Thoughts from Christian

November 18, 2007 - Puerto Natales

It's been two weeks since we arrived in Patagonia for the start of our sojourne on the Estancia Rio Verde. The time has been marked by frantic activity putting our house in order and serving groups of foreign tourists in the ranch lodge, combined with serious "down time" away from computers, cell phones, and even electricity.

Sue has begun work on a garden next to our house and has been working with the ranch staff on the other gardens. Right now the big crop is rhubarb, which we eat as jam, kuchen and wonderful strawberry-rhubarb tarts like the ones Sue made for the whole family a coule of nights ago.

Mariela entered school last week right in the village of Rio Verde. There are six students, including her, all dressed in their uniforms in the 100 year old former main house of the original ranch that now serves as the school. Spanish is beginning to exert its will on her brain and she gets excited when she's able to have a brief conversation with one of her friends or people on the street. She has the (wonderful) habit of telling perfect strangers how great they look in that coat or that she likes their handbag.

As for myself, I'm still a bit stuck in the frenetic life of home as I put the finishing touches on our biggest guided trip of the year with the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania). I'm on a constant search for internet access and cell phone signals, which, to my surprise, are cropping up all over the place here in once wild Patagonia.I have been able to take time to do some work on the ranch, my father "grabbing me by the ear," so to speak, to help him with loading hundred pound bags of flour into his employees home kitchens or checking on the new heating system for the hotel that the ranch now runs.

Life here is certainly changing. The modern world is slowly creeping in to our remote ranch. Still, most of the work is done on horseback by men with scarves wrapped around their necks and berets on their heads. Women still make homemade bread every day in wood stoked ovens, make gnocchi by hand and serve food from the garden. The overall rythm of life is still slower and focused on physical labor and family.