ENDEX(2): The Falklands War and my final thoughts on Argentina.

The Falkland Islands were originally found in 1600 by the Dutch, who had a tendency to find some of our more important colonies first, such as Singapore, New York City and South Africa.  They were then used and abandoned variously by the British and Spanish, who call them Las Malvinas.  At one point in the early 19^th century they were used as a base for pirates, which led to a visit from the United States Marine Corps, who solved that problem.  They were eventually set up as a colony by Britain in 1833, 30 years before Argentina had fully established itself as a country, and apart from a couple of months in 1982 they have been under British rule ever since.

Map of the Falkland Islands.  The capital Port Stanley is located on the East coast of East Falkland.

                                            

In the late 1970’s the, as ever, feeble British civil service had decided to give the Falklands to Argentina, oblivious to the views of the 2,000 Islanders.  They were also obviously confident that there would never be any reason why the Panama Canal could be blocked, thus forcing shipping around the Southern tip of South America.  The Governor Rex Hunt was sent out to specifically prepare the Islanders for the fact they were going to be given to Argentina, which at that time was under the dictatorial rule of a military junta, led by General Galtieri.

Gen. Galtieri, who led the Military Junta and ordered Argentine invasion.  "So, how do you think that went?"

                                                 

The junta had taken over Argentina in 1976 and were engaged in a brutal policy of killing off all their own domestic opposition, including the thousands of so called ‘Disappeared’.  It seems pretty horrendous, but unsurprising, that the spineless bean-counters in Whitehall were quite happy to give them 2,000 British citizens in the name of ‘down-sizing’ and ‘efficiency-savings’.  By 1982 the Argentine economy was collapsing and the Junta, like Mrs Kirchner today, was desperate for some foreign policy good news as a dstraction, so Galtieri ordered an invasion of the Falkland Islands, thinking that as Britain was going to give them away anyway, why would they care?

On the 2^nd of April 1982 thousands of Argentine troops landed on the Falklands, which were only defended by less than a hundred Royal Marines.  While the ‘boot necks’ put up a fight, managing to kill a couple of Argentine soldiers, and shoot down a helicopter they were ordered to surrender by Rex Hunt in the Capital, Port Stanley.

Royal Marines surrendering to Argentine forces after initial invasion.

                            

These Marines were then returned to the UK, where they swiftly joined the Task Force- “You lost them, you can get them back!”.  General Galtieri assumed optimistically that Mrs Thatcher would not put up a fight, but by that stage she had already shown her character with incidents such as letting Bobby Sands and his IRA mates starve themselves to death in the so called ‘Maze Prison Hunger Strike’, and she’d sent in the SAS to lift the siege at the Iranian Embassy in central London (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sgt-john-mcaleese.html).

On the 5^th of April, just 3 days after the invasion, the British aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes set sail from Portsmouth for the South Atlantic, as part of what would be a 127 ship Task Force, with 43 carrier based Harrier fighter aircraft, and thousands of highly trained infantry soldiers including Paras, Royal Marines, Scots and Welsh Guardsmen and the Gurkhas.  The Argentine Junta, under Galtieri had wanted to show how tough they were and now they were going to get their chance to see how good they were against, arguably, the best armed forces in the world.

The British Task Force sailing South.

Gurkhas were part of the Task Force, but due to no effort being spared in hyping up their reputation as the Task Force sailed South, the Argentine soldiers ran rather than fight them.

                         

By the end of April the outlying territory of South Georgia, 900 miles to the East had already been taken back by a combined force of Royal Marines and the SAS.  On the 1^st of May the garrison on the Falkland Islands got their first experience of the Empire striking back when Port Stanley airfield was bombed from 50,000 feet by a Vulcan bomber, which was similar capability to the B-52.  On the 2^nd of May the Argentine warship the Belgrano was sunk by torpedoes from the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror, killing over 300 Argentine sailors.

Port Stanley Airfield after the 'Black Buck' Vulcan bomber raid.

The Belgrano sinking after being hit by Royal Navy submarine.  The Sun newspaper tastefully reported the incident under the headline "Gotcha!"

          

While the sinking of the Belgrano is controversial because it may or may not have been posing a direct threat at that moment, the result was that the Argentines became terrified of the British submarine threat.  They consequently withdrew all their surface warships, including an aircraft carrier ‘The 25^th of May’ back to their ports in Argentina.  This obviously made life much easier for the Royal Navy fleet. 

However, the Argentine Air Force began a sustained campaign against the Royal Navy surface fleet with their aging A4 Skyhawk aircrafts as well as more modern French Mirage and Super Etantard aircraft, using the Exocet anti-ship missile (supplied and maintained, throughout, by the glorious French, who always seem to be on the losing team).  On the 4^th of May HMS Sheffield was sunk, with the loss of 20 crewmembers, and was the first Royal Navy warship to be lost since WW2.  The British never had full air superiority through the war, and I remember hearing a presentation from the ‘celebrity’ Royal Navy doctor Rick Jolly saying that there was no more terrifying sensation for him than being on a ship, looking up at a fighter aircraft and recognising that it is not one of ‘ours’.  The Argentine Air Force managed to sink quite a few British ships during the war, including the Atlantic Conveyor which was transporting most of the Task Force’s Chinook heavy lift helicopters.

HMS Sheffield having been hit by Exocet missile.

                  

Super Etandard firing Exocet anti-ship missile, which has a range of 100 miles.

                        

There was a plan to counter this threat by sending an SAS Squadron to attack the Argentine bases on the mainland, although it was accepted that they would have been suicide missions.  I imagine that whatever winner came up with that plan had not intended to actually be the first man off the ramp of the C130, and fortunately for all concerned the idea was canned.  Whatever the SAS did actually do inside Argentina still remains secret, although the only ‘open source’ reference to it was that on the night of the 17^th of May a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter crashed in Southern Chile.  The crew then surrendered themselves to the Chilean authorities, who were actually, discreetly, supporting the British anyway.

The first large scale landings of British troops returning to the Falklands were on the 21^st of May on East Falkland.   Soldiers from the 2^nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment (2 PARA) and Marines from 40 Commando, Royal Marines (40 Cdo) landed at San Carlos.  On the same night 3 PARA and 45 Cdo also came ashore.  The first large scale land battle of the war was on the night of 27-28 May when 600 men of 2 PARA, using the ‘Para Reg’ interpretation of the 3:1, attacker: defender ratio, attacked and utterly defeated 1,800 Argentine troops at Goose Green.  This was despite the best efforts of the BBC who, in the interests of impartiality, had broadcast details of the attack before it had started.  During the battle the Commanding Officer of 2 PARA, Lt Col ‘H’ Jones, was killed while personally leading an attack on an enemy position, and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Member of 2 PARA standing guard over captured Argentine prisoners at Goose Green.  By the end of the war more than 11,000 Argentines had surrendered to the numerically inferior British troops.

                             

Following on from this more troops from the Scots Guards and Welsh Guards were to be landed, in support of 2PARA at Bluff Cove.  However on the 8^th of June the Argentine Air Force attacked the 2 Landing Craft, the Sir Tristram and the Sir Galahad, carrying the Welsh Guards in Bluff Cove/ Port Pleasant killing more than 50, including 33 Welsh Guardsmen.   While this succeeded in putting the British plans back by 2 days, the Argentine commanders believed that 900 British troops had been killed in the attack- which really would have changed the game somewhat.

The iconic image of Royal Marines 'yomping' across East Falkland.

              

Having advanced or ‘yomped’ across East Falkland, on the night of the 11^th of June Royal Marines and 3 PARA launched a Brigade-sized attack on the Argentine positions at Mount Harriet, Two Sisters and Mount Longdon.  The fiercest fighting was at Mount Longdon, which 3 PARA eventually took.  During the battle, Sgt Ian McKay led an attack on a machine gun position that was holding up the advance.  Although fatally wounded he managed to fall on to the actual gun, providing enough of a delay for the remainder of the troops to continue the advance, and like Lt Col Jones, he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Sgt Ian McKay VC at Mount Longdon.

Two nights later 2 PARA, the only unit to be involved in 2 significant battles, attacked Wireless Ridge and the Scots Guards attacked Mount Tumbledown.  One of the Guards Company Commanders at Tumbledown, Major John Kiszely who went on to be a General, recounted how in the confusion and the dark, he found himself grabbing a handful of Guardsmen and systematically attacking individual Argentine positions.  Once they’d taken one position, they’d regroup and then move on to the next one, and the next, before they reached the top of the hill and could look down at the lights of the capital Port Stanley, where the Argentine HQ was located.  The following day, the 14^th of June, the Argentinians surrendered and the war was over.

Scots Guards celebrate hearing that the war is over.

                               

The result of the Falklands War was that 255 British servicemen and 700 Argentinians were killed, with hundreds of others maimed- most famously Welsh Guardsman Simon Weston, who had been on the Sir Galahad.  Ironically, the best thing to come about from the Falklands War was that it lead to the end of the military Junta in Argentina, who had started the war in the first place, and the subsequent return of that country to democratic rule, which it has enjoyed ever since.  Diplomatic relations were re-established between the UK and Argentina in 1990 and, apart from the odd bit of attention-seeking by Senora Kirchner, the 2 countries have enjoyed reasonably good relations ever since.

For us in Britain the Falklands War is going out of the national psyche as the last of the Falklands veterans leave the army.  When I first joined in the late 90’s there were quite a few Falklands veterans still serving, and in training my first Commanding Officer had been at Goose Green.  However, on my tour to Afghanistan this year there were just 2 that I knew of, both of whom had been on the Sir Galahad, which I don’t think anybody particularly wanted to talk about.

This is in contrast to the Argentinians, who all have an opinion on it, and want to share it.  In Paris earlier this year I ended up in a conversation with an extremely attractive Argentine lawyer girl (again…) and she told me, charmingly, that she agreed with Senora Kirchner’s attempts to get back ‘Las Malvinas’.  I asked her if she wanted her family to go back to being under the rule of General Galtieri, which she didn’t.  I then asked her if she felt it was right that British citizens should have been subjected to the same Junta regime, and she conceded that Mrs Thatcher did have a point.  I then asked her if she supported the principal of National Self Determination, which she said she did.  She subsequently accepted that, actually, the Falklands were better off remaining British.  Shame her boyfriend was with her at the time.

On my travels to South America over the past couple of months, I realised that there are always Argentinians travelling around the whole continent- and if you know what you're looking for, you can always spot them.  While distancing themselves from the indigenous South Americans, they look and dress like typical western backpackers from Oz, Holland,  etc, but they keep themselves to themselves, to an extent, as they often can’t speak English.  However the first 2 that I spoke to in Cartagena wanted to speak about the Falklands, the first launching into a tirade against Mrs Kirchner, and the second asking if I’d ever been there.  I side-stepped that one by saying that I’d done Iraq and Afghanistan, while the Falklands War was my father’s generation, and he was happy to leave it at that.

I thought Argentina was an incredible country and I really enjoyed my time there, and I really like the people.  I will also always support 'Los Pumas' when they're playing against Australia, New Zealand or South Africa.  It is just a shame they have this obsession about a bunch of rocks.  If they really wanted them, they’d be better off, rather than periodically blockading and buggering around the Falklands population, actually offering them incentives to come to Argentina and integrate.  This could be via free healthcare, free university or even just playing rugby as that will be the most likely common ground.  If I was an 18 year old ‘Benny’ (as the Army charmingly call Falkland Islanders) and I had the choice of paying thousands of pounds to go to university in England, or getting it for free in BA, I know where I’d chose.  However common sense does not appear to be very much in the thought process of Argentine politicians any more than it is with ours, so I’m sure something will flare up again at some point.

ENDEX(1): Last Tango in Buenos Aires, before leaving South America

Starbucks, George St, Edinburgh

After a 13 hour flight from Buenos Aires to Paris, a 15 minute gap to get my connecting flight to Heathrow, which involved doing a convincing impression of Ussain Bolt down the long walkways of Charles de Gaulle, and a night out in London, I then made it up to my current location of Edinburgh for a 30-40 degree temperature drop.  Brrrrrr.

Last Saturday, the 1^st of December, I’d checked into the hostel in BA in time to watch the England All Blacks game at Twickenham, which I’d been cautiously optimistic about.  I’d thought that England’s determined, focused young lads might surprise the smug, complacent AB’s.  I hadn’t expected them to run the AB’s ragged and put nearly 20 points on them- which definitely put a smile on my face as I went out to establish my first impressions of the Argentine capital.

Typical central BA street.

 

BA at last light

Argentine congress building

It was the last city I visited on my 2 month South American trip and definitely the most spectacular.  It reminded me of Paris, with the wide boulevards, and the fact that the Argie population generally look French as a result of the mixture of predominantly Spanish, Italian and German immigration.  Others said it reminded them of Barcelona, as well, although that is one place I’ve never been.  On the Saturday, after the rugby I spent several hours walking on my own around the city, just soaking up the ‘atmos’ and enjoying the warm climate.  I was pointed in the direction of the military museum and headed off to investigate, however I’d been given ‘duff int’ and the only museum I could find was the Argentine museum of Fine Art, which I’m sure is wonderful if you’re into that sort of thing- cheers.

Argentine Museum of Fine Art

 

However, much as I appreciate looking at new cities, or anywhere, on my own, as I notice far more detail, there is a point when I get bored, so I headed back to the famous/ notorious Mill House hostel to find out “Donde esta la fiesta!” (Where’s the party?).  Like the rest of Argentina, the social life involves drinking until 5AM, so when in Rome…  One thing that amazed me is that, just like when you’re in the local pub of an English village at 11PM and they stop serving, all you want is another beer, and similarly, at 5AM in Buenos Aires, all you want is “una mas cervaza!”

In terms of the other tourists in Buenos Aires, there were ironically more British people there than anywhere else I’ve encountered- no doubt attracted to the place we’re disliked the most!  Generally on my travels over the past couple of years whenever I hear an English/ British accent I keep my mouth shut as they will invariably be either cringe-inducing Fulham ‘Rahs’ desperately pretending to be more ‘posh’ than they are, or else chavs who want to talk about football and to fight (no, I don’t identify with either category!).  However, the impression of the ones I met in Argentina was that they were generally graduate professionals such as trainee solicitors (lawyers, for the yanks), who were by and large good company.  There may be something in the fact that prices in BA are about the same as London, so the chavs are priced out.

On one of the days I went for a trip with some of the Irish and Aussie contingent to the ‘Evita’ Eva Peron museum, which I had a quick glance at, though I can’t pretend that the whole worker’s rights, women’s rights theme particularly rocked my world.  On the way back we went and had a look at the ‘Pink Palace’ from where Evita had addressed the crowds, and where their current clown of a President, Senora Fernandez-Kirchner lives.  The few Argies who I've heard speaking about her have not been fans at all, and have said she should focus on sorting out the economy rather than annoying Britain.  However, it’s obviously a careful path to tread in conversation.  Ever since I saw a Brit (he was RAF, obviously) in Iraq confidently telling an American soldier that all British people hate George W. Bush, oblivious to the awkward fact that he was actually democratically elected by the United States population, twice, I’ve felt that talking about other nation’s politicians is like talking about other people’s families- if they want to slate them, that’s fine, but don’t join in.

The Pink Palace- Mrs Kirchner's 'casa'

 

After seeing the Pink Palace we then went for a walk down the road to see the Argie defence building, which actually reminded me slightly of a bigger version of the Ministry of Defence main building in London.  It also occurred to me that if we, like the Americans, had had a Tomahawk Cruise Missile capability back in 1982, it might just have been turned into a hole in the Buenos Aires pavement.  In the grounds of the building there was a mini museum showing both recent Argentine military contributions to UN peace keeping missions, as well as, obviously, a memorial to the Falklands War.

Argentine Defence Ministry, with memorial in foreground.

 

Memorial showing Argentine soldier standing in the Falklands,

Once back at the hostel I was quietly having a pint with some of the others who were kicking about and someone asked me if I was doing the Tango classes- “Er, are you p*ssed??”  Shortly afterwards the tables were all being cleared away, and people began forming up for the lesson- and I dived out of the way!  Sadly, though they were a ‘man down’, so I got dragged in to make up the numbers, despite warning about my own levels of grace and co-ordination!  The thing with tango it is incredibly ‘close contact’, and I imagine if you had any inhibitions you might struggle, however neither I nor the Welsh bird I was paired up with were particularly shy, so we were fine and it was quite a good laugh.  I still maintain though, that anybody watching me would probably have thought I was attempting Krav Maga!

Another couple throwing some Tango moves in the hostel.
 

 

'One Direction' waiting to take their Tango partners...

The following day I eventually found out where the actual Argentine military museum to the Falklands War was located, and I headed up there with Michael, who was an Israeli lawyer.  Generally the Israelis you meet are all about 21 and have just finished their mandatory 3 years in the IDF.  He however was older having done his military service in the Israeli Parachute Regiment, then completed his studies and was now having a couple of months break before starting work for a top law firm in Tel Aviv.  During his military service he had not only visited my ‘favourite’ Palestinian town of Nablus, and winced when I told him my own experience there last year (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/one-reason-to-visit-west-bank.html), he had also been in Lebanon during the 2006 war.  During this he’d said they’d landed at a Heli Landing Site, jumped out of their helicopter and then as it had lifted off it had been shot down by Hizbollah, killing all the crew.

Israeli Defence Force soldiers in Lebanon, 2006.

                          

He was also an admirer of the British Parachute Regiment, who distinguished themselves in the Falklands, so was a good sidekick for a trip to that museum.  Unfortunately, though, when we got to the museum, which we found easily enough, we discovered it was actually only viewable via invitation, like the Metropolitan Police’s ‘Black Museum’ at Scotland Yard, so we gave up and headed back via a lunch stop.  At some point on the way, though, he had his pocket ‘picked’ with several hundred $US and his credit card, which was an unfortunate reminder that it can happen anywhere.  If either of us had caught the little sh*t, they could have expected an extremely unpleasant time, so fair play to them for having a go and getting away with it. 

Once back at the hostel I’d been invited by a very nice English lawyer girl (I know, I should learn…) to join her and some friends of hers as they did a walking tour of BA, which apparently went into some of the ‘politics’, and I was quite keen to hear the local views.  We trekked off across the city to find the meeting point and to meet the rest of our 40-strong group.  Our guide was a very confident and knowledgeable 34 year old Argentinian girl, and the first thing she did was to get us to introduce ourselves to each other.  I think this was ‘oblique questioning’ so she could work out how many British tourists she had, so how freely she could speak.  I reckon we made up about a quarter.

The tour started at the statue of San Martin who had initially guided Argentina to independence from Spanish rule at the start of the 19^th century.  They eventually set themselves up as a united country under their first elected president Bartolome Mitre in 1862. 

San Martin, the original Argentine independence leader.

 

From there we did a trip around various points of interest in the city, including the prestigious hotels, the clock tower that was donated by the UK Government some time ago and is known as ‘Little Big Ben’ and finishing at Evita’s grave, which I had unwittingly actually walked past a couple of days earlier.  We also passed the site of the old Israeli embassy which had been flattened by a vehicle bomb, most likely from the Lebanese based, Iranian proxy Hizobollah.

 

'Little Big Ben' clock tower which was a gift from a previous British Government to Argentina.

 

 

Site of former Israeli Embassy, blown up by Hizbollah.

 

 

Church close to where Evita is buried.  If you get to this point, you can find her grave by following the crowd!

 

However the centrepiece for both me and the guide was the memorial to the Falklands War- the map of which, significantly, the Brits standing closest to me needed to have identified for them.  I think that said everything that needed to be said about how emotionally significant they are to us- not at all.

Low-key memorial to Argentine dead- tactfully placed opposite 'Little Big Ben'

 

The guide gave the impression that the Argentines regard them as some mystical place, which they learn about as children.  The reality is that they are more like the cold, wet, wind-blasted Brecon area of Wales than anywhere else, which is ironic given that that is where the Infantry Battle School is (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/living-brecon-dream.html) , because if you can operate in Brecon, you can operate anywhere.  On one of my own heart-warming, tear-jerking trips to Brecon I said I’d rather be doing a Jungle Warfare course (as it would be warmer) and one of the instructors was saying that the jungle is the harshest place to work, and it was horrific, and the hardest thing he’d done.  I asked him if it was worse than Brecon in February:  “Um…. Er….” 

The guide on our BA tour was quite funny in saying about the Argentine perspective that “As a kid you learn about this mythical place Las Malvinas… and then when you are about 13 you realise they’re called the Falklands and they don’t even belong to Argentina!”

Being the same age as me, she would also have been about 3 years old during the Falklands War, and she said she could remember the mass of celebration when they’d taken the islands was “Bigger than when we won the World Cup”, which I had read before.  I also read that once the Task Force had set sail from the UK to take back the Falklands, the Argentine national mood changed to “Oh sh*t”.

Jubilant argentinians celebrating...

 

My own memory of the Falklands is my father, who did a subsequent tour there, teaching me, responsibly, to say to his friends that “Argentinians are bad buggers”.  I do also remember from the time that one of his friends had a close call on the ship the Sir Galahad when it was sunk by the Argentine Air Force.  However I will give a more detailed history of the Falklands/ Malvinas issue in my next Blog, as I feel it needs to be explained properly...  
  

"Que pasa? What have I just trodden on..."  Picture of HMS Hermes heading to the Falklands, with headline that said it all.

                                        

 

 

Falklands veterans in Salta, down to Che Guevara's old Casa

Overnight bus from Cordoba to Mendoza

Currently watching Gladiator in Spanish, as the only gringo on overnight bus from Cordoba to Mendoza, after getting overnight bus there last night from Salta.  “…I will have my revenge in this life or the next!” does not have quite the same ring to it when dubbed into Spanish. We went past some large Argie military base on the edge of Cordoba, where they had a couple of aircraft on display outside, one of which I recognised as a Pucara, which was one of the iconic images of the Falklands War.

Argentine Pucara aircraft, which was used against UK ground forces during the Falklands War.

Anyway, after a couple of days relaxing in Salta, having a wander around and seeing the sights (nothing much to see, but pleasant, clean city and massive step-up from Bolivia), it was time to head south.

Salta

S

Main Square in Salta.

 

On my 5^th attempt I found a cash machine that would give me some Pesos, and one of the Aussies and I then walked across the park to the bus station to book our next moves.  On the way I spotted a fairly obvious war memorial to “Atlentico Sur, 1982” and I stopped to take a photo. 

Plaza South Atlanic in Salta

Memorial to those Argentine men from Salta who died in the Falklands War, 1982.  RIP. 

This caused a group of chaps who were at least the right age to be veterans to come over and, being friendly, ask where we were both from.  I had thought before that there might be times here when it could be better to pretend to be Aussie or South African (which everyone seems to assume I am anyway) and this would have been one of them.  However, I answered straight away “Ingleterra”, and they all wanted to shake my hand.  The obvious leader of the pack said “Ingleterra! Thatcher!”, and I had to give a thumbs-up and say “Ah, si, Thatcher!” (She is the only British politician in my lifetime to show any moral courage and pride in being British, hence the only one to induce a positive reaction from me!!) and there was lots of laughter and more hand-shaking.  Now, they might have all been taking the p*ss, (although I’m more likely to take offence when it’s not intended, rather than miss an opportunity for a confrontation), but I took their reaction as genuine, grudging respect for ‘The Iron Lady’.  However, I think I would prefer to have just talked to them about Los Pumas and their chances against the All Blacks, Springboks etc!

Bute Coffee Shop, Independence Plaza, Mendoza

Anyway, once I’d sorted myself out, and headed off on my own it was a 12 hour overnight bus from Salta down to Cordoba.  The bus journey itself was pretty uneventful except for the Argie/ South American habit on buses of just suddenly dropping their seat-backs down to as close to horizontal as possible, with no warning at all.  I’d thought it could be a bit of a shock if you were asleep and someone dropped their seat on to your knees- which I discovered it was.  It was almost as much of a shock for me as it was for the young chap in front of me who got a smack around the head, before I’d fully woken up (family tradition???).  He subsequently decided it was more comfortable to have his seat upright.

An illustration of the 'snug' proximity offered by an Argentine overnight sleeper bus- particularly if you hppen to be a 6'4" Alpha Male.

 

Cordoba is Argentina’s second biggest city, and has a large university/ student population.  However, I had no interest in seeing the city itself, but I just got straight on to another bus to the small town of Alta Gracia about an hour outside Cordoba.  This was the childhood home of the self-publicising, narcissistic trouble maker, Che Guevara (no, I’m not a fan).  I’ve always felt that anybody who proudly displays a T-shirt/ poster of him could do well to learn a bit more about him other than just that he hated America, and that they hated him.

The default image of Comrade Che.

                                                 

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara-Lynch was born in Rosario, near to Buenos Aires in 1928.  His parents were mixtures of Argentine, Spanish and, of course, Irish.  Che was born with acute asthma, which affected him throughout his life, but this prompted his parents to move to the better climate of Alto Gracia where he was brought up.   Despite his chronic respiratory difficulties he was apparently a good athlete (a combination I must confess a bit of grudging empathy for) and when at university, studying medicine in Buenos Aires, he played fly-half for the university’s rugby team.

Che's old casa in Alta Gracia, outside Cordoba.

While at university, during his holidays he made a couple of trips by motorbike, (at least partly), around South America, which it is claimed is when he saw the poverty being caused by the evil, capitalist Americans (yawn…) and decided to take it upon himself to right this injustice.

In 1954 as a qualified Dr, Comrade Che got himself a job at the General Hospital in Mexico City.  A year later he was introduced to the brothers Raul and Fidel Castro and joined their ‘26^th of July Movement’ (they love their dates down here), which was committed to overthrowing the Pro-American Batista regime in Cuba.  He volunteered to join the movement as a medic, but underwent their full guerrilla/ military training program, ran by veterans of the Spanish Civil War, which including forced marches through the jungle, learning to set and initiate ambushes- and then to get out of the area etc.  By all accounts he was the star pupil on the course. 



Che the warrior

                                                        

At the end of 1956 Che and 80 odd others sailed from Mexico to Cuba in an old cabin cruiser called ‘Granma’.  Soon after landing they were quickly engaged, and smashed by Batista’s troops, with only 22 surviving.  These men then regrouped and formed the basis for a guerrilla campaign against the Government, and they enjoyed widespread popular support.  During this time, having been previously reported as being dead, the mythical legend of Che the master rebel was born.  He set about training peasants in military tactics, as well as teaching literacy to the local population, setting up clinics to treat them and to win their “Hearts and minds”.  It was also during this time that he established a reputation among those he worked with for brutality.  Anybody suspected of treason or disloyalty to the cause would be summarily executed by Che, whose own written accounts of these incidents showed a chilling detachment from the horrific reality.  Mega great bloke.  On the 2^nd of January, following Batista’s escape to the Dominican Republic, Che marched into the capital Havana to take control, in what was his finest hour.

After the revolution he was given honorary Cuban citizenship and held various Cuban government positions, including finance minister and Ambassador to the United Nations in New York City.  He was also responsible for establishing the relationship with the Soviet Union that resulted in nuclear missiles being based on Cuban territory.  Subsequently President Kennedy (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.com.ar/2010/11/night-out-in-austin-before-solving.html) took exception to this during the Cuban Missile crisis when the World came to the brink of nuclear war, before the missiles were withdrawn by the Russians.  This withdrawal not only massively boosted the image of JFK, but actually started the process of the various Arms Reduction treaties, which thankfully brought about the end of the Cold War in the 80’s.

However, Comrade Che saw things somewhat differently and he felt that ‘nuking’ the Americans would have been the right thing to do, and he was disgusted by what he saw as Russian weakness.  He was subsequently as critical of the Soviet Union as he was of America, and sought to align himself more closely with China.  Like the idea of summarily executing his fellow revolutionaries in Cuba, this is probably part of the ‘Che’ story that your average, unwashed student sporting a Che T-shirt would struggle to remember.

Che’s next great crusade was to go to Africa to free the Africans of the shackles of the evil white men.  Despite being advised by Egyptian president Nasser, another 3^rd World dictator who liked to annoy the West that it would be a futile exercise, Che arrived in Congo in 1965.  It is said that Che struggled to find a way to work with the incompetent, poorly motivated troops- and having spent 7 months myself trying to motivate and train Afghan soldiers I, again, can relate to his experiences, “Mohammed where is Abdul?”  “He has gone to Kabul (300 miles away) to get a haircut…” SNAP!  However, in my experience I was working with the Americans, who are useful to have on your team, whereas they were working directly against Che.

 

Che livin' the revolution dream in Africa.

                      

There was a unit of ‘Green Beret’ Special Forces advisors in Congo, as well as a floating listening station of the National Security Agency (AKA No Such Agency) off the coast of Tanzania listening to his radio communications, and enabling his every move to be anticipated and disrupted.  The role of the Green Berets was to not only stop him, but they were also instructed to not actually kill him and make him into a martyr.  7 months later Che and his boys left Congo having achieved nothing, stating that “We cannot liberate by ourselves a country that does not want to fight”.  He then spent 6 months living between Dar es Salaam and Prague, before returning to Latin America.  He first went to Cuba, discreetly, before heading to Bolivia.

Once there he set up the ELN revolutionary army and had some successes in his initial ‘contacts’ with the Bolivian Army.  So successful, in fact, that the Bolivians thought they were confronting a far larger guerrilla force, and sent a disproportionately large number of troops, with American advisors, to the region to search for them.  Eventually on the 8^th of October 1967 the great revolutionary was shot in the leg and captured by Bolivian troops.  While there were various attempts by the Americans for a spot of “Rendition” to Panama, the Bolivian President, fearing his escape, ordered his execution, which was carried out by a Sgt the following day, supposedly to make it look like he’d died in battle.  His body was then granted the standard 3^rd world level of respect- his hands were chopped off, put into formaldehyde and sent to Buenos Aires for formal fingerprint identification, and what was left was dumped in an unmarked grave, to only be exhumed in the 90’s.  While Cuba declared 3 days of national mourning, it still all seemed a little bit of an anti-climax.

Che wounded, at point of capture by Bolivian troops.

                                                              

My thoughts on Che are that he was obviously a tough and competent leader of men, but his problem was that he believed his own propaganda.  He did well in Cuba, when reined in by the Castro brothers, however he failed to see his own limitations.  He had latched on to the idea that he could make himself look great by appearing to help poor people, annoy America etc.  However, his own ego could not allow him to see that kicking off World War 3 to annoy JFK would not really have done a great deal to help all the millions of people around the world who would have been on the receiving end of the ‘instant sunshine’.  While I generally disapprove of celebrating the death of anyone, I think Che, like Osama bin Laden, is one of those people whose death was actually for the benefit of humanity.

Drinking with the Incas: Lima to Cusco, through Bolivia, down to Argentina.

Currently sitting in Hostel Linda in Salta with obligatory Australians and Israelis.  I’ve been in Argentina just over 24 hours and have already had epic steak, seen Tango, seen loads of beautiful women, seen rugby highlighted- and I also saw a sign at the border saying, inaccurately, that the Falkland Islands (or whatever they call them) are Argentinian.  Pretty much all preconceptions have been met.

After watching the Wales Argentina game, and England Fiji game in my hotel room in Lima a couple of weeks ago, I checked out of my hotel in the Mira Flores district and went about booking a bus to Cusco.  In the travel agent the Senora told me it would actually be the same price to fly to Cusco- except an hour rather than 24 hrs on the bus…  Decisions, decisions.  After booking the flight for the next day, and paying, she then said it was actually at 6AM, and I needed to be at Lima airport at 4AM.  Read the small print and weep. 

While contemplating my next move, I found myself in ‘Ye Olde English Pub’, looking for lunch, and finding a diverse crowd of characters.  This included a load of old boys, both American and Aussie, who were Vietnam veterans, and were not only interested in hearing about Afghanistan, but also about my visit to ‘Nam at the beginning of last year, as none of them had been back.  There was also a 22 yr old ex-British soldier, who had come back from Afghan in March, various American and Canadian ex-pat, business types as well as a particularly bitter, old Irishman who was emphatically not British- and who took an immediate shine to my sense of humour “Don’t worry mate, you can have some of my potatoes…”

Somehow or other, I made it from the pub to the airport for 4AM, with all my kit, and got the flight to Cusco.  Cusco is the old Inca capital, where the invading Spanish graciously smashed up all the Inca temples and built churches on the same sites.  Today Cusco is a tourist trap, which reminded me of Hoi An in Vietnam because it is clearly aimed less at the scruffy, ‘wife-beater’ wearing Australian/ ‘Gap-Yah’ back-packer and more at older, rich American tourists.  It is also extremely high up- although I don’t think my initial feeling of nausea when I arrived there was entirely due to the altitude…

Main Square in Cusco.

More Cusco

The reason why everybody goes to Cusco is that it is the gateway to the ‘Lost City’ of Machu Picchu, and there are various ways of getting there- the most famous, which people book months in advance, is the 4 day ‘Inca Trail’ march through the jungle.  This is not only quite expensive, but potentially quite a ‘rooting’ (as the Aussies would say) and not in keeping with my policy of not exerting myself when not being paid to.  However, I did need to go and see the Lost City, and couldn’t quite bring myself to get a bus to the top, so I booked myself on the 2 day variant, which involved a 6AM start on the Tuesday.  The sensible thing to do would have been to have had a quiet night on the Monday night… so obviously I went out to the Irish bar (highest in the world, to be sure) then ‘Mama Africa’s’ Club, before going back to the hotel I was staying in, packing my kit and heading to get the bus.  Drinking all night, followed by a 6-7 hour bus ride along extremely narrow, winding mountain roads is not exactly the most, possible fun to be had in life.  We were in a tiny minibus, with as many ‘gringo’s’ as possible rammed in, but there was no way, at all to make yourself comfortable, and my head, knees, elbows were getting bashed with every turn, while I just felt like death warmed up.  At one point we were stopped at a Peruvian Police Vehicle Check Point and all had to get out and line up as the vehicle was searched.  One of the Americans laughed that this was where we would all get shot- “I certainly hope so!”

Once we eventually got to our ‘Drop Off Point’ we were told that it was just a walk straight down the railway track to ‘Agua Calientes’ (Hot water), where we would spend the night in the hostel- and that “You can’t miss it…”.  I found myself teamed up with a Dutch couple from Utrecht (my current favourite European city) and a German couple, and it was quite a pleasant stroll through the jungle. We also had to jump out of the way of the train as it came up behind us, all good fun.  As with all these things, I couldn’t help thinking about whoever it was who had to hack their way through the jungle initially to build the train line- rather them than me! 

Stroll through the jungle.

More 'J'...

Mind the train!

After a couple of hours, and a couple of ‘Sickener’, false horizons, in the dark and the rain, we eventually got to Agua Calientes, located our guide in the main square and were taken to our hostel.  The form was we’d sort ourselves out, go to dinner at some restaurant that was part of the same tour company/ racket, and then get a brief on the next day’s activities.

At 4AM the following morning, after a couple of hours sleep, as I was standing in the rain, in the dark, making sure everybody was OK, and had got the right kit etc, it did occur to me that I’m supposed to be on holiday!  We then wandered the 20 minutes or so to the gate by the bridge for the start of the climb, as instructed, and were then told we had to wait until 5AM as it didn’t open until then- so far so standard, “If you can’t take a joke, don’t join… etc”.   We were told it would take about an hour and a half/ 2 hours to climb the thousands of steps up to the main entrance to Machu Picchu, and the German couple swiftly dropped back feeling their chain smoking, while the Dutch couple who were clearly the active, sporty type, decided to ‘beast it’ up the hill.  Sadly, I couldn’t help keeping up with them as I was remembering previous jokes about Dutch people and hills, and nothing in life is about turning up and taking part!  After 45 mins, I could hear a bus going past on the road, that criss-crosses the steps all the way up, a few meters ahead of me, and I was cursing myself for not getting the bus.  However as we got up to where the sound of the bus was, we discovered it was actually the main entrance, and the end of the ‘hike’- thank f*ck!

Tourists waiting to get into 'Lost City' at 6AM.

Once inside Machu Picchu itself, it was obviously quite a spectacular scene, and definitely worth getting up there earlier than the main crowds.  The exact original purpose of Machu Picchu is unclear, although there are various theories, so it is a bit like Stonehenge (which I’ve seen once, from the back of a 4 Tonne lorry) in that an awful lot of effort was clearly put into building it- but God knows why.  The other thing that struck me was the fact that when construction of it began in the Mid 15^th Century, those building it were obviously oblivious that a couple of decades later Christopher Columbus and co would be getting ‘Navigationally Embarrassed’ on their way to India/ China, and finding America by mistake.

Looking down at Machu Picchu

More Machu Picchu

And some more.

After a half day or so of wandering around the Lost City (which had only been found by an American ‘Indiana Jones’ type in the Twenties), it was back to Cusco for a couple of days.

The plan was to go from there to La Paz, the Bolivian capital by bus.  However, once again, we discovered that it was as cheap to fly- and there was a small matter of a rugby match to watch with some Aussie boys I’d originally met in Colombia, who turned up at Machu Picchu, so we stayed until after the rugby.  (Needless to say if any Aussie asks, I have no interest in rugby, and never have had…)  Sadly the airline decided to ground the flight that day, so we didn’t leave Cusco until the Monday- 8 days after I’d arrived.

On the flight to La Paz we flew over Lake Titicaca, one of the things to see in South America, 20 minutes after Take Off- rather than 12 hours after the bus would have rolled off.  Been there, done that!

Lake Titicaca, on Peru, Bolivia border.

My plan in La Paz, which I had no particular interest in seeing, was to spend a night there and then head off to Argentina, which like Colombia I really do want to see.  Sadly, Wednesday was the day of the 10 yearly national census in Bolivia so nobody could go anywhere from the Tuesday, and nobody could go outside the hostel at all on the Wednesday on threat of US$1,000 fine or 8 days in jail.  For me, this meant I spent a few hours on Tuesday walking around the city embracing the high altitude- and feeling like an asthmatic, chain-smoker doing the London Marathon.  We then just had to stay in the hostel with everyone that was there, drinking Cervazas and Jaeger bombs all day and night on the Wednesday, which pretty much wrote off Thursday for everyone.

La Paz

La Paz- this particular 'plaza' reminded me of Ramallah, in the West Bank.

"Strewth!"  Skippy getting a 'pick-me-up' during the census.

La Paz

Enduring the Bolivian census in the hostel...

As my Aussie friends’ plans of going to the jungle had been written off by the census we all just decided to fly down to Uyuni in the South of Bolivia to have a look at the Salt Plains there, on the way to Argentina.  Interestingly we discovered that the Bolivian Air Force Logistics Arm was used as a tourist, budget airline!

After getting up at 4AM on the Friday we headed to the Bolivian Air Force base in La Paz to get our flight to Uyuni, I was looking out on the tarmac at a load of C130 Hercules transport aircraft there, and I laughed at the possibility that all the tourists were going to be introduced to that particular joy.    However, as it got lighter I realised that those particular aircraft were actually wrecks, rotting on the flight line- a typical 3^rd world use of, no-doubt, American aid for some ungrateful regime or other.  There was, however, another, newer, C130 in full Coca Cola livery, which I still am at a loss to work out what its story was!!

Genuinely, WTF???

At about 8AM we arrived at Uyuni, which truly is a sh*t hole and reminded me in terms of both wealth and architecture of Southern Iraq, and we set about heading out to see the Salt Plains.  We then discovered it would be much easier to get the train that night (unfortunately 10PM, rather than ‘Midnight train’) to the Argie border, so we booked the train then headed out to the desert/ Salt Plains, via some railway graveyard, in a 7 seat Land Cruiser, with a Bolivian guide and 4 Argentinians, none of whom could speak English.  There is much fun to be head with photography in the featureless salt Plains...

The majestic beauty of Uyuni...

Had to be done!

Train graveyard at Uyuni

Local wildlife on Salt Plains...  Perspective is a wonderful thing!

And some more...

After a spot of dinner (authentic pizza…) we then got on the train, which was actually like the yank AmTrak trains, built for big Americans, rather than tiny Bolivians.  Once at the border town of Villazon, where we arrived about 8AM, we were pleased to discover that our bags were still there, and we then got a cab to the border and strolled into Argentina.  Once inside I was the last of our crowd of Brits and Aussies to go through Argentinian border control, and for some reason the chap looking at my passport, which has no indication of how I earn a living, decided to call his boss over, and the others wondered if I’d been ‘pinged’.  However they eventually gave it back without comment, and off we went. 

Border crossing- last photo before Argies told me to put camera away.

I was thinking that the Argentinian paramilitary ‘Gendarmes’ running the border did remind of pictures I’ve seen of Argentinians surrendering by the thousand at Goose Green, Port Stanley etc, and sure enough we were greeted by the below sign:

Welcome to our British guests...

Regardless of anything else, they lost the Falklands War spectacularly, they achieved nothing except getting 700 odd of their own soldiers killed, and they will never get them back as long as the Falkland Islanders themselves, who despise the Argies due to the way they were treated during the invasion, continue to wish to remain British.  The latest opinion poll of the Falkland Islanders when asked about the choice of British or Argentinian nationality stated 98% wanted to remain British- probably somewhat higher than if the same question was asked in the United Kingdom!  If Mrs Kirchner wants to pick a fight, she’d be better off invading Bolivia- they need it more.

Anyway, from the border town of we got the 8 hr bus to the city of Salta.  On the bus you can see the transition from the indigenous poverty of Bolivia to the ‘Western European’ Argentina as we got closer to Salta.

We then dumped our kit in the hostel, had a few beers and headed out to see what goes on in Salta- and were pleased that our pre-conceptions were proven correct.  Going out to get an awesome steak dinner at midnight is a bonus anywhere, and will no doubt be being done again tonight…