Home, let me come home! Last week at el fin del mundo.

The month or so since I last made a blog post has been a great lesson not only in the glacial deposits of southern Patagonia, but also in the Spanish language, as well as in the importance of fostering relationships with local geologists and land owners. I have had a wide spectrum of experiences, from being told by one estancia manager that foreigners are not allowed on his land (not failing to inform me that my Spanish is “terrible”…spelled the same in both languages!), to having the keys to a locked gate entrusted to me for days at a time after sharing some yerba mate with a gaucho in the whipping Patagonian winds. I have learned the value of hand gestures, of not being afraid to embarrass myself, and most importantly of a big smile. I now have some very useful vocabulary in my Spanish vernacular toolbox. “Cables de puente,” or booster cables, is a handy one to know if you ever find yourself on the side of the road, vainly trying to turn the engine one more time. When someone asks how long you have been travelling, “dos mesas” (“two tables”) will draw confused looks, while “dos meses” seems to get the point across much better. Before I return next year, I am going to have to spend a lot of quality time with my Rosetta Stone program, and maybe pester my Spanish savvy friends to practice with me.

My first encounter with the Spanish language was in kindergarten, when my mom signed me up for an immersion program offered by my elementary school. I have a distinct memory of feeling very frustrated as my teacher tried to coax out the Spanish words for the anatomy of a flower from a group of five year olds…petal, pistil, stamen, etc. In retrospect, it’s pretty ridiculous to expect a kindergartener to even know those words in English! Regardless, I am sure that class is responsible for my firm knowledge of how to count to 10 and recite the colors of the rainbow in Spanish. My next official Spanish experience was in 7^th grade, when I took Spanish 1, followed by Spanish 2 in 8^th grade. My text book was written in the 1980s, and I remember making fun of the fashion of the people in the photos I had to use to identify how to say shirts and pants. I’ll never wear high waisted pleated pantalones with a turtleneck camisa, never! At the same time, my close friend Sarah Berry had a family friend from Mexico who we begged relentlessly to translate words that often made her either blush or walk away from us with a roll of the eyes. In high school, I decided that I wanted to be different and take German as my foreign language requirement, figuring that I’d never need to speak Spanish anyway. This is America, everyone speaks Spanish, I want to be unique! Fast forward ten years, and here I am, standing next to an oil derrick in Argentine Tierra del Fuego, trying to explain to a suspicious Antrim Energy employee why Derek and I are on their property wielding a shovel and pick. “Soy una geologa de Canada, estudiar los acantilados con materiales glaciares…donde esta un camino publica?” A quick trip to Google Translate will probably illustrate to you how very much I wish I had continued my career in español. And that was one of my better constructed sentences. Usually I throw out a colourful mix of verbs, sometimes conjugated, often not, with some of the sorry number of nouns I have committed to memory.  I was very lucky that day to have the employee shake his finger at me and then offer to lead me in his truck to the coastal cliffs, rather than to the local police station.

Now I am back in Punta Arenas, debatably the farthest south city in Chile. The town of Puerto Williams, Chile lies across the Beagle Channel from Ushuaia, Argentina, but being a small navy base with a population of 2000, I prefer to give the prize to this picturesque little town. Sadly, about two weeks ago, the river that runs through town overbanked and flooded much of downtown. The city is still in the recovery process, digging out debris from under bridges and washing building walls and sidewalks of mud. It’s sad to see one of my favorite little towns all beaten and bruised, but nice to see how quickly it’s rebounding. Being the geology geeks we are, Derek and I wandered around yesterday, marvelling at the thick amounts of sediment that accumulated in that one event, taking photos of crossbedding and indicators of flow direction. Today, Derek and I get on a plane and fly to Santiago, where we will spend an evening before catching our redeye flight to Toronto on Friday evening. We are very much looking forward to temperatures of 30^oC and no wind. I am saying farewell to the antipode, a bare and windy place that has managed to capture my heart, and intrigued me with its subtle hints of the great glaciations that passed through. Saturday at 10am I will back in sweet, sweet Vancouver...a place where I can feast on dark leafy greens, ride my bicycle, drink top notch coffee, and walk hand in hand with my wonderful, patient boyfriend.


Some assorted photos from the last month:

No SPCA in these here parts! A street dog in Rio Gallegos, Argentina, enjoying a tasty treat.

Taking notes on a particularly lovely day of field work in the Pali Aike volcanic field

Rene Barendregt and pinguino, at Cabo Virgenes

Me and pinguino :)

The Perito Moreno Glacier, one of the few advancing glaciers in the world, at Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina

Derek and an erratic, west of El Calafate, Argentina

Some seriously sexy Quaternary stratigraphy outside of Rio Grande, Argentina (Derek for scale). Yes, those are giant crossbeds with bedrock ripups in them. I can't contain my excitement, either!

Glacier watching, at the Martial Glacier outside of Ushuaia, Argentina