In Tierra del Fuego, Darwin still rocks by Pepe Escobar

[Jefferson23]

Aug 21, 2010

Page 1 of 2
ON THE ROAD IN PATAGONIA, Part 1

In Tierra del Fuego, Darwin still rocks
By Pepe Escobar

IN THE BEAGLE CHANNEL - This is a place where men come to be shocked and awed. The discovery of Patagonia is still a work in progress. Patagonia may be an enigma wrapped in a riddle of glaciers, mountain lakes, forests and wind-beaten steppes - and as such is impervious to fiction; reality is infinitely more powerful.

Forget Kashmir, the Himalayas, the Silk Road; this is reality secreting magic, legend and fantasy. Had he ever been to Patagonia straight out of Ireland, Irish poet W B Yeats would have marveled at its "violent", not "terrible", beauty.

The end of the world is immense, but inevitably some boundaries apply; the Colorado River to the north; the Atlantic Ocean to the east; Tierra del Fuego to the south; and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

From the Atlantic across the central steppes/altiplano and up to the Cordillera (the Andes) along the Argentina-Chile border in the west, most is still virgin, pristine land - and water. Silence is vast and liquid. Invisible to man, anchimallen (demons) patrol the central meseta (plains). Lagoons play host to flamingos and black-necked swans. Glaciers swell up to the point of forming dams between lakes - and then start breaking up with a bang, like they have done for millennia.


remainder in full: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/LH21Aa01.html