En Patagonia: Chapter Ten

 

The date was February 12^th – it was a few days after my cycle ride to Lago del Desierto. While the pedals did not fall off, it felt like my arms and legs had. The palms of my hands were blistered, and I was left with an even greater admiration for the riders of Paris-Roubaix. Overall, it had been an incredible day, but the last 10 kilometres or so were tough.  Holding onto the handlebars was painful – El Chaltén couldn’t come soon enough. Our memory for such things is usually short, but I wouldn’t contemplate going out on the bike again for at least a couple of days. I turned instead to rest, and then returned to the hiking trails.

A return to the hiking trails

The day had dawned calm and grey. But the cloud was high – the peaks unobscured. I was glad of a day of cooler weather – the skin on my legs felt pretty raw, what with the sun, and with the relentless wind blowing dust and grit everywhere. I decided to head up Loma del Pliegue Tumbado – a mountain standing some 1490m above sea level. While higher than any mountain that the U.K. has to offer, here, this peak was dwarfed by its neighbours. I set off mid-morning, and after walking a kilometre or so beyond the visitors’ centre, I found myself alone on the trail. Even though this route cumulated in an actual summit, it was evidently less popular than the Fitz Roy trail and the trail to Laguna Torre. In many ways I could understand why – the forest was less dense here, there were no blue green mountain streams tumbling by, and there was a barrenness to the landscape the higher you went. I found it all incredibly beautiful nevertheless – perhaps we need that sense of desolation from time to time. Maybe on some days it better suits our mood and gives us permission to feel a certain way. And perhaps I was feeling it all a little too much – it was the only day of the whole trip (save for the bus journeys) that I put my headphones in for a bit. I listened to a Podcast for a while – listened to Ned Boulting talking about a bike race in a far-off land. It felt like company of sorts. But then the headphone battery died, and people had started appearing in dribs and drabs from the other direction. These were the early risers, the early starters, making their way back from the mountain’s summit. I didn’t like to have headphones in if there were people about - feels like you can’t give or receive a proper hello.

Up above the trees

I was out of the trees now and into a rocky landscape. You could see the path zigzagging its way up the hilltop in the distance. It seemed quite far away, and I felt that it might take me several hours to reach it. But that wasn’t the case at all – I think it was hard to judge anything like that here. It was possible to find marine fossils that were hundreds of millions of years old – distance and time were slightly skewed; it was difficult to know which sort of world you were walking through. And then amongst all that, impossibly, you’d see these brilliant dashes of colour. A wildflower growing in the shelter of a rock. The best of all was a variety of the Lady’s Slipper – it was as if I had discovered the world’s greatest treasure. My face lit up. 

Lady's Slipper 

I was amazed, and never cease to be amazed at the places in which life can flourish. Plus, it struck me as a metaphor of sorts – that beauty can endure in a world where it doesn’t seem possible at times. Beauty as a flower, or as a kind word, in a world beset with wars so complex as to ever fathom. Even if it were simple, would we have the answer? How did we get to this point? What had we let in the front door as we sat, sleeping, ensconced behind our television screens? But in that moment, up on that mountainside, the beauty of the flower struck with wonder rather than with horror, and I carried on about my day with hope. Anything else felt so far from this place. I was lucky. There was no two ways about it. Any low mood I felt earlier had shifted. 

A wildflower on the steep scree slopes of Loma del Pliegue Tumbado 

There were a number of folk – about ten in total – on the summit itself. It wasn’t confined to one small space; you could wander about a little. People were taking photos, people were eating some lunch, people were sat quietly taking it all in. There was no doubt about it – the views were spectacular. I could see a few of the places I had walked to on previous days, but it was hard to truly recognise them – the world looked so different from up here. I didn’t linger all that long, but neither did I rush.

Summit views and the path back down the mountainside 

On the way back I jogged a little, and slowed right down here and there to take photographs of flowers. I was in a happy sort of mood now. My unregulated pattern of movement through the landscape probably looked a little peculiar, but I was not encumbered by self-consciousness that day. At one point I caught up to a man and a woman, and I struck up a conversation with them. They told me that they were from America, although neither of them had been home for a couple of years. “Is that because you’ve been traveling, or are you in fact, fugitives?  Don’t worry if you are, I’m not going to say anything to anyone. I wouldn’t even know who to tell. You both seem like nice people – I’ve got no beef with you at all. It’s only Donald Trump I’ve got a problem with – he built a golf course in Aberdeenshire and completely ruined an SSSI. Anyway. I’m going to run for a bit – I want to get back to El Chaltén and buy some orange juice. Nice meeting you both. Goodbye!” 

Back amongst the trees 

I followed the trail as it re-entered the trees, and it occurred to me that perhaps I had gone a little too long without having had a proper conversation with someone. I decided that once I got back down, I would give my mum a call. After buying some orange juice, that is. 

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Nine

 

I hired a bike for a couple of days. A hardtail mountain bike from The Patagonia Traveller’s hostel. I handed over my passport and cycled off. My aim on the first day was to cycle northwards – to Lago del Desierto, located at the end of Ruta 41. This would be a 75km round trip, with an additional 5km hiking to Laguna y Glacier Huemul. The wind was fairly calm, and the sun was bright and warm in the sky. The bike I had been given was fleet number 16 – it had a certain character to it; it felt a little bit like one or both of the pedals might fall off. But the possibility of that sat with me as an amusing thought rather than a dark cloud on the horizon. I had a quiet confidence that I would cope with any such situation if it indeed developed – I trusted myself, and I had already experienced the kindness of this land. And so, I rattled along – the 500 metres of tarmac that led out of the village abruptly stopped and turned to gravel. A little further on there was a single-track bike trail loop which provided wonderful views of Fitz Roy – I took this before rejoining the road.

Views of Fitz Roy

Cycling on Ruta 41 proved to be an interesting experience – the road was potholed and strewn with small rocks. I have since likened the size of these rocks to the size of a baby’s head – I was sure that this was a commonly used unit of comparison, but judging by the reaction I got from friends I think I must have been mistaken! Although, I’m sure that you will now have no problem in imagining the exact size of some of the rocks that both cyclists and cars encounter on Ruta 41. The cars on the road caused another challenge – not because of their number or because of reckless driving (the cycling always felt really safe in that regard), but because each time a vehicle passed you it would kick up a huge cloud of dust leaving you unable to see for a couple of minutes, and making the one thing I needed to do more than usual – breathing – quite an unpleasant experience! I would try to hold my breath for as long as possible, but I think that only made it worse – I would just take in a fuller lungful of dust when I had to breathe again. Thankfully though the road was not too busy, especially once I’d got past the parking area for Chorrillo del Salto – a waterfall some 3km outside of El Chaltén. I had walked there earlier in the week, on a rest day of sorts. As waterfalls go it was pretty nice. And as I was headed back along the trail to El Chaltén I was stopped by a man who, in Spanish, asked me what the significance of this waterfall was. Rather than dodge the question I answered with all the confidence I could muster in my limited Spanish. This is a big waterfall. This is a tall waterfall. There is lots of water. This is not a small waterfall. I tried to look suitably awestruck as I walked off. This was not the first time that I had been stopped and asked a question – if not about waterfalls, then for directions or for route information. I wondered why this was, given the abundance of other people around to ask. I didn’t look in the least bit South American with my pasty white legs (soon turning to bright red sunburnt legs), and I doubt I could have passed for being from any other Spanish speaking nation. One thought I had was that perhaps I was easier to approach as I was by myself rather than in a big group, and perhaps there was an assumption that because I was by myself that I knew what I was doing, and that I knew the answers which would reveal the mysteries of Argentine waterfalls.

Chorrillo del Salto

I was in dreamland as I cycled along, surrounded by trees, mountains, and with the Rio de las Vueltas running next to the road. Every now and then the road would cross one of the many streams or rivers which were tumbling at pace down from the mountains. These bridges were little more than a metal structure lined with a series of wooden planks – the gaps between which felt alarmingly wide at times. I wasn’t concerned because I had seen plenty of cars going over these bridges, but I did feel slightly vulnerable when I looked down and saw the rushing water only inches below my bicycle tyres and knew that the gaps in the bridge were more than wide enough to lose a whole leg down!

A bridge on Ruta 41

I later learned that it was at one of these same bridges that friends of mine had encountered some difficulties the year before. Nadia, Sam, Matthew, and Jon had set off from Punta Arenas after their winter at Rothera and were attempting to cycle all the way north to Santiago. I was in awe of their journey at the time, and I was even more so now as I cycled along the same stretch of road that they had. I was finding it hard enough, and my bike wasn’t loaded up with panniers, and I hadn’t cycled many hundreds of miles already to reach this point. But this comparison did not devalue my experience – in fact, I think it enhanced it. I thought of them every now and then as I made my way on Ruta 41, and it made me smile to think that people I knew had already been on this road that I was now travelling on. I posted some photos at the end of the ride, and a good few weeks later Nadia sent me a message telling me about their mishap at the bridge. The bolt in Sam’s pannier rack had exploded and sheared off inside the bike. They tried to hit it out with a hammer, but it didn’t work. Sam had to put all the contents of his panniers into a rucksack, and cycle with that on his back for many hundreds of kilometres on gravel roads. I had already left Patagonia at this point, but I found it interesting that hearing someone else’s stories from that road added clarity and meaning to my own adventures there. I think that we are always looking for those connections – perhaps an innate need to celebrate the things that we have in common. How odd then that on a broader level we so often let our focus rest firmly upon our differences. I wonder if this is in part due to a change in the way we communicate – opinions formed from afar on social media, and a decline in long-form and face to face communications. I also wonder if there is a time coming when, with a growing dissatisfaction with the way things are, we will revert more to this – to find the truth and our humanity in the places where it has always been found – with what we can see with our own eyes, and with what we can hold with our own hands, and with a slowing down of words so that our thoughts might have chance to catch up.

Views from the road

As I continued to follow the road northwards the nature of things began to change somewhat. I was deeper into the forest now, and the rivers were an impossible turquoise green. I couldn’t quite believe that I was actually there – on my own, on a bicycle, travelling if only for a day, in that moment, through a landscape if you’d asked me to dream up would not have matched the reality. I do not know at which point along the way through this life that I was living, that I found the confidence to head out by myself and do such things. I suppose it is something that comes to us gradually, and I was certainly finding that action breeds confidence and the limits to what you once thought possible slowly fade away. And it wasn’t just this. Other things fade away, too. And maybe it is in part the product of getting older – but you start to care less about what others think of you, and you stop comparing yourself to others as much (or to a version of your past self). Everyone is different, everyone has different dreams and different adventures. You can either be inspired by them and encourage them, or you can allow yourself to be reduced to obscurity even in your own eyes. It’s easy to fall into this way of thinking – to devalue our experiences if they do not match up to the things which society seems to value above all. But one thing I knew for certain – I was cycling along with a smile on my face, and I was having the best of times. In that moment there was only this. There was nothing else.

Peaks, forests, and turquoise streams.

I reached Lago del Desierto in the early afternoon – I had reached the end of the road. From here it was possible to get a boat across the lake and cross the border into Chile. This was the route that my friends had taken the previous year. 

A boat on Lago del Desierto

But I was to simply return to El Chaltén the same way that I had come, although not before taking a hiking trail to see the Huemul Glacier. I sat down by the lake for a while and ate an apple. I also watched an Ibis perched on the branch of a tree. The day was beautifully warm – the sort of temperature that is absolutely perfect for sitting on a warm rock and observing the scene.

Ibis 

It cost 7,000 Argentine Pesos to take the trail up to the glacial lake – I paid the fare and left my bike propped up behind the ticket office. The path rose steeply through the trees, and although it wasn’t all that far I found myself wishing that I had put a spare pair of shorts in my bag – ones that were not padded cycling bib shorts. Note to self for future bike-hikes that I had planned. The trail topped out above the shores of Laguna Huemul – a turquoise lake sparkling in the sun with the Huemul glacier hanging above it. There were stunning views back down the valley, back in the direction I’d soon be headed. Sometimes when we are faced with a scene of utter beauty, we almost expect that we should feel a certain way, or that we should be having some sort of significant thought about the place or about life as a whole. But more often than not, I think we actually experience a sense of nothingness – a mind empty of all thought, and of all worry, and if we had to put a name to it, then that name would be calm.

Laguna Huemul