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JR's Journal Excursion to Estancia Harberton
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| The hotel served a good breakfast and we loaded onto the bus for a
9:30 departure. The dark sky hung low over island obscuring any hope
for a view. We drove north on Ruta 3 and took Ruta J through the
woods over to Harberton. Because of the miserable weather, I cancelled
the drive down to Estancia Moat and we entered the Estancia Harberton confiteria.
We were greeted by an American woman who had married into the Bridges family
and had lived there for 38 years. She was a biologist and had helped
found the Marine Mammal Museum on the estancia.
We had a cup of coffee and then some people went to the museum, some went for a walk, some sat on the bus and about 15 others and I took a walking tour of the ranch. Our guide was Thomas Bridges de Goodall, the great-grandson of Thomas Bridges, an Anglican missionary and the first permanent European settler on Tierra del Fuego. He did not look his 69 years. He gave a tour loaded with knowledge that his lifetime at the ranch provided. We learned about the local flora and fauna as well as the ranch operation and economics. Basically, the ranch is no longer profitable as a sheep and cattle operation; at least half of their income comes from tourism. After the tour we drove back to Ushuaía in the rain. The walkers had progressed at least 5 km down the road. I fell asleep almost immediately and didn’t awaken until we got to Ushuaía, returning at about 6:00. I went out and did some shopping, wrote some emails and bought some post cards and stamps. We assembled for dinner at 9:00 and walked several blocks to a really good Tenedor Libre restaurant on San Martin. Afterward, Sally, Greg, and I, continued our evening tradition and downed
a bottle of red wine. I went to bed around 1:30 after watching the
evening news. The country seems calm in spite of the imminent 40%
devaluation scheduled for January 9th.
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Division of Environmental Studies, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences |