360 Degrees Longitude

by John Higham

  As I read the words of the e-mail from Katrina’s friend, an eleven-year-old girl thousands of miles away, I was getting waaaaay TMI-ed. Apparently there was a clause to the “wait until you are twelve” rule about getting her ears pierced that I was previously unaware of. Katrina’s friend had crossed a certain biological threshold that is much anticipated by prepubescent females, creating a loophole in the “wait until you are twelve” rule. I would have preferred to remain clueless about all this, but the words on the computer monitor had already been seared into my retinas.

  Without much fanfare September marched Katrina to the local mall in Puerto Montt to have her ears pierced.

  “How do you know they have ear piercing at the mall?” Katrina asked in a mild and ineffective protest.

  “You haven’t been noting the accoutrements adorning the Metro Gen-Xers, have you?” I said.

  “Huh?”

  September translated. “What your father is trying to say is that most of the kids your age around here have more than one nose ring.”

  After September and Katrina spent the necessary amount of time twittering about which shade of purple earrings would best offset Katrina’s brown eyes, it was time to load the earring gun with what they had picked out. Miss Ear-Piercing Person put the gun to Katrina’s ear, fired, and with a squeal of pain, it was over.

  Except it wasn’t.

  The gun had jammed. After jabbing a metal stud through Katrina’s ear lobe, the gun jammed and remained attached to her ear. Miss Ear-Piercing Person tugged and twisted and probably swore at the gun in Spanish, while discounting the fact that it was attached to a living person’s ear lobe.

  The thing wouldn’t budge. After several minutes Miss Ear-Piercing Person went to get Mr. Ear-Piercing Person. One look at this guy and there was no question he had had a lot of experience with an ear piercing gun, albeit on the receiving end. There wasn’t a square millimeter of his exposed body that wasn’t pierced or studded—fourteen individual piercings on his face alone, Katrina reported, not counting his ears. I had always sworn that if one of these pencil-necked geeks ever got near my daughter I would disassemble him with a pair of vice grips and a serving spoon. Now, here was a mouth-breathing Neanderthal inches from Katrina’s face taking apart an ear-piercing gun with a small screwdriver, and I was feeling gratitude.

  After ten minutes or so, Mr. Ear-Piercing Person had taken apart the gun and Katrina was now free to go through the piercing ritual all over again, using the other ear as a test bed to see if Mr. Ear-Piercing Person knew how to put the gun back together again, too. He did, and she did, and we left with a daughter one step closer to being a teenager.

  • • •

  “I never knew so much rain could be absorbed in one small region,” September said, shaking off the cold after returning from the tourist office. We were making arrangements to book passage on a cargo ship called the Navimag, to take us to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia. The days were cool and wet in the late March autumn.

  “Our boat doesn’t leave port for over a week,” I explained to the kids. “What do you say we go get some chocolate?” I don’t remember who tipped us off that Bariloche, Argentina was a “must-see,” but it was a short bus ride from the Navimag’s home port in Puerto Montt, Chile. Bariloche had been settled by Swiss-German immigrants about 150 years ago who thought the place looked like home, and who had gone about the task of making this nook of Argentina as Swiss as possible, right down to the cow bells and some local chocolate-making.

  Bariloche is in a spectacular alpine setting of towering granite peaks and deep blue mountain lakes. It does resemble Switzerland with its breathtaking beauty, but without the breathtaking prices. We were pleased to find that while it isn’t far from Puerto Montt, since it is on the other side of the Andes, it has a much more arid climate. So we were blessed with beautiful blue skies.

  “Today,” I announced that morning after homework was completed, “is dedicated to the task of trying several different kinds of chocolate. Let’s get to it.”

  Walking down the main street of Bariloche is enough to make a dedicated chocoholic swoon. The smell of chocolate hangs heavy in the air and every other door seems to lead to an inviting little boutique selling all kinds of chocolate.

  We stepped into one boutique on the main street, just a stone’s throw from the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi. With our limited Spanish vocabulary we couldn’t make out the labels behind the glass counter telling us what the many different offerings were. It was very much like being offered a piece of chocolate from a boxed set, not having any clue what you were picking out.

  When oenophiles go about tasting wine, the process is to take a small sip and swirl, savoring the flavor, and then spit it out. This is so one can taste as much wine as possible without getting hopelessly drunk. We were adopting a similar strategy.

  “Okay, guys,” I said, “remember the plan, just one piece an hour.”

  We spent a great deal of time choosing the perfect piece of chocolate and then hurried out the door to try it. Jordan promptly picked up his carefully selected chocolatey mound and took a bite. He let out a yelp and his face twisted with disgust. What unspeakable horror was stuffed inside his beautiful chocolate? He struggled to find something to do with the putrid mass in his mouth. He couldn’t speak as he flailed his arms and searched frantically for somewhere to spit it out. September took a nibble and discovered the awful truth: Jordan had bitten into a chocolate-covered prune. I pondered the motive for manufacturing such an abomination. I thought that prunes were universally abhorred, to be consumed only by the infirm in an act of desperation. Maybe this was the local answer for a chocolate-flavored laxative, but who would unleash such culinary terrorism on an innocent child?

  Jordan was almost in tears. This was his one shot at chocolate heaven, and he’d blown it on a prune. I couldn’t abide such injustice. To recover from the prune disaster we all went back into the store for seconds, abandoning any pretense of pacing ourselves in an effort to put the Prune Incident behind us.

  Despite the unfortunate trauma associated with the chocolate-covered prune, I can now look anyone in the eye and tell them that Bariloche has the best chocolate in the world. Everyone and anyone should come to Bariloche just to stop in a different dulceria every day and try something new, but the little nugget of joy you are looking for is a chocolate-covered dulce de leche, which is commonly known Stateside as Danger Pudding. If you haven’t been initiated to Danger Pudding, just enter it into the Google search box and click, “I’m Feeling Lucky.” You’ll learn all sorts of trivia you never knew you needed, such as manufacturer liability and the temperature at which sweetened condensed milk caramelizes.

  It wasn’t long before it was time for us to return to Puerto Montt to board the Navimag for our journey south. Typical of such journeys, we had an early morning departure.

  The pier can be an interesting place early in the morning. This particular day, the sky was a brilliant blue and a young man approached us. He looked as though he hadn’t found his local vertical in years, even though he appeared to be in his early twenties. The young man tried to look at us, but opening his eyes in the dazzling sunshine seemed to be causing him pain. He spoke to us in German, the words accompanied by a Niagaraish flow of spittle out of the corner of his mouth and down his chin.

  With some effort on our part, and a switch to the English language on his part, we were able to determine what he was trying to ask us—he had no idea where he was, and could he please borrow a phone? We told him he was in Puerto Montt, but that was no help to him as he had never heard of it before.

  Katrina and Jordan were collecting plenty of examples of seeing drunk people around the world—from Czechs dancing in canoes to the young German before us who was in a city he had never heard of.

  “How could he not know where he is?” Jordan asked.

  “He probably came off a boat that came to port last night,” September replied. “People can forget what the
y do if they’ve been drinking too much.”

  “Then why do they do it?”

  “Why indeed. People do lots of things they shouldn’t and later regret. We are a funny breed. The key is to not have any regrets.”

  We were at the pier to board the Navimag; I couldn’t help but be impressed by its sheer size. We walked across the dock and into the ship’s massive cargo hold. An enormous elevator that is used to lift semi-truck trailer rigs to the upper level of the ferry waited for us. Many of our friends have extolled the merits of a cruise vacation. I couldn’t help wondering when they boarded, say, a Princess Cruise, if they had to walk through a smelly cargo hold and use an elevator meant for semi-truck trailer rigs.

  The slick glossy brochure I was reading detailed our journey south: “It says here the route we’re taking has one of the highest insurance premium rates in the shipping industry.”

  “Now is not the time to be telling me this,” September said.

  Katrina’s Journal, April 3

  Today we’re leaving on a boat called the Navimag that will take us to the southern tip of South America. Once we got on board we went to the common room and watched a movie of what to do if the ship started sinking. Mom said the background music that they played during the movie was about a sinking ship [“The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”]. I thought that was pretty funny.

  My last act before boarding was to buy some motion sickness pills, because all September has to do to get seasick is look at a picture of a boat. Jordan is worse.

  So why were we doing this? The short version is that it was all my idea. The long version is that I told September we would be in sheltered waters most of the trip and we would be asleep when the ship was in open sea. And I believed this. Really.

  We got acquainted with many of our 60 or so fellow passengers and found that many were on journeys similar to ours; about half those on board were on around-the-world trips of six months or more. The Navimag seemed to be a magnet for the “around the world” demographic.

  Our shipmates were college students, young couples just starting out in life together, and older couples who had waited for their children to leave the nest so they could strike out alone. As usual, we were the only family, and Katrina and Jordan were the only children. Most of the passengers were standard “traveling” European flavors—Dutch, German, Scandinavian, French, and English. The group also had the normal representation of young Australians and retired Canadians. We were the only Americans. For such a populous and affluent country, Americans just don’t travel much. On the other hand, for such a little country, the Dutch are all over the place.

  The afternoon of the first day the sailing was smooth as silk as we maneuvered through narrow, protected channels. That first night, however, the sea got very rough. By morning the waves had calmed down considerably.

  “Rough night, huh?” I said to September when I saw her stirring the next morning.

  “Yes, but I’m glad to get it over with. I was dreading it. Being able to lie down in the dark helped.”

  Our fellow shipmates stumbled into breakfast in a bleary-eyed stupor. Nobody had slept much the night before; most traded stories of the long hours lying down in the darkness, fighting seasickness.

  The Navimag came with a chirpy, cheery liaison officer. She spoke English very well. Too well. Each time she introduced herself, she said her name so quickly that with her sexy Spanish accent I could never quite get it.

  “Did you catch her name?” September asked.

  “No. Ask her again. I’ve already asked her twice and I’m embarrassed to again.”

  “I asked twice,” September said.

  “I’m pretty sure it starts with an M and I think there is an L in there, too. She can be Mrs. Lady.”

  After breakfast, Mrs. Lady gave us our first official rundown of our route south and what to expect in the coming days. “During the night we passed through a channel that was opened to the sea somewhat and that was the source of the waves.”

  “So that was the rough passage I’ve heard about?” one of our fellow travelers asked.

  Mrs. Lady’s attempt at containing a laugh came out as a snort. “That was a mere dip in the pool for us,” she said, composing herself. “Last night we were merely exposed to the open sea as we passed by the Golfo Corcovado. This afternoon we sail into the Golfo de Penas. It will take about twelve hours to cross the open water. If you are prone to seasickness,” Mrs. Lady continued, “you should take a pill two hours before we enter the Golfo de Penas. I will make an announcement when the time comes. If you don’t take the pill at least two hours in advance, the pill won’t work.” As an afterthought, as if for dramatic effect, she added, “If the boat rolls far over to the side, don’t worry about the ship. It is built for these kinds of seas. It will not tip over.”

  That afternoon, right on schedule, the smooth sailing we had enjoyed inside the protection of the fjords started to give way to mild rolling.

  At certain times of the day the passengers are allowed on the bridge of the ship to observe the captain and crew. I was admiring the geo-compass, watching every turn of the boat reflected in its bearing.

  Just then, Mrs. Lady’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. “It is time for everyone to take their seasickness pills. I repeat, take your pill now!” Her voice took on a slightly panicked tone. “Don’t wait!”

  The captain and crew on the bridge burst into laughter. “It’s too late!” they all chortled. “We’re twenty minutes away from the open sea!”

  I ran down to our cabin to find September and Jordan already groaning in their bunks. This was not a good sign. The boat was rolling back and forth. It was only going to get worse.

  I’d had a lot of boat experience, but this was new territory for me. Within the hour I joined September and Jordan moaning in bed. At moments it felt like we were in a free fall for one or two seconds from the top of a swell. To keep my mind occupied, I geeked out and calculated how high the swells would have to be if it took the boat one second to “fall” from the top to the bottom, and decided the swells were between 15 and 30 feet high. I found out later from the captain that the swells were actually 25 feet.

  To summarize our state over the next several hours would be committing a TMI, but if you recall the restaurant scene from The Meaning of Life you have the gist of the situation. Katrina was the only one who wasn’t hugging porcelain. In my misery, I lost track of time. Gradually, in the middle of the night, the waves subsided, the ship returned to calm waters, and the warm embrace of unconscious sleep overpowered us.

  Katrina’s Journal, April 5

  Dad showed me the bridge, which is where the steering wheel is, and the compass, and all the other things that tell you where you are, what the temperature is, how fast the boat’s going, how fast the wind’s blowing, and stuff like that. Dad really likes that stuff and I pretended to be interested. Then it started getting really, really wavy. It’s supposed to stay wavy until about 2:00 in the morning. No one would go to dinner with me tonight.

  In the morning we all felt thoroughly thrashed, but it was over. Gradually, we pulled ourselves out of bed. Then it dawned on me.

  “We aren’t moving. The boat is at anchor.”

  “What do you think that means?” September asked.

  “Dunno. I’ll go find out.”

  When I got to the common room, rumors were flying. “The sea was so rough, we sought anchorage in a sheltered cove,” was the collective opinion, but no one knew where we were.

  We found out the sad reality after breakfast. “A few hours out at sea,” Mrs. Lady explained, “the captain received a report from another boat heading in the opposite direction that the swells further south were thirteen meters high, five meters higher than we had been experiencing. He ordered a retreat to the shelter of the fjords. We will remain at anchor until conditions improve.”

  The puking of biblical proportions of the previous night was for naught. We were back at square one.

&nb
sp; John’s Journal, April 7

  We are on terra firma once again. The indigenous people [Kawesqar] of this area, now extinct, used to live virtually their entire lives in dugout canoes. They would build fires in their canoes to stay warm, and wore almost no clothes. Which is hard to believe as it’s so cold. It is early autumn now and very nippy.

  The sky here is very big and different somehow. We watched the sun set and it seemed to take forever. The wind blows so very hard. We are on the edge of Drake’s Passage, the only ring around the planet unbroken by land and infamous for its fierce wind and what it did to the early explorers.

  Weather delayed the Navimag two more days. When we arrived in Puerto Natales, our destination, we were a bit paler and thinner, but roughly in one piece. I said to September as we disembarked, “So, now what happens?”

  September looked at me and I knew the answer immediately. “There is so much to do and see,” she said. “A year just isn’t long enough.” We had arranged to meet September’s father back in La Paz and had a flight the very next day.

  Puerto Natales, Chile, is the gateway to the Torres del Paine National Park. Along with sticking our feet in the Straits of Magellan, seeing it was our raison d’être for coming south. But there wasn’t time. The unplanned extra time on the Navimag had cost us our visit to Torres del Paine. I didn’t say anything for a while. I was stoically rooted to the spot, trying not to get emotional. “We should’ve taken the bus.”

  “The key,” Katrina reminded me, “is to not have any regrets. We’ll just have to come back someday.”

  www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz

  On the “Mapa de Volcan Villarica Pelegro” (Map of Volcano Villarica Danger Zones), the bustling town of Pucon is set smack dab in the middle of the bright red “high danger” area. Hell-o! How smart is that?