Darwin Slept Here - Eric N. Simons [53]
Darwin’s guide gave him faulty information, telling him to ascend a nearby ridge that he could follow to the summit. But when Darwin reached the ridge top, he found a deep valley separating him from the highest peaks. He had to scramble down and then up the other side. By the time he reached one of the minor peaks the day was late and he was suffering from cramps in his thighs. He had to give up the highest point, and his frustration spilled out into his diary: “Altogether I was much disappointed in this mountain; we had heard of caves, of forests, of beds of coal, of silver & gold &c &c, instead of all this, we have a desert mountain of pure quartz rock.”
I had spent enough time following Darwin around, reading his journals, and trying to channel his thoughts, that I felt almost certain he was disappointed with the scenery mainly because he hadn’t reached the top. I knew myself; faced with mountain failure, I’d be frustrated, and my journal would reflect that. And I knew Darwin well enough to recognize that, at least in the matter of big bad-mountain climbing, we shared a certain summit-or-bust aesthetic. This would also be my last real travel day on the east coast before I caught a bus back to Buenos Aires to head home, making a good concluding mountain vista imperative.
I determined to reach the highest peak and take in theview. The next morning I hired a cab to drive me to the Estancia Funke, the private ranch that encompasses the range of mountains where Darwin explored. The cab dropped me at sunrise near a cluster of tall trees growing by the back porch of one of several ranch houses. A sign identified it as the tourism office, and I knocked on the screen door. Monica Silva, whom I had spoken with the night before, came out to greet me, accompanied by a porcine black lab that promptly buried its slobbery head in my crotch. I patted it tentatively and it wagged its tail and sat at my feet, drooling on my shoes. Silva looked ready to go for a hike, in nylon cargo pants, fleece jacket, and hiking boots, and she was much younger than I had imagined from her hoarse phone voice. She was tall and tanned, with dirty blond hair and freckles. I saw a card on the door introducing her as Professor Monica Silva. “Physical education,” she said, when I asked if she studied history or geology. She handed me a book of liability forms and a deposit form in case I needed rescue, and while I signed away my life, told me briefly about the ranch.
Rodolfo Funke came to Argentina from Germany in 1877 at age twenty-five, fleeing political and social problems, and met a friend from home named Ernesto Tornquist, who had established himself as a prominent landowner. Tornquist was also a friend of one of the top Argentine generals. A year after arriving, Funke took a solo trip on horseback through the mountains of the Sierra de la Ventana and, unlike Darwin, liked what he saw. Tornquist offered to sell him the land, and Funke bought 3,700 acres so he could start a ranch. In 1940, two years after Funke’s death, the newly founded Hogar Funke Foundation began to transform the ranch by converting seventy-five acres, including the mountain peaks, into a park.
Without expecting much, I asked Silva about the Indians who had lived in the area before Tornquist and Funke divided up the land, and I got the familiar answer. “Putting it all together is very difficult.”
No other tourists had called at the ranch, and when I finished the forms, she explained the climb. “It’s about ten hours,” she said. On a rough map, it looked to be about five to six miles and a 3,000-foot climb to the summit. Counting on her fingers, she added, “You should turn back at one o’clock.” Then she gave directions.
“First,” she said, “you’re going to hike five kilometers to the Glorieta Outpost. You’ll pass two cattle guards on the road, then a yellow house on your right, then go left. You’ll cross a bridge and pass a few more cattle guards, and then you’ll see the sign for the outpost and a gate.” She held up a picture of a small, circular sign on a post,