors... I know it sounds like a romantic novel, but that what it is.

Yesterday night I wouldn´t go to sleep. Chilean wine on the table surrounded by interesting people that I will probably never meet again. Una brasileira, who hasn´t been to the Amazon yet. One New Zealander, who is going from Peru to celebrate the February Carneval in Brazilian Salvador dancing samba. One Japanese girl, working as a teaching assistant in Indiana. One Swiss guy, who has been travelling for eight months already, having started in Guatemala, later spent two months in Colombia and, after the parcel from his mother arrives, is going hiking in Patagonia. Two more Brazilians, one of whom has met a Lithuanian before (not like the rest...). And the last Brazilian with long hair, who is very supportive of Turkey joining the European Union. Come together for one night which could not end... I asked them how do they find so much time to quit everything and just travel around the world... Well, none of them has a lovely job. And before going to such a journey you have to save... although this means so very different things for a Swiss and a Brazilian.

And on your way around the globe you can lose and rediscover yourself. It is a dangerous and exciting way. Not sure whether this is possible for the group of fifty of so Americans that I met on my plane from Santiago to Punta Arenas, Chilean Patagonian capital. They all had golden tags with names and surnames that signified they are part of some expedition heading to the Falkland islands, to M. Pleasant. The ladies had fancy hair-styles ready for a queen´s ball and the gentlemen - ´North Face´ jackets, small digital ´Sony´ cameras and much good spirit to keep smiling all the time till the plane hit the land in the end of the world... not a smooth landing in the winds of the Magellan strait. Guys from ´La Chimba´ hostel call such travellers ´chocolate-box´ tourists as they only pick the postcard views on their way.

I don´t know. Just bought some tortillas, cream cheese, chocolate and water... and in an hour will be heading to the mountains. To meet the pumas and Andean condors. Hopefully, to survive in the wilderness. Anyway, I have a compass and a flashlight, what could happen to me?



Here in Punta Arenas, the sandy point (and the windy... ) I had alittle walk before moving on to Puerto Natales and the Patagonian wilderness. And what I discovered is that the most beautiful cemetery I have seen in the world is in the end of it... All the sailors and capitans of shipwrecked fleets lie here... from as far as Croatia...