Riding to Patagonia

[Monsterlover]

Haha. As this trip approaches the end I'll take whatever job I can get.

Please seriously consider trying your hand at being an author.

[yamifixer]

Please seriously consider trying your hand at being an author.

YES, Please...

[DuciD03]

That picture was, like, three beards ago.

[1.21GW]

I've come to the position that it's the obligation of every meat-eating person to witness the slaughter of an animal at least once in their life for the simple reason that if you can't handle the means of production you don't have moral standing to consume the fruits of production.  So when I heard that my hostel owner had purchased a cattle for the year's grilling season I asked if I could witness the slaughter.

The slaughter was a full family event.  Everyone participated, each in a manner according to their station: the women ran around preparing and arranging and cleaning, grandma carried off offal to prepare traditional soups and other dishes del campo, the young kids sat nearby and watched with curious eyes, the boys were invited to help with the cuts in a sort of initiation into manhood, even the dog and chickens took part, pecking and pulling away loose pieces of fat and skin thrown carelessly in the grass.

David, a professional butcher (carnicero del primer corte), performed all the work as his father first taught him years ago using only knife and handsaw.  In spite of the crude instruments, I found the procedure less gruesome than expected (the decapitation notwithstanding).  Instead, what struck me was just how big a cow's stomach actually is.  It seems to take up the entirety of the animal, as if the rest were just an empty warehouse built solely to house an enormous engine of digestion.  When removed in the first stages of the dressing it spills out of the belly cut as messy and misshapen as a newborn babe, filling an entire wheelbarrow as it is trundled off to be hosed down in some shady corner of the yard.  What's left is a much less formidable beast: an empty chamber of pasty reds and glaucous whites upon which a sort of reverse transubstantiation is performed.

If you've never seen a slaughter before, it is the spiritual opposite of the act of creation.  Whereas an artist takes raw materials and works them into a complex form, a butcher takes a complex thing and with each pass of the blade transforms it into unrecognizable raw matter.  But make no mistake, there's an art to how a skilled canicero works.  It is as mystical an act as anything performed in a temple.  While there may be no proper antonym for the word "miracle", the process of butchering an animal is its performative equivalent.  The effect is a sobering disenchantment that is akin to watching the rote teardown of a carnival show: each loosened stake and untied rope is a fatal blow to the magic and wonder once contained within.  And when the last tarp is rolled up and carried off nothing of the mystery survives.


For the record, I had a hamburger (store bought, not from the same cow) for dinner that night and it was delicious.  My deflowering, as it were, did not affect my taste for meat.









NOTE: I realize this material isn't everyone's cup of (morbid) tea, so for those that are curious use the link below for more pics.


https://www.flickr.com/gp/142960738@N08/Zavn74

[ducpainter]

You can see cows/pigs/chickens/turkeys/goats/lambs/ducks...and who knows what else...slaughtered in NH...didn't have to go all the way to Patagonia.

[DarkMonster620]

the belly is called mondongo  and it is delicious either stewed or fried

[1.21GW]

the belly is called mondongo  and it is delicious either stewed or fried

Yeah, I heard that.  David the Carnicero's father used to make something with the blood that he loved (David is so-so on it) where he'd collect it when he cut the throat and add garlic and some other herbs and after it congealed he'd scoop in with a spoon like some kind of jello.  Not my thing, but apparently it was the viagra of the era.

You can see cows/pigs/chickens/turkeys/goats/lambs/ducks...and who knows what else...slaughtered in NH...didn't have to go all the way to Patagonia.

Now you tell me?!?!

[1.21GW]

You get a double-dose of posts tonight because I've got pictures piling up and need to catch up.


From Pucón I rode across into Argentina and spent some time in the lake towns on my way to Bariloche to meet a contact.  Wildflowers are in full bloom now so as you ride on RN40 weaving through the lakes you feel as if you're part of some grand parade, like a Roman general returning from a great conquest.  The towns of San Martin de los Andes and Villa Angostura echo the quaint style of affluent ski-towns in the Rockies or the White Mountains.























So my contact was a former classmate of my sister 15 years ago at university.  She passed me his email mentioning that he's a nice guy, did some motorcycle thing once but what she can't recall, and that he now lives in Bariloche.  She hadn't seen him in a decade but thought the contact worth making.  Well, he invited me to his place and as it turns out he was the perfect contact: he set the Guinness record in 2003 (now beaten) for the fastest to reach Ushuaia from Prudhoe Bay by motorcycle and he also literally wrote the (Bradt Travel Guides) book on the Carretera Austral.  It goes without saying that we had a lot to talk about.  Fortunately for us, the wine in Argentina is cheap and the craft beer in Bariloche is good (the town's got German roots, people).


Anyway, for those that are tired of the holiday grind and the chilling weather, I leave you this view from his home office:

[duccarlos]

I regret not going to Bariloche.

I have a photo of my kids hanging out next to a truck that was used as a mobile butcher. They got a chance to see their dinner hanging from hooks.

[Speeddog]

Long ago job trip to a meat processing facility.

Right next to the entrance from the office was the device that steamed out the cow stomachs.
Quite the smell eminating from that device.

[1.21GW]

Ok, back in Chile.

From Bariloche I rode south back into Chilean Patagonia. My first stop was just across the border in Futaleufu, a world class rafting town. I didn't realize how well-known it was, but everyone at my hostel---maybe two dozen people---was there solely for the river. The Futaleefu River is, apparently, world class rafting and I regret not having time to spend a few days on it. The color alone is enough to inspire a ride, rapids or no. Its bright blue-green hue looks a lot like some love potion prop from an eighties movie. Oh, and I've never seen a river current move so fast. Must have been 20-25 mph in certain spots. Insane. I took only one pic of the river as I rode along it when I stopped to chat with some guys trout fishing on the banks:









Once I got to the Carretera Austral, I got back on pavement and raced through curvy riverside roads.  It was two hours of river dancing with views like this:










Eventually, I arrived in Puyuhuapi to spend the night before continuing south.  It's a port town in a bay (fjord, really) that connects with the Pacific.















The highlight of Puyuhuapi was a small restaurant run by a women that will hang on the wall just about anything gifted to her. Case in point: some friends killed some sort of deer and gave her a small portion of its hide. She decided to crudely fashion it into a miniature four-legged creature and then have someone construct a head for it out of wood. It looks like a fantastical beast from a Hayao Miyuzaki film. Other bizarre creatures are: a Pacific salmon tarred in black lacquer that hangs over the main dining table, about 3/4 of a beaver skin nailed to the wall next to regional maps, and what looks like a pigeon-like bird that was hit by a car. Or maybe it was two pigeons that collided mid-air into some two-headed, four-winged beast. It's hard to tell.

There's no evidence of an attempt to properly taxonomize these poor departed creatures in any way resembling how they lived. Instead they are immortalized in death as things maimed and mystical. But at least the are remembered, if less for their charm than for their phantasmagorical elements. It all had a Twin Peaks feel. I left town before I had any strange dreams of little people talking backwards of murder clues.

[DarkMonster620]

Nice

[zach (Slag)]

Kayaking the Futaleefu has always been a dream of mine.

[1.21GW]

Kayaking the Futaleefu has always been a dream of mine.

Are you a kayaker?  What makes it so popular? Difficulty? Length?

[1.21GW]

No commentary here.  Just a chronological gallery of things I saw along the Carretera Austral on my way from Puyuhuapi to Coyhaique.  This is a typical day's experience on the Austral.







































































I don't know who Farkas is, but I like his style.  He gets my vote.