Thinking Aloud

As I mentioned in an earlier column, our only trouble in La Paz (Bolivia) was on account of a bad cook, not with conmen or pickpockets, the warnings in my travel book notwithstanding.  We were, however, to come very close to having our valuables stolen in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

As we were getting out of a subway train in Buenos Aires on a Saturday, being the last of the passengers alighting from the train, with my wife a few meters behind me, like a straggler, I suddenly heard her scream. Turning back I saw a man close behind her who she said had tried to open her backpack.  I did, indeed, find it half open.  Keeping his nerve, the pickpocket said he was trying to close it because it was open!  A good man!  Did he expect us to thank him?

Our next close call was in Montevideo the very next day, while walking to the jetty to catch a ferry back to Buenos Aires.  It was a Sunday, with most shops closed.  We were walking through a pedestrian-only street with two to three-storey buildings on both sides.  There were a few open air performances going on, including the usual street dancing, as is often the case in most cities in this part of the world.

Further on, it became quiet and deserted.  Suddenly, I heard my wife say: “Razi, waapas mudo” (Razi, turn back).  I turned back without asking why.  Not because I am one of those husbands who will always follow their wife’s directive, but because I kind of understood that she might have sensed danger ahead.  Having a suspicious bent of mind certainly helps.  Occasionally one is likely to be right.

After making an abrupt u-turn, I had merely gone a few metres, perhaps twenty, when I felt a hand groping my back pocket, followed by my wife’s scream and my hand touching someone else’s at the back. Lunging back I saw a teenager walking away from me to join a man and another teenager who were waiting ahead.  Given the age of the two boys, and the botched attempt to deprive me of my wallet, they were probably apprentices out on a practical training with the man.

Montevideo is another typical South American capital city, albeit smaller than the other capitals. Our first port of call in Uruguay was the town of Colonia.  It is on the northern side of the very wide La Plata river, directly northeast of Buenos Aires.  We took a fast ferry to Colonia.

The historic old part of Colonia is a charming little place with its narrow cobblestone streets, fort and leisurely pace. From here, we caught a bus to Montevideo, about 200 km to the east, where the river meets the sea, returning to Buenos Aires by a direct ferry that took about three hours.

Uruguay is not only rather small in a continent of big countries, but it is also sandwiched between two of the biggest, Brazil and Argentina.  Our bus moved through sparsely populated, green and flat countryside with the occasional village and not much traffic.

Small and laid back Uruguay has much to brag about when it comes to soccer.  Most recently, it won the 2011 Copa América South American championship, which it has won a record 15 times. The national team has twice won the Soccer World Cup, including the first World Cup in 1930, which it hosted.  It has won 20 official titles, a world record for the most international titles held by any country.  No wonder, Montevideo has a Football Museum.

A less known but amazing fact about this little country is the president himself.  According to a BBC report by Vladimir Hernandez (“Jose Mujica: The world’s ‘poorest’ president”, 15 November 2012), President Jose Mujica “lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay.  Laundry is strung outside the house. The water comes from a well in a yard, overgrown with weeds. Only two police officers and Manuela, a three-legged dog, keep watch outside.”

“President Mujica has shunned the luxurious house that the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders and opted to stay at his wife’s farmhouse, off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo.  The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers.”

He donates about 90% of his monthly salary to charities.  “I may appear to be an eccentric old man… But this is a free choice.  I’ve lived like this most of my life,” he says, “I can live well with what I have.”  He drives an old VW beetle that belongs to his wife.  Elected in 2009, Mujica spent the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Tupamaros, a leftist armed guerrilla group inspired by the Cuban revolution.

He was shot six times and spent 14 years in jail. Most of his detention was spent in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy. Those years in jail, Mujica says, helped shape his outlook on life.

One hopes that political activists everywhere will use their personal experiences, both good and bad, pleasant and not so pleasant, to shape their outlook on life, and be an example for others to help create a better world.

Meanwhile, we should all say:  Jose, your country may be small, but you are truly great.

Note from author:  This column will resume in January 2014.

By Razi Azmi

It is hard to say which was the highpoint of my trip.  But probably the most exciting part was the trip to Ushuia, the world’s southern-most town, near the tip of the South American continent, “the end of the world” (fin del mundo), as they call it around here.  Just the thought that one was heading there with a bird’s-eye view of the terrain below was probably enough to send the adrenalin rushing.

Chile controls the southern tip of the continent and claims the southernmost town in the world, Puerto Williams.  But with a population of less than 2,500, compared to Ushuaia’s 57,000, it doesn’t qualify as a city, but it is indeed about 50 km further south.

But regardless of this bragging rivalry and question of accuracy between the two neighbours, as my plane closed in over Ushuaia, making a few turns to avoid Chilean territory, an amazing sight unfolded below: mountain fastness, with snow, gullies, lakes and glaciers, all in an apparently pristine state.

Strange when you think of it: the South Asian subcontinent and the continents of Africa and South America, all taper off at their southern extremities, in the shape of the letter “V”, whereas the land mass in the north (North America, Europe and Asia) is stretched out.

This southern land is called Tierra del Fuego (land of fire), because the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who was the first European to visit in 1520, named it after the many fires lit by the native Yaghan tribe, which were visible from the sea.

Founded in October of 1884, Ushuaia’s location was considered too harsh and remote for it to be anything other than a penal colony. The penal colony existed till the 1940s. The last of the native Americans in the Tierra del Fuego (Yamanas) perished more recently.

In Ushuia we took a tour of the Beagle Channel (named for Charles Darwin’s HMS Beagle) on a catamaran.  Navigating between Argentinian and Chilean territory, our boat passed many small islands and outcroppings. Among the wildlife on view were imperial cormorants, the black-browed albatross, the scua (a type of gull) and the steamer duck. We stopped by Seal Island, home to two species of sea lions, then at another island nearby to have a look at the Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse.

Martillo Island is home to a colony of Magellanic penguins.  Under 50 cm tall and 4 kg in weight, these small aquatic birds are members of a species that lives only in the far southern coastal region of South America and the Falkland Islands.

From Ushuaia, it was a short flight north to El Calafate in Argentinian Patagonia, which many consider to be the most amazing place on earth.  Patagonia straddles the border between Argentina and Chile, although by far the greater part of it is on the Argentinian side.

The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native people that his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed that Magellan’s “Patagons” were actually the Tehuelche tribe, who tended to be somewhat taller than the Europeans of the time.

Occupying roughly half a million square miles, Patagonia has always invited wanderers and adventurers. In his book “In Patagonia” (1977), Bruce Chatwin described the region as having “an effect on the imagination something like the Moon”.  “But Patagonia today,” writes Brienne Walsh in the New York Times (16 September 2011), “is a different land from the one that Chatwin explored 30 years ago. . . . If anything about Patagonia is still otherworldly, it’s the colors embedded in the landscape — teal, mauve, mahogany, jonquil, periwinkle, azure, lavender”.

Our destination was the Perito Moreno glacier, located 78 kilometres from El Calafate.  Thirty kilometres in length, it is 250 sq km of ice, one of 48 glaciers fed by the ice fields located in the Andes system shared with Chile, the world’s third largest reserve of fresh water. The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of only three glaciers in the world (all three are in Patagonia) which is growing while the others are receding.

The terminus of the Perito Moreno Glacier is 5 kilometres wide, with an average height of 74 m above the surface of the water of Lake Argentino. It has a total ice depth of 170 metres.  The large viewing platform offers one of the world’s most spectacular sights, a jagged sea of ice against the background of snow-covered peaks. Many metres deep, it is now white, now blue, and golden when the sun shines, all reflected in the clear blue waters of the lake, which stands between it and you.

Every now and then one hears an ear-splitting thunder.  Its source is not in the clouds above, but in the ice formation in front.  It is the sound of a massive block of ice cracking and splitting from the main body under its own weight and crashing into the water.  If one is lucky enough to be looking in that direction, one can even enjoy the sight, besides the sound.

On the Chilean side is the Torres del Paine National Park, full of jagged peaks which shimmer in sunlight, rivers of ice, azure lakes, waterfalls and pristine streams.

By Razi Azmi

About two hundred kilometres south of the flight path of my plane, on the Argentinian side of the border with Chile, had occurred one of the most tragic air disasters and an amazing tale of human survival.  A chartered Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying 45 people, including a rugby team, had hit the mountains and crashed here on 13 October 1972.

More than a quarter of the passengers died immediately and several others soon succumbed to cold and injury. Of the 29 who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter. The 16 survivors had little food and no way to beat the cold in the harsh conditions at over 3,600 metres altitude.

Faced with starvation, they decided to feed on their dead mates corpses, which had been well preserved in the snow. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until 72 days after the crash when two of them, after a 10-day trek across the Andes, found a Chilean who gave them food and then alerted authorities about their ordeal. “Alive: The Miracle of the Andes (1993)” is one of many films made and books written about this incident.

I was now to cross the Andes by road, just about 300 km to the north of the scene of this horrific tragedy.  The overland crossing was more breathtaking than I had expected.  On the Chilean side the road begins to climb rather abruptly, negotiating perhaps no fewer than two dozen hairpin bends wide enough to allow large freight trucks to travel.  On the Argentinian side, the road descends gradually. Most of Chile is sandwiched between this formidable mountain range and the deep sea!

Andes is the highest mountain range outside Asia. But at 6,962 metres, its highest peak, Mt Aconcagua in Argentina, close to the Chilean border not far to the north of the road crossing, is no match for Mt Everest which towers at 8,848 m.  The Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 m in height.  But what the Andes lacks in height, compared to the Himalayas, Hindukush and Karakorums, it makes up in other areas.

Andes is 7,000 km long, compared to 2,400 km for the Himalayas (Rockies rank second at 4,800 km). Andes average height is a formidable 4,000 m and it is 200 to 700 km wide.  The Himalayas width varies from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east.

The Andes extends through seven of the 12 South American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.  Much of the border between Chile and Argentina runs along the length of the Andes. It is also only one of two major mountain ranges than run north-south, the other being the Rockies.  All others run east-west.

The bus took us to the Argentinian town of Mendoza on the eastern side of the mighty Andes.  Mendoza is the launching pad for tours to Mt Aconcagua as well as to the many wine-growing areas nearby.  Here, as elsewhere in much of the world, tourism based on visits to wineries are big business.

We enjoyed a free music ensemble of the Mendoza police force in the central park very close to our hotel.  For the two evenings we were there, the police band would play all afternoon and evening. Everyone, men, women and children, some experienced dancers, others novices, would join in Tango. What a contrast to South Asia, where the police swagger about like emperors and the women look forlorn and withdrawn.  In Mendoza, too, we had our first taste of the legendary Argentinian steak, so soft as to make the knife unnecessary!

From here, we flew to Buenos Aires, a city known to many Pakistanis thanks to one or more of the following: hockey, Messi, Maradona (whose soccer skills were superb, though his life was messy) and Gabriela Sabatini (whose looks were better than her tennis).  One of the great cities of South America, the best days of Buenos Aires are in the past, although this has done nothing to puncture the notorious arrogance of its inhabitants.

Argentina is a good example of how even a prosperous country can be ruined by bad leadership.  At the beginning of the last century, the country was in the top league in terms of economic prosperity and living standards, but has since gone downhill to the point that it has defaulted on its debt repayments and its currency has been in free fall more than once in the last few decades.

Meanwhile, it has had a string of inept leaders, man and wife, then generals and admirals, followed by another man and wife set. They were not good in either peace or war.  There is a comparison to be made with Pakistan not only in terms of inept leadership, both political and military, but also an effort to distract the public by territorial bogeys, we in Kashmir, they in Malvinas (Falklands).  Both countries have fought and lost wars in respect of these claims (we in 1965, they in 1982), we under a field marshal, and they under a bunch of generals and admirals.

While the people struggle to make ends meet, with the government’s encouragement there are daily protests in the city centre demanding the return of Malvinas (which is under British control), complete with flags, maps and lessons in history.  My next stop was Ushuaia, the capital of the administrative region to which the Malvinas would belong if they were to return to Argentinian control.  

By Razi Azmi

As our plane took off from Bolivia’s El Alto airport for Santiago, the capital of Chile, my excitement soared just like the plane did.  We were flying out of the world’s highest airport and over a fascinating land, the most Andean and indigenous of the South American countries, and second only to Tibet in elevation.

And we were headed for Chile, a country whose geography makes it unique among nations.  Present-day Chile is 4,270 km long but only 356 km wide at its widest point and 64 km at its narrowest, with an average width of just 175 km.  Our flight path lay over its entire northern half on a sunny day without so much as a speck of cloud to obstruct our view of the land below.

To my right were the placid blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, below us the world’s driest desert, the Atacama.  And in the distance to the left I could see the shimmering surface of the Bolivian salt plain. Looking even further, I could see the peaks and ridges of the Andean range.

Stop-overs in the two Chilean cities of Arica and Iquique, seized from Peru in the War of the Pacific (1879-83), and flying over the 400-km length of what had been Bolivian territory until that war, including the major town of Antofagasta, added a fragment of history to the spectacular geography and the scenery below.

Santiago sits quite literally under the shadow of the snow-capped Andes and is less than a hundred kilometres from the Pacific Ocean.  Though it is the capital of the country, the seat of the national parliament is in Valparaiso, over a hundred kilometres to the northwest, by the sea.  It sits in a new building there since 1990, quite at odds with the rest of this old city with narrow cobblestone lanes, and away from the national capital.

Valparaiso is a lovely town that was.  Now it is full of street dogs and dog poo.  I have not seen a place with so much dog poo and such robust street dogs. They look well-nourished, to which the amount of poo is a testimony.  Hungry stomachs yield little.

Anyway, Valparaiso looks to be in decline and its best days are behind.  It was a regular port of call for ships making it through the Straits of Magellan from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The Suez Canal and the Panama Canal led to a sharp decline in the town’s fortunes.

It had South America’s oldest stock exchange and Chile’s first public library. It was also the home of Nobel Laureate, the great poet Pablo Neruda, which is now a museum. Businesses and people moved out to other cities included the large nearby town of Vina del Mar, which now adjoins Valparaiso.

The national parliament was moved from Santiago to Valparaiso by General Augusto Pinochet, the army chief who seized power through a military coup in 1973, not to inject new life into the city but to demonstrate the decline in the parliament’s own fortunes.  The general did not like politicians, elected parliamentarians or, for that matter, democracy. So Pinochet wanted the parliament to be out of sight.

Out of sight, out of mind, he might have thought. But the politicians – and the thousands who suffered under his dictatorship – could hardly get him out of their mind.  So, years later, when the political atmosphere got overheated, the general opted out.  But that wasn’t the end of the matter, for he was later charged for human rights offences and corruption, and died in disgrace in 2006.

Santiago is the most developed of the South American cities and Chile has overtaken the rest in terms of economic development. Credit for this economic success has to be given to Pinochet. I can think of a few countries which have been well-served by dictators, despots or authoritarian regimes, besides Chile:  Turkey, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.  Sadly, Pakistan is not one of them, though it has had more than its share of dictators and despots.

Santiago is located at about the centre of this remarkable country.  Chile’s border with Argentina is 5,300 km long, the world’s third longest between any two countries, the longest being the USA-Canada border (8,891 km), followed by the Russia-Kazakhstan border (6,846 km).

While the north has the Atacama Desert, where it may not rain at all for years, the south is one of the rainiest areas in the world.  Lakes with clear blue or turquoise waters, torrential rivers, gushing waterfalls and lush green meadows, all against the backdrop of the snow-covered Andean peaks, abound in the south.

When I sat on the front seat of the upper deck of a double-decker bus in Valparaiso, headed for the Argentinian city of Mendoza on the other side of the Andean mountains, I knew what to expect.  In fact, that is why I chose to go overland by bus rather than catch a plane. I had previously flown over this section of the Andes on my way to Rio de Janeiro from Santiago. It was a scary flight and an amazing sight, our plane almost skimming the snow-capped peaks which spread out in all directions as far as the eye could see.

I was reminded of the flight from Islamabad to Skardu many years ago.  I have flown over the Rockies, the Alps, the Himalayas and the Karakorum, but it was the first time we were asked to fasten our seatbelts without any unusual turbulence.  A normal practice on this flight, I was told, because of the dangerous flight path of the plane.

By Razi Azmi