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