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.