Travel Journal

By Charles Thacher

Christmas is drawing nigh, the weather has changed, and the seemingly endless election is over – or is it? In the time of Covid, uncertainty stalks the land. Will a vaccine really work? Or maybe three or four? Will we have a choice, and how would we know which to choose? In this age of fake news and rampant conspiracies, will enough people agree to take a vaccine to create herd immunity, or will we still be masking next summer? We’re in Rummy’s world of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. My personal known unknown is that I will probably not be going to Argentina to fish in 2021, for only the third time in over two decades, since Covid has closed the country indefinitely for American visitors. 

My first trip to Argentina was in January, 1995, with my son Tom, then a college senior. After spending a few days sightseeing in Buenos Aires, we flew about 1,000 miles southwest to San Carlos de Bariloche, the largest city in Argentine Patagonia. Brock Richardson, our guide for the trip, met us at the airport with his van.  Bariloche is situated on the large and beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. By the way, the names of the lakes, rivers and many other features in Patagonian Argentina, are not Spanish, but from the spoken languages used by the region’s indigenous tribes. We by-passed the City and Lake, to head a couple of hours north for a two day stay at the Primavera Lodge on the famous Rio Traful, which runs from Lago Traful for about 10 miles into a reservoir. 

The Traful is known for its lovely turquoise pools, fascinating rock formations, enormous trout, and landlocked salmon, the latter a rarity in Patagonian rivers. Our Lodge and its entire side of the river was acquired by American magnate, Ted Turner, in 1998, and is now off limits to everyone except for himself and his guests, which angers many Argentines, who consider the River a national treasure. The other side of the River is owned by an Argentine family that operates one of the more luxurious and expensive fishing lodges in the world. There is a hatchery on the Traful, and some of the best fishing is just downstream from it, as the hatchery food leaks into the River, and the fish eat constantly with minimal effort, often becoming obese, much like a dump bear. We caught some very nice trout of over 4-pounds throughout the river, but in the hatchery section Tom hooked a real monster. The fish rocketed up from the bottom and attempted a jump, that I suppose it remembered being able to do in its youth, but in its now-corpulent state, it failed and as its tail was about to clear the water, it collapsed and fell on the leader, breaking it. The fish of a lifetime, but we had to laugh. We guessed that it was nearly two-and-a-half feet long, and weighed well over than ten pounds. Later, at the Lodge, we examined the logbook and found numerous entries in past decades describing trout that were of similar bulk.  During that first stay, we were introduced to the wonderful Argentine flan, served with dulce de leche, the delectable caramel-like sweet sauce – made from slow-cooking cow’s milk and sugar – which Argentines eat on many foods, and is now popular in the U.S. The combination remains a favorite of mine.

We left the Traful and drove several hours northeast to the fabled Chimehuin River, which drains from Lago Huechulaufquen, near the Chilean border, and runs about forty miles before joining the Aluminé River. Our first encounter with the Chimehuin went badly. The wind was blowing a gale, even on Patagonia’s lofty standards, and there were few bushes or trees lining the banks to block it. Casting a dry fly with our light rods in such a powerful wind was hopeless, so we fished under the surface with weight and short lines. As we were standing in the current, the raging wind literally blew us upstream. And because it was swirling, even fishing a short line was difficult and risky to our body parts. It was most unpleasant and after a couple of hours of catching nothing, Brock decided that we would move to a section of the River that had better wind protection. 

Just after pulling out of the field where we were parked, traveling on the rough dirt road heading toward the main paved road, we picked up an Argentine soldier hitchhiking back to his base, which Brock said was about 20 miles away.  Brock spoke only a little Spanish and Tom & I even less, so we couldn’t ask him how and why he got there. Minutes after picking him up, the van sputtered a couple of times, then died.  The soldier immediately got out and started walking up the road, wisely escaping his ride from hell. Brock got under the van and came back with the bad news – a broken accelerator cable. Then we noticed that several hundred yards up the road the soldier leaned over, picked up something, turned around and was walking back toward us. When he reached the van, he showed us what he had found – a wire hanger. Brock immediately got it, saying “that’s our cable.” Amazingly, it seemed that our guest must have quickly diagnosed the problem and, like any good soldier, he marched off to find a solution. We couldn’t determine which of the events that we had witnessed was the most bizarre – that a soldier was hitchhiking on a remote dirt road leading to nowhere but a dead end, that there was a wire hanger lying along that same road, or that the soldier found the hanger and knew that it was what we needed. In any event, we felt partially blessed, then fully after Brock added to our wonderment, by crafting a working cable from the hanger, and attaching it. The van coughed a bit, and wouldn’t go very fast, but we were on our way again. 

Brock rightly decided to drive the soldier back to his base, and used his satellite phone to call a local friend, Hector Scagnetti, and ask him to come meet us. He arrived, left his car for us to continue fishing, and drove the sputtering van the hour or so back to his home in San Martin. We had a mediocre afternoon on a slightly less windy stretch of the River. Brock mentioned that Hector and his wife Ida owned Cabañas Arco Iris, a group of five lovely small houses on their property, which they rent to tourists, and that Hector had asked him if the three of us would like to join his family for dinner at their house, close to our hosteria (small hotel). We jumped at the chance. When we arrived at their house, Hector and Ida met us, accompanied by their two children, Mariana, a senior in high school, and her two-year younger brother, Ezequiel. Hector was standing by our van, and said something in Spanish to Brock, the only bit that I could understand being the words “Americanos” and “jury-rig”. I asked Brock what he had said, and he wasn’t exactly certain, but thought it translated roughly as “You Americans don’t know how to jury-rig anything”. I was surprised that someone who spoke very little English would know the odd expression “jury-rig”, but many subsequent experiences in Argentina have enlightened me as to its importance. In a couple of hours, Hector had taken the same hanger and built a “proper” cable. It worked perfectly for the remainder of our trip, and two years later Brock told me it was still on the van and doing fine.  

Dinner with the Scagnetti family was delightful. Ida served a superb Italian-Spanish fusion meal, and Hector’s local wines were excellent. Mariana, had studied English and was fluent. Her parents and brother spoke only a few words of English, so Mariana interpreted for all of us. She was smart, self-confident, attractive and funny – very impressive. At a point in the engaging evening, I asked her whether she was going to university. She said that her family could not afford it, and she hoped to get a job in the travel industry, as San Martin was a popular tourist destination. I suggested that, given her command of English and obvious intelligence, perhaps she could get a scholarship to attend an American college. When Mariana explained to Hector what I said, he nearly choked on his food. He was not happy, no doubt wondering why this American stranger would plant the thought with his beloved daughter of leaving home to attend school abroad, and how the family could ever afford the cost of such a venture.  But the seed germinated, and it serendipitously led all of us on an unexpected and wonderful relationship that has lasted for over 25 years. When I returned home, I checked with several colleges in the Northeast and found that Mariana would need to take the International SATs to be considered for admission, which was impossible for her. But Brock contacted Westminster College, an excellent small school near his home in Salt Lake City, and it did not require the exams. So, Mariana went there with generous support from the Richardson family, graduated in three years while working several jobs, married a Utahn, and has built an impressive career in finance. She became head of Latin American client services for a large Western bank, and is now running her own private wealth management business in Salt Lake City, that serves many prominent Latin American business owners and their families. A real American immigrant success-story.

After our dinner, which ended at nearly midnight, Brock asked Tom if he’d like to go to the local disco. I told them it was okay with me, but we were gathering for breakfast at 8AM, regardless of how little sleep they got or how hung-over they were. They staggered in about 7AM. Tom said that there were only a few people in the disco until after 2AM, then a huge crowd showed up, and he and Brock were among the first to leave. This story seemed far-fetched, but gained credibility, when we noted as we left our hosteria about 9AM, that two young men who were employed behind the desk, were just arriving for work, directly from the same disco. Brock and Tom had a rough day, but to their credit, we lost no fishing time. 

After the night in San Martin, we traveled nearly 100 miles north, mostly on dirt roads, with excellent fishing in three other fine rivers, before returning to Bariloche to fly home.  It was a great trip, and I was eager to return. Two years later I did. I bought a few maps to do some planning, and decided that I could rent a car and find access to the rivers that we had fished, and perhaps others, without use of a guide. I have always preferred to fish alone or with a friend. I faxed Hector to see if he would like to fish with me for a few days, assuming that he could get my message translated.  He responded that he would, and even invited me to stay at their house. 

In early February, 1997, I traveled to San Martin. I had identified a spot on the drive from Bariloche where the road crossed the Quilquihue River, and it looked to be about a one mile walk down to its confluence with the Chimehuin. The Quilquihue was too deep and closed in by willows to walk in, there was no obvious trail, and it took far longer to bushwhack through the trees and the damnable briars than I expected. When I got to the Chimehuin, I was at the head of a long, deep pool, lined on my side with large willows. A beautiful riffle entered the pool over a gravel bar. As lovely a spot as I could imagine. But to fish the pool I had to wade across the river, which was over 20 yards wide, up to waist deep and moving fast. I made it, but not without considerable trepidation. The wind was blowing hard. At the top of the pool, on the far side under a big willow, and barely within my casting range, was an eddy – a typical spot for fish to be feeding.  I put on a big dry fly and cast it into the eddy, where it immediately began to drag unrealistically. Damn! Then bam! A large trout hit it, jumped several times, and eventually I landed the 19” rainbow. A few minutes later I caught a clone of that fish in the same spot with the same ersatz technique. As I moved downstream, fishing across the pool to the willows on the far side, no fish moved. At some point, I lazily let my line drift until it was straight downstream, and as I raised my rod and began stripping it in, it was eaten by a large brown trout, which I soon netted. It suddenly dawned on me that these fish wanted floating flies being pulled upstream. The rest of the day that’s how I fished through the big pool and two below it that were similar. It was one of the best days of fishing that I have had, with about 30 fish from 15”-20” coming to the net, using a strange technique, and despite the relentless wind.  

I was a bit anxious as I drove to Hector’s house, as we had met previously only for a few hours and hardly spoken at all. But when he greeted me with a warm welcome, speaking English, I completely relaxed. I had a wonderful dinner and evening with him, Ida and Ezequiel (Mariana was in College in the U.S.), exchanging information about our lives and families, and of course I told him about my exceptional day of fishing. He had never been to the spot and wanted to go there the next day, which we did, finding a much better route for walking. Of course, it was like a different river. The wind had subsided, the fish wouldn’t touch a fly that was swimming upstream, and we each caught six or eight – not bad but far short of my solitary experience just one day earlier. We fished together on another famous river, the Malleo, for two more days, then I went farther north to fish by myself for five days, before returning to San Martin, then home. 

Fishing with Hector introduced me to mate (pronounced matay), an herbal tea made from leaves of the yerba mate plant, which contains caffeine and a second mild stimulant. Nearly everyone who I’ve met in Argentina drinks mate, often throughout the day. Typically, a small ornamental cup is about half-filled with ground leaves, and hot water is added. A silver straw is used to drink the mate, serving as a filter to block leaf particles from being in the drink. Mate is quite bitter, and I find it difficult to digest. It’s ritualistic, a bit like smoking pot fifty years ago. When a cup of mate is prepared, it is often passed around to whoever is present, and guests are traditionally offered the first drink, which is supposed to be the purest and best. Hector would drink mate with breakfast, for twenty minutes or so before he would begin fishing, then take a mate break during the day, and often have cup when we arrived back at the car. Usually, mate was accompanied by a cigarette. While he was drinking, I was often fishing, yet he generally caught as many fish as I did. Perhaps a bit more contemplation on my part would enhance my success.

While staying with Hector and Ida, I have gotten to know San Martin. With a population of about 25,000, but many more in the summer, it is the nicest town that I have visited in all of South America, and for me, the equal of any in our Rockies. It has a gorgeous setting, next to the beautiful Lago Lacar, surrounded by high mountains, and has a fine ski area, public beach. excellent restaurants, hotels, shops and a myriad of summer outdoor activities, such as hiking, fishing, camping and golf. It is very clean, and looks Tyrolean, with many half-timbered houses and finely crafted wooden buildings. And, apparently, a thriving disco.

In subsequent visits to Argentina, I have fished in dozens of rivers extending over a region running from 300 miles south of San Martin to 100 miles north. On several trips Ann has joined me, not only for fishing, but to visit sites such as the spectacular Iguazu Falls, Mendoza and its wine country, and the excellent beaches in nearby Uruguay and Brazil.      

But, even more rewarding than the great fishing and sightseeing, has been  the warm friendship that Ann and I developed with Hector and Ida. We have joined them in Salt Lake City, Paris, Washington D.C, and our homes in New York and Virginia. We have also visited Mariana in Utah and New York, and Ezequiel, when he lived for several years in Belgium. And, it all started because of a broken accelerator cable. 

Tragically, Ida passed away three years ago, and we miss her terribly, but we have enjoyed meeting the charming Monica, who Hector knew in high school, and recently reconnected with through Facebook. Those trips, and my subsequent fishing excursions in Argentina, have provided fodder for future articles, that I hope to write.

By Charles Thacher

It’s August and the Covid hunkerdown continues unabated. I’m sitting here in Keswick, listening to the muscular roar of the bikes as they bust out of  the Cismont Store parking lot – which is giving me a hard case of Sturgis-envy, especially when I see pictures of all the bulging biker-babes in their red baseball caps and tattooed bods, ridin’, drinkin’ and playin’ hard, while all the while, standin’ by their god-fearing men. But, even for them, life has gotten tougher. Two years back they permanently lost the Testicle Festival in Montana – a stopover of sublime debauchery for those cruising toward Sturgis from the west – and now they have to risk their lives to pursue the god-given pagan ritual that’s as American as apple pie. But bikers are nothing if they are not tough, and those that survive Covid will return, keeping America great.   

For me, it’s the first year that I haven’t planned a trip to fish the West in almost 40 years. I may yet, but Covid, combined with two cracked ribs from separate klutzy mishaps have, so far, shut me down. When I think back to my first occidental angling excursion, and how it started, perhaps it’s surprising that I ever took another. I had been dabbling at fly-fishing for a couple of years in early 1982, when I read an article about a trip to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area (called “The Bob” by locals and afficionados) in Montana, that combined nearly two days of riding horses and a bit more than four days of floating on the South Fork of the Flathead River, through a pristine and remote area. I knew enough about fly-fishing to know that Montana was considered American Nirvana for pursuing it, and decided that this was the trip for me to get properly introduced. 

The Bob is one of the largest wilderness areas in the U.S., slightly smaller than the state of Delaware. By law, it has no roads, but nearly 2,000 miles of trails, limited for use by people and stock. The South Fork begins in the southern part of The Bob, and travels northerly for nearly 100 miles (including the enormous Hungry Horse Reservoir) to join the Middle Fork and the North Fork, and form the main stem of the Flathead River, which flows into the Clark Fork of the Columbia, and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. 

I contacted the author of the article to get information about the outfitters that he had used for his trip – it was Gene Lee, assisted by his son, Cameron. The Author said that they were the only outfit running fishing trips in The Bob. I tracked Gene down on his ranch at the southern end of Hungry Horse, to get some details. He said that he would take two rafts accommodating at most four anglers, and that there was a narrow window of about six weeks to go, from late July through early September. Before that the spring runoff made the river too high and off-color, and after that the chances of snow and freezing weather were too great. The anglers didn’t need to be skilled riders, but they did have to be willing and able to sit on a horse for about 40 miles (35 going in and five coming out), sometimes over rough terrain. That was more miles than the total that I had ridden in my lifetime, but being intrepid or, more likely, lamebrained, I booked the first week in August and set about recruiting some friends to join me. Fortunately, Deliverance was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and I found three guys who, like me, pictured themselves as Burt Reynolds, although probably we all secretly thought that at least three Ned Beattys were among us. Doug was an old friend and an experienced and skilled outdoorsman. Tom a fishing friend, and Mike a lawyer and business associate. I was The Organizer, which would become important.

The trip started on Saturday, and the day before we stayed in Kalispell, Montana. That evening we went to see and fish the South Fork where it emerged below the dam that formed the Hungry Horse. OMG! It was the coldest river that any of us had ever encountered – about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  We only had light pack waders, and couldn’t stand in the river for more than a few minutes. Plus, we caught no fish. We were all neophyte anglers and had no idea that water being released from the bottom of a dam would be much colder (and support fewer fish) than that in the river above the reservoir. We figured that we had made a really bad choice of a river that we could not walk into, and that seemed devoid of fish. The Organizer caught some abuse at dinner, which soon became a pattern.

Saturday we were up early to take the 60-mile or so drive to Gene Lee’s ranch. The rough dirt road along the Reservoir was slower than expected, but we got there by 10AM, the appointed meeting time. A woman answered the door, introduced herself as Gene’s wife, and told us that he was out “looking for his horses.” 

“Didn’t he know that we were coming to start a week-long trip today?”

“Yes, he knows, but the horses that he normally takes on his trips escaped overnight, and he and Cameron are flying around in Gene’s plane to see if he can find them. He should be back soon. Why don’t you have some sandwiches while you are waiting”. I don’t know what surprised us more – that our guide lost his horses or that he had a plane.

Having no better choice, we lunched. After a couple of hours, The Organizer started to get the glares from the other three, similar to the night before. Gene finally showed up at about 1PM, in a foul mood. He looked to be about 60 years old, seemed more than a bit cantankerous, and was very grizzled. His wife asked him about the lost horses. 

“Couldn’t find em.”

I muttered, “What are we going to do?”

“What d’ya think we’re gonna do? Only got one choice. Take the reserves. They haven’t done this trip in about three years, but they’ll have to do. Let’s get started. We’re late.” I didn’t think that “we” were late, but kept that inside. 

Gene and Cameron loaded the ten horses (six for riding and four packhorses) into some trucks and we drove about 15 miles to the Spotted Bear Campground, where we would start. Three wranglers on horses met us there, with the rafts and the other equipment. They would ride with us for the 35 miles over two days, set up the first night’s campsite en route, drop off our equipment at the headwaters of the South Fork, ride back to Spotted Bear with the pack horses, then meet up with us again when we pulled out of the River at the end of the float, pack up, and we’d all go back to Spotted Bear.

The wranglers took the pack horses aside and started loading them with equipment. Gene said “I’ll ride the big bay mare, cause she’s pregnant and is like to be in a foul mood. And she ain’t been ridden in a few years. He put the saddle and bridle on, walked around with her for a couple of minutes, speaking to her in the soft, dulcet tones of a horse whisperer, then he mounted her. Holy s..t! Her hindquarters went four feet in the air, Gene flew about six feet and landed on his butt with a thud! The horse continued jumping around and snorting fire. Cameron quickly grabbed about ten feet of rope with a loop on one end, he put the loop around her neck, and tied the other end to a small tree. The big horse started running in circles around the tree until the rope got so short that she flipped over and was lying on her back – feet kicking up into the air and still snorting. Cameron walked up to her and, with his metal toed boot, kicked her as hard as he could, smack in middle of the head. Her eyes started dancing around in the sockets, looking as whacked out as Kid Sheleen’s steed in Cat Ballou. Then they went blank, and she passed out. We had placed our lives for six days in the care of Curly from City Slickers, and his scary son. We were terrified.

Meanwhile, Gene was back on his feet. Cameron threw a bucket of water from a stream on the recalcitrant mare’s head, and she revived. He loosened the rope, helped her up, and Gene mounted her again. She dejectedly hung her head, and began docilely walking up the trail. Doug finally worked up the courage to mount his horse. No problems, and we all climbed on without incident. We started up the trail with Gene ambling along in the lead, followed by the four of us, then the pack horses, all watched by the wranglers, and Cameron bringing up the rear.

The peace was short lived. The pack horses were tied to one another in a line, and the second pack horse started nipping at the butt of the first, and a wrangler gave him a bit of the lash. But he wouldn’t quit, then the third pack horse started nipping at the second horse’s butt. Gene said don’t worry, that these horses, being reserves, had never been in a pack together and that a pack horse had strong beliefs about where he rightfully belonged in the pecking order. The nipping horses resented being behind the imposters ahead of them. We took his word for it, until we were riding up a steep and narrow stretch of the trail, and the first horse finally lost his patience and spun around to bite the nose of the second horse, who promptly did the same to the third horse. In a nanosecond the whole pack train slid off the side of the trail and about thirty feet down into a ravine. The packs came apart and we could hear the sound of horses whinnying and smashing stuff. Holy s..t again!  

Gene started screaming expletives at the pack horses, which seemed futile, while the wranglers and Cameron went down to untangle the mess. Amazingly, none of the horses were hurt. Only a spare oar, a net and some other equipment of minor import was broken. It took over an hour to re-assemble the pack train. While our leaders were doing that, our group had a meeting, the gist of which was “you’re The Organizer, so how the hell did you ever find these people?”. I deflected all responsibility, pointed out that logistically and financially we had no option other than continuing on, and the others begrudgingly accepted their fates. We all pondered how we could survive six days with these Keystone Kops. To our relief the wranglers re-ordered the pack horses and, sure enough, the pack train never had another incident.

In short order we came to a spot where the trail, maybe seven feet wide, bent to the right, and followed for several hundred yards in a semi-circle next to a high wall on our left. Gene said that the wranglers and the pack horses would turn left before the wall, and take a detour on the other side of it, which was about a half mile longer. As we approached the wall, we saw why. The trail alongside it overlooked, on the right, a sheer cliff with a straight vertical drop off of perhaps 400 hundred feet. Whoa! 

Tom asked Gene, “do you really want us to go on this trail?”  

“Yup, always do. But if you’re too scared, you can go with the wranglers.” 

He was challenging our manhood, but Tom was not embarrassed, and promptly joined the wranglers. I will admit that looking over that cliff from three feet above the top of a horse gave me that unpleasant feeling deep in my bowels, or some male place in that vicinity, that I get only from peering straight down from great heights. Apparently, I wasn’t alone because Mike got off his horse and said that he’d walk with his horse behind us. Doug and I proceeded, but our horses kept leaning toward the drop off and looking directly down. That scared the bejesus out of us, and we tried to pull the horse’s heads back toward the wall, which they wanted no part of. Gene lost it. 

“What the hell are you morons doing? Don’t you know that your horse doesn’t want to go over that cliff any more than you do? If you stop him from seeing what’s there, he may accidentally go over it. Let him look and he won’t. That’s just common sense.”

My solution was for me to stop looking and stare at the wall. Soon we were at the end of the wall and the cliff, and feeling pretty good about ourselves. Foolishly, because we were just sitting on top of a horse. After the cliff incident, things became pretty normal. Mike decided that he liked walking with his horse, and never re-mounted for the entire thirty miles or so, in and out. Tom liked Mike’s idea, and walked most of the rest of the trip. Doug and I wanted to get our money’s worth, and rode all of the way. The price for me was sore thighs and walking bowlegged for a few days – well worth it.   

We came back down to the river for the first night’s camp. Our group fished while camp was being set up, and dinner prepared. It was our first River sighting up close, and it was the most beautiful that I had ever seen, and still is today. The water was crystal clear, with long riffles and deep pools, where I could clearly see stones on the bottom, 15 or 20 feet down. I was really a beginner fly fisher, having been a few times and never taken lessons. The river was perfect for my skill set, as it had wide banks and nothing to interfere with my back casts, which were lousy. In fact, when I dropped the fly in the water on my back cast, normally a bad mistake, frequently a fish would take it, and as I began making the forward cast a trout would go flying through the air. The river had a large population of scrappy Montana Cutthroat trout, and catching fish on dry flies, was simple, even for someone as inept as I was. Most of the fish were in the 10-13” range, with occasional larger ones up to about 17”. The River also had bull trout, which grow very large, but the guides didn’t mention them, and we never fished below the surface, where they hang out. 

The clarity of the water on the South Fork was extraordinary. Looking out at the current, it was easy to seriously misjudge its depth. We learned this the first morning. Tom, who was very tall, but not the steadiest wader, walked out into a current which looked to be about two feet deep, but was actually well over three feet and moving faster than it appeared. When he tried to turn around to retreat (mistakenly facing downstream), exposing the full width of his body to the current, it swept him off his feet and he took two somersaults downstream. It was a very dangerous situation, but he righted himself somehow, and was able to swim and crawl to the bank, remarkably unharmed except for a few bruises. After that, he never waded out in the current again and we were all more respectful of the River’s power. The first night at camp we had a great meal, some beer and booze (before the days that wine was de rigueur), and the four of us settled down to drink and play poker. Gene looked on, and asked if he could join us. Turned out he loved poker and beer, and from then on, the five of us played every night, and he lightened up and became a fine and engaging host. He knew The Bob as well as anyone, and on the second day’s ride we saw some extraordinary scenery, including the famed Chinese Wall – a massive escarpment about 1,000 feet high and 12 miles long – that runs along the Continental Divide. Although The Bob contains many large animals, including black and grizzly bears, we saw only tracks or scat of them, except for a few mountain goats at a natural salt lick. On the other hand, we did not see another human being in the six days.

Floating the spectacularly beautiful river was pretty mellow. There was one short rapid that the guides took by themselves. It wasn’t really dangerous, but this was an angling, not whitewater, trip. We pulled out to return to Spotted Bear just before the dangerous gorge, which is basically impassable (we saw it from about 1,000 feet up on the trail, and were told that it is so narrow, that you would have to swim through with the raft turned on its side). Missing that pullout could be a death sentence. And all day, every day, the fishing was superb. We caught as many fish as we wanted (the first day I counted 70, then ceased counting), and watching them slowly rise to the surface of a clear, azure pool from fifteen feet below to eat a large Royal Wolff or Humpy will be etched in my memory forever. One day we stopped to take a lovely hike to a small lake, catching both great scenery and, in the outlet, the largest fish of our trip.

Today, the trip into the Bob to fish the South Fork is quite popular and, in fact, there are a variety of outfitters, and several different routes in and out for guided or do-it-yourself trips. But the river is still the river, the scenery is still the scenery, there are no vehicles or bikes, the fishing is easy-peasy, and you are in one of the last true wilderness areas in the lower 48. It seems that the cutthroats are a bit larger and most anglers spend at least some time fishing deep for bull trout, that can reach ten pounds or more. It’s a great experience, whether you fish or not. And maybe you can hire Curly.

By Charles Thacher

The Coronavirus lockdown is in its eleventh week. Recently I read an opinion piece asserting that we should charge reparations to China for creating the virus and exporting it to our shores. It made me wonder if Spain paid reparations for creating the worst pandemic of modern times – the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide, depending on whose statistics you believe. So, being flush with time, I decided to do a little research. 

The first entry on Google was from the History Channel, a seemingly dependable source. This is the story: 

The most likely origin of the 1918 flu pandemic was a bird or farm animal in the American Midwest. The virus may have traveled among other animals, then mutated into a version that took hold in the human population. The best evidence suggests that the flu spread slowly through the U.S. in the first half of the year (the first known case was reported in early March at a military base in Kansas), then spread to Europe via some of the 200,000 American troops who traveled there (in March and April, 1918) to fight in World War I. By June, the flu had mostly disappeared from North America, after taking a considerable toll. One of its first stops abroad was in Spain, where it killed so many people that it became known the world over as the Spanish Flu, although the Spanish believed the virus had come from France, so they called it the “French Flu.”.

Based on this account, not only did the 1918 Flu start in the U.S., but we let Spain, a major victim, take the blame for it. COVID-19 has a similar history –starting in China, but with the U.S., thus far, suffering the greatest damage. Under the standards of 1918, it would be called the “American Virus”. But, the rest of the 1918 story is even worse. After virtually disappearing, the Flu came back with a vengeance in September (the “second wave”), and between then and the end of the year over 600,000 people died from it in the U.S. (when our population was 30% of today’s), and tens of millions worldwide. By early 1919, without a vaccine, the Flu had again virtually disappeared. I know that COVID-19 is not a flu, but given the history of 1918, I sure hope that it knows it.

Historians and journalists love to draw insights from historical comparisons, and many have written that the American public’s behavior in the aftermath of COVD-19 may mirror it following the 9-11 attacks. That makes no sense to me, as one is a discrete incident, fortunately not followed by subsequent incidents, and the other is a continuing pandemic. But reading the analogies got me thinking about the 9-11 attacks, and how I remember them. For us older folks, the attacks are notable, perhaps along with President Kennedy’s assassination, in that most of us can remember precisely where we were and what we were doing when the horrific events took place. For 9-11, I was in Mongolia.

Mongolia, a country about the size of Alaska, with only 3 million people, is on the bucket list of many fly fisherman who enjoy traveling to exotic destinations. Getting there is a haul. On September 9, 2001, I flew from New York to Chicago, over the North Pole to Beijing, then on to Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbataar, I planned three nights there – to look around – before a 4-hour helicopter ride to the fishing camp in the north, close to the Russian border. An odd thing happened when I was passing through security for my flight from Beijing. A Chinese security guard pulled me aside, asked me to follow him into a private room, then confronted me with a serious folding knife that he had removed from my backpack. I remembered that, as I was leaving my home, I saw the knife and cavalierly threw it in my backpack, thinking that I might need it to ward off a wild animal or an attacking fish. When I passed through security in Chicago, no one had noticed it. But, in Beijing, it was a big deal. I finally convinced the security guard that I was not a threat, and he confiscated the knife, telling me that I could retrieve it when I passed through the airport again on my way home. Yeah, fat chance! But the incident may have been a harbinger – though I didn’t consider it then.

I arrived in Ulaanbataar and checked into my hotel, one of a few modern ones in the City. The next day I spent walking around the City, visiting a museum and prominent Buddhist sites. Most Mongolians are Buddhists or non-religious (a vestige of the Communist days). That night I met two other American anglers – a father and son – who would be joining me at the fishing camp. They had been visiting a tourist camp in the Gobi Desert for five days and had a fascinating story. On their second day, former President Jimmy Carter arrived at the camp. It was his first trip to Mongolia, and there would be many others, as he became a fan and leading advocate for the Country. On the third day, billionaire George Soros arrived. They said that he had never met Carter, but the two immediately became fast friends. Of course, Soros subsequently became a major supporter of the Democratic Party and its policies, and the favorite piñata of the American Right. Who knew that it all started in the remote Mongolian desert?

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, then moved to the bar to shoot some pool. There was a television in the corner tuned to CNN. A bit before 9PM (Mongolia is 12 hours ahead of New York), a flash news announcement said that what was believed to be a small private plane had accidently flown in to the North Tower of the World Trade Center. About twenty minutes later, the second plane hit the South Tower, and it became clear that these were no small planes or accidents, and all hell broke loose. Needless to say, we were glued to the TV until late that night and throughout the entire next day, skipping our planned tourist activities. When I heard that the hijackers had used box cutters as weapons, I thought how ironic it was that the security agents in Chicago had overlooked my knife, which was a much more dangerous weapon than a boxcutter, but the agents in Beijing had considered it a serious security threat. Was that a one-off, or was it a sign that we were courting disaster? Surprisingly, the Hotel had internet service (remember, this was 2001 in one of the world’s most remote countries), and I was able to contact my wife, Ann. She was supposed to fly to Beijing to meet me after I returned there from fishing, for an extensive tour of China, but all flights were shut down indefinitely, and also she was in no mood to leave the carnage and despair in New York City, so our Chinese trip plans were kaput. I would return home as soon as I could.

The second day after the attack, we were scheduled to take our long helicopter flight to the fishing camp. We learned that we could not fly home for at least a week and probably longer, and decided that we might as well go fishing. Looking back, since I was so far from New York, in such a completely different environment, it’s clear that the emotional impact of the event was less than it would have been had I experienced it at home. That realization hit me, when I eventually returned, and I saw how melancholy, yet resilient, Ann and our many New York friends were regarding the tragedy and its aftermath.

The camp was in a beautiful narrow river valley lined with forests of pines and hardwoods, but away from the valley, nearly treeless steppes extended for hundreds of miles. There were four of us staying there, plus two American guides and a small staff. It was built and operated by a company owned by the three Vermillion brothers from Montana, who had come to Mongolia about a decade previously to check out the fishing. They obviously liked it. The camp was adjacent to a small settlement of nomads (most Mongolians outside of the capital city are nomads), who were at their summer quarters with many sheep, goats and horses. We stayed in two spacious and comfortable gers – hide-covered movable dwellings prevalent throughout rural Mongolia, often called “yurts” elsewhere. A large elevated barrel of water was heated by a fire each afternoon, to provide showers. There was a cabin where we ate our meals and could sit around to have drinks and socialize. Meat, typically mutton or goat, was served every night, usually with vegetables and fried dumplings or noodles. The beer was Mongolian, the wines were Australian, and Mongolian vodka was always available. The nomadic peoples also drink prodigious quantities of a homemade alcoholic drink called airag, made from fermented mare’s or donkey’s milk, which we sampled but never fully adopted. Mongolia is one of the coldest countries on earth, and the mid-September daytime high temperatures were 55-60 degrees (always sunny) and the nighttime lows 25-30 degrees. There was a wood stove in the center of the ger, and an attendant came by just before dawn to start a fire so we could wake to a warm ger. The air in Mongolia is pristine, and never have I seen stars as clearly as those that appeared in the night sky, compensating me for the need to step outside to relieve myself in the sub-freezing temperatures. 

The river that the camp overlooks is large, 40-50 yards across. The fish we were after is called a taimen. It lives in the rivers and lakes of Mongolia and Eastern Russia, particularly in the rivers that flow into Lake Baikal in Russia, which is, if measured by volume, by far the largest fresh water lake in the world – a mile deep in places and estimated to hold 20% of the world’s fresh water. Most of the Russian rivers flowing into the lake have been cleaned out of taimen, but the fact that most Mongolians have no interest in eating them has saved their fish. Oddly, the only other place that taimen exist is in Europe, primarily in the Danube River drainage system, where they are called huchen. A taimen looks like a brown trout, and is genetically similar, but grows much larger. A typical example is 10-20 pounds, fish of twice that size are not rare, and examples of well over 50 pounds have been caught. Even in a big river, fish that large need a lot of territory to hunt, and are very spread out. So, the camp used jet boats that could cover many miles of river in a day. It’s impressive that such expensive boats and engines (including several extras for emergencies) had been transported from the U.S. to such a remote location. Another fish that was available in the rivers was the lenok, which looked and behaved much like a rainbow trout, and could weigh up to five pounds. But, like all anglers traveling to Mongolia, we sought the fish that eats the lenok. 

Taimen, like trout, will feed on small fish and other creatures that live on the river bottom, but also will come to the surface to eat almost anything that might be swimming there, such as a mouse, lemming or duckling. Anglers can fish deep for them with streamers, or on the surface with big hairy floating flies. I chose floaters –lemming patterns about five inches long – because a taimen attacks the fly ferociously, creating great excitement. They are the absolute rulers of their domains, and if they miss a fly, they will continue to attack it all the way to the boat. There were days that I had as many as eight strikes, and one day had none. But the constant anticipation that, at any moment, a huge fish might attack my fly, was exhilarating. We fished with heavy salt-water weight rods, and casting a large bulky fly all day, with a lot of wind resistance, was tiring. At the end of the week, two of us who had fished exclusively with dry flies, had casting hands that were very crimped from holding the rod so tight in order to push it through the wind. The largest taimen that I landed was about 25 pounds, and the largest in the camp that week was about 40 pounds.

Each day on the river we would occasionally see men hanging out along the bank. The Mongolians are great horsemen, and will ride across deep rivers, but our river was too deep, even for them. Sometimes they would wave to us to take them across, and invariably our guide would accommodate them. Since we had the only two boats on about 60 miles of the river, and there were no bridges, we wondered how they ever got back. Apparently, they didn’t share our concerns. One morning, a few days after the 9-11 attacks, we saw three men listening to a short-wave radio. They motioned to us, and we pulled up to take them across. They were very drunk. Of course, we couldn’t speak to them, or they to us. About midway across, one of them grinned at us and blurted out “Osama bin Laden, Osama bid Laden”, then laughed convulsively. We were taken aback, thinking that perhaps he was an adherent, or taunting us, but then we realized that he probably felt anxious to say something that he thought we could understand, and all he could think of was the name of the terrorist that he kept hearing about on his radio. It was likely an innocent expression, but we didn’t laugh with him.

After dinner on our last night, the camp manager, a charming and capable young Mongolian lady, brought her mother, who lived in the nearby nomadic community, to describe a woman’s life in Mongolia. Her mother, who was only in her mid-fifties but to me looked older, spoke no English, so her daughter translated her comments. She painted the following picture:

The four of us looked at one another in wonderment. How difficult it must be to lead such a dull and arduous life, without choices, and to candidly describe it to foreigners who have so much, which they take for granted. I hope that over the nearly two decades since my trip, life has improved for these Mongolian women.

The next morning, we took the helicopter back to Ulaanbataar, then flew on to Beijing. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to customs and a security guard took me to a storage room and returned my knife. I spent four interesting days touring the City, and visiting the Great Wall, before I was able to fly on to New York, where nothing had returned to normal.

By Charles Thacher

In September, at the end of a two-week trip, Ann flew home from Paris to spend a weekend with the grandkids, while I traveled on to Bulgaria to meet up with our Charlottesville friends, Nancy and Victor Schiller, who have been living and working in Sofia for three years. I spent only four days there, but came away impressed with the Country and its people, and the role that American individuals and organizations have played in its success. 

The history of the Bulgarian people has largely been one of subjugation by foreigners. First the Romans, followed by the Byzantines, then from the late 14th Century the Turkish Ottomans were in control for over 500 years until Bulgaria gained its independence in 1908. In 1915, the country joined the Central Powers (Germany & Austria) in WWI in return for a pledge that it would dominate the Balkans after the War. That was a bad choice, and Bulgaria was punished post-war with the loss of territory and a bill for reparations. The combination of reparations and the economic deprivations caused by the Great Depression, made life miserable for most Bulgarians during the period between the world wars. From the start of WWII, Bulgaria remained neutral until March, 1941, when Germany demanded that it join the Axis powers, backed by a threat to invade. That demand, combined with the promise of annexing Greek territory, resulted in Bulgaria joining Germany, until the Soviets invaded in September 1944 and established a puppet Communist government, which lasted until 1989. A hapless history indeed.

For the past three decades, the country has been digging out from the disastrous economic effects of 45 years of Communism, while wrestling with the corruption, ethnic struggles, and tensions between the young and old, that have plagued most of the former Soviet bloc countries. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007, though the latter move has not been all positive, as the freedom of movement it allows has created a significant brain-drain of talented young people. 

It was my second trip to Bulgaria. The first was in 1969 when Ann and I were there because she had accepted my offer of “You plan the wedding and I’ll plan the honeymoon.” I can still hear her mother’s plaintive call as, after the reception, we were in the limo leaving to take a flight to Vienna, where we would begin the two-week drive east to the Black Sea and back, “Are you sure that you wouldn’t rather go to Acapulco?” Once we left Vienna – driving through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia – it was an “interesting” educational experience, but registered near zero on the luxury and relaxation scales, which some hopeless romantics think is important for a honeymoon. I suppose it was a good test, since on the entire trip we encountered almost no one to whom we could speak but one another. Bulgaria was the poorest of the countries that we visited, and the most repressive. There was only an occasional Russian car on the road, and donkey carts were the most common form of transportation. Buildings in the cities and towns were mostly drab and covered with soot. There were a few hotels designated exclusively for Westerners, not because they were luxurious – that concept didn’t exist – but because people who lived in the Soviet bloc countries were prohibited from mingling with the enemy, lest they learn forbidden things. The lovely Black Sea beaches were patrolled by soldiers carrying AK-47s, not to stop crime which was rare in all of the Communist countries, but to intimidate Eastern Europeans who otherwise might attempt to speak to the occasional Westerner.

There are numerous pithy aphorisms that capture the essence of the Communist system’s disrespect for the worth of the individual, and particularly his time. For example, a factory worker saying “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” Or a factory manager explaining “I pay my men enough to buy one loaf of bread and one bottle of vodka a day. If I pay them more, they will buy two bottles of vodka and cannot come to work the next day.” Many little incidents that we encountered in 1969 displayed the Communist approach. To recall a few:

• When we entered the Country, we purchased the amount of Bulgarian Levs that we thought we would need for our stay (credit cards were non-existent). Each day, our room had to be newly procured and paid for at the government tourist office, and on the first day when we proffered the correct amount for that night’s lodging, the office clerk scoffed at it, saying “We don’t accept Bulgarian money. Only dollars, marks or pounds.” We had foolishly assumed that every country’s government accepted its own money.
• At a large and busy restaurant overlooking a beach, we waited a long time for the only menu to be passed to us from another table. The manager gave us the reason: since a menu must be changed regularly, it is wasteful to have more than one.
• A line for an ice cream cone seemed to take forever. When we got to the window, we saw why. Each cone was put on a scale, and the scoops were gradually shaved or augmented, until the item met the exact government-mandated weight in grams.
• In a small department store, we went to the floor for women’s dresses. It contained many racks of dresses, all in the same style and color, but in a full range of sizes. 

A basic tenet of the Soviet-style Communist governing philosophy is that envy is especially dangerous to the State. People will accept being poor and deprived of even basic necessities, so long as other people in their spheres suffer under the same conditions. But, if they are deprived, and they live or work among people who are not, civil unrest is more likely. Even today, nearly three decades after the end of Communism in Europe, this principal divides the older and younger generations. Westerners are often surprised that people in their 70s and older will speak longingly of life under Communism. It should not be so surprising, given that for the oldsters, during all or most of their working years, compensation was determined by the State, but prices were also, and that provided economic security. The years following the fall of Communism have produced economic winners and losers – not always fairly – and currency devaluations have frequently occurred in countries with less productive economies, punishing those who have no opportunity to increase their incomes, and who tend to be older workers and pensioners. 

At the time of the fall of Communism, Bulgaria was the poorest of the European Soviet bloc countries that already existed. It remains so today. When I arrived in Sophia, I did not expect to be impressed. But during my short stay, the Schillers showed me many of the Country’s accomplishments and work in progress that changed my view, and the American government, and American foundations and investors have in the past, and continue to be, important contributors to the success.

In late 1989, in the U.S., the Support for Eastern European Democracy (SEED) Act was passed into law.  Under it, separate enterprise funds were created in ten formerly Communist countries for development of private businesses, to be funded with U.S. tax dollars, but managed by voluntary boards comprised of American business executives and entrepreneurs. One was the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund (BAEF), established in 1991 with seed capital of $55 million. During the first three years alone, over 500 private investments were made throughout Bulgaria. In 2007 when Bulgaria entered the EU, the BAEF had served its purpose, and began selling off its assets, which had grown dramatically to $550 million. It was the most successful of any of the ten funds. Of the total, $400 million was generously given as a grant in 2009 to establish the America For Bulgaria Foundation (ABF), the mission of which is to continue to fund social and economic improvements in the Country. ABF has taken on major projects, such as building new facilities for the American University in Bulgaria, creating an interactive children’s science discovery center, assisting in the development of modern walking and shopping malls in cities, the restoration of two important 6th Century basilicas, and countless other important projects. ABF commits $20 million a year to its projects, and ten years after its founding, still has $400 million in assets. At a time when some of our political leaders proclaim that engaging in public international economic and social development is a waste of time and resources, the successes of the BAEF and the ABF demonstrate just how valuable our efforts can be. Unfortunately, few Americans know this.

Nancy Schiller has been on the Board of ABF since its founding, and has been its CEO for the past three years. Prior to that, she and Victor were actively involved with the Community Investment Collaborative (CIC) in Charlottesville, both as volunteer instructors, and Victor as a Board member. CIC trains under-resourced entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses, and also provides mentoring services and micro-loans. In 2016, the Schillers oversaw the replication of the CIC program in Bulgaria, and ABF provided funding for the necessary staff and translation of the extensive 17-week curriculum into Bulgarian. The program has flourished, and there are now five sites in operation in the Country, that have produced well over 100 aspiring entrepreneurs. The types of businesses that are served are very similar to CIC, such as restaurants, packaged foods, movers, hairdressers, cleaning services, wedding planners, etc. I have been actively involved in CIC almost since its inception, and a primary reason that I went to Bulgaria was to see how the program is doing. It is thriving.

In communist countries, the concept of volunteerism was virtually non-existent. The government provided for and managed everything. Programs like CIC can only exist with a substantial commitment from successful local entrepreneurs and executives to help others coming along behind them. Fortunately, it has never been difficult to recruit volunteers here (or in New York where I was previously involved for 38 years in a similar program), and it was very gratifying to see that volunteers were actively involved in the Bulgarian program. It is clear that the program will continue to expand there, and perhaps even to other countries in the region.

During my stay, Victor took me on several road trips to visit important and interesting sites. We saw the challenging restoration work on the major 6th Century basilica in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s “second city”, that ABF was funding, and the attention to historical detail was similar to that paid by restorers at Monticello and Montpelier. We visited the Rila Monastery in a remote mountain setting, established in 927AD, which is among the most stunning and best-preserved medieval religious sites that I have visited. And then there was the “graffiti village” of Staro Zhelezare, which is in a class of

its own. The outer walls of dozens of the buildings in this obscure small village are covered with murals of pop art – mostly caricatures of historical and political figures, TV and movie actors, often portrayed in a scene with local village residents. The pictures are humorous, profane, outrageous, or all three at the same time. This fascinating village was well off the beaten track, and we saw no other visitors while we were there. 

The restaurants in Sofia were attractive and the food was superb. They also had lively crowds, mostly of young people. The Bulgarian red wines were surprisingly good, and are worth trying if you find them in the U.S.

Modern cafes are abundant, and my small, boutique hotel which was in the City Center on a busy walking street, was excellent, with a great breakfast, and a larger room than I am accustomed to in Europe. Internet and telephone services are prevalent, and the roads are good and easy to navigate. I didn’t get to the beaches, but I was told that they are still beautiful, though without the soldiers and assault rifles. 

On my last afternoon in Sofia, we toured the Nu Boyana film studio in Sofia. This important facility, owned by a Hollywood company, was founded in 1962 and functioned throughout the period of Communist rule. It covers 75 acres, has ten sound stages and reproductions of a Roman coliseum, a cathedral, and numerous other elaborate sets, all of which are easily convertible for different uses. It has state-of-the-art sound and post-production capabilities. The list of hundreds of popular American action movies and TV shows that have been filmed there is impressive. Our group on the tour was only eight people, and all of us got to see everything up close and ask lots of questions. A couple of the people in the group had attended studio tours in the U.S., and said that this tour was more enjoyable because of the small group and informality. During the tour, I mentioned to the guide that when we were in Sofia in 1969, many of the streets near our hotel were blocked off for several hours while a crew filmed a chase scene. At the time we thought this was unusual, but he was not surprised, saying that Sofia was a popular site then because there was almost no traffic to halt.   

Most Bulgarians are poor relative to those in other EU countries, corruption at the highest levels of government and business is a continuing problem, and the recent racist incident at a football game with the U.K. in Sofia, as well as the ongoing alienation of the Romani people (Gypsies), all illustrate that more economic and social progress is still needed. Without that progress, the emigration of well-educated and ambitious young people to the West will not abate. But it was great to see the substantial amount of progress that has been achieved since capitalism first took hold, and how much of that progress is a result of the altruism of individual Americans and our government.

By Charles Thacher

For many fishermen, the pursuit of Atlantic salmon represents the ultimate angling experience. Salmon are born in fresh water rivers, migrate downstream, sometimes for hundreds of miles to salt water after a year or two, live there for one to three years, then remarkably return up the same river to spawn in the pool where they were born. Perhaps as many as 75% of them die after they spawn, but the strongest survive to again reach the salt, and they can return upriver to spawn once, and occasionally, even twice more. When the fish enter the river to spawn, they are very strong and offer great sport to fly fisherman, which is odd because they never eat during their journey up the river. So why will they try to eat a fly? There are many theories, but in truth, no one knows.

The most traditional and prestigious Atlantic salmon fisheries are in the Maritime Provinces and Quebec in Canada, and in Scotland. But the fame (and expense) of these rivers often far surpasses their productivity, and even an accomplished angler can spend a week on one and catch no more than a fish or two. Certainly salmon populations have been reduced by netting, climate change and other threats, but often fish aren’t caught because they have not yet reached the pools where the angler is fishing, or they have already moved past. 

I had been fly-fishing for several decades before I first decided to pursue Atlantic salmon. Actually, I was enticed by a presentation on fishing for trout in rivers that flow through the tundra in the remote Kola Peninsula in Northern Russia. Lower sections of the same rivers, below impassable (for the fish) waterfalls, had recently been opened to anglers and were considered by many to be the best Atlantic salmon fisheries in the world. So, I signed up for a week of trout fishing to be followed by a week of salmon fishing at camps operated by the Kharlovka Company.  

My trip started in late June. To get to the camps, I flew to Stockholm, then a charter flight to Murmansk, Russia (the northernmost significant city in the world), then a 4-hour flight on a large helicopter due west to the salmon camp, and finally a one-hour flight on a small helicopter to our trout camp in the tundra, with three other American anglers. The camp was new and offered on a discounted “exploratory” basis, to evaluate the commercial viability of the trout fishing opportunities. 

The camp’s trout fishing program was unique in my experience. The tundra landscape was dotted with dozens of small lakes, and the rivers ran for short distances between them – typically the stretches were from 200 yards to half a mile long. The other three anglers came as a group, leaving me to fish by myself or occasionally with the camp manager.  Each day I was assigned my own small helicopter to take me to a fishing location and then move me around to different spots throughout the day. When the helicopter left the camp in the morning it had to get over a hill, and if there was more than one passenger it could not clear the hill safely, so it took one passenger to the top, and returned to bring the second passenger, before going off for the day. The pilot would drop me at a section of river, go off to park some place, then return in 2-3 hours, to take me to another section. Helicopters, even in Russia, are very expensive to operate, and I couldn’t figure out how this venture could ever be profitable. Apparently, the owner couldn’t either, because it was shut down the next year.

The fishing was made more difficult for two unexpected reasons – the walking and the bugs. Traversing the porous river banks was like walking on sponges, and they were filled with treacherous holes that were sometimes hard to see.  It would have been easy to cause some serious damage by stepping in one, so I had to walk very slowly. The bugs were tiny, biting no-see ums that regularly came in swarms. I’ve never worried much about bugs, but these got my attention, flying into my mouth and nose, and attacking any exposed skin – making it difficult to concentrate on the fishing.  The flies that I really wanted to see – the ones that trout eat and that anglers try to replicate – never did show up. So, the fishing was challenging and I managed to catch only four or five fish a day, the biggest being about four pounds. There are bears and moose on the tundra, and I saw a few from the helicopter, but saw none while fishing. 

The Kola is well inside the Arctic Circle, and the sun never set – just circled the sky above the horizon. If I wanted to read at midnight, there was sufficient light coming through the tan walls of my tent to do so. Even though the fishing was spotty, I enjoyed the tundra experience for its uniqueness and remoteness. 

On the last day, we took a larger helicopter down to the salmon camp because we had to pick up four intrepid Swedish anglers who had been 

on a two-week self-guided expedition, traveling by kayaks on the lakes and rivers in the tundra to map it for the camp owner. One of them asked me how the fishing was and I groused that I was disappointed in the lack of fly hatches. He said they had great hatches, which produced excellent dry-fly fishing. I was bummed. When I inquired as to when they occurred, he said “every day between two and five AM, like clockwork”. Of course, while I was sleeping, far from the rivers. Our aquatic flies almost never hatch in the middle of the night, but then I guess that there is no middle of the night during mid-summer on the Kola.

The Kharlovka Company operates upscale salmon fishing camps on two beautiful rivers  – the Rynda and the Kharlovka. I was dropped off at the Rynda camp while all of the other people on the chopper flew on home, as I was the only one staying for a week of salmon fishing, which began the next day at the Kharlovka camp. A few hours after I arrived, Peter, a very wealthy Brit and the owner of the camps, had me summoned from my cabin to meet him. He had an enigmatic reputation for being pompous, arrogant and dismissive, but also for running a first-class operation and as a committed conservationist with respect to preserving a healthy salmon population in an area where local residents have, for many years, illegally harvested salmon to put food on their tables. When I met Peter, he could not have been more gracious, taking me to his impressive private residence on the Rynda, overlooking a lovely pool fed by a spectacular waterfall – as classic a salmon fishing setting as could exist. He lived there with his Russian girlfriend, probably 30 years his junior. The two of us shared drinks and conversation, he invited me to join him for dinner which was delightful, and I left thinking that perhaps his reputation was unwarranted, or that I had just impressed him and become a special friend.

The following day the twenty or so other anglers who would be fishing at the two camps arrived. After they descended from the helicopter, he met them and invited the entire group to his home for drinks and lunch. Then he pulled me aside to say “Charles, you needn’t come, since you have already seen my house”, and turned dismissively away. So, this special friend was left – deflated and embarrassed by my naïveté – to have lunch alone.

When we arrived later that day at the Kharlovka Camp, we had an introductory meeting with the Camp manager, Justin, an American who now lived in Bariloche, in the Argentine Andes, on his family’s cherry farm, and who managed a fishing camp in Venezuela in the winter and the Russian salmon camp in the summer. In my travels to fishing lodges and camps around the world, I have met many people living seemingly vagabond lives like Justin. There were eight British anglers at the camp who came as a group, and would fish together in pairs. Then there was myself and Anders, a big Swede who was exactly half my age, and who had fished at the camp many times. Being the odd men out, Anders and I were paired together for the week. I’ve never had better luck.

After the housekeeping rules were covered, the Russian manager of the camp’s guides, a big and tough looking man, Volodya, addressed our group, explaining the guide system and the daily fishing program. He had a handgun on his hip. He introduced the other Russian guides (who said nothing) and then his dog – a large mongrel displaying no particular heritage.  He said, “My dog is not dangerous unless you make eye contact with him. Don’t ever do that. When you are walking around the camp, if you see him coming, look away to the other side.” We were a bit stunned. One of the Brits said “If we forget or don’t see him coming, and we make eye contact, what will he do?” Volodya responded, “He will attack your crotch, going for your balls. Please, don’t make that mistake, he cannot control himself.” I turned to Anders, and quietly asked “You have been here before.  Is he that dangerous?” Anders whispered, “No one has tested him, but if he’s as nasty as Volodya, I wouldn’t want to try it”.

But Anders clearly had something else on his mind. When Volodya finished, Anders asked me to join him to talk to Justin. As we approached Justin, Anders said to me “Our guide is not here”. Then he confronted Justin. “Where is Valentin?”

“He came in very drunk this morning and he knows that Peter has no tolerance for that (I found out later that Peter was a reformed alcoholic), so Peter fired him.”

“Well, do you have a replacement guide for us?’

“No, we will have to go to Murmansk and find someone. They will be here tomorrow or the following day.”

Anders lost it. “You can’t do that! Valentin knows the river and his replacement won’t. And we aren’t going to not fish for a day or two. Valentin guides me every time I come, and I’ve never seen him drunk before. Get Peter on the phone so I can talk to him.”

“I will do it, but it won’t help. This is the one rule that Peter won’t change his mind on, and every guide knows it.”

Justin called Peter, and passed the phone to Anders. They had a heated conversation, and then Anders returned the phone to Justin, who listened to Peter, then delivered the message to Anders. “Peter said that because you have come here so often, that he will hire Valentin back to guide you. But he is still drunk, and he has to sober up, so he can’t guide you this evening. And if he ever does it again, he is finished.”

The evening fishing was on the “home pool”, right next to the camp, so a guide wasn’t necessary. Anders and I went back to our cabins, put on our waders, and met to walk together to the pool. I liked him immediately, he was low key, personable, but obviously tough when it was needed. Because the fishing was often in front of a canyon wall, making a back cast impossible, fishing on the Kharlovka was strictly with two-handed spey rods, which I had never before done.  My new rod was over fourteen feet long and the whole casting process was completely different and much more complicated than with conventional one-handed rods. I had watched a video to try and learn the technique but, frankly, was inept.   When I saw Anders begin casting, I felt like a clown. His casts went several times farther than mine and every one was as straight and accurate as an arrow, which is critical for covering all of the water in a pool – the key to successful fishing for Atlantic salmon. We fished in the large pool about 50 meters apart for three hours, along with the Brits, all of whom were experienced salmon anglers and spey casters. Anders was steadily hooking fish. I caught a small one – my first ever – and felt pretty good. When we returned to the lodge for dinner, Justin took a fish count (every salmon camp meticulously keeps track of the numbers and sizes of fish caught), and a few of the Brits had none, a couple (and I) had one, one had two and Anders had eight, including two exceeding 20 pounds. I know that some of the Brits were dubious, but I had fished near Anders and thought he might have had more.

The next morning Valentin showed up to guide us and never said a word about what had happened. In fact, for the whole week he never said many words about anything, except to complain occasionally about the Russian government, and state how he missed the good old communist days. This was a guy who was earning well more than double what he could ever have made had the old Soviet Union continued. Both of his daughters were enrolled in engineering school in a fine university, with excellent prospects, but, strangely, he yearned for a simple and perhaps mythical past when life required no decisions (since there were no options) – at least that was the way I saw it. I couldn’t see why Anders preferred him, and when I asked, he said “I think he’s a good person who has had a tough life, and the other guides don’t seem to like him very much. Maybe I feel sorry for him.” I didn’t tell Anders that my opinion was colored by the fact that I had seen Valentin snatch and eat my Snickers bar every day – telling me that the cook had forgotten to include it with my lunch.

Fishing with Anders was a joy. He was an exceptional angler, but not a consumed angler. His casting (and catching) was impressive, and mine was lousy, but he didn’t care in the least. During the course of each day we would intermittently take half an hour off from fishing to sit on the bank, observe the river, and talk. He knew very little about the U.S., but loved hearing about it. I learned a lot about Swedish politics, and the Country’s immigration challenges. Our age difference seemed irrelevant.

Every day we traveled by helicopter to fish different sections of the Kharlovka. Once dropped off, we walked a mile or more along the river to access the best pools. Valentin would charge out ahead of us, sometimes getting several hundred yards in front where we couldn’t even see him. He never looked back to see where we were. Terrible behavior for a guide. One day we took a long helicopter ride to a tributary called the Litza, a beautiful river in a deep canyon with many cliffs and waterfalls. We were dropped off at the top of a steep hill, maybe 600 yards above the river. We walked down and had a fine day of fishing in a light rain. I caught three fish, but Anders hit the jackpot with 14, including some very large ones. Late in the day, Valentin got a call on his satellite phone saying that the cloud cover was too low and that the helicopter could not pick us up. What then? He said that we would have to walk upstream about three miles, then cross and sleep in a tent that was there for such a purpose. A man was stationed at the tent who would prepare dinner, and we would return to the main camp in the morning. We looked at the depth and strong current of the river and pointed out that crossing was not possible. Valentin said that it was not a problem, as the camp was next to a large pool and the man would bring a boat across to get us. So, we made the difficult walk back up to the top of the hill, then over rough terrain and back down to the river below the big pool where the tent was pitched. Valentin said “We cross here.” 

I said. “What? That’s not possible. We didn’t agree to that. Where is the boat?”

“No boat. Cross here.”

Russian guides are nothing, if not tough. Valentin walked five yards out into the deep, strong current. Then he came back. “It’s good. We cross together.”

Anders (who is 6’5” and powerful) said “No way. Get the man to come with his boat.”

“No boat. We go” Well, here we were with a Hobson’s Choice – cross dangerously to a tent or stay and sleep on the ground. We went, with Valentin in the middle, and our arms locked together, in back and front. If one of us had slipped on a rock and fallen, we might have all gone under, but we didn’t. When we finally arrived at the tent with no clothes except those we were wearing, dinner was ready, consisting of a large raw salmon on the small table, and a basket containing four or five varieties of freshly picked wild mushrooms. Frankly, they were scarier than the wading. But I reminded myself that Russians are regarded to be the greatest mushroom hunters in the world, so when in Rome….. Actually, everything tasted pretty good, and we were back at the main camp in good shape early the next morning.

During that day, I asked Anders if he could give me any advice to improve my casting. He immediately said “Before you start your cast, you should always have your fly in the water pointing in the direction that you want your cast to go.  That’s very important.” I tried it a few times and it made a big difference. I then asked him why he hadn’t pointed that out earlier. He said simply “You seemed to be enjoying yourself, and didn’t ask me for advice. I didn’t think it was my place to offer it.” I felt like a jerk.

On the last day in the camp another group of Swedes showed up who had been exploring the tundra for Peter’s mapping project. They were ripe from two weeks in the wilderness and were primed to live up to the Swedes’ great reputation for drinking prodigious amounts of vodka. After dinner, Anders and I, and all the new Swedes except one were sitting in one of the cabins, drinking vodka. Then the missing Swede entered in a panic.

“Pers (who was in the room), Volodya found out that you tried to make love to his girlfriend, and he’s coming here for you with a gun. Did you do that?”

“I guess so, yeh. But I didn’t know it was his girlfriend.”

“Pers, you gotta get out of here. He’s crazy. He’ll kill you.”

Pers left. The rest of us fled to our own cabins. The next morning Pers was at breakfast, looking very alive though a bit sheepish – and seriously hung over. There was no mention of Volodya. We left an hour later, returning home.

The following January I got an email from Anders, asking if I could come fish with him at Kharlovka again in July. I was flattered and couldn’t resist. We had a great week. I spoke only briefly and curtly to Peter, didn’t make eye contact with Volodya’s dog, Valentin never got drunk nor did his personality improve, we had nary a mishap, I spey casted and fished better, while Anders and I solved many of the world’s political and economic problems. A fine week indeed.

By Charles Thacher

In 2006, Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, an Israeli immigrant, was the founder and CEO of Comverse Technology.  The 25-year old American-based tech company had more than 6,000 employees in over 50 countries and a market cap of about $6 billion. Comverse and Kobi were flying high. Then, in July of that year, while he was abroad on vacation, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged him with securities and accounting fraud, related to stock option transactions. 

Alexander did not return to the U.S. to face the charges. Meanwhile, he had transferred over $40 million to a bank account in Israel. In late September 2006, Interpol tracked him down, with his family, in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, a remote country on the southwest coast of Africa. Namibia would not extradite him to the U.S. Alexander remained there until 2016, when he returned to the U.S. and negotiated a plea deal resulting in a hefty fine, and a 2-year prison term which he served in Israel, where he now lives as a free man. 

When the story of Alexander’s violations and flight from justice were first reported in 2006, many people wondered why someone so legitimately successful would risk everything to make some extra money by back-dating stock options. But I was more fascinated with what could be so attractive about Namibia, that someone with all that money would choose to go on the lam there, rather than more typical jet-setty places where he could also be safe, like Switzerland or Monaco. So, for over a decade, Windhoek and Namibia were on my “bucket list,” though perhaps unbeknownst to my wife, Ann. 

In the fall of 2017, in a speech to African leaders at the U.N., President Trump surprised his audience by extolling the virtues of the health care system in the hitherto unknown country of “Nambia”.  The world was left wondering whether he knew something that no one else did, or could he possibly have just misstated the name?  Many observers guessed that he meant Namibia, although there was also scattered support for Zambia, Gambia and even Narnia. The President has never clarified his statement or what it was that he admired about the mystery country’s health care system. But, it reminded me of my commitment to visit Namibia, and early this year we began making plans for a September trip. 

For the 35 years before the end of World War I, Namibia was the German colony of Southwest Africa. In 1919, it became a British colony administered by The Union of South Africa, until it gained independence in 1990, following a complicated and brutal war against the apartheid government of South Africa, and also involving the various parties fighting the civil war in Angola, the neighbor to the north. Surprisingly, there is still considerable evidence of the German presence in Namibia today and, German tourists are frequent visitors. The most convenient direct flights to Windhoek are from Frankfort, which is the route we chose, spending two days while on the route in the nearby charming university town of Heidelberg. 

Namibia is a large country, roughly the size of Texas and Arkansas combined, with a small population of 2.6 million. It is dominated by and named after, the Namib Desert, which runs nearly its entire length. Sections of the Desert are among the world’s driest places. About 15% of the population lives in Windhoek, which is inland, about 200 miles east of the Atlantic Coast.  We spent three days there.  The City center is modern, clean and safe, though small. The Hilton Hotel was fine, the Museum of Independence and craft markets were entertaining, we found two exceptional restaurants (particularly enjoying kudu, oryx, and springbok steaks), but we didn’t discover anything that would entertain a wealthy scofflaw for ten years. Several locals told us that Alexander had been a good citizen, and done excellent work related to economic development while he was there, which is to his credit. 

After our stay in the City, we took a 3-flight trip north about 450 miles to the Hoanib River Camp, in the middle of the desert on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, named for the many shipwrecks that have occurred there due to strong westerly winds and concealed rocks. The camp facilities – lodge and rooms, food, wine, guides, and service – were exceptional. There were far fewer animals – both varieties and numbers – then other safari camps that we have visited, but we enjoyed watching and learning how the elephants, lions, giraffes, and others coped with the harsh desert environment. We spent one day driving over four hours on very rough roads, and up and down steep sand dunes, to arrive at the sea, where the remains of shipwrecks and a colony of over 100,000 cape fur seals were sprawled out on the rocks. The seal pups are preyed upon by the rare brown hyenas that live in the area, though we did not witness any attacks. The stench resulting from so many seals lying in their bodily discharges was palpable, giving us a greater appreciation for the hyenas’ indomitable will to eat.

In the vast floodplain of the Hoanib River – which is dry except for a week or two once every few years – there is a small pride of four lions – all adult females. Lions are the signature animal of African safari camps, and to not have a reproducing pride could eventually be a significant problem.  Male lions cannot be imported from other areas, because they will not have the instincts or know-how to survive in the desert. One night at our camp, a local naturalist showed us a remarkable video covering the coming of age of five male lions that had been born in a nearby desert valley. The video ended with the 3-year old males leaving their mother to spread out into the neighboring valleys, which had only female lions. It was inspiring – the prides could reproduce and survive. Then, someone in the audience asked: “So, where are the five males today?”

The naturalist responded “Unfortunately, last year we had a drought, and the cattle, to find sufficient food, had to move out farther than normal from the tribal villages on the edge of the Preserve. That exposed them to the young lions, and some of the cattle were killed. So, the village farmers killed the lions. They are allowed to do this to protect their cattle. We can’t stop them.” All of us in the room were stunned and deflated. But that’s Africa, where they are trying to do something that is being done hardly any place else on earth – preserve significant populations of deadly predators and other large animals in the wild but close to established villages, where domestic animals constitute nearly all of a family’s wealth, and traditional approaches to dealing with destructive wild animals have been entrenched for centuries.

We enjoyed the uniqueness of the desert camp, but because the number of animals there is considerably smaller than in most other African preserves, we would not recommend it to someone who was on their first safari trip. Our next two camps were in Botswana, which is one of the best places to see a beautiful habitat and a great variety of animals. It is about 2/3rds the size of Namibia, being directly east and south of that country, and north of the Union of South Africa. The country evolved from a protectorate established by the British in 1885, as a buffer between the German colonies and South Africa. The protectorate – remote and among the poorest places in the world, with a per capita annual income in 1966 of $80 – was not highly prized by the Brits, and on September 30th of that year, they gave the country its independence without a struggle.  The new government adopted the name “Botswana”, meaning the land of the “Tswana” (the dominant ethnic group). 

In fact, Botswana had won the lottery. In early 1967, a huge diamond deposit was discovered, followed later by other similar deposits and large deposits of copper and manganese. The government and De Beers – the diamond industry giant – have managed the development of the mining industry very capably. Today, Botswana is the world’s leading producer of gem-quality diamonds, and its per capita income is nearly $9,000, among the four highest in Africa (of 54 countries), and similar to that of Mexico. In the 90s Botswana had one of the highest incidences of the HIV in the world. The government has aggressively treated the problem using the most advanced techniques, and the rate of occurrence has declined significantly.  The problem remains serious, though it poses no threat to tourists coming for the safari experience. AIDS is one reason that the Country’s population is only 2.3 million.

Botswana and Namibia have stable governments and are known for their high level of racial and tribal harmony. Botswana has eight outstanding game parks, including two of the most unique environments in Africa – the Okavango Delta and the Kalahari Desert. Many consider it the top safari destination in Africa based on the variety of animals and environments, the opportunity to avoid large groups of other game viewers, and the impressive number of safari camps ranging from do-it-yourself operations to the epitome of luxury. Botswana has passed a law prohibiting all hunting throughout the country, except on a few isolated private preserves. If park rangers spot someone in the bush with a gun, who is not officially involved in game management, they will shoot to kill and ask questions later. All of the other African countries that offer safari experiences permit trophy hunting and, although they may be happy that Botswana does not compete with them for the hunters’ fees, they can’t be happy that Botswana’s hardline approach has made it more attractive to those wanting nature and photo safaris, and who may be opposed to hunting on moral, ethical or other grounds. It should be noted that in all countries that allow hunting, it is never permitted in a park that is designated for photo safaris. 

Illegal poaching of animals is a huge problem in many African countries. The most publicized targets are elephants (for tusks) and rhinos (for horns), but many other mammals and birds are taken for horns, bushmeat, feathers, etc., often for the East Asian trade. Poaching in Botswana is rare because the risk to the poachers is too great. 

It is estimated that, one hundred years ago, there were about 3-5 million elephants in Africa. A 2014 count throughout the 18 countries that have wild elephants estimated that there were about 400,000, down from about 600,000 seven years earlier, almost entirely due to poaching.  But, Botswana’s elephant population is growing, and now totals about 160,000 – roughly 40% of the African total.  On each day’s ride, we saw well over 50 elephants, without making any effort to search for them.  Botswana has set a great example of elephant preservation for the rest of Africa, but its success has created its own problems. Elephants are destructive to the flora of all kinds. They eat young trees and bushes that have recently sprouted, they strip new growth off older trees, they knock down medium sized trees seemingly just for sport, and they score rings around the trunks of mature trees with their tusks, sometimes causing them to die within a few years. On drives, we often saw areas where the foliage was devastated by elephants – looking as though a tornado or hurricane had passed through and knocked down nearly every tree.

We have stayed at eleven safari camps in six African countries over the past 14 years. All of our guides have been excellent, but the Botswana guides have been the very best. Their spotting ability and knowledge of the environment – flora and fauna – is extraordinary, and they are undaunted in their efforts to educate their clients, and secure for them a view of an unusual animal or the perfect photo opportunity. In one camp on our recent trip, a guide made evening presentations on Botswanan geography and history, and the unique problem that the Country has with respect to elephants. At a time when the world is being told that elephants are endangered, camp managers that we spoke with said there are too many to be supported in much of the Okavango Delta and the riverine areas north of there. The environment and the well-being of other animals are threatened. But how can they selectively reduce the population? Re-introducing hunting to cull the population would be terrible public relations in the West, particularly given that they have gained significant favorable publicity by banning hunting. Physically moving elephants to countries with endangered populations would be very expensive, and put the animals in the same danger from poaching as is that country’s endemic population. Some form of birth control applied to bulls (e.g., vasectomies) could work, but its outcome is unpredictable, it carries a P.R. risk, and identifying the strongest bulls, which are needed to reproduce, at an early age is difficult. It is a conundrum that we never expected to encounter.

Every safari camp that we have stayed at was exceptionally well-run, had comfortable and spacious bungalows or tents, great food and wine, was set in a beautiful natural environment with wild animals of all sorts strolling through the camp from time-to-time, and had interesting people working and staying there. Some have offered opportunities to visit native villages, and in one in Zambia, Ann got to teach a 6th-grade math class at the local school, while I watched in awe.  In Kenya and northern Tanzania, the broad open savannahs of the Serengeti and Masai Mara provide an opportunity to see an enormous number and variety of animals, and a high likelihood of watching a kill, but when one happens, your jeep may well be among a half dozen or more looking on. At our camps there, night drives were not permitted, while in southern Africa they provide an opportunity to see a whole group of lesser-known nocturnal animals. The camps in Zambia and Zimbabwe along the magnificent Zambezi river and its tributaries offer unique water activities and an excellent environment for game. It is easy to combine game-viewing trips with excursions to top Sub-Saharan African attractions such as Cape Town and its nearby wine country, Victoria Falls, Zanzibar Island, Mt. Kilimanjaro, the gorilla preserves, and others. Safari trips need not be physically demanding (except, perhaps, for the long-distance travel), and are the perfect vacation for young and old alike.