Fuddland
Day four
As had become expected by now, leaving Roberto’s home was not a simple matter of waking up shortly before our scheduled leaving time, packing up and jumping on the horses — for one thing, our guide Horatio discovered that the horses had wandered rather farther than he’d anticipated during their rest day, so Jo and I sat around for three hours with absolutely nothing to do whilst Horatio enlisted his friends from down the mountain to get the horse back. This was particularly frustrating as he had been up and about for at least two hours before we emerged from our tent, and didn’t use his time effectively; his lack of experience was beginning to grate, especially given the quite considerable [for Argentina] amount of money that we were paying him.
Eventually we were ready to leave, once again slipping and sliding down the muddy path — leading the horses through the trees rather than riding them, for danger of them losing their footing on the mud or a tree root and sending us head-first down the mountainside. Once we had reached the river we were able to saddle-up and let the horses pick their way through the rocks and boulders, crossing the water several times to pick up the easier path.
Although the scenery was on par with what we’d seen so far — enormous pale-pink boulders, fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, lay scattered on both sides of the river, with the tree-covered hills rising above us — I didn’t have the opportunity to take many photos, for soon after we’d started making our way along the river, the skies opened with some absolutely torrential rain. This wasn’t the sort of place where we could duck into a café until the shower had passed — we just had to throw on our waterproofs as quickly as we could — making sure they covered our sleeping bags as well as ourselves — and plod slowly along.
Even with our rain-gear on, we were soon soaked through: my jeans clinging to my legs, my drenched hat seeping water down my neck, my right boot full of water. But as there was nothing I could do about it, I soon forgot about being irked, and just allowed my mind to wander to help forget about the cold and the wet.
After several hours we arrived at the home of a gentleman named Luka, and took refuge from the rain under the awning in front of his house. Once again the lack of general communication from our guide, coupled with our lack of Spanish, meant that it was an hour or so later — standing around in our sodden clothes — before we ascertained that this was in fact the place we were staying for the night, and not just a temporary stop until the rain creased, so we could have actually changed into the dry clothes we had with us as soon as we’d arrived. A couple of other people, on their way home from the market, were also stopping at Luka’s for the night, it being the only house for several hours in any direction, and we all crowded around the small fire in the kitchen area, attempting to dry our boots and socks. An elderly woman began preparing a delicious-looking soup, getting our digestive juices flowing, but it was not until after eleven o’clock in the evening before Horatio remembered that he was supposed to feed Jo and me too — perhaps the fact that he was given some of the woman’s soup, but we were not, distracted him. Once again, his lack of experience as a guide shone through, and the last straw was his pitching of the tent right over a large rock, such that I had to curve my body around it as I attempted to sleep on the [damp!] horse blankets. I know this is all part of roughing it, but there’s still a bit of common sense that can be applied to make things slightly more tolerable.
Day five
Our final day was bright and sunny, a welcome relief from the dampness that still pervaded our belongings as we set off early in the morning. It was a relatively short trek — three or four hours — to our destination: Horatio’s family home. Having resolved to talk to Horatio about the various things we thought he could do to improve his guiding service, we balked slightly at his entire family being present and serving us a delicious meal of pizza and freshly-caught, barbecued fish stuff with salsa — not to mention copious bottles of beer. Nonetheless, Jo was very brave and conveyed our feelings to Horatio in front of his father and brother, and in Spanish to boot.
Thankfully they seemed to take the criticism quite well, and made good their promise to drive us the hour’s journey to the nearest bus station, from where we covered the distance back to the start of our trek — four mornings previously — in a matter of hours, to collect our things and take a desperately needed long hot shower.
It is shame that a couple of things marred what was, overall, a fantastic experience, but I hope Horatio has learnt some more about how he can improve the adventure he offers for future participants.
Comments
Dina | 2005 / 12 / 15 – 17:29
David, have you considered trying to sell to or have pieces on commission in art galleries? I seriously think that you have such a catalogue of things worth printing in giclée and offering to galleries of a similar sensibility. Sure, there’s the initial cost of actually printing giclées, however, I have a photographer acquaintance who does it regularly and she’s hardly made of money…so the return on investment must work out. You might even be able to find a printer online who offers them cheaper or more competitively…but that’d depend on whether or not you want to be there to make adjustments to colour and such before the lot is produced.
Of course, giclée is just one way of doing things…I understand it’s desirable for the fine detail it produces, but there’s also something to be said for good old fashioned photographs. If you can produce 8x10’s or other display size photos I’m sure you could offer those to galleries.
You just have such an eye for composition and colour and texture…it’d be a shame not to get commercial with it. ;-)
David | 2005 / 12 / 17 – 14:24
Re #1: Wow, thanks Dina. I had to find out what giclée is first, but now I know, I’m chuffed that you think my photos are worthy of displaying. :)
For those who also don’t know:
Giclée is the use of the ink-jet printing process for making fine art large format digital images.
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