Por fin!

On Monday the students readied the van twice to attempt the trip to Puerto Natales and twice were denied. Morale was low and there was plenty of misdirected blame to go around. By evening they were back at the hostel in Punta Arenas, ready to go at any moment.
As the Navimag ferry approached the Puerto Natales harbor, cars and people descended on the port. They had threatened a blockade and riot police were also out in full force. I decided to accompany some folks from the hostel who were trying to get on the boat. As we walked down at 10:30, the deep blue of the darkening summer evening sky made for a dramatic backdrop against the hundreds of black flags. For all the bluster, though, it was a pretty tame mob. Families turned out, and groups of teenagers on summer vacation. They waved flags and made up chants against the president and laughed and aped for gringo would-be photojournalists. The whole thing felt more like a school pep rally than civil unrest. This is what´s derailing my course?, I thought.
Police ushered our friends through to the ferry office, but they were not allowed on board until 3:30 the next morning. Meanwhile, passengers on the boat who´d traveled three days from Puerto Montt were being briefed on the situation for the first time, and given the choice between staying on the boat for a three day round-trip ¨cruise", or getting off in a town still very much under siege. Protesters got on board to speak to the foreigners in Spanish and English."Our fight is against the government. it is peaceful. You have nothing to fear. You can walk around freely. But, who knows when you can leave town."Some stayed on board, some chanced it.
Those who got off chose wisely. By Tuesday morning, whiffs of an end were in the air. Still, I had to lugs hundreds of pounds of trip food across town on foot because the taxis refused to pick me up. The students were in the van and on their way so I was finally optimistic enough to start buying perishable food. By midday it was clearly over, after a few more vehicle parades through town and a lot of honking and flag-waving.
The students arrived in a terrible mood, but started to perk up when they looked at maps and checked out our fantastic itinerary. We scrambled all day to buy and pack food and check gear and now were ready to head out. Even with the lost days, we´re looking at a 19 day unsupported kayak expedition through the fjords of Patagonia. Hasta luego!

Day 7- Under Siege

Over the past three days the Red Cross has evacuated around 1000 tourists from here in Puerto Natales. Folks waited for hours or days at the school that was turned into a shelter, their luggage taped with tags to one of two destinations, El Calafate in Argentina or the Punta Arenas airport. The elderly and families were given priority, loaded onto an Army convoy, and transported through the blockades to the tiny Puerto Natales airport where Chilean military planes arrived to fly them out. Some waited all day at the school to no avail. We got used to the parade of people each morning, rolling their luggage down the main street to the school, with looks of cautious optimism, then the opposite, dejected procession in the evening. The lucky ones who made it out didn't fare much better. The little town of El Calafate was soon overwhelmed and the Punta Arenas airport quickly developed an enormous backlog. Luckily, these are the best equipped refugees around and soon people had fired up their camp stoves outside the airport to make up for the lack of available food.
The popular Torres del Paine National Park was finally evacuated and closed on Saturday, so 1500 trekkers who had been stuck there instead found themselves stuck in Puerto Natales. Our little band of refugees at the Erratic Rock hostel was inundated by a huge crowd coming from the park. Bill turned no one away, using every couch and even putting people in the former brothel next door, a cold and dilapidated structure that I've called home for the past week. Many people also stayed at the Red Cross shelter. We ran out of bread, but Bill still cheerfully cooked omelettes for all 35 of us each morning.
Most businesses have been closed, but the little grocer a few doors down has been doing a very brisk business selling staples. Amazingly they still seem to have quite a bit of food and wine, but the beer supply is running low.
I've been back and forth with US embassy officials, trying to find a way to get my students here. They are still in Punta Arenas, treated to a daily show of tire fires and endless processions of honking cars. Unfortunately, people are still only focused on getting people out, not in. Every day it seems like there is an end in sight to all of this, and every day it drags on. Bits of news or rumor filters through the gringo mill, and all information is hard to confirm.
Last night we heard from someone at the US embassy that the roads were briefly open. We found a van, but had trouble finding a driver willing to brave the blockades and the likelihood of getting stuck here in Puerto Natales. Finally a plan coalesced this morning. Pato drove the Erratic Rock van on a recon mission, it's logo covered by the ubiquitous black flag of the protesters. To no avail. No vehicles were being allowed to pass.
Now, a few hours later, they're trying again, this time for real, with students on board and yerba mate as a bribe.
Meanwhile, here in Puerto Natales another drama is playing out. The Navimag is approaching the port. This is the once weekly ferry that delivers people and food to southern Patagonia. Will the protesters allow it to dock? Will the hundreds of ticket-holding tourists be allowed to board? Will food be unloaded? Many folks here at the hostel have tickets on the return trip to Puerto Montt in the north, and are counting on the ferry as their escape.
Those not trying to leave are scraping up food rations for a refugee barbecue tonight. Hmm, there are a lot of street dogs wandering around........

Gore-Tex Refugees

An international kayak expedition/course is always a big endeavor. There is a tremendous amount of gear to gather and prepare. There is route planning and charts to pour over. There are permits to clear, menus to plan, food to pack, kayaks to procure and check, electronics to charge and dry bags to pack. Students need to arrive from all over the place with luggage intact. In our case here in Patagonia, the Navy must be placated through meetings and gear checks. The weather must cooperate, to a certain extent. Then the last dry bag is somehow crammed into an already full hatch and the last kayak is coaxed from shore.You feel the water take over and the grab of the paddle. Now there are other concerns- safety, schedule, group dynamics- but it's really just you and the sea, town worries fade away and the rhythm of the tides and wind takes over. If you get there......
We have another hurdle to mount, one completely beyond our control. I am in Puerto Natales, where the course is to begin and end, while the students are in the larger gateway city of Punta Arenas. The strike has completely cut off the two, stranding hundreds, maybe thousands of foreigners and throwing a big fat monkey wrench into our plans. What seemed to be a small protest against a natural gas price hike, has dragged on and morphed into a regional crisis. It's almost completely peaceful, but has already proved to be a huge inconvenience for visitors to Patagonia at the height of the summer season. People can't get to or from Torres del Paine National Park, or to the airport to catch flights home. Food is often difficult to find because most business are closed. When stores are open, supplies are starting to run a bit thin.
Yesterday, with no resolution in sight, many tourists chose to shoulder their backpacks and walk 15 miles to the Argentine border. They were successful after a long day's hike, but others from my hostel who tried to walk to the Park ended up coming back after many hours. They had hoped to catch a sympathetic ride on the far side of the blockade, but cars have stopped coming after many were harassed and vandalized.
Two days ago a meeting with the local governor was called for foreigners stuck here in Puerto Natales. So many people showed up (400-500) that it had to be moved outside. The crowd was tense and somewhat angry, shouting that we were being held hostage. Someone yelled, "you got the miners out faster than us", to much laughter and applause. "We are hostages! You are using us as a bargaining tool in your conflict!" others yelled. All was very dramatic. De facto group leaders emerged and gave impassioned declarations. I was frustrated too, but thought a little perspective was in order. Sure, people have been inconvenienced, but come on, this is not Darfur. You are trapped in a place with restaurants serving king crab and roast lamb and good wine and there are nice beds to sleep in.
The governor said that, as a party in the dispute, he couldn't help, and so was calling in the Red Cross. Now, after two days the Red Cross is organizing some evacuation flights this afternoon. Hundreds of people are lining up with their luggage at a makeshift shelter.
Unfortunately, since I'm trying to get students in, not out, this is not a help to us. All six students made it in to the Punta Arenas airport in the last two days. They were forced to walk many hours into town, but are all together at our hostel there. Punta Arenas is the center of the opposition and the town is filled with street blockades and big demonstrations. I guess it's an early exercise in team-building for the group.
Yesterday brought a brief ray of hope when the government caved on its initial plan to increase fuel rates by 17%, and offered a 3% increase. Unbelievably, this compromise was refused and the strike continues. The latest news is that all businesses in the region will close on Monday. Ay yi yi!
If only we can get the students here and out on the water, all will be fine.....

Strike

On the road just outside of Puerto Natales, in front of a sign welcoming visitors to the tourism capital of Patagonia, is an enormous statue of a extinct giant sloth waving a huge black flag. The statue honors the milodon, a 10000 year old creature with the body of a grizzly and the tail of a kangaroo, found 100 years ago in a nearby cave. The flag is a recent addition, lashed on by protesters angered by a proposed hike in natural gas prices. Here in chilly Patagonia, people rely on natural gas to heat their homes and power their hybrid cars. The government has historically subsidized this fuel to bring costs to the consumer more in line with the warmer parts of the country. A proposed cut in the subsidy would raise prices here in Patagonia by 17%.
The solidarity shown by the milodon is emblematic of the widespread reach of the protest. All roads into and out of every town are blockaded, the streets are mostly deserted and almost every business is closed. All this has put our 24 day expeditionary sea kayak course
in a bit of jeopardy. I'm in Puerto Natales and was planning to head to Punta Arenas today to meet the students and shop for food. The status of the airport is unclear, so I'm not sure the students will even arrive at this point, and there is no way for me to get to Punta Arenas right now without a helicopter.
I arrived in that most southern of port cities five days ago after several flights from the US. The flight from Santiago was fantastic, with amazing views of the northern and southern ice caps, and the fjords. The mountains gave way to the windswept, barren Patagonian steppe, until we finally reached the end of the continental landmass at the Strait of Magellan and landed in Punta Arenas, a cold and windy ramshackle port town with a scruffy charm.
I soon made my way to Puerto Natales and dove into trip prep, gathering the tremendous amount and variety of gear needed for a trip like this. I found a proper nautical chart and poured over the proposed route with German at Tutravesia, who is providing kayaks and logistical support.
The biggest hurdle was supposed to be the Chilean Navy. Without their approval there would be no expedition. A simple formality when I paddled in Chile 10 years ago had become a serious bureaucratic affair. I was seated at a conference table across from three officials, all starched uniforms and epaulets and hairstyles that I believe are called the "deep side part". There was a chart on the wall and a pointer and the whole thing reminded me a bit of Dr. Strangelove.
Some recent mishaps had made them somewhat wary of kayakers. I was grilled on my experience, on that of each member of the group, and on the specific safety and communication equipment we'd be carrying. The meeting was followed up with a long and thorough written application. All was in place for their august seal of approval, the ferocious winds were lying down out of the fjord, and then.... Strike!
Yesterday I biked out of town, past the vigilant milodon and some real-life black-necked swans to the barricade.
It was an orderly and peaceful scene that could have been anywhere. Working class families feeling the squeeze of rising prices and stagnant wages. So for now I'm stuck here at the wonderfully cozy Erratic Rock hostel, along with lots of other folks trying to go trekking in Torres del Paine. At least the wine and cheese shop is still open...

Amsterdam

After spending the last couple weeks perpetually soaked in sweat, I'm now wrapping my Zanzibari scarf around my face as buffer from the wind. What a transition! Leaving the hot, dusty, and colorful for the frozen earth and grey palette of the Dutch winter. Nobody tries to sell you things on the street here, in fact, almost no one even makes eye contact. I'll definitely miss the African color and light and warmth.
Yesterday I woke up early to see the sunrise, forgetting that the equatorial consistency of days doesn't apply here. By 8 AM the city was still dark and pretty quiet. The sun never did rise, really, it just became less dark.
I walked through the Liedesplein down to Vondelpark and over to the Van Gogh museum. The temporary retrospective on Naturalism really slaked a hunger, so I made my way to Albert Cuyp market to munch on pickled herring and frites and browse the fish mongers and cheese stalls. Near there, I hopped a boat for a canal tour, drinking fine Belgian trippels with a couple South Africans as we cruised the city. It's always nice to see a new city from the water level, especially with a beer.
Back on shore, I walked up the Prinsengracht to the beautiful Westerkerk church, and the Anne Frank house. Even though it's been many years since I read that book, the house seemed so familiar to me. It was an intense experience to walk through there, and by the time I reached Anne's bedroom I was weeping. The pictures she glued up are all still on the walls, as well as the pencil marks her father made to track the girls' height. It is so heartbreaking to think of such an extraordinary young woman's life destroyed by madness and barbarity. And all the countless others whose stories were never told. The same sort of thing has happened so often in Africa. Just two days before my visit to Anne Frank Huis, we found ourselves sharing a breakfast buffet with the son of Idi Amin, the notorious butcher of Uganda. While Otto Frank channeled his pain into the creation of a museum dedicated to overcoming hatred, Mr. Amin is devoted to rewriting history to
cast his father in a better light.
Now the sky is getting lighter, there's time for one more ramble through the streets, then an airport reunion with K, and Ahmom's by dinner.

Rift

We survived the matatu ride up the Nairobi escarpment, dropping into the dramatic Rift Valley, part of a huge fault that stretches from Oman to Mozambique. It's this fault that created Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater, and the Red Sea. In our limited experience, the town of Nakuru is a terrible place crawling with touts, scam artists, pickpockets, and prostitutes. There is also a nice coffee shop. Incongruously, just next door is Lake Nakuru National Park, a big salt lake packed at this time of year with flamingoes and surrounded by all sorts of dramatic wildlife. Despite a "guide" who couldn't drive a stick and couldn't tell an African Spoonbill from a yellow-billed stork, or even a lion from a leopard, we had a great safari drive through the park. We saw rhinos up close, both white and black, and even watched two female white rhinos fighting off a big male to protect a calf. White rhinos were extinct in East Africa, but have been reintroduced to Nakuru from South Africa. We were lucky enough to get a great view of a leopard and saw lots of buffalo a Rothschild giraffe, driven nearly to extinction when Idi Amin had his troops use them for target practice. The best part of our visit to Nakuru was the chance to stay at a cozy little banda inside the park. Usually reserved for school groups, the compound was deserted. As we cooked dinner, lions mated loudly in the darkness just beyond the fence. The fence was surrounded by big trees, and the lions of Nakuru happen to be a rare tree-climbing subspecies. The door was kept bolted and bathroom trips were more exciting than usual. It kind of reminded me of camping on a bear trail next to a salmon creek in September in Alaska. We spent the next morning exploring the park some more, with a slightly more competent guide, then heading on to Lake Naivasha. Our home here was another cozy cabin, high on a hill above the lake and surrounded by flowering cacti. It was quiet and beautiful and made a great base for exploring Hell's Gate National Park. They let people bike here and mountain biking among zebras, gazelles, warthogs, and buffalo is pretty cool. Unless, as in K's case, you are stuck in deep sand on a hill when an afternoon thunderstorm rolls in. She went back to town for coffee and cheesecake while I rode across the park in the rain, wary of angry looking buffalo. At the other end is a beautiful network of slot canyons that provided hours of fun, wet scrambling sin guia. There were cool birds, pumice rocks floating down the wash, and hot springs trickling out of the canyon walls. In the evenings we wandered down the very dark road to a tiny village where women were grilling corn on a fire and every shop seemed to include a butchery (Butchery + Hotel, Butchery+Bar, Butchery+ Bookstore), each with huge sides of meat hanging in the window. We found a great place called the Acacia Cafe, a very local affair where we feasted on heaping plates of beans, potato stew, lentils, and chapatis, garnished with a huge ripe avocado. Flourescent lights glared and Kenyan Idol blared on the TV, but the food was delicious and the bill was two dollars. Back in Nairobi for a day, we kissed giraffes at a reserve in the suburbs and ate the most delicious Ethiopian food at Habesa. In the morning we made the long trek back to Tanzania, back to work.

Nairobi

Octopizzo is a freestyle rapper and leader of a hip-hop collective. His career is on an upward arc, with lots of gigs, a new album, newspaper features, a song commisioned for the World Cup, and a new manager who moonlights as a VJ on MTV Africa. If things work out, he'll never have to return to the apartment we've crowded into, deep inside Kibera, one of the world's largest and most infamous urban slums.
Octo's girlfriend is an old high-school friend of K's named Christine. She left a university job in Japan, came to Nairobi to work in the slums, met Octo at a party, fell in love, and is now helping raise his 18 month old daughter, Tracy. Christine works for an Irish NGO, educating mothers in the slums on infant nutrition and health issues.
The five of us spent a couple hours walking here through Kibera. It is estimated that 800,000 people live in the slum, a fifth of Nairobi's residents. They are denied access to the most basic of services and live in very close proximity to their trash and shit. It's called "chocolate city", not for this reason, nor for the river flowing through its center that looks like Willy Wonka's factory, but because from a vantage on one of the higher peripheries, the endless cluster of rusted corrugated roofs resembles a giant chocolate bar.
In the upper, more prosperous parts, one could almost romanticize Kibera. It's dirt streets are almost entirely pedestrian, and framed by blocks of tiny storefronts with hand painted signs. There's a butcher, a locksmith, loads of shops selling small buckets of charcoal for cooking. There are barber shops, little video huts screening Chuck Norris and Kung-Fu films, even a shop advertising wedding dresses. People greet each other and gather in doorways and gangs of childrens accost visitors with their sing-song mantra "how-are-YOU". The scene could be Victorian England, or 19th century Manhattan.
Since we're with Octo, we can venture further, down the labyrinth of pathways, along the sad river, over huge heaps of refuse to the belly of Kibera. This is an island of humanity, completely removed from Nairobi. At night it is ruled by brutal gangs with guns and knives. The police wouldn't think of setting foot in here.
The apartment is an 8x8 room in a long block of 8x8 rooms, mud huts win tin roofs. Octo's 12 year-old brother Jim lives here alone, cooking for himself on a small charcoal stove in the corner. There is a small bed, some chairs, and a trophy Octo won at a hip-hop event. Rats scurry along the rafters. The public toilet outside has fallen apart and sewage streams up to the front door. I can't even imagine what it's like during the rains. Octo and Christine are hoping Jim can get into a boarding school next year.
On the way back, Octo is on edge as we pass various thugs, and has me stash my little camera at times. We visit an artisan collective where cow and camel bones from a butchery are transformed into jewelry and knicknacks. As they describe the process, all we can think about is the fine bone dust everywhere and not a respirator in sight. But the crew is funny and someone I know must need a camel bone salt dish.
Tracy tolerates being dragged around all day and only cries once- when a rat scares her in Jim 's place. She is equally angelic later that night , when we gather at a nyama choma spot for goat and beer.
Despite it's fearful reputation, Nairobi is a fine place to spend a few days. We enjoy wandering the wide boulevards under blooming jacarandas and sipping on some fine Kenyan coffee. Manuevering through the downtown throngs, past the site of the US embassy, bombed by Al-Qaeda in 1998, we come to the train depot. Nairobi exists only because of this train, a fanciful British colonial idea dubbed the "Lunatic Express" because of its logistical challenges. The city sprung up out of nothing as a supply depot along the route, which connected Mombasa, on the coast, with Lake Victoria. The rail was built largely by workers from India. In standard fashion, thousands died in the process, including 134 who were devoured by two ferocious lions during the months the crew spent building a bridge over the Tsavo river. The lions escaped capture for months and the workers all fled, only returning when a British engineer cum big game hunter finally suceeded in killing them. They are now stuffed at the Field Museum in Chicago. We climb around on some derelict engines and sleeper cars and check out the bench seat fashioned for the front of an engine, allowing visiting dignitaries like Teddy Roosevelt to blast away at game as the train rolled through the African savannah.
Becoming more brave, we even try a bit of night exploration in the city, long ago dubbed "Nairobbery" by some jackass. Nothing bad happens, of course, and we steel ourselves for the truly dangerous part of this journey. Tomorrow's trip to the Rift Valley will be aboard a matatu, Kenya's ubiquitous 14 passenger van, with 17 passengers and a driver, possibly stoned on qat, careening wildly through the mountain roads.