The Stella Australis docked in Ushuaia overnight. Poor sleep set back my recovery from the ongoing sinus infection and Julie fared worse.
We did a short tour of the city directly after disembarking the ship. While the city seems a bit haphazard in some ways, they’ve managed to create a nice waterfront with parks and monuments and recreational facilities like a skating rink and small sports arena.
There is a strong recognition in this area for veterans of the war over the Malvinas Islands (Falkland Islands). There is a large multi-part monument at the waterfront that was being spiffed up in preparation for the upcoming forty-second anniversary of Argentina’s invasion and occupation of the islands on April 2, 1982.
Then we drove up a couple steep streets to Gabriela’s home where we had a nice lunch of empanadas, lentil stew, and delicious tres leches cake along with a super rich chocolate brownie. Gabriela was really friendly. She and her husband have a nice house (that they built parts of over time with the help of friends) and have traveled quite a bit – they have done well because he was running a tour operation just as Ushuaia became a popular destination in the early 2000’s.
We checked in to the hotel after lunch, then had some free time to explore the city. Julie has become sick as well, so she stayed in the room to nap a bit while Oscar, Sandy, and I went out. We walked most of the main street and then stopped for hot drinks at a cafe recommended by our guide. I tried the Mate “cocido” (mate tea in a teabag) with milk, but it tasted mostly like green tea.
We found a nice souvenir store where Sandy and Oscar bought some sweatshirts and I got a couple stickers. Julie woke up and joined us and she found a nice string pack there as well.
Then we walked around town a little more, then headed down to the waterfront.
Argentina also claims sovereignty over a big wedge of Antarctica, but is a signatory to the many various treaties that currently keep Antarctica from being covered with oil wells and mines.
The evening activity was to go to a restaurant that specialized in king crab and hear firsthand from a couple veterans of the Malvinas War. The outcome of this war resulted in mixed feelings for Argentinians. While England had technically presided over the Malvinas islands for a long time, it seemed that they had forgotten about the inhabitants. The people who lived there primarily spoke Spanish and got all their supplies from Argentina. Even their mail delivery was performed by Argentina’s postal service, so most Argentinians felt that these islanders were Argentinian in practical terms and English in name only.
By the early 1980’s the military dictatorship had been in power for over a decade. Their practices of “disappearing” people who opposed them were unpopular, and the leaders were seeking some way to boost patriotism and provide an external enemy for the citizens to focus on, and claiming the islands was the plan they came up with. Argentina had been negotiating unsuccessfully for years to acquire the islands. The generals assumed that with the islands being so far from England, and the apparent lack of support for their citizens there, that occupying the islands would simply prompt the United Kingdom to negotiate more freely. This would prove the junta’s power and wisdom to the Argentinian citizens.
Unfortunately there was a slight similarity in the political situation in the UK: Margaret Thatcher’s term had not helped her popularity and elections were approaching. She saw a similar political opportunity so, although it took over a month to assemble, she sent a fleet to the islands. Fighting began in May and the Argentinian forces were overwhelmed fairly quickly. The UK had a professional army and recent technology. The Argentinians had outdated equipment, and not much of it, and was staffed mostly draftees who had received only a couple months of training. Argentinian forces on land were killed or captured, and an English submarine sank an Argentinian cruiser that hadn’t even reached the zone of combat yet. This was a turning point, and Argentina surrendered. Fortunately both sides considered the island residents as their own citizens so there were no civilian casualties. Over eight hundred of the eight thousand or so Argentine forces were killed.
Instead of boosting their popularity, the dreadful defeat made the military seem incompetent and led to the quick ouster of the dictatorship, and real elections resumed only a few months later. So looking back, Argentinians see a military tragedy, but one that led to the restoration of democracy, so very mixed feelings.
Unfortunately the surviving veterans were initially treated very poorly: the generals blamed them for the losses, and then after democracy was restored, they were sort of forgotten for years. Many of the survivors had returned with PTSD (before post-traumatic stress was really recognized), so they failed to reintegrate into work and society. It did not help that the war was remote (“just something you see on the news”) for all except the coastal parts of Patagonia, and because the media was controlled by the government, most Argentinians received little news about the war once things began going badly. To top it all off, the main fighting occurred around the time the national fútbol team was headed to the World Cup. Thus, when these damaged men came home later, people had no concept of what they had been through. It was over a decade later that the government finally began a pension and disability program for them.
The veterans spoke about all this and answered questions we had.
I got some pasta with a nice cheese and vegetable sauce while everyone else put on silly aprons and used scissors to messily eat king crab, and Sandy and I split a Pilsner from Patagonian Beer.
Then we had a fabulous dessert of calafate ice cream covered in dark chocolate with calafate syrup and dulce syrup. Between lunch and dinner it was truly a day for the dessert record books!
