Darwin Slept Here - Eric N. Simons [41]
I did; Nathan did not. But now, he had a remedy.
For days, he had been scanning the papers looking for nightclub news. Back in Buenos Aires, this very night, he announced, was a mud-wrestling show. And, he said, after an almost incredible amount of effort (for him), he had secured two tickets. We’d just hop on the ferry, ride back to town, and finally get some of that culture we’d been missing in our relaxing country retreat, which is what we did.
Later, as I mulled over the mud-wrestling show, and Nathan’s enthusiasm for it—expressed in his usual excited terms as we raced back toward the ferry—I tried to imagine what Darwin would have said. In Uruguay, in our boredom, in Nathan’s search for bars, and even in watching his reaction to the nightlife situation, there was a nice parallel: we were following in Darwin’s footsteps by not following in them, without knowing that’s what we were even doing. By desperately seeking a bar, we were reacting to our own boredom; Darwin felt the same way, even if his choice of ameliorative activity (riding around on a horse, pursuing lizards to throw) was different. Now, as we raced through town to get back to the ferry that night, we were chasing the same idea of señoritas (the, ahem, pure Platonic form of señorita) except we were going to get the modern traveler’s version, as part of the cultural component of this Darwin quest.
I later shared my conclusions with Nathan. “I suppose,” I said, “that a mud-wrestling expedition could count as research. We went to see if the Spanish Ladies still held their charms when undressed and caked in mud.”
Nathan grinned.
“Your Darwin,” he said, “is a bloke I’d like to meet.”
8: TIERRA DEL FUEGO
Darwin Visited (Near To) Here
I shall never forget how savage & wild one group was. Four or five men suddenly appeared on a cliff near to us. They were absolutely naked & with long streaming hair; spring from the ground & waving their arms around their heads, they sent forth the most hideous yells. Their appearance was so strange, that it was scarcely like that of earthly inhabitants.
—BEAGLE DIARY, JANUARY 20, 1834
OF ALL THE PLACES I VISITED, Ushuaia, the biggest city in Tierra del Fuego, most aggressively marketed itself as a Darwin destination, based on four key realizations:
1. Darwin visited (near to) here
2. Gringo tourists are interested in Darwin
3. Gringo tourists do not understand much about Darwin
4. We can make money by presenting Darwin to Westerners
Which is basically how you get “The Adventure of the Beagle,” the musical.
Again: “The Adventure of the Beagle,” the musical, or, as it’s called there, El espectáculo del fin del mundo, “the show at the end of the earth,” a production of the tourist-friendly Centro Beagle.
I arrived at the Beagle Center an hour before the show was supposed to start and bought a ticket from a young man in a sailor hat that said “Beagle” on it. I asked if he knew anything about Darwin, and he said not much, and could I recommend a book? I suggested The Voyage of the Beagle, and, pleased, he handed me a ticket and a paper labeled “boarding agreement” and waved me into the waiting room.
The lobby was huge and featured a number of wooden tables arranged around the aft end of a scale-model replic a of the Beagle. It was empty, so I grabbed a bar stool and read through my “boarding agreement” while the lobby speakers blasted a looped recording of Handel’s “Coronation Anthem, Zadok the Priest.” The boarding agreement had two clauses, “purpose of the journey,” which was mostly correct in outlining the purpose of the real Beagle’s mission, and “on board rules,” which let me know that the “(1) captain is the absolute and final authority on board” and “(2) smoking, taking pictures, video, and/or audio recording use of cellular phones and other electronic devices is strictly forbidden.” For four repeats of the Coronation