Hello my friends from yonder. There is much to catch up on. Welcome to the longest journal entry of LMC history. *Applause* Know that the project is progressing well, and that my spirits are at their best combination of comfort and challenge.

And yet a bittersweet day do cometh. Soon, probably this Tuesday, I face the reality that my chapter in South America has come to a close (and I should emphasize that I cannot wait to return). And yet a new cultural frontier is on the horizon. The reddish soils of the land down under are soon to be trod underfoot.

Why am I writing like a hobbit?

Thusly.

I should begin with the news about my work on Lake Monster Culture. A fortunate meeting in Bariloche with a physicist from Buenos Aires has led to a good friendship. Guillermo tipped me onto an anthropological museum here that has newspaper clippings from the 1920's that were carefully organized by some noble soul many years in the past, and placed into a leather tome with a handdrawn plesiosaur on it. Kate, you would be impressed with this manuscript of lake monster goodness.

Inside the tome are newspaper articles that provide an interesting snapshot of what life in Argentina was like leading up to the climax of interest in Nahuelito and other various undiscovered Patagonian monsters. With the help of a journalist from the Buenos Aires Herald, who's writing an article on my project for the newspaper, I managed to thoroughly translate them.

Firstly, Nahuelito's conception into the popular consciousness coincides with the creation of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. While a newly created National Park today is often met with acclaim for environmental activists, if we look at the history of why these parks are created they often have subversive and ulterior motives. If we look at the case with PNNH we see a park which was created, if at all for the preservation of la naturaleza, it was just as motivated to demarcate the border between Argentina and Chile, a subject which is still a heated and unresolved topic today in some parts of the Patagonia.

By declaring the area a National Park, it also attracted attention to the wonders of the Patagonia, which seems to have assumed for itself something of a metaphor for a certain lifestyle, attracting Welsh, Swiss, American expat hippies and the like. It's an interesting mixture of getaways. And from visiting I can see why. The vistas you'll witness here encourage thoughts of contentful isolationism.

Here's two examples of this:

"Beyond the fantasy of the Patagonia lies the myth of disappearance, of drowning in the desolation of the end of the world. Of course, this is just a metaphor. I can imagine that traveling to Patagonia is like reaching the limit of a concept. Like getting to the end of things. I know the Australian and North American deserts, but I have the feeling that Patagonia is the most desolate of places. A land of exile, a place of de-territoriality." -- Jean Beaudrillard

"...it takes possession of my mind (and it's not only my case). It must be because it opens up a whole new horizon to one's imagination." -- Charles Darwin

These two anchors of biology and philosophy speak potently about the area, and well on the mark as well. I must also comment to Beaudrillard that if the Patagonia is a land of "de-territoriality" than a local lake monster legend is a method of creating territoriality, creating regional unity. However, as I've commented earlier, the Bariloche regional unification brought by Nahuelito has more or less become secondary to the attractions of skiing, chocolates, and faux-Swissness, which are easier to market.

And I would like to return to Darwin's quote because his conjecture is that the Patagonia opens up one's imagination, a statement that resounds in one's mind when they witness some of its vastness. Does the human spirit naturally populate the expanse with their imaginative creations?

Perhaps this explains the Martin Sheffield connection. Whereas before, I remembered incorrectly that Martin Sheffield's ethnographies inspired Conan Doyle's popular novel, The Lost World, turns out the chronology was vice versa. Sheffield read Doyle's novel while he was traveling, a novel which makes reference to a swan-necked creature in an exotic faraway lake. As I've mentioned earlier, Sheffield wrote a letter to the Buenos Aires Zoo, declaring that there might be an undiscovered species in the lake district. As one of the Internet resources on Nahuelito states it best, is art imitating life or is life imitating art?

Afterwards, Doyle was interviewed in New York by a journalist who felt that Doyle was morally responsible for what followed: the (ostensibly) reckless use of funds from the Buenos Aires Zoo to man several search expeditions. The New York Herald article, although the copy I have is translated into Spanish, is easily the most interesting of the museum's newspaper clippings. In addition, I was a tad disappointed to learn that my time in Bariloche might have been spent near the wrong lake - apparently the lake monster legend originated about 100 km south, in Lake Ezquel. Blast.

That reminds me, reading the articles is an interesting mirror of 1920's society, science, and politics. Blasting away the lake with explosive devices in search of the monster was a typical tactic. The articles were written almost in the tone of one wishing to calm a worried mother. To paraphrase: they often asked the reader not to be concerned, because the monster hunters were bringing elephant guns. One even went so far as to say that, should we find the monster, we might make huge scientific breakthroughs such as determining the purpose of the third frontal eye.

I'm not making this up! This is coming from the era where scientists were trying to prove which race has the biggest brain capacity. Mixed among some of these articles are some very provocative and racist cartoons of the indigenous populations of Argentina. Reading about the scientific search for these lake monsters feels unclean, because the spirit of the hunt seems almost hand in hand with these more racist scientific endeavors.

One could also make the claim that the delcaration of a National Park, coupled with the legend of a potential "monster" only abetted indigenous genocide campaigns in the Patagonia, which were "successful" in killing off the vast majority of natives in the area. This is the first time I've had to consider a negative connection to my research in lake monster history. At least in this 1920's case, the impact was subsequently reckless and violent.

What this confirms is that mythologies, especially lake monster mythologies, whether real or not, have many secondary impacts and ulterior motivations. I'm tempted to expand my project slightly, perhaps beyond just lake monster, to encompass a wider diversity of mythologies.

Some Farewells to Argentina

Since this will probably be the final entry to the site from South America, I figure I do have some reckonings and fond farewells to mention. I'm going to miss the empanada meat pie of this land. I'm going to miss talking to girls who actually aren't snobby or too busy to recognize your existence. I'm going to miss convincing them that I'm South African. I'm going to miss cheap Quilmes beer. In a strange neanderthal way, I'm going to miss futbol matches and rocks hitting bald heads. I'm not going to miss the pigeons because I'm sure the bastards are in Australia as well. I will miss rolling on the floor laughing after watching a bus driver plow through two pigeons. No that's not nice. I didn't say that. I'm going to miss speaking to the artesan old man who did he work from a chair of styrofoam in the middle of the woods of Chiloe. I'm going to enjoy recalling conversations with Walter, Martin, et al, here at the hostel, among so many other friendly people I've met along the way.

I'm going to miss standing in the middle lane of 6 lane Avenida Independencia at sunrise, smoking a cigarette and watching the pink skies as black Russian-built taxis barrel past, every one of them lit up "LIBRE", as they drive down a one-way street that sadly will not allow them the sight I so enjoy, nature's beauty overcoming, even when trapped between ten-story apartment complexes.

And perhaps above all, I will miss speaking Castellano, but at least I have a few new email amigos to practice with. I once believed Nietsche when he remarked that the study of an extra language was merely redundant and misspent intellectual effort. He couldn't be farther from reality. Language does not occupy space in our brains, it's merely another way of skulldancing, and when you learn the new dance it twists the grey matter into new folds of expression, shaking some things in and some things out. I was explaining in Spanish a photo that I had taken three years ago and realized that I was reconsidering my own understanding, creating new appreciations. There is no better way to be reborn. And I have to declare that I feel unbelieavably healed. Te amo, Argentina.