The Basque Gregorio Jorajuría was a memory-filled old man whose Valchetera afternoons were filled with memories and old experiences. Of paths traveled when Patagonia was still a land of pioneers, of precarious livestock establishments, of the marine horizon there in Peninsula Valdés and of a thousand repeated days worked with the tenacity of those anonymous men who forged the lands of our South.
I always liked to listen to his stories, colored by the emotion of his memories, especially those that marked his life as a driver, those who opened the tracks with the heavy wheels of their carts and knew how to navigate the desert in the open of all the roads. .
The Basque, in his captivating talks, knew how to tell me about his adventures through the Peninsula (so he said) where the sea continues to repeat its millenary evolution.
Don Gregorio recalls that at that time one of the first radio telegraphs operated in his native place and he also remembers the existence of a lighthouse, a true guide for ships in the Southern Ocean.
We found out that his father was the owner of a troop made up of three chatas, as those cars were called that traveled through the steppe, clearing the first paths with their enormous wheels in endless journeys full of adventures and adventures.
He said that as a boy he was the driver of one of the flats, which used to carry up to 5,000 kilos. They made the crossings from the Peninsula to Puerto Madryn and it took up to four days in good weather. They used to carry the country’s wool and fruit supplies and return loaded with merchandise for the two businesses in Punta Pirámides, which at that time were the most important.
He recalled that at the age of 18 he abandoned cars and began working as a rural laborer in establishments in the region. His first job was at the Bella Vista ranch, until after a few years he was already a foreman in several establishments, among which he remembers the ranches “El Peral”, “Punta Ninfa” and “Los Pinos”. Like a treasure he shows the yellowed certificates issued by the owners of those businesses.
Then, in another stage of his rich life, he recounts his adventures as a muleteer, carrying large quantities of animals from Comodoro Rivadavia to Villalonga, with approximately two months of hardship to reach the destination, according to the vicissitudes of the weather, the waters or the state of the ways.
Thus, in 1951 he bought his own field in the Rio Negro area of Campana Mahuida: a league of fenced field with 500 sheep. We listen to his efforts to maintain the land and make it produce until, tired of so much work, at the age of seventy he decides to sell his field and settle in his house in Valcheta.
There were many anecdotes, among them when in 1928 the fleet was carrying out maneuvers on the Patagonian coast and saw, in amazement, the deployment of the ships and with amazement, how sailors got off some boats and headed to the establishment. Once the shock is over, he understands that they came to buy a supply of meat for their food.
Also among his distant memories there is a ship called “Presidente Roca”, which caught fire on the high seas and many crew members died trying to reach Punta Hércules.
He also mentions that, as a Baqueano connoisseur of the Peninsula, he was lucky enough to unearth in the sand a historic cannon brought back by the Spanish and that had been lost, and is currently in a museum in Buenos Aires.
As one of his unanswered curiosities, he says that on the Patagonian coast there were huge iron pots nestled in large cement bases separated from each other by about 15 to 20 meters, the handles joined by large iron chains, the interior being like a bronze, with a capacity of approximately 1,000 liters, but no one was ever able to give him information about its origin and usefulness.
My friend, Vasco Jorajuría, passed away several years ago, but his voice, like that of Funes, the memory of Borges, comes to me from an old recorder. He gave me an old gray fountain pen that I still have.
Over the years I wrote my poem to him: “Voice of a cistern in the darkness/ He never spoke for the sake of speaking/ Burnt jume wood/ Shepherd of his loneliness. A man of vast knowledge / he was forged in the sand / living memory of the people / prudent as anyone. By the Campana Mahuida / the ranch he knew how to plant / Don Gregorio was called / a good and helpful man. He walked around the Peninsula / as a muleteer and foreman / and his partner was never a horse to slack off. For many he was the Basque / a friend to cherish / and he never had double-crosses / when it came to friendship. He knew how to turn his ears up / when he knew how to tell me / experiences of his life / in his youth. If he knew a word / that was honesty / some star is sure / in his light he will have it.
Text: Jorge Castañeda
Writer – Valcheta
