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Category: Argentina

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Montezuma’s revenge

We had almost cleared quarantine, so why were we suddenly all feeling rotten?
Kellee Mayfield listens to rap music while painting. Photo courtesy of Jane Chapin.
“Kellee,” I said quietly over breakfast, “you need to take my temperature.” Kellee Mayfieldhas this nifty no-touch thermometer that she aims at your forehead. If you’re below 100° F, it gives you a green light. If you’re above that, it squawks and flashes red at you. I know this because it did that to me. My heart sank.
I immediately went to bed, took a combination of Tylenol and aspirin and isolated myself. Periodically, Jane Chapin would come in and wave the magic thermometer at me. My temperature dropped into the safe zone, but I was not feeling well at all.
I was not concerned for myself; I’m overall as healthy as a horse, and I don’t have any underlying medical conditions that would encourage Coronavirus to knock me off. But I would have hated to be the weak link that kept us in Patagonia for several more weeks.
Hoping to paint here today. Photo courtesy of Jane Chapin.
Meanwhile, some of my fellows were suffering a different ailment: traveler’s diarrhea. In the past, this was sometimes known by the rather rude names of Montezuma’s Revenge or Delhi Belly. Sometimes pathogens in water don’t bother natives but upset the stomachs of visitors. But lest we feel superior, our own North American pathogen, Giardiasis, or beaver fever, is particularly nasty, and nobody develops tolerance to it. I speak from experience.
But whether it was different food, too much Malbec, or something in the water, three of my fellow travelers were laid low. Since we can’t flush the toilet tissue, I can’t even imagine their difficulties.
By the end of the day yesterday, we had four members of our little troop in some kind of distress. The problem with illness in the Age of Coronavirus is that we question every little spike in temperature, bad gut, or headache. That’s especially true in a foreign country, under quarantine, on sufferance.
Those who can, painted. Those would couldn’t, slept. Photo courtesy of Jane Chapin.
Even in the face of worry, the show went on. Those who could, went out and painted. Those of us who couldn’t, rested. Kellee Mayberry told me that her painting blew into the river. I was sad to have missed that.
This morning my temperature is down and my fellows have returned to their usual bathroom habits. Once again, we’re all our usual cheerful selves. Tomorrow our quarantine ends, so today is the last day in which we can paint all day. I plan to make the most of it.
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Climb every mountain

“If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?” Apparently, yes.

The Whole Enchilada, by Carol L. Douglas, 12×16, available.
Because I’m an early riser, to some degree I exist outside others’ routines. I went to bed last night intending to write about the fine job our state department has done in interfacing with us. My friends keep sending me horror stories from the big national papers about other stranded travelers, complaining that our embassies aren’t helpful. Our experience has been nothing like that. Dalia Sava at our embassy in Buenos Aires has communicated efficiently and quickly with us.
At bedtime, our airline tickets were confirmed, the embassy would be issuing us a pass to travel through the quarantine area, and El Chaltén’s doctor would write health certificates saying we have completed quarantine. Things were looking pretty good for us to get home by the 29th of March.
Jane Chapin and me climbing down from our aerie. Photo courtesy of Kellee Mayfield.
And then I made the error of looking at Facebook while my laptop booted. Jane Chapin posted an hour ago about our Copa Airlinesflights being cancelled. If that’s the case, we’re in the soup again. I hope she’s sleeping now; she spent four hours yesterday gathering, formatting and sending our passport and license information to Dalia.
We can’t stay here. Termination dust—the first snow of the year at high elevations—appeared on the mountains yesterday. Hosteria el Pilar closes for the season on April 1. This isn’t a business-driven, Maine-style winter closure, but an absolute necessity. The water lines must be drained and the rooms closed up before winter descends on the Southern Andes in all its fury. Leaving my room this morning, I was buffeted by wind whistling down the corridor. It was strong enough inside to wrest the door from my hand and slam it.
Not content with climbing the mountain behind the hosteria, Kellee and I attempted to ford the river on rocks. We ended up with wet feet and no paintings to show for it.
Jane did take some time to paint yesterday. She and Kellee Mayfield and I climbed the nearest mountain to get a different view of the glaciers. We followed a trail, thinking we would meet up with our fellow painters. Not finding them, we hared straight up the steep hillside. About halfway up, I told them I’d already had my quota of falling off cliffs this year, having tumbled down one in Parrsboro, NS last July. None of us had rappelling gear and we were suddenly in a maze of granite ridges.
“If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?” is a famous parental question. I now know the answer is yes. Faced with a choice of being left behind or staying with your buddies, you soldier on. The good news is that none of us fell, even descending into a wicked headwind. The view from up there was sublime. We hunched down behind boulders as the wind increased in force. All of us painted well, although there can be no detail when your easel is bucketing in a fierce wind.
I was spent from the climb. All I had left in me was this very tiny (8×10) view of our hosteria.
Packing up, we realized we had no idea how we’d gotten up there. A mountain looks very different from the top than it does from the bottom. But Kellee and Jane are both half mountain goat, apparently. They found a route down, one that was actually easier than our route up. My knees are protesting, though. The rest of the day, I limped around the hosteria, going no farther than the bench in front to paint.

POSTSCRIPT: Our return flights are indeed cancelled… Again.

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Capturing the rainbow

I don’t think we can count on them sending the helicopters any time soon.

By the Rio Blanco in the rain, by Carol L. Douglas, 9X12, available.
My friend Barb made it back to Maine from Thailand and slept for 19 hours straight. Then she woke up and tried to figure out how to wash her travel-tainted laundry without access to a laundromat. Not that she’s going back to work any time soon; she works in a pre-school.
It’s good to know that somewhere in the world there are flights moving. Why they’re moving in Asia, the epicenter of this disease, and not in South America, is beyond me. But our carefully-laid plans of the weekend are now thrown into confusion. We have ascertained that we can take the cars to Rio Gallegos but we have no idea if we have a flight when we get there.
Jane Chapin is having vivid dreams, all reflecting her anxieties. She dreamt she was trying to keep a box of baby hedgehogs alive, and that she was naked at the mall. During the day, she’s her usual level, funny self, of course. In the dark hours, the fruitless effort and endless conversations are starting to wear.
We have no idea whether flights in Argentina will resume on the 28th or the 31st or some date in the future. Nor do our representatives at the Embassy, who are now in regular contact with us. Yesterday, the State Department sent out a survey to collect information about American nationals stranded overseas. There are some 13,500 of our fellow citizens who have requested help to get home. I don’t think we can count on them sending the helicopters any time soon.
We use WhatsApp to communicate with our Embassy reps. “That’s the same group as Doug Perot?” they asked each of us. How Doug became the point man for our group, none of us know, but I felt very important being married to him.
Painting by the window.
Some of my friends back home have told me that I don’t know how bad it is in the US; that I’ll be coming home to a police state. We have exactly the same news as the rest of you. With that, exile in Argentina isn’t markedly different from exile in Maine. I prefer the chipper attitude of my Uncle Bob, who’s in his eighties and immunosuppressed from cancer treatments. I couldn’t go see him before coronavirus, either. Instead of complaining about my absence, he said, “I’m not going anywhere near anyone!” and then told me all the news from Buffalo.
Also in Buffalo, my technologically-impaired brother-in-law saw Kellee Mayfield’s interview with an Arkansas television station. Stuck at home, he’s learning to surf the internet. I didn’t think the old boy had it in him.
Downpour, by Carol L. Douglas. That’s the first rainbow I’ve ever tried to paint.
Yesterday started with a halfhearted rain and moved to a downpour. It’s impossible to paint outdoors in these conditions, so we painted from the windows, or read, or played Scrabble. David Diaz set up in the greenhouse, where he was nearly deafened by the roar of rain hitting the plastic roof. Natalia Andreeva painted Lynn Mehta; if the bad weather continues, she’ll have painted us all by the time we go home. Katie Cundiff taught two university classes.
I spent a lot of time looking out the window, like a child deprived of her recess. The meteoric weather shifts remind me of Frederic Edwin Church’s The Heart of the Andes, that magnificent, show-stopping canvas that now resides at the Met. Even though it was painted in the northern parts of the continent, it captures something of the character of Patagonia as well.
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Hiking in the Andes

“You don’t belong here,” the young men said. “Go home!”

Rio Electrico, by Carol L. Douglas, 8X10, available.
Whatever our quarantine meant on Thursday, on Friday we were permitted to hike along the Rio Electrico. The trailhead is a few scant kilometers from Hosteria el Pilar. The trail leads into Los Glaciares National Parkand ultimately to Chile. We wouldn’t be walking that far; the park is closed. However, we would have views of other distant glaciers and mountains.
We’re traveling with fairly light kits, but they are still full painting kits. They weigh between 15 to 30 pounds each. Mine is on the heavier side and I did not bring a backpack. My solution is to loop the strap of my messenger bag across my chest, like pictures of Navajo women in my long-obsolete schoolbooks. It works, more or less, although after 8.8 miles of moderate hiking, my neck was feeling the strain.
Keeping a low profile is paramount, so we traveled in two small groups. Mine included Kellee Mayfield, David Diaz, and Lynn Mehta. We immediately proved our lack of woodscraft by neglecting to download a map. Instead, we searched the dust for footprints, as if we were trackers in a spaghetti western. A few kilometers of this nonsense and we found the trailhead. It was marked with large brown-and-yellow signs, directly across the road from a parking lot.
Jane Chapin above the Rio Electrico.
Guillermo had warned us not to allow ourselves to perspire as we climbed. “This is not Amsterdam,” he said. The realization that we were hiking in the Andes came slowly, but it left us rather awestruck. If I had a bucket list, this should have been on it. Most of the hike was through a wooded glade that the ever-present wind could not penetrate. It was, indeed, warm. But when we cleared the trees, the piercing wind was frigid. Wet clothes would have been dangerous.
Our first destination was a refugia two hours up the pass. A kilometer short of it, we came across another band of our fellows—Jane Chapin, Natalia Andreeva, Lisa Flynn and Natalia’s husband, Alexander. They’d been driven back from the refugia. It was occupied by four young Argentine bucks, intent on riding out the virus in the solitude of Patagonia. “You don’t belong here,” they said. “Go home!” It has been our only negative encounter so far.
Argentina has banned internal flights because too many people are using the break to vacation. I understand. Most of us live undemanding lives compared to our ancestors. We haven’t learned to take danger seriously. The impulse to break quarantine is terrific.
Painting along the Rio Electrico. Photo courtesy of Jane Chapin.

But it didn’t matter whether these four twenty-somethings were survivalists or just want to party in peace. We were best off leaving them to it. We retreated along the riverbank and set up to paint a superb view of what may or may not be Glaciar Cagliero Sur. It was horrendously windy. I’ve painted in more pleasant blizzards, and I’m from Buffalo. “We’ve hiked two hours to paint for fifteen minutes,” laughed David Diaz.

Alas, we are again confined to the grounds. We will be allowed to roam when we have a certificate of quarantine, or when the Marines show up to rescue us. Alas, our second set of flights has been cancelled. Right now, we have enough flight credits to travel South America for a year, great whacking charges on our credit cards, and no way home.
Meanwhile, the US State Department is calling in all American citizens. That’s of very little use when there are no domestic or international flights available. Those of us with political connections have contacted them to see if the government can intervene.
Meanwhile, the clouds and the sky remain spectacular.
Matthew Parris has a wonderful little essay in this week’s Spectator on the thrill of apocalypse to school children and other romantic souls. We all like breaks in routine—for a while. “On how many gravestones in how many churchyards does that phrase from Romans 15, 9-11, ‘and they shall sing a new song’, appear?” he asks.
We’re in no real trouble. We are not miners trapped in a cave in Chile, or schoolboys caught in a cave in Thailand. (Note to self: avoid caves for the nonce.) Being compassionate people, we want the US government to rescue those in danger first.
However, the break grows old. We begin to long for a return to the familiar. Despite internet contact (which the hosteria laid on in the face of crisis), we want to see our family and friends again. To maintain sanity, we cling resolutely to our groove. We eat breakfast, we contact our families, we wash our unmentionables in the sink, and then we paint. And then we repeat.
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Plans derailed

I want to roam, but I don’t want to be a stupid American who gets into trouble with the military authorities.
Southern Beech, by Carol L. Douglas, 9X12, available.

Yesterday’s plans to hike along the Rio Electrico were derailed. The Army is making rounds, checking the hosterias in the area to verify that travelers are maintaining quarantine. Even though we would still be a self-contained group, it was thought that it would be better if we were not gallivanting around as a group. “I think it’s best if we keep our profile low,” said Jane Chapin.

Alexander is married to artist Natalia Andreeva. He’s not a painter, but is a dedicated hiker. Yesterday, he decided that the best way to get his exercise was to walk up and down the drive. That way, he’d see the soldiers when they arrive. Born in the Soviet Union, he has a healthy respect for the Army. I am listening to him.
We native-born Americans are cheerfully ignorant of the power of the military in other parts of the world. Our army doesn’t maneuver on domestic soil, we have no checkpoints, and people are constitutionally secure in their own homes. This crisis has reminded me of just how fragile that social contract is. Just as we experienced an erosion of personal liberty after 9/11, we may face a similar erosion from coronavirus. It’s up to us to be vigilant.
There were rocks in that large satchel, but it still didn’t stop my easel from going over.
In the Arctic and subpolar Canada, wind was my greatest enemy. It’s true here as well. My tough little pochade box blew down three times, despite being tethered with rocks. The first time, it wiped out my brush roll. The second time, my wash tank. The third time, it did me in, and I quit. By then, it was lashing rain anyway.
Being grounded to the immediate environs of the hosteria, I decided to paint the scrubby beech trees. Nothofagus pumilla is the predominant tree cover in this southern polar region, as common here as spruces in the North American taiga. These southern beeches have tiny serrated leaves that mimic their northern cousins. There any similarity with our northern beeches ends. The mature trees have deeply-grooved bark and are twisted and bent by the constant winds.
The leaves of the Southern Beech are about the only thing that resembles the beeches of the Northern Hemisphere.
Berberis microphylla, or barberry, grows wild. It’s known here as calafate, giving its name to the town. The berries of the local variety are edible. Legend has it that eating one assures you a return trip to Patagonia. Sadly, they’re out of season.
I’ve been carefree through this whole venture. Yesterday, I realized I was approaching my first real crisis. I brought 24 boards with me—two for each of ten painting days, and four spares. With the extension of our trip, I’m suddenly left with a shortage of painting surfaces. Typically, I bring too many boards, so rationing painting boards is new territory to me.
Rain, by Carol L. Douglas, 8X10, available.
Perhaps the Army will come today. After all, they have a huge range of territory to patrol. Meanwhile, we feel our range steadily contracting. First, we were limited to the country, then the province, then the town, then our hosteria and its grounds. Will we be limited to indoors next? Our rooms? Whatever happens, we’ll roll with it. In a constantly-changing situation, it’s best to be flexible.
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On the road with COVID-19

What does the word quarantinemean? It changes every day.

Glaciar Cagliero from Rio Electrico, by Carol L. Douglas, 11X14, available.
Yesterday I outlined the problems we will have if we break quarantine to head back to the airport. These were reinforced by an email from the US State Department, which told us to comply with local authorities. However, just as the United States is suffering a lack of toilet paper, rural Argentina has a lack of information.
When we left, I asked Jane Chapin what the word quarantine meant. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk; I just wanted to know what was expected of us. It turns out to have been a prescient question, because the meaning of our quarantine has shifted over time. In the beginning it was enough that we traveled in a self-contained group. Now it means we stay in place, and strictly so.
Our host Cristina managed to talk with someone at the US embassy in Buenos Aires. Later, Guillermo suggested that we fill our cars against a possible gas shortage. (They happen here, coronavirus or not.) We duly drove the washed-out, rutted gravel road to El Chaltén’s single gas pump to top up. Although short in mileage, the trip took two hours.

When we returned, Cristina sadly informed us that—by the newest rules—we had broken quarantine. We were required to file documents and copies of our passports and are now confined to the immediate area of the hosteria. From now on, only Guillermo can go to town for supplies.

Painting with Lynn Mehtain front of Cerro Fitz Roy.

Yesterday, the town of El Calafate announced its first confirmed case of coronavirus, in a French tourist. We wince; it was not our intention to bring plague to the Southern Hemisphere. But we Americans in El Chaltén remain resolutely symptom-free. We have sufficient toilet paper, although this is a cash-based economy and we will certainly run out of greenbacks before we’re allowed to leave.

Meanwhile, the Argentines, having no work or school to go to, have decided to use this time for vacation. Despite quarantine, the streets of El Chaltén are full of young people skateboarding, trekkers huffing dutifully towards the mountains, and bicyclists. To counter this, the government is closing down all internal flights as of tomorrow.

Natalia Andreevadrew this wonderful portrait of me in front of the fire. You’d almost think I talk a lot.

This is a relief. Gone are the endless discussions of what we should do. There is nothing we can do except paint. This morning I shall gather up some hiking poles and head toward the mountains with some of the others. Apparently, there is a point along the river where we can get close to a glacier face. My husband, who is less enamored of glaciers than me, will try to do a few hours of paid work.

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Travel in the age of coronavirus

We live in an age of instant global connection, without filters. That means we’re about to experience pandemic differently than ever before.
Athabasca Glacier, by Carol L. Douglas

Turpenoid, made by Weber, and Gamsol, made by Gamblin, are both odorless mineral spirits (OMS), modern substitutes for turpentine in the oil-painter’s kit. A chance conversation with Kevin Beers last night made me realize that Turpenoid has a flash point of 110-130° F. while Gamsol has a flash point of 144° F. That small difference makes Gamsol safe to fly with, but Turpenoid not.

I received a message from Jane Chapin last night that read, “The office in El Calafate says that our solvent has not arrived, but they will help us. Bring Gamsol.” We and a few other intrepid artists are heading to Argentina tomorrow to paint in Patagoniaand Tierra del Fuegoand a few other places heavy on glaciers, light on trees.
Light snow above the Arctic Circle, by Carol L. Douglas.
Travel always comes with last minute snafus. First among these now is coronavirus. I’ll be through four airports in the next 24 hours. I can’t find hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes anywhere in mid-coast Maine. Luckily, my friend and monitor, Jennifer Johnson, just flew home from Australia. She gave me her stash. It will suffice through to Miami, when Jane can augment my supplies.
Coronavirus is unlikely to be in Tierra del Fuego, but it’s still making me edgy. Will my son be sent home to finish his last college semester through online classes? If so, how will he get here? Will I be locked out of the country or quarantined on my return? The scope of the problem was borne home to me last weekend, when my niece rescheduled her May wedding to September. She’s marrying a Canadian of Asian descent and nobody knows what international travel will look like in two months.
Me, talking to KCAS members, in case you’ve forgotten what I look like. Photo courtesy Jennifer Johnson.
Pandemic is as old as the human race, but today we have decentralized news and powerful social media. As I write this, the death toll from coronavirus in the US is 31—or about 40% as many as have been murdered to date this year in Chicago. But we are intimately aware of each of COVID-19’s victims, because we’ve read about them all. That changes our perception of our own risk.
Still, you can’t live in the fear zone. Human beings are wired to experience negative results more keenly than positive ones, to stop us from doing stupid things that will kill us. This is called our negativity bias, and it results in our thinking that things will go wrong more than they’ll go right. The fewer risks we take, the stronger that belief is. We can become immobilized by the fear of change. The intrepid artist has to work to overcome that, by substituting a positivity bias. I have a simple one: faith in God.
Last night, I spoke to the Knox County Art Society (KCAS) about how negativity bias makes some of us fear outdoor painting excessively. But if I—at age 61—can still go outside and paint in the wild, so can you. “If it doesn’t kill you, get back up and do it again,” I said.
KCAS is the brainchild of David Blanchard of Camden, and it’s grown to eighty members in a year. It’s offering classes, speakers, exhibitions and more. If you’re an artist in Knox County, Maine, you should be a member.
In addition to being the home of one of America’s newest art societies, Maine is home to America’s oldest continuous art society, the Bangor Art Society. It’s time to apply for their 145th anniversary juried show, which will open on May 1. It’s a fun show with a fun reception. Register here.