by Dina Bennett
“Okay, let’s go for a ride.” This is terrible, not at all what I want to hear. Bernard can ride, but he doesn’t enjoy it as I do. He’s made a move which he thinks is chivalrous and which I know will make him miserable. And that, in turn, will spoil things for me.
“No, no, you should go on a hike. Get some good photos.”
“No, no, no. Of course we’ll ride.”
“But you have your new hiking boots. Use them.”
“No. Riding.” End of discussion. Once a knight in shining armor, always a knight in shining armor, though in this case I’d like to rip the armor off and fling it into sparkling Lake Pehoé outside our window.
At the stables we are met by three huasos. I launch into a rundown on our horsiness, to back up my request for two good, responsive mounts. “We have our own. Horses. Caballos,” I gloat, expecting this to distinguish me from those whose horsemanship extends to reclining in the plush velvet seat of a movie theatre as galloping herds thunder across the screen in the opening sequence of Tombstone. The huasos do not respond. “Five Quarter Horses,” I say, flashing all the fingers of one hand to support my claim, thinking the size of my herd will impress upon them how competent and savvy I am. One huaso walks away. “They live on our rancho. I ride out in the open, like here …” to confirm I am not some ditzy dressage doll for whom the word “wood” simply is the material used to fence in her local arena. I am as yet unaware that my definition of riding and theirs is like comparing a backyard swing to a Cirque du Soleil trapeze act.
As soon as I say we’d like good horses, that I’m a good rider, I know I sound like every other pompous tourist. “Yeah, yeah, sure,” I can almost hear the remaining huaso mutter as he strides off to tack up their two most placid steeds. “We who are huasos know how to ride. You? You accompany the horse on his back.”
The horses they put us on confirm my impression that I’ve been perceived as clueless and overbearing. They clomp slowly around the easy trail, so inured to carrying one clumsy rider after another that they’ve turned off their brains completely. The thing is, I wasn’t being presumptuous. I really do have a handful of horses at our ranch. I really have spent years training those horses in natural horsemanship, I really have taken a mustang from bucking, snorting territorial stallion to companionable mount for a child, and I really do spend my days riding alone through thousands of acres around our ranch. I have in all ways put in the work to accumulate the knowledge, skill, and experience to proudly call myself a capable horsewoman, and I have the scars to prove it.
The morning’s ride is two hours of disappointment, as diminished an experience as chauffeuring a Ford Focus would be for a Formula One driver. The only benefit is that Bernard now agrees that, despite infinite regret, he must allow me to ride alone. However, the stable is beautiful and the horses shiny and fit, so clearly the huasos know their horseflesh. Now all I need to do is get them to trust that I know it, too.
The opportunity comes after we’ve plodded back to the stable, where Bernard catches an early lift back to the hotel, on the pretext of getting cameras ready to photograph the approaching sunset. “Quiere mate?” the head huaso asks me. Most tourists don’t really enjoy this tea-like beverage (pronounced mah-teh) which is practically a national drink in Chile and Argentina. Sipping the bitter liquid from its little gourd is picturesque, but doesn’t often appeal to those who haven’t grown up with it. I know he’s being polite, but I accept because I have an agenda.
“Sí, cómo no,” I say, and follow him to the back room, the huasos’ private lair. As we sit by a wood-burning stove, surrounded by the tobacco and oily sweat smell of leather saddles and bridles waiting for cleaning, I’m content just to relax and inhale the sweet, rough bouquet of saddle soap and horse. It reminds me of my own century-old barn’s smells back home, which soothes me since I’m more nervous waiting for the mate to brew than I was riding.
During much of my life I have accepted lack of attention as a sure sign that I’m not worthy of the person’s interest or friendship. This is the introverted side of me, which is actually the whole of me. I’m the one who has to take a nap after engaging in social conversation with more than one person, so worn out am I by the effort to engage. I’m not proud that I so readily subside like a cold soufflé when knocked by someone’s cold shoulder.
To those who have worked with me or are old friends, I present an impressive and talented woman. I’ve achieved great success with Bernard as we built our software localization company. While he ran the company, I headed up sales and marketing. My voice on the phone and my presence at meetings helped seal million-dollar deals with major players in the computer world. I’ve spoken to large audiences at conferences, gone from not knowing how to halter a horse to being an accomplished rider, traveled all over the world. The truth about me in others’ view is well-founded. It’s just that in my heart of hearts, I don’t feel it.
Part of the allure of being on the road is that I permit myself to become another person, one who sees an opportunity, wants it and works strategically to get it. In the cave of the huaso clan, I am intent on getting mate right. So bent am I on making a good impression, that I determine even before the first sip that I will adore mate, will sit and chat with these huasos till Bernard bursts through the door wearing that frowning look I adore, the one that says he’s at once relieved to find I haven’t come to a painful end and aggravated that my absence made him worry.
As one of the huasos explains while we wait for the water to boil, mate is as much a ritual as a beverage and therein lies its appeal. It’s prepared by placing dried leaves of yerba mate in a small hollow gourd and filling it with hot water to steep. The tawny gourd, shaped like the belly of a happy Buddha, is about three inches in diameter, just the size to nestle comfortably in the palm of the hand. Fancy ones are decorated with engravings and silver filigree, but the one I’m offered is plain, rubbed to a dark oily sheen by countless rough hands. Within the intimacy of huaso circles, certain men are known to have particular finesse with how many leaves to steep and for how long. A head brewer is to mate as Daniel Boulud is to French food, or Gustavo Dudamel to conducting. No one does it better and everyone’s happy to leave it, whatever “it” may be, in their capable hands.
Unlike American hot beverages, this brew is meant to be shared, with the mate maker sticking a silver straw into the soggy mass of leaves and passing it to each person in turn to drink. You can suck up all the liquid or you can take just a sip. Then you turn the gourd so the straw faces the mate maker again, and hand it back to him. He refills it with a bit of hot water and hands it, straw facing outward, to the next person. And so it goes, round and round. When the mate maker considers the brew too diluted, he plucks some sodden leaves out and stuffs a pinch of new leaves in. It’s the beverage equivalent of sourdough starter.
I’m given a friendly final caution. When you hand the gourd back, never say thank you. Thank you means you’re done for the day, so you say it only when you don’t want any more. Until then, just look solemn and sip. Now that I know this, I know gracias isn’t going to exit my lips till the cows come home. I just hope they have some.
As we start circulating the gourd, waiting now and then for it to be replenished and steep, I find that, while mate may be a highly caffeinated drink, the ritual itself is calming. The sipping, sharing, refilling has the rhythm of a dance and soon it feels like we’re all gently swaying, even though no one’s moving. We talk sparsely, not wanting to break the half-silent spell. An hour passes. Though there are no cows and no Bernard, I hear myself announce gracias, and return the gourd for the last time. I’ve done what I can. The rest is up to them.
Next morning, I wave goodbye to Bernard, who’s off on an early morning hike to the base of Torres del Paine. He’ll be gone all day, and so will I, on an all-day ride. This type of separateness never happens to us on a road trip, where by unstated agreement we do everything together except get sick. (The latter is by default, since it’s no fun bei
ng bedridden unless you have someone to take care of you.) This going our separate ways feels very grown-up to me, something mature people can do because they know they’ll be back together again before long.
It’s not new for us to happily spend all day, every day, side by side. We’ve always been a couple whose daily rhythm meshes uncommonly well. That was repeatedly put to the test during the twelve years we worked together building our company. While over the long term the stresses of managing a large company did fray some edges, overall the exercise of making our marriage work along with our business tightened the weave of our relationship rather than shredding it.
Things changed, though, when we moved to the ranch. Bernard was intent on being hands-on with every aspect of rough work and mechanical endeavor that running a ranch could offer. Most of that didn’t much interest me. He also indulged a long-held desire to become a helicopter pilot, and was often in the air somewhere, leaving me on the ground clutching my useless Dramamine. My days were filled with horses, riding, and all the activities one can indulge when nature is the preferred playground, as it is for me. Plus, with no restaurants worthy of the name within eighty miles, I cooked every meal we ate.
The upshot of this was that our lives took separate directions, with days in which we’d say goodbye after breakfast, regrouping late in the day for a cocktail and dinner. The notion that we could and would pursue separate interests was new to us. In a way this was refreshing, but we both also felt a bit sad that we weren’t seeing each other as much as before. And so it came about that we looked forward to our drives, when by the very nature of our choice of travel, we’d be together again all day long. Kissing Bernard goodbye I feel both delighted and a traitor.
At the stable, a huaso brings me a tall sorrel horse. He’s well mannered and lively, prancing and posing like a gymnast on the balance beam, but standing obediently still while he’s tacked up. He’s also young. I surmise this by the lack of wrinkles above his eyes, a tell-tale sign that horses get when they’re up in the twenties, as if they’re struggling to hold their eyelids up. We mount up, just us, as no other visitors want to attempt the twenty-five-mile ride we’re doing.
Off at a canter across the vast blondness of the short grass pampas, we ride toward Glacier Grey. The basalt cliffs of Cerro Paine shimmer blackly in the distance across the emerald waves of Lake Pehoé. At a hidden glacier overlook, we spread a wool horse blanket on a small patch of rough grass for a picnic of cheese, tomatoes, and hard-boiled eggs. Below is the rumpled tongue of the glacier, which melts into unseen Lago Grey. It’s far enough away that the ice looks like crinkled gray-blue silk. The horses graze while a condor hovers high in the blue sky, sailing the thermals with its ten-foot wingspan.
On the way back to the stable we pick our way down along a twisty, narrow dirt trail, ducking to avoid low-hanging branches, before breaking into a ground-covering canter once more as the horses head eagerly to the barn. It feels like we have always ridden this way, in comfortable saddles lined with thick fleece pads, on willing horses light to the touch, under a cloudless sky, in companionable silence. Though I am technically a guest, I put my own horse up, taking off the saddle, currying his sweaty back. I take this as it’s meant, not lack of interest but a sign of acceptance. Another hour of mate in the saddle room cements a firm friendship.
The following day I’m offered La Reina—the Queen, as the huasos call her. They tell me all their best horses have the day off after competing in the annual endurance challenge the day before. But she will do, they say, and they think I will like her spirit. I know I’ve been given an honor. Riding all day with the huasos confirms they are by far the best horsemen I have ever seen. When a horse needs to be moved it is not led by someone walking beside it. It is mounted at the run, bareback. “This horse is like a teenager,” the huaso leading the ride tells me, pointing to his mount. “Everything for him is new. Of course he is nervous. This is natural. So I will let him decide what he needs to do. And then he will feel he can listen to me. It is more fair this way, I think.” What the young stud apparently needs to do is gallop, disappearing over the hilltop in a matter of seconds. When we crest the hill ten minutes later, they are there, standing calmly, waiting for us. More than any cowboy or trainer, the huasos meld with their horses as if centaurs and communicate with a clarity of intention that I can only admire and envy. Far from being bereft that I’ve been unable to hike to the famous towers, these days in Torres del Paine have turned into a rare privilege.
Before leaving the park, Bernard and I try our hands at fishing. I don’t like to fish and neither does Bernard. My perception is that it involves a lot of standing in one place, getting a sore back, swatting insects, and watching fish swim away. It’s like watery chess, and if I wanted to play a board game, I wouldn’t do it in uncomfortable, breast-high rubber boots. However, we’d never be able to excuse ourselves to our friends who do love to fish if we didn’t wield a rod at least once, here in what’s acclaimed as the world’s best fishing locale. Also hard to ignore are reports of spawning Chinook reaching sixty pounds. If we could hook just one, we’d eat for days. Or offer a free dinner to everyone at our hotel.
The Río Serrano, which channels many of the glacial rivers and lakes to the Última Esperanza Sound, is a short drive from our hotel. On its flat grassy banks, we don our rented waders, grab our rented fishing rods, and enter the water. It’s frigid, a barely liquid form of the glacier ice that feeds it. Under a persistent cold drizzle, I head far enough from Bernard that my expected errant cast can’t hook him in the poncho. While I still have control of my feet I wade out from shore, stopping fifteen feet away because the current is so strong I’m already struggling to stay upright. Within minutes, my legs are tingling, so cold that the only thing I feel is searing pain as blood flow slowly departs my calves and feet, turning them to unresponsive blocks of ice. Unsure whether commands from my brain will enable my legs to carry me elsewhere, let alone if I even have legs, I decide I have reached the perfect spot to fish.
On my first cast, my line looks like it’s trying to tie itself into a knot while airborne. Subsequent ones are no better. In my finer moments, the fly plunks into the water ten feet from me. I could almost pick it up with my hand. Suddenly I see one of the fabled behemoths undulate out of the icy depths. He’s so huge he can barely break the surface before flumping back with as resounding a splash as the kid doing cannonballs at the neighborhood pool. These are no ordinary Chinook. They’re mutants run amok, escapees from a salmon farming operation some twenty-five years ago. Somehow they found the Río Serrano; perhaps there had been salmon-style conversations between the wild ones on the move and the captive ones inside the cages: “If you ever get outta here, come find me. I’ve got a little place up the Serrano where you can lay low.” Now it’s become their spawning ground. My initial eagerness to catch one is replaced by a healthy respect for a fish that, who knows, might get me in his gaping jaws and drag me under.
Blinking back the rain, I glance at Bernard. He’s looking like a real fisherman. When he casts, the filament arcs gracefully, tracing lazy silvery curves in the air, his fly landing gently on the water’s surface, many yards away. A pod of ducks drifts behind him, while he casts and reels in, casts again and reels. It’s mesmerizing to watch, our own little River Runs Through It moment. I try a bit longer in hopes of getting into a tussle with one of the genetic anomalies rising from the channel, but they’re wily, keeping to the deep water in the middle of the river, far out of range. I can’t get close.
Hyena Bait
HARAR, ETHIOPIA, 2011
While every road trip is about the driving, it is also about the end of the day when I get out of the car. My car world is a cocoon. In it Bernard and I incubate together, so close and comfortable in our side-by-sideness that often we don’t speak for hours, except for the occasional direction, request from him for a sip of water, or offer by me of a handful of almonds and raisins.
We’ve been married a long t
ime and if you saw us at a meal you might say, “How sad. They have nothing to say to each other.” If you did, you’d be missing the point of what a long relationship can give. In our case we’ve lived through an entire adulthood together, managing decisions that were literally life-changing. We’ve been though momentous times: founding a company in the deadline-driven, shape-shifting software industry, building a house, moving, selling the company, buying the ranch, moving, making new friends, learning a new business. Each of those periods was fraught with uncertainties, decisions, and arguments, which we weathered together, learning along the way that we were able to find agreement on most every subject with neither of us feeling ignored or wronged. At least not for long.
Without ever specifically voicing the need to, we’ve each allowed the other to change with the varying demands of our life together. There have been times, long stretches even, when we were out of sync. But even during those spells it’s been understood that we would each get the benefit of the doubt as we struggled to find our footing once more. This sense of “You are what you are. Sometimes that’s annoying but I still love you for it … and I still would choose you over everyone else if I had it all to do over again,” is not something that has to be said out loud all the time. The reward of sticking it out for more than three decades is that now we no longer have to speak profundities, or even inanities, to prove that we’re aware of the other person. It’s simply a lovely relief to be side by side with a best mate, someone whose every breath or blink speaks volumes without words.
A friend once told me she longed to spy on the profound and fascinating philosophical discussions we indulged in over those weeks on the road. “You must talk about such interesting things,” she said. “Because you’re there, together. And there’s no interruption. Don’t the thoughts just flow?”
“No, not really,” I told her, hoping by my three words to make a point. It’s not that there’s nothing new left to be said. It’s more that, even though the long road itself is wearying, and the driving conditions stressful, the inside of the car is the one place where there’s sameness from day to day, a meditative interior sheltered from the often-chaotic exterior.