Essays: Patagonia Cowboys

Located at the bottom of South America, Patagonia is a land of myth and romance, desolate and harsh. It stretches from 40 degrees to 55 degrees South, finishing less than 1,000 km north of Antartica, the closest point to the bottom of the world.

Made famous by the British travel writer Bruce Chatwin in his '77 classic, "In Patagonia," it is an area defined by sweeping mountain ranges, brutal climates and vast plains so remote that if Manhattan possessed the same population density, fewer than 50 people would live there.

But in this isolated land lives a changing culture: the Patagonian cowboy, or gaucho, who roam with their sheep and cattle in an existance that has changed little since the 1900's. Yet the commercialization of the region has brought about a great many changes.

Buses and air routes intersect through mountains once impassable to man. Since suffering an economic collapse in 2002, Argentina relies heavily on the American and European tourism brought in by the global marketing of this last fronteir.

Here, at the end of the world, traditions are being passed on to the new generation.