OBAMA SWEEPS PATAGONIA ON WAY TO WIN; CONSPIRACY LOSES BIG

Arizona voter Earl Hardie Karges, also known by his pen name 'Hardie K', faxed in his vote for US President last week from Punta Arenas in Chile, on the Strait of Magellan next to Tierra del Fuego. Though his travels have and will continue to take him all over the world, that doesn't mean that he doesn't keep up with or maintain an interest in American politics. How could he in a world increasingly global both politically and economically?

"To say that this could be the transformation of American politics would be an understatement. One vote could make the difference between war and peace, proper health care or none, the past and the future. It's been difficult being a traveler the last eight years with America's increasingly belligerent and indefensible position in the world, not just from the locals, but from the Europeans who expect better from their close cousins. The Statue of Liberty and the Statue of Lincoln have inspired millions of people for hundreds of years and now we've become a pathetic caricature of ourselves, maintaining one system for ourselves and another for everybody else. America was born in the struggle for freedom and human rights. We want our revolution back."

So this means another vote for Obama?

"Is there any other choice? If he was short on experience before, he's certainly gained it in this campaign. That's the good aspect of these long grueling elections; it makes you tough. I didn't support Obama originally simply because others had more experience and their policies are similar. His value increased every day that he didn't stumble or lose his cool. McCain's value decreased for the same reasons, with his silly campaign stunts and reckless posturing. If Obama's execution of his job matches his vision, then the entire world could have a peerless leader for decades to come. Of course he'll need Congress's support long before he'll ever get Ahmadinejad's or Chavez's. The potential is tremendous and exciting. That's why I'm making the extra effort to cast my vote."

Why Punta Arenas in southernmost Chile to vote?

"Why not? I plan to visit every country before I’m finished. This is where I happen to be as Nov. 4 rolls around in a country that I’m visiting for the first time. Considering that I'm registered to vote in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I've lived on and off for the last twenty years, it's appropriate, considering their mutual and sometimes surprising Arctic-like conditions; make that ‘Antarctic’. It snowed here this morning in the middle of spring. That sounds like Flagstaff to me."

Is this just a cheap ploy for that fifteen minutes of fame we were all promised by Andy Warhol?

"Absolutely not; it’s not cheap at all to get here. Have you seen airline prices recently? Seriously though, I'd like to publicize the fact that voting is not limited to a little booth in your little hometown in some little corner of the world. We've come a long way since Biblical times. I wish I could do it all by Internet, but we're not quite there yet, maybe next time. As it is, the forms can be received by e-mail scan, but then I have to fax them in. That's not bad. The people in Coconino County, Arizona, have been very helpful. There's no excuse not to vote. I'd like to inspire others to do likewise, wherever you happen to be."

Where next?

"I'll go up the coast to central and maybe northern Chile. I've been in and around Argentina for a few weeks and just crossed over to Chile here in Patagonia. So far I like it a lot. Since I'm not much of a steak eater, the food seems better than Argentina, and costs are reasonable. I plan to be back in the US the day before Thanksgiving, then pick up my wife and head to Thailand, where she's from and which is my true second home. Then I'll travel some more while the dollar's strong against the Euro, which hasn't been the case in years. This is the real deal. It’s a way of life."

So Obama won and some people are declaring the death of racism. I doubt that but I would say it’s about time to bury conspiracy theory. I take this personally. I’ve lost friends to conspiracy theory. It’s worse than any conspiracy itself could ever be. I hope they’re OK. Yeah, you know the rap. “The candidates are all the same… They were all members of the same secret society… The game is rigged… If you don’t have money, then you can’t go anywhere in this society…” This rap reached fever pitch after 9-11 of course with claims that our secret government attacked its own people as a pretense for starting a war, something a lot of very intelligent people have no problem believing. The story probably peaked around the 2004 elections with claims that the two candidates were somehow ‘the same’ or that the ‘secret government’ might decide to ‘install Kerry’ just to mess with us. That’s also the time I dropped out, when one of my conspiracy friends asserted that ‘we need four more years of George Bush.’ Huh? I couldn’t get any of them to refute that. Obviously their game was little better than that of the devil himself, or the devil’s patsy rather, ‘W’. They need him to make their case. Without him, or someone like him, they’re forced to gather evidence. There is none.

The beauty with conspiracy theory of course is that it can’t be disproved. The problem is that by itself it proves nor predicts nothing either, merely backfilling logic with the pinpoint accuracy of a Monday morning quarterback. They even refused to believe Osama’s own confession on 9-11, a racial slight in my opinion, that a bunch of Arabs couldn’t possibly have done it. That’s an insult. Fast forward four years and conspiracy people are in as much trouble philosophically as Republicans. Their underpinnings have been seriously hobbled. Does this mean that David Icke will have to go ‘beyond the cutting edge’ and get a real job? I doubt it. As Dan Brown knows, these are first and foremost good stories. But no one could say that Barack Obama and John McCain were the same nor deny that Obama had no innate advantage and overcame tremendous odds on the path to victory. As Freud said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” and sometimes the good guy wins. Like Michelle, for the first time in a long time, “I’m proud to be an American.” Let’s drop the defeatist nay-saying and make the world a better place. There are too many reasons for success. Why bother with failure?

WHEN YOU’RE FEELIN’ TOO PAMPA’D, THEN GO TO PATAGONIA

Patagonia = n X ½(500X1000)m, where n is nothingness and m is miles, all measurements approximate. Nothingness for me does not imply lack; nothingness implies infinity, and so does Patagonia with its many wonders, albeit most of them crinkled up against that stone massif called the Andes. Unfortunately it’s a long ride to get there. I don’t remember what year Paul Theroux came here, but I don’t think the ‘Old Patagonia Express’ exists any more. The train stations in Bs. As. seem pretty decrepit with trains going to no places I’ve ever heard of, local and regional only I think. The big problem now is a lack of coins to pay with, queues stretching around corners with people waiting patiently in line. It was all over the news down here; I’m sure it must’ve made CNN. The long distance trains I imagine have long since been replaced by buses, double deck affairs with meals and entertainment included (sometimes even cute hostesses). The food sucks of course. If you think airline food is bad, then you should try some bus food. Remember ‘chicken-fried’ steak (or did we only rate that privilege in Mississippi)? Milanesa is an Argentine favorite and usually makes it into the little foil-wrap containers that conceal what will eventually go into your mouth. It’s better that way. The breading on the ‘steak’ works to hide what’s really inside.

So what’s a health-food person to do down south? As always, smile and say ‘cheese’. I’m getting really tired of cheese but I haven’t eaten much for the last ten years in Asia so I can endure I suppose. The real demon is ham-and-cheese. It’s evil. I’m starting to think of these as ham-and-cheese republics it’s so ubiquitous. It’s a plot I’m sure, and a bad one, characters wanted, a conspiracy of some sort, kill our souls with ham and clog our intestines with cheese, round us up into colonoscopy camps. I’m not joking, not much anyway. For lunch on the bus we had two sandwiches, one on square loaf bread with the edges neatly trimmed and one on a hamburger bun, both- you guessed it- with ham and cheese in the center. It’s enough to make you go on a fast, or go on a slow, conserving energy to conserve calories so as not to bore yourself with eating. At least the 36-hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos is actually on schedule, not like a certain train running between Bamako and Dakar that arrives a day late, and then dumps you on the side of the tracks at 5am, that smell of compost your own, but fortunately there’s always a hotel-cum-whorehouse still open working the night shift as long as you don’t mind paying for a night that’s already gone and best forgotten.

It’s probably better that way, that the food’s no good, since the bus has no crappers anyway, recycling bathrooms advised for use with ‘liquids only’. So what if you’ve got the runs? Interpret liberally. The coffee is no better of course, though sometimes instant is preferable to a bad brew. Don’t waste time looking for a bus with latte’. Then there’s the ubiquitous orange drink. As Seinfeld might say, “what’s the deal with a fizzy orange drink? Does it taste orange? Do they put in any real orange flavor? If you closed your eyes could you tell the difference between an orange drink and a green drink? Does a green drink taste like something green?” I’ve had the red drink in Thailand and I couldn’t tell you what it tastes like. What’s the taste of red?

As our time capsule continues into the night, God only knows what changes are occurring while we feign sleep and wish for dreams to come. A few stops occur with people shuffling in and out, but nothing very notable. When the morning comes we’re heading due west toward Bariloche before heading south again. By now we’re heading into the heart of Patagonia and the population is thinning rapidly, only to almost peter out totally long before the 50^th parallel where Rio Gallegos lies. Comodoro Rivadavia is the only town of note for almost a thousand miles. The land is so flat and the vistas so broad that Nevada would fit right in, literally lost in the vastness. Then below the 50^th parallel things change again, Patagonia morphing into Tierra del Fuego. The terrain becomes a little more broken up, but the main characteristic is the wind. Winds blow at gale force it seems like all the time, so there’s no need to give them names as if they’re special or something. The emptiness otherwise makes a blank slate for tourism; you don’t have to be bothered with the detritus of culture impinging on your package tour. I’m being facetious, trying to chisel the rough edges of my personality into multiple smooth faces and facets.

After checking in at Rio Gallegos and buying an onward ticket to Chile in advance, I go up to El Calafate for a couple days to watch a glacier make babies. The glacier is nice and the town not so bad, but the most fun was the skewered English on the bus up there. Thought Chinese had a monopoly on that? Listen to this: “Prohibited the gown to be extracted,” meaning “don’t take off your clothes on the bus” (Europeans, remember?). Anyway the wind’s not so bad there and if the sun’s out, then it’s downright nice. Rio Gallegos is another story. Perched along the coast the wind blows with a vengeance that stops buses in their tracks and makes me think twice before using the pedestrian overpasses. Otherwise it’s like a time warp, inspired from Fifties’ America it seems, certainly not typically Latino, though quite a few northern Quechua-types make it down for the work. What’s a little cold to them? South from there it only gets worse. That’s the bad thing about my obsession with geographical extremes and Arctic circles- the weather sucks bad. Why can’t I just put on a fake Hawaiian shirt and content myself with the tropics instead like normal people?

Finally I crossed the border. What difference can a line drawn on the map make? It surprises me sometimes. They’re not always as startling as the border at TJ, but that’s to be expected. Still the one here delineates more than the one up by Vancouver. There are no more ubiquitous meat grills or cups of mate’ with the silver straw extruding into almost everyone’s mouth. Chile seems more down-to-earth and less pretentious. There are small little restaurants and bars that seem like interesting cheap places. At least the Chilean border guards didn’t charge me the $131 visa ‘reciprocity’ charge that I’ve been dreading and scheming against for months. Even though it’s on and in all the books, apparently they only hit you up for it at Santiago International Airpost upon direct entry to the country. If you slime your way through the land border, then apparently you avoid the charge. That’s cool, almost making up for the humiliation of spacing out my entry card in Uruguay and having to buy my way past the immigration point.

The weather’s cool too, as you might expect this far south, cool and rainy, but I eventually find the hotel I’ve reserved and exchange some money at the same rate I passed on at the border, but what the hey… all’s well that ends well, right? So now I sit in my room in Punta Arenas with the wind howling outside my window, rain falling intermittently, and temperatures on their way down to freezing tonight if not already there yet. This is the price I pay for my policy of experimentation. If it’s any consolation, weather would be very similar many places back at the same latitude in Canada if not yet Stateside. That’s because it’s mid-spring here and mid-Autumn there, pretty similar. Scary movies play on every channel. Finally I realize why. It’s Halloween. Boo!

The next morning dawns clear and bright. An hour later it’s snowing; so much for my summer vacation. Life at the extremes can be unpredictable. It could affect your way of life I suppose. It gives new appreciation for the accomplishments of Magellan and his crew who traversed these straits some five hundred years ago while circumcising the globe. They had some problems here if I remember correctly. They found more booty in the Philippines I imagine until Ferdinand met his match and his maker. So the search is on to not only seek out Chile but to figure out my next move. There’s no road north except back through Argentina, so this could be tricky. If I can’t find a cheap flight north to Puerto Montt, then I continue (even further) south to Ushuaia where I can get a flight back to Buenos Aires for not too expensive, then go catch the film festival at Mar del Plata, leaving Chile with hardly a penetration. Unfortunately it’s Saturday, so the city’s pretty quiet. It’s a holiday, too, All Saints Day (Halloween, remember?) so everybody’s out at the cemeteries and flowers are selling briskly at impromptu markets. So maybe it doesn’t freeze hard enough to kill them? They say the prettiest flowers grow in the nastiest weather.

“I can’t believe this,” the travel agent says. “It’s like a miracle. I’ve never seen a price so low to Puerto Montt. Usually they’re more than twice this. It must be a special promotion.”

It’s a holiday of course, so she can’t write out the $50 ticket till Monday, but things are looking up. I was hoping for a $100 ticket, still far better than the expensive LAN flight or the even more expensive ferry through the fjords, which doubled from last year. Then the ATM spits out the equivalent of $300 without even coaxing, far better than the paltry $100-200 you’re limited to in Argentina, all with per-use charges. Is my luck changing? I could use it after the Uruguay exit snafu and the ATM snafu and others that not only threaten my street-cred as a master traveler, but my own sense of self-esteem. But mostly I’m hungry. I haven’t had a decent meal in a week, surviving on bread and cheese. It’s time to check out the supermarkets. Other tourists go to museums and spectacles. I go to supermarkets.

There’s lots of salsa picante on display, the local aji, so that’s good, none of that in Argentina. There’s even roast chicken, so I can get off the cheese diet. The breads and pastries look OK, some even called kuchen, so that’s exotic, given my heritage. There are even avocadoes, black Hass, at a good price. I’m getting really hungry now. Then my eye catches something that looks almost like a gaeng khieow wan (sweet green curry) from Thailand, full of things red and green swimming in it. They call it chap suey de pollo. If nothing else this adds a new paragraph to my chapter on culinary DNA that refers to the dissemination and evolution of the sweet-and-sour-like ‘cap cai’ of Indonesia to the meat-and-gravy-like ‘chop suey’ of America, all propagated by pragmatic Chinese eager to please and willing to adapt. Turns out it’s the best ‘chop suey’ I’ve ever had, cheap too. It even tastes green. Chile’s looking better all the time. It feels good to be back on the Pacific Rim. Could this be love? We’ll see; the night’s still young. But first I’ve got more important things to do, like vote. I’ll fax it in from here.