Darwin Slept Here - Eric N. Simons [56]
Getting trapped in the middle of nowhere was a risk Darwin constantly faced. In one worst-case scenario, he and seventeen crewmen got stuck on a beach within sight of the Beagle, unable to return to the ship because a squall whipped the water too much for a small boat to collect them. Darwin and his companions huddled together on the exposed ground to try and keep warm, and soon ran out of food. They ate seagulls and a washed-up hawk found on the beach and settled in to wait out the storm. “I never knew how painful cold could be,” Darwin wrote after spending the entire night shivering. The next day the wind finally slacked, and everyone returned to the ship.
Coming down from his frustrating day on Cerro Tres Picos, Darwin at least had a camp to return to. And after “drinking much mattee & smoking several little cigaritos,” he rolled out his sleeping bag and began to think a little more positively. He knew, after all, that though he hadn’t reached the summit, he was the first European to explore the mountain range. Accomplishment always made him feel peaceful. Drowsy from the exercise, he dropped off to sleep immediately, and later reported, “It blew furiously, but I never passed a more comfortable night.”
Determined to do the same, I lay down in the grass to nap while the taxi came to find me.
PART III
DISCOVERY
FOLLOWING DARWIN ON THE WEST COAST
11: CHILOÉ
Charming Green Things That Don’t Ooze
In these shaded paths, it is absolutely necessary to make the whole road of logs of trees, such as described on the main road to Castro. Otherwise the ground is so damp from the suns rays never penetrating the evergreen foliage that n e ither man nor horse would be able to pass along
—BEAGLE DIARY, NOVEMBER 24, 1834
THE DAY AFTER CLIMBING CERRO TRES PICOS, I returned to Buenos Aires and from there flew back to California. My plan was to take a break from traveling, propose to my girlfriend, and then start researching the west coast of South America. In late spring, as I brushed up on Darwin’s travels, I found myself talking to an old school friend. Josh Braun was trapped in Manhattan at a high-hour, low-pay magazine job under the direction of your industry standard brilliant-but-mad editor-in-chief. When I left for Chile a few months later, Josh was on the plane with me. He’d packed a bag full of radio equipment and talked about his plans to record stories about South American monster legends. I was still trying to figure out how it had gotten to this point. Although I welcomed the company—my travels on the east coast had often been lonely—I worried about how well Josh would be able to follow my Darwin enthusiasm. At least he was there for all the right reasons: Fleeing a bashing-the-head-into-the-wall post-college job, looking to see some of the world before he committed to something serious like graduate school or marriage.
Josh was tall, gangly, and distinctively red-headed—a look that instantly proclaimed irredeemable gringo-ness. I had always escaped gringo alarm bells because I’m generally swarthy and have a decent Spanish accent. Five-foot-eight with brown skin and brown hair meant I could easily pass for Brazilian, and I enjoyed the obviously conflicted touts who looked me up and down and then tried catching my attention in Portuguese. With Josh there would be no sneaking about.
Still, standing out might not be bad. Darwin certainly did. Josh was also deeply scientifically curious, and he had never been to South America before. He read voraciously and could speak generally on almost any field of science, though his recent studies had been largely confined to medicine and bioethics. He remained