Life on the Great River. El Paraná en Kayak.

 

Life on the Great River - The Paraná by Kayak

• Víctor Ostrowski (November 6, 2014) A couple of years ago, my brother, a sailing enthusiast, mentioned to me that he wanted to acquire a book called La Vida En El Gran Río - El Paraná en Kayak (Life on the Great River - The Paraná by Kayak), authored by Víctor Ostrowski.

Well, ever since that moment, I've been looking for it. It turns out it became difficult to find; it has been out of print for quite a few years. Finally, I found a copy and bought it to give to him as a gift.

While leafing through it, after reading the back cover, I found it interesting, and I ended up reading it entirely before handing it over to him.

As a biographical review, I will transcribe verbatim what it says (which, by the way, is the same text that appears on some websites, though without mentioning that it comes from the back cover of this book):

Víctor Ostrowski (Dnipro, Ukraine, June 16, 1905 – Warsaw, Poland, January 19, 1992).

Polish, a graduate of the Warsaw Polytechnic as an engineer, Víctor Ostrowski spent his life closely tied to nature.

A mountaineer, he scaled the highest peaks of four continents: Kilimanjaro in Africa (5,895 m); the Alps in Europe; the peaks of the middle Caucasus, the mountains of Iran and Kurdistan in Asia; and in the American Andes, Mount Mercedario (6,793 m).

A rower, he traveled more than 6,000 km of rivers in his homeland. He is also a hunter, fisherman, and photographer, and he integrated the first Argentine expedition to the Patagonian ice fields as the leader of the climbing and skiing group.

Paraná, a Guarani term meaning "relative of the sea," has never been better defined than by the indigenous people, who for countless generations navigated it. A colossus. So immense, so much our own, and yet so unknown to us.

Víctor Ostrowski traveled it in a kayak. He began his journey at the Iguazu Falls, cut through the waters of the river of the same name, and entered the Paraná right where the borders of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet.

Throughout the pages of the book, the profiles of the inhabitants of that land and those waters emerge, with their humanity, their flaws, their picturesqueness, and also with their tragedy and mysteries in tow.

Life on the Great River contributes, through its vivid account, something more toward a better understanding of our America.

The edition I managed to get is from 1975, published by Editorial Cuarto Mundo. It was part of that publisher's collection called Hombres y Vidas (Men and Lives: Real-life stories. Travels, dramas, adventures, unusual episodes). This is the first Spanish-language version. Original title in Polish: Życie Wielkiej Rzeki. Czytelnik, 1967. Translated by Stan Odolsky. It has 250 pages.

Ostrowski wrote three books: Safari En El Continente Negro (Safari on the Black Continent, 1953); Más alto que los cóndores (Higher than the Condors, 1954); and La vida en el gran Río (Life on the Great River, 1967).

On this website (culturademontania.com.ar), we can find a more extensive biography of Ostrowski, a number of photographs, and specifically his adventures as a mountaineer, Andean climber, and alpinist. Keep in mind that it is a mountaineering-oriented website—in fact, the site is called the Argentine Center for Mountain Culture (Centro Cultural Argentino de Montaña).

The book contains quite a few black-and-white photographs taken by the author himself. It also mentions a few more photographs that are not included; somewhere they possibly exist as a record of his journey.

He made the trip in 1966, at which point he was around 61 years old. At certain moments he makes this apparent, though he always remains jovial. He mentions the need for a paddling companion and alludes to the exploits of his younger past.

The kayak was (or had been) his passion. In his youth, he had made kayaking trips down all the major rivers of Poland (p. 10).

It begins with a detailed comparison between the Delta and Venice. As he asserts, someone had called the Delta "the Argentine Venice," a notion he sets out to demystify and put into perspective by clearly pointing out the differences.

He states: "That entire area of Iguazu and the upper Paraná is marked on the map with the name 'selva' (jungle)." (p. 9). I believe he is alluding to what is commonly known, at least on the Argentine side, as the former Misiones jungle. I have current comments (around 2014) from someone native to that area who traveled across the province for work, stating that, except for Iguazu National Park, the rest of what was known as "jungle" has practically disappeared due to deforestation. I cannot confirm this for a fact, but that is the reference I have.

The idea of making the kayak journey arose from a bet—a bet he ultimately won—and in his narrative, he recounts the times people warned him of the dangers of pushing forward with his project and the difficulties he would face, including numerous offers of help to transport him in other boats.

He offers a complete definition of himself and his travel companion(s) when he exclaims: "He'd have to be another madman!" (p. 11), generating some humor.

Throughout the book, he describes all the characters he crosses paths with, whom he interacts with and whom he doesn't. All of them are his friends; he takes comfort when they treat him well. It seems he is constantly seeking friendship; even the term gringo, as they called him, went from being pejorative to becoming a high distinction. All the time, he wanted to be just one of them.

He likely had a lot of charisma and an eccentric personality, which allowed him to relate to all those people, acquaintances or strangers, with whom he had contact.

One of these people was Juan Szychowski, to whom he dedicates an entire chapter. This person has a museum named after him: the "Juan Szychowski" Historical Museum in the Province of Misiones. Here is its webpage (yerbamanda.com.ar/museo.php), where it states verbatim:

"La Cachuera S.A., the oldest of the active yerba mate companies in the province, true to its vocation and commitment to the region, inaugurated this Historical Museum bearing the name of its founder, 'Juan Szychowski,' in August 1997. On February 17, 1999, by Resolution No. 021/99 of the Tourism Secretariat of the Province of Misiones, it was declared of Provincial Tourism Interest.

Everything was carried out in the setting where the life and work of this man unfolded—the possessor of a visionary and industrious personality.

There, the visitor will feel transported by the magic of time, appreciating his work in its natural state, carefully preserved in its historical and ecological aspects."

Among his descriptions, one caught my attention, mostly for general knowledge regarding how animals are renamed or referred to differently in certain places. For example, they call the jaguar a "tiger" (tigre), they call the tapir an anta (pp. 60/61, "the tapir, called in the jungle the anta"), and the locals call the dorado fish "the shark of the Paraná."

It has happened to me that while in a conversation, locals from northern Argentina commonly spoke of the "tiger" and the "lion," and I didn't understand them. Of course, they were referring to the jaguar and the puma. Later, reading on my own, I found it has been common for a very long time across all of America—especially North America—to refer to the puma as the American lion or simply the lion.

Here in the narrative, just like in the northern valley region of Argentina, the jaguar is called a tiger; it is a widespread custom, as are the names of the other animals he mentions.

He makes many quite meticulous descriptions of everything he experienced, from hunting trips to the dangers and downsides of difficult jungle life. He holds nothing back in his descriptions of nature, the animals—each of the many he bothers to discuss—the life of the riverbank inhabitants, fishermen, and hunters, how they caught their prey always for survival, the poverty, and the simple, unpretentious life of the inhabitants of the coasts and islands, on both shores (keep in mind he speaks of both Argentina and Paraguay), the unwritten rules, and techniques. He presents both scientific and popular explanations for the same phenomenon he references, brilliantly depicting an entire era: the mid-1960s.

Whatever topic he mentions, he expands upon and delves deeply into: animals, vegetation, languages, indigenous peoples, settlers, immigrants, the Coast Guard (prefectura), ships, geography. He develops everything as much as he can, presenting the topics as personal anecdotes he lived through and seasoning them with knowledge.

On page 145 of the book, he recounts the following situation:

"Speaking of snakes 'jumping,' I will mention another case, although now I am 'ashamed' to remember it. I was walking along a jungle path when suddenly I ran into a magnificent specimen of mamabera [a local pit viper]. Disturbed by my presence, it raised its head as if waiting for me. I had a carbine, I messed up, I shot. I have good aim; the distance was barely a few paces. I aimed at the neck. I fired, and the snake vanished as if by magic. It simply dematerialized. I was sure I had hit it. On the path, I found bloodstains. But not a trace of the snake. I searched among the undergrowth using the barrel of the carbine—nothing. I gave up. As I slung the carbine over my shoulder, I raised my head: the snake was right above me, on a tree branch. I brought it down with another shot. The first bullet had gone through its neck right below the head, and yet the snake had managed to escape and climb the tree with lightning speed, so anyone could say 'it jumped onto a branch'."

On one occasion, I had the opportunity to see something similar. While climbing a trail in a northern valley along with a group of locals during a short break, a snake emerged from the brush and slithered toward one of the people who was sitting down. Another guy in the group, with good reflexes, picked up the machete he was carrying and delivered a blow to the snake before it could reach the seated person, cutting it in half. Just like that, as if nothing happened, one half "disappeared" and the other half stayed on the ground. The excitement of everyone there prevented us from seeing where the half with the head had gone; the tail half had remained motionless. We searched, and someone found it two or three meters away, hanging lifelessly in a bush. Incredibly, it had slithered all the way to that spot after being cut in half.

Biodiversity, mostly animals, is present throughout the entire book. Countless birds and fish (the fish even get a chapter), domestic or wild animals, dangerous or not—all of them are discussed.

"The hunter, without wasting time, began to skin the deer. I understood his hurry: simply that the dogs deserved the reward. For 'pedagogical' reasons, immediately." (p. 52)

Almost the entirety of the book refers to the entire area of Misiones Province and part of Corrientes Province. Once in Corrientes, he telegraphs his friends in Buenos Aires, clarifying this and explaining the difference between the two stages: the wandering stage and the sporting stage.

I found commentary online from other readers of this author and his book:

• One of them is a Facebook post (March 2013 or 2014) titled "HISTORIAS DESARMABLES X" (Dismantlable Stories X), about dismantlable kayaks that made history in Argentina, linked here: https://el-gr.facebook.com/kaunokayak/posts/293379617479626 (From the Kauno Facebook page - Kayak Estructural Desarmable de Argentina: https://es-es.facebook.com/kaunokayak).
• Another post in a Camping Forum (April 2012): http://campamento.foroactivo.com/t1229-la-vida-en-el-gran-rio.
• And also a website, presumably Polish, with a photograph presumably from the book in its Polish version, at least as the title shows: http://darien.pl/klub/?p=343.