En Patagonia: Chapter Eight

 

Some of the trails that I wanted to take would lead me so far out of El Chaltén that it was an unrealistic target to be able to retrace my steps or to loop back around on the gravel road of Ruta 41. This would have added close to 20km onto some of the walks, which was a fair amount when you’d walked 30km already. But, as hitchhiking was common in these parts, I decided to try my luck with that and press ahead with the walking. I’ve hitchhiked at home in the Lake District, I’ve hitchhiked in northern Sweden, and I’ve also stopped quite a few times to pick hitchhikers up. Of course you have to be careful, but there comes a point where you decide that you don’t want to live your life afraid of everyone, and of always being afraid of the worst that can happen. Everything I had read about El Chaltén prior to arriving, and everything I had seen and felt since getting there made me think that it was an incredibly safe place. One of the first things I noticed when I got to the village was that nobody locked up their bikes. And I’m not just talking about those rusty old relics that might be missing a pedal or a wheel – these were modern, good-looking-models, that would be left lying down on the grass or propped up against a wall. Seeing this actually made my heart swell. I love my bike so much – it is almost certainly my most treasured possession, and even though it would not cost the earth to replace, it is worth so much more to me than the cold, hard number that follows a pound sign. And while I didn’t have my bike with me – I couldn’t help but feel safe in a place where people left their bikes here, there, and everywhere without a worry.

Ruta 41

On one particularly calm and sunny day I decided to link up the Sendero al Torre with the Sendero al Fitz Roy, but rather than returning to El Chaltén from there, I took a trail which took me away from the direction of the village, and past the viewpoint for Laguna Piedras Blancas.

Laguna Piedras Blancas

This track would eventually lead to Ruta 41, some 17km north of El Chaltén. It was a beautiful trail through the trees, and it felt deliciously cool after the exposed, rocky ascent to Laguna de los Tres in the heat of the day. I did notice however, that at sporadic intervals there were little wooden signs indicating a fire escape route. These narrow paths led sharply down to the stony shores of the Rio Blanco. Forest fires were a genuine risk in these parts, and due to the prolonged warm and dry weather, the area was on the highest level of alert.

Fire Escape Route 

When I reached the gravel road of Ruta 41, I started walking in the direction of El Chaltén but ready to stick my thumb out at the first car or pick-up truck that passed. It was only a matter of minutes, and the very first car that I saw pulled over a few metres in front of me. I could see them moving a few things on the back seat to make space, so I opened the door and asked if they could take me to El Chaltén. With a nod of the head, I jumped on in. It was a family from El Calafate – mum, dad, and their teenage son. They had driven out here for the day to do some hiking. The lad was wearing a Boca Juniors football shirt, and I had my Fulham football shorts on, so we struck up a bit of a conversation in Spanish about our respective football teams. It turned out that the dad actually spoke really good English, but I always wanted to make a point of trying to speak in Spanish first. I think it was appreciated, but we very quickly reverted to English and ended up chatting away about the mountains and the climate in Argentina, and how that compared to the U.K. I think that I was as grateful for the conversation as much as I was for the lift – I found that it was quite easy for a whole day to have gone by without having spoken more than a few words to another person. This was largely out of choice – I had chosen to travel by myself in a country where I knew very little of the language, and I had chosen not to stay in a shared room at a hostel because after a season at Rothera I desperately needed that space – but I did find that even a little bit of conversation could bring a different sort of life to the whole day. I do not regret any of the decisions I made with regards to this trip – I believe that I know myself well enough to make the right choices for me. And so, when even the merest hint of regret would float into my mind, I was quick to remember that everything has its compromise, and that there was a very good and considered reason behind the choices that I had made. I knew that if I had been around people every single day my mind simply would not have been able to unwind and relax in the way that I needed it to. This was my priority for these few weeks, even if it meant the empty touch of loneliness at times.

Monte Fitz Roy and Laguna Madre 

Another day saw me walking to Piedra Del Fraile, a Refugio on the banks of Rio Electrico. This was a quieter trail, but it did initially see me following in my footsteps from previous walks. I took the Fitz Roy trail as far as Camp Poincenot, before passing the Mirador Piedras Blancas once more. And it wasn’t until I took a footbridge over the Rio Blanco that I began treading new ground. But even though there was a small degree of repetition throughout the two weeks that I was there, I found that it felt different every time. The weather would be different, and you’d come into each day and into each walk with different thoughts - some of which would never have been possible had I not walked that path before.

Piedra del Fraile 

 I was to turn back at the Refugio, which was as far as the regular trail went. It was the point on the map where the solid black line tuned into dotted red and black. To access any of these trails you had to have pre-registered with the National Park Authority, and it was also recommended that you went with a National Park enabled guide. Perhaps I would have felt emboldened to explore some of these trails had I been with a friend, but as it was I more than content to potter around the regular trails by myself. It all still felt like one incredible adventure, and with the rickety bridges over streams and rivers, and with the grandiose of the mountains and of the forests, it often felt like I was living the most vivid of dreams. 

 

Footbridge over the Rio Blanco 

Having seen very few people on this section of the trail, there was suddenly a small amalgamation of walkers as the trail neared the road. There was a group of four whom I caught up to as they were trying to figure out the best way to cross a wide but shallow stream that there was no bridge for. I opted to take off my shoes and socks and walk across. We came together again, now insight of the road but only to find that another, more significantly sized stream had completely covered the path and there was no way we could hope to cross. That was when a party of three arrived on the scene, and we all joined forces as we backtracked in the hope of finding somewhere further upstream to cross. We eventually succeeded, and without getting too wet! Both parties had a car parked here, so I asked the group of three if I could have a lift back into town. They were obliging, but as their car was incredibly full of suitcases and the like, they asked the group of four on my behalf. They very kindly agreed.

The road bridge over the Rio Electrico

The group of four spoke in a heavily accented Spanish that I could hardly understand a single word of, and as they spoke less English than I did Spanish, what immediately resulted was a highly amusing attempt at a conversation using hand gestures alone. They were putting their rucksacks into the boot, and then they started pointing at me and then to the boot. I only had my Salomon running bag on – which I often forgot that I was wearing – so I assumed that they were having a laugh, suggesting that I would need to get into the boot myself for the journey to El Chaltén. When they realised what I was thinking, they looked horrified for a moment, but then the penny dropped for everyone, we all burst into fits of laughter! I put my little bag in the boot and joined two of them on the back seat. Despite the language barrier, we did not give up our attempts to talk to each other – I found out that they were from Uruguay, and that they had flown to Argentina and hired a car for a week. When they dropped me off in the village, they all got out of the car to say goodbye to me before carrying on their way. I have no doubt that it is the kindness of strangers, and the warmth of human interactions that are the things that stay with us for far longer, and far more clearly than any of the landscapes that grace our eyes. I can only vaguely recall how seeing the towering spires of the Fitz Roy range made me feel, but when I think back to this moment with the Uruguayans, my face instantly breaks into a smile. These are the things that sustain us. These are the things that make life feel worthwhile.

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Seven

I bought a trekking map at one of the little souvenir shops – it had all the trails clearly marked, and it even gave an estimated time as to how long each route would take. I would spend hours in the coming weeks poring over it. I’d take it out each morning while I had a coffee, and have a last look each night before I went to bed. It was absolutely perfect for planning out the days ahead, and I made a mental list of everything I hoped to do. There wasn’t really much of a need to have a map as a navigational tool – the trails of all the main hikes were so clearly defined, and there was good signage along the way. I loved how accessible it all was – you could have done next to no hiking at all, and you would still have been able to come here and enjoy the benefits of being in such a beautiful place. There is an argument against having signage (and I realise that this is a nuanced discussion and can depend on location etc), but I don’t think that wooden markers or a splash of paint on a rock is going to take away from the beauty of the surroundings, nor are they what stands between us believing that we are in a wilderness free of human activity and human impact. That is not to negate the importance of good navigation and being responsible whilst out walking. But even having that awareness comes largely from a position of privilege – to have grown up having had the opportunity to spend time in the outdoors, and to have the knowledge, the confidence, the time, and the financial means to access it during adulthood. While I don’t have the answers as to how more people can safely enjoy the outdoors – I do think that any snobbery (from those who already enjoy the benefits of it) only serves to put up barriers rather than breaking them down. Over the next two weeks I would see all sorts of different people out on the trails – some who were carrying enough stuff to survive for a month, and others who were just carrying a bottle of water and a coat tied around their waist. On one occasion I saw a man wearing a smart suit – he had made it to Laguna de los Tres just fine, and he was walking back in the sunshine with his jacket draped over his shoulder. All that was missing was a briefcase to carry his packed lunch.

Signpost to Laguna Torre

Without a doubt the two most popular hiking trails from El Chaltén are the Sendero Fitz Roy and the Sendero al Torre. The Fitz Roy trail is slightly deceptive in name – it is not a trail up the mountain itself, but to the glacial lake of Laguna de los Tres which sits at approximately 1,000m above sea level (compared to the 3,405m of Monte Fitz Roy). The views are however spectacular, and in the two weeks that I was in El Chaltén I made the hike up there twice – once when the peaks were hidden in the clouds, and once when everything was in view. The majority of the walk is through beautiful forests, with mountain streams and wild flowers completing the scene. There was a delicious warmth to the air – the kind that you can feel right through to your bones. So many times, I found myself with a smile upon my face without even realising. Some days I would walk quickly, with a great sense of purpose, while on other occasions I would amble along in a daze. And of course, even though I was somewhere so utterly stunning there would be moments or there would be days where perhaps I felt a little anxious or a little low. But rather than feel bad that I was feeling like that in a place where, objectively, happiness is assumed, I tried to simply accept it and carry on. And it’s amazing the things that fall away or fall into place when you’re out walking for several hours.

Sendero Fitz Roy 

Whatever sort of day it was though, and however fast or slow I moved, I would always make time to stop and look around, to pause and really breathe. There was just so much to see, and perhaps my favourite things of all were the wild flowers, and the water. Some of the lakes were a turquoise blue, while others such as Laguna Torre were a milky sort of grey. And I would often stand transfixed looking into a mountain river or stream, watching the way in which the sunlight interacted with the water, and trying to predict the pattens that would form as the stream flowed through the shallows and the depths.

The turquoise blue of Laguna de los Tres

I wouldn’t describe the Sendero Fitz Roy trail as particularly arduous at all, although there was a steepness to the last section – up to the high point of the route, 1,187m above sea level. And the Sendero Laguna Torre was more gentle, still. Aside from a gradual elevation gain in the first few kilometres, much of the trail seemed almost flat. 

Hikers on the Sendero Laguna Torre

This was also through delightful Patagonian Forest, and it was here that I saw my first Magellanic Woodpecker – I was lucky enough to see four in total throughout the trip.

Magellanic Woodpecker

I also saw condors, parakeets, ibis, and flamingos (in El Calafate). And possibly the most remarkable wildlife sighting of the journey was a Patagonian Fox – not too far from Laguna de los Tres. But there was no sign of the elusive puma, which, on balance, I think I’m quite grateful for.

Patagonian Fox 

 Upon reaching Laguna Torre there was the option to carry on further to Mirador Maestri which offered a viewpoint of the Glacier Grande. On this rocky ridgeline of sorts, with the gradient dropping sharply to the waters of Laguna Torre below, a wonderous array of wildflowers could be found. The most eye-catching of all being the Chilean Firetree Emborthyium with its flowers a brilliant red.

Chilean Firetree Emborthyium

There were a few people hunkered down at the viewpoint trying to seek some shelter from the wind – the majority of folk had not ventured beyond the shore of Laguna Torre, and it felt a little bit like a victory in escaping the crowds. I asked a woman if she would mind taking a photo of me – my mum might not forgive me if I didn’t appear in at least one! This was not as straightforward as it seemed though, as both of us were struggling to keep our feet in the wind.

Trying to keep upright! 

I mentioned before about the privilege of growing up with access to the outdoors – and I felt a strong sense of privilege at being where I was now. I felt so grateful every time I went out walking - grateful for every twist of fate and fortune that had brought me here. Of course, a lot of that was due to decisions that I had made throughout my life, and of following passions, and of hard work. But there is so much beyond that – some cosmic roll of the dice, way beyond the control of anyone, that saw me born where I was born, and saw my consciousness come into being at the time that it did. And what do you do with knowing that – that we are nothing, that we are less than a particle of dust in the great deserts of the world. You do the only thing you can do – you live your life with all the energy and all the love that you can muster, and you live it knowing that nothing is in fact everything, and that no event or no amount of time can ever erase you from the history of the universe. And that is the same for everyone you will ever meet – and your life matters because their lives matter, and perhaps we can make things a little better, or a little bit easier in the time that we are here.  

En Patagonia: Chapter Six

 

The next morning, I was packing to leave again, but this would be my last bus journey for a while – I was going to spend two weeks in El Chaltén, and everything I planned to do there was on foot or on bike (with potentially a little bit of hitchhiking thrown in). I liked the scene at these South American bus stations – it could look like chaos from the outside, but it was actually pretty chilled. There would normally be a couple of dogs lying about in the sun – maybe hoping for a bite to eat or a scratch behind the ears. It always amazes me how they never seem to pester anyone – and the only dogs I’ve really heard barking are the ones locked behind a fence or the slightly crazy ones who gang up and go for cars. That was quite a sight to see in Puerto Natales last year. I was with my friend Matt, and we had wandered down to the lake in the hope of seeing a nice sunset. That never materialised, so instead we took to watching these four or five dogs chasing every car or pick-up truck that came through the junction. I’m not really sure what they were trying to achieve – maybe they were just messing around and having a laugh. When the traffic dwindled though, the dogs came over to us and lay down quietly near our feet. But these El Calafate dogs obviously thought it was far too warm to be running around at all, and they were starting as they meant to go on – lying, sprawled on the hot concrete.

I boarded the bus and took my seat – I was upstairs, and just one row back from the front. I was sat next to an amiable man from the Czech Republic. We were chatting away when he paused for a moment to take a sip of his drink. On first impressions it was blackcurrant squash in an empty mineral water bottle. But then he lent in somewhat conspiratorially and told me that it was leftover wine – ‘so that I can get a little buzzed on the bus’. He went on to say how the wine is very good here, and that it’s cheaper than Coca Cola, and probably better for you - “It reminds me of the good old days back home when the beer was cheaper than bottled water – but sadly that is not the case anymore.” It seemed that this guy was more than a little buzzed already – he soon fell asleep and started snoring. So, I put my headphones in, sat back, and watched the amazing scenery unfold. It was all Patagonian Steppe and far off mountains to begin with - but those peaks came gradually closer as the journey went on. And with 45 minutes or so to go the breathtaking sight of Monte Fitz Roy came sharply into view. It wasn’t a completely cloudless sky, but all the spires of the Fitz Roy range were visible. Monte Fitz Roy stands at 3,405 metres – and it is particularly striking due to its sheer granite walls which protrude directly up out of the ice.

The road to El Chaltén

El Chaltén itself is a small mountain village and has been named as the National Capital of Trekking in Argentina. It was a hive of activity when we pulled into the bus terminal, the air was full of excited chatter, and almost everyone was dressed in outdoor gear and carrying fully-ladened rucksacks.  El Chaltén has a strong frontier-town-vibe to it, and it was in fact the subject of a border dispute between Argentina and Chile in 1985. But no actual war broke out, and the Argentine flag peacefully flies. The streets are a collection of souvenir shops, microbreweries, hostels, cafés, restaurants, outdoor stores (both selling and renting gear), and a mismatch of houses – some of them modern, some of them in disrepair.

The National Capital of Trekking

 There was also a school, a bank, and a post office with a battered red post box outside which I suspect was seldom used given that nowhere (not even the post office) seemed to sell stamps.

El Chaltén's Post Box

El Chaltén thrives primarily on tourism, with the peak tourist season being between December and March. The permanent population of the village is around the 3,000 mark (in 2001 this figure was at 371). I wandered up the main street to find the accommodation that I had booked, dropped off my bag, and went out for an explore. It was only mid-afternoon, and although it was very windy the day was bright, and it was warm. I decided on a short-ish trail that took me across the river and up above the cliffs that flanked one side of the village.

Rio de las Vueltas

The views were incredible with the mountains still out of the clouds, and even the wind added a special touch of beauty to this Patagonian landscape. I came across a small lake, not really much more than a pond. And with each strong gust, the top layer of water would be scraped off up into the air and these amazing rainbows would form where the sunlight collided with the floating droplets.

Rainbows in the wind 

 I found a sheltered spot and sat for a while gazing up at Monte Fitz Roy, and several times I said out loud to myself that I couldn’t believe that I’m here. I looked and looked, and smiled and smiled, and I thought about many things – mostly about how I didn’t want any of this to be an isolated experience in my life. I didn’t want it to simply be a collection of memories and photographs which I could pick up and put down. I wanted it to be a thread that wove its way and connected these days and all the ones that lay ahead.

Monte Fitz Roy

A few years ago, I watched a documentary about Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold’s successful completion of the Fitz Traverse – an incredible and inspirational sporting feat (link included below). But not being a climber myself, it is hard to grasp the extent of the difficulty and the skill required to have pulled that off. The men and women who climb those spires and those big walls are simply on another level, and I find myself fascinated by the literature and the stories surrounding it. Above all, I think what draws me in is the dedication, focus, and passion that goes into achieving their goal. The most high-profile example of this in recent years is surely Alex Honnold’s Free Solo of El Capitan – the film of which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2019. In a world of quick fixes, and of giving up if we don’t see instant results, I found it deeply inspiring to see how a project of eight years developed and came to its conclusion. And it certainly made me think about my own life, and what would be my equivalent of El Capitan – what would I dedicate eight years of my life to in trying to achieve or in trying to create, and would I ever truly want to?  Because I don’t think it would be enough to simply want the end result, you’ve got to love the process of it all as well. And maybe it wouldn’t be as long as eight years, or maybe it would be much longer than that, and maybe you would start but never see the end of it and would you still think it would be worth it even if you knew that? These are things which I have been giving increasing thought to in the past few years and there was something about arriving in El Chaltén which brought them back to mind in earnest. For me of course it would not be climbing, it would be a writing project. And it was in those first few days in El Chaltén that I started writing this series of blog posts titled, En Patagonia (a nod to Bruce Chatwin). I had also written a few posts down on Station – loosely titled: Everyday Things at the Bottom of the World. It was a conscious decision that I made before coming South this season – that I wanted to get back into writing more regularly. And although my output on Station was not particularly high, it didn’t really matter. The important thing was that I had made a start and that I was doing something again. Sometimes I fear my own dream, sometimes I am scared to start in case the words never come. There is also the fear of whether the writing is any good. And while that is a natural fear to have, it is also a fear largely without substance; whether someone thinks that it is good or bad is not what causes a thing to exist or to disappear. It exists because you make it so, and because you have wanted to make it so. And that is the beauty of art – bad and good are irrelevant, it either exists or it doesn’t. And I almost feel compelled at times to bring something into existence, it feels like necessity, and it feels like purpose. And when the lines that form the individual letters, and the words that swirl about the page suddenly make known something that was previously hidden in your soul, well, then, it begins to feel an awful lot like joy. 

A Line Across the Sky | Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold | Patagonia - YouTube 
 

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Five

 

A good few weeks previously I had been sat in the dining room on station chatting to a friend about my travel plans. Sam had been to El Calafate before, and he recommended a visit to Punta Walichu – an archaeological site with ancient cave paintings and a nice little café down by the lake. He said that it was easy enough to hire a bike and cycle, or even walk there from the town. As much as I love cycling, I decided on the walking option for the unrivalled simplicity of it all. I packed a small bag with some water, a few snacks, and a book. I also put in a light jacket in case of rain. For something so easy though, the walking actually felt a little difficult at first. The day was warm, really warm, and there was not a speck of shelter from the sun. The irony was not lost on me that when Sam had been telling me about this place we had been sat looking out at icebergs on a grey, snowy day. My legs also felt a little stiff, a little bit like they had forgotten how to properly move – a sure indication that I had spent too much time on buses for their liking in the past few days. There was also a sense which I can’t quite describe – a sense that perhaps I needed some sort of permission to be here, to be walking these dusty backroads – a stranger in someone else’s home land. I felt that I was taking up a space that didn’t belong to me, and I felt almost overwhelmingly conscious of my presence there. My movement felt clumsy and almost comical – like it might be possible that I could trip over one of the many particles of air that I was blundering my way through.  But of course nobody stopped me, and no one really gave me a second glance if I’m honest. The few people I did see were simply going about their day, and if I was passing close enough, we would exchange a smile, a wave, and a hello. The more I walked though, the better I began to feel. It was as if with each step a sense of purpose was returning to me – a sense which I hadn’t even realised that I was missing until then. It is something that can suddenly slip away in the days immediately after leaving station – the time up until that point having been so very clearly defined. But then all of a sudden, the answer to the question of ‘what are you doing’ becomes as difficult to pin down as a plastic bag in the Patagonian wind. But now I knew that if anyone were to ask me, I would say that I was just going for a walk – and that would make sense, and I would be understood. It’s not exactly a revelation though – it is something we have known for such a long time. The virtue of movement is within the movement itself – whether you’re walking for ten minutes or if you’re walking for ten miles. I took my first steps on a beach in the North West of Scotland, and perhaps life has been a series of walks ever since. The walk to school, the walk to a friends, the walks that my mum dragged my three brothers, my sister, and myself on when we were young, the walk to collect your certificate at one, two graduation ceremonies, the walk to work, the walk to the polling station, the walk to take a penalty kick for Fulham FC that would win you the league, the walk to Santiago de Compostela and the walk away from there with a broken heart, the walk around the block, the walk to place a daffodil on your step-father’s grave, the walks in the deserts of the Wadi Rum, Antarctica, and now Patagonia, and the very best walk of all – the walk home.

The turquoise blue of Lago Argentino 

I walked on, and the enticing turquoise blue of Lago Argentino drew ever nearer, and before long I passed a sign welcoming me to Punta Walichu. It was exactly as Sam had said - a couple of small buildings nestled between the cliffs and the water’s edge. There were a few cars parked there, a couple of bikes, but that was it. There was a wonderful sense of quiet about the place – a calmness even amidst the relentless wind.  I went into the café which also served as the reception, and I paid my entrance fee to look around the archaeological reserve. I listened to an audio description in English. I looked at 4,000-year-old paintings on the walls of the cave. I had never expected to go to this place and feel so moved. It reminded me of something I had written a few years previously – my attempt to articulate the importance of art.

4,000-year-old cave paintings 

“Right from the very beginning, amidst the often-brutal battle for survival, humankind have drawn and carved their stories into stone. Creativity is integral to us as a species; it is our connection to each other and to the world. We have language and all the power and beauty that is in words; but what of the worlds beyond that, what of the words we have never spoken, and all the things we’ve not yet seen. For centuries we have encountered the same problems, time and time again. You can look back to the words of ancient philosophers and wonder if we have learnt a single thing. Perhaps language for all its wealth is limited in some fatal way; how can we possibly think up a new vision without the words to frame those dreams. But there is art, and there is music, to show us the future and to speak those wordless things.”

The view from the Punta Walichu caves 

I was in no particular hurry and the days were long, so I sat in the café, ordered some food, took out my book and read for a while. When I felt the impetus to move again, I headed off – this time along the lakeshore – as I made my way back towards the town. With the vast expanse of Lago Argentino and the wind whipping up the water into crashing waves it became more like the sea than a lake to my mind.

Sea-like waves upon the lake 

And the sea gives us different thoughts to a lake I find, and I felt so different now in myself than when the day began. My steps felt light, as did my heart, and I sang a Joan Baez song or two as I walked along.

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Four

 

It was evening time when the bus pulled into El Calafate bus terminal. The wind had picked up, but the grey drizzle of the day had rolled away – replaced by this crazy colour that seemed to saturate the very air.

Late-evening skies, El Calafate

I shouldered my bag and made my way down unfamiliar streets to find the place I would be staying for the next three nights. I had booked a cabin-type-thing, a perfect sort of space for one person, and with a communal grassy area outside with chairs. Much of the world was dry and dusty here – El Calafate is more Patagonian Desert than Patagonian Forest, although that lay not far away. But with the nearby water source of Lago Argentino – a freshwater lake with a surface area of 1,466 km² - it was not uncommon to see gardens of verdant green against the grey and brown of the scrubby land (I don’t think hosepipe bans are a thing here). I dropped my bag and went for a little stroll – glad of the fresh air after a day sat on buses, delighting in the wonder of taking my first steps in this new world. My legs felt unsure at first though, as if weighed down by some arbitrary sort of significance I had placed on the whole thing. It made me think about the space that we occupy in the universe, and that as I was walking down the dusty, gravel roads here, I could be just about anywhere in the world. Not because all roads look the same, but because we are much the same wherever we go - and putting a name to that place (unless that place is called home) makes very little difference in the end. I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that, except possibly for this: I had dreamt of Argentina for so long that maybe I had built up some sort of grand personal importance about the place. But in reality, I had simply stepped off a bus, and now I was here, and I didn’t feel any different at all. It made me think that I could have stepped off a bus just about anywhere and I would have felt exactly the same – a little unsure, a little worn down and weary perhaps from the months that had gone before. Whatever changes that Argentina might bring about in me were yet to come – not as a lightning bolt moment, but rather as a gradual accumulation of experiences and time. 

Not because all roads are the same....

The following morning, I had booked to go on a tour of the Perito Moreno Glacier – approximately 80km by bus from El Calafate. I wondered if I had seen enough snow and ice recently to last a lifetime, but this was something else – it was absolutely astonishing. The glacier is 30km in length, and it is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Icefield. Of specific note is that the Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the only few glaciers in the world that is not retreating. It is understandably a tourist hotspot, and it is one of those places that even when you’re there you struggle to take in the enormity of it. At its terminus the ice stands 70 metres above the surface of Lago Argentino, with its total depth being 170 metres.

70m above the surface and 100m more beneath

There were a series of short trails that you could walk around and view the glacier from – most of them crowded with people. And all the while I knew that I was one of those people too – I was more the crowd than I was an individual person. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who found themselves wishing that the whole experience was more conducive to quiet contemplation rather than feeling much like a fairground attraction. But that is often the compromise I suppose – you either see it like that or not at all. Besides, I suspect that much of the restlessness I felt that day was because of my ongoing struggle to adjust to life post-Rothera, rather than as a result of any particular external factor. But with all that said, I was very glad that I had had the chance to go there, and to have had that chance to feel dwarfed by something so much bigger than ourselves. I feel that for much of the time I live a small life – a life consumed by worries and trivialities, and self-absorption. A life where I don’t often look far beyond myself. And maybe this is how most of us live most of the time. And yet, having the chance to see such immensities of nature compel us to step outside of ourselves for a little while. We gain if but for a moment a wonderous new perspective on the world and of ourselves – and it might feel like nothing much, or it might feel like everything, but it feels different whether in the quiet, or in the crowd.

The Perito Moreno Glacier 

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Three

 

It was raining as I made my way to the bus terminal. I clung as best I could to the brief shelter provided by the buildings, and smiled at the thought that we’re only ever a short downpour away from feeling like we are right at home. I ducked into a small currency exchange store near to the bus stop. The air inside was thick and heavy – a combination of cigarette fumes and an incense burner behind the desk valiantly trying to counteract the smell. I swapped some US dollars for Argentinian Pesos - all the while trying to breathe as little as possible. The rain drenched streets and car exhausts suddenly seemed quite inviting.

It was not a bad day to be spent sat on buses I decided, and the first leg would be a three-and-a-half-hour journey to Puerto Natales, Chile. Having travelled about by bus in Chile last year with Matt, I knew both how straightforward and how good it was. For longer distance journeys you book your tickets in advance, you can usually select your seat, and then you simply turn up 15 minutes beforehand, stow your big bag and jump on board. The smaller, more local buses were a bit more of a free for all. There was one in particular that springs to mind – one that Matt and I took on the Isla de Chiloé. The bus driver seemed to know everyone, and he would stop here there and everywhere – seemingly on a whim. There was no discernible system as to who paid and who didn’t – I remember Matt sitting there saying, “I have no idea what is going on!” The funniest thing was that the driver would open the bus doors long before he actually slowed down and came to a stop, so you had to make sure that you were holding onto something pretty tightly if you were stood up when the doors were opened as the bus was still hurtling along. But in comparison, on paper, today’s bus ride was set to be a much more sedate affair. There was a small amount of confusion as to when we could actually board the bus – I had put my big bag in the storage compartment and not long afterwards an announcement came over the Tannoy system that the bus was ready for passengers. A middle-aged woman who spoke better English than I did Spanish saw me hesitate, grabbed my arm, and told me that we could go on board. But when we were refused entry because the person with the ticket checklist wasn’t there yet, she got a little bit upset - the Tannoy announcement should never have been made if they were not actually ready – things were supposed to happen in an organised way! Just how much of a stickler for the rules she was became apparent when I found out that my allocated seat was next to hers. We were over fifteen minutes late leaving because she couldn’t get her seatbelt to work. She made me check that mine was working fine, and I got the feeling that she would not let it rest until I put it on. There was a sign saying that seatbelts must be worn, and while of course I was aware of the importance of wearing seatbelts I had had no intention of wearing one on this bus. I did look around though – I wondered if this was some really strict law that they had in Chile, but not another single person had put theirs on. I shrugged my shoulders slightly – probably just internally – then put my headphones on and tried to fall asleep. The bus was full, and it felt way too warm, and that was exacerbated by the windows being fogged up against the grey rain outside. What made it worse was that every now and then the woman sat next to me would take some food out of her bag which had the most god-awful smell. None of this was particularly helpful for someone who struggles with travel sickness even on the smoothest of journeys! It was all I could do to reassuringly pat the bag I had to hand, pop a Murray Mint in my mouth, and hope that I could keep the contents of my stomach in place. A little later on the woman tapped me on the shoulder, indicating that she wanted to go and use the toilet. So, I unfastened my seatbelt, shuffled into the aisle, and stepped aside to let her past. She thanked me very much and returned a few minutes later. I retook my seat, and she soon told me that I must put my seatbelt back on. This time I said no, and from then on, she was really grumpy with me. Whatever good relationship we had had as bus travelling companions had quickly turned sour – I think I did it out of spite to be honest, if only to see her reaction, and because of just how badly her lunch smelt.

I was so glad to arrive in Puerto Natales – I had about an hour to wait until my next bus to El Calafate. I spent as much of this time as possible outside – save for a trip to the toilets and checking in with my ticket and passport (this bus journey would see me cross the border into Argentina). Public toilets in South America could be an interesting experience – they ask that you don’t flush toilet paper down the loo, so there is a bin full of the stuff in each cubicle, and this can often stink to high-heaven. The other thing that I had noticed in some of the public toilets I had used in Chile, is that they don’t have toilet roll dispensers in the actual toilet. There will be one on the wall outside, and you take what you think you need before you go in. Thankfully, I seem to have estimated this fairly accurately each time!

The bus to El Calafate was more of a coach – it had two levels, and a lot more space. You could almost fully stretch your legs out. The seat next to me was free and given that this would be a six hour journey, I was glad for all of these things. Across the aisle from me though was the woman who I had sat next to on the bus from Punta. She looked at me, and said without smiling, “Oh, it’s you again.” It seems that she really did take that seatbelt thing quite badly. Not long after leaving Puerto Natales we arrived at the Chilean border control. We all got off the bus and walked into the building that housed the passport control, and our passports were briskly stamped with a Chilean exit stamp. We were now entering no-mans land, and the road stretched out somewhat imposingly into the early afternoon gloom. Some of the distances here and the amount of space are difficult to conceive. I later sent a few photos to a friend, and he asked if I’d seen any horses yet as it looked like cowboy land. “Not yet! But I did see one person riding a heavily ladened bicycle. I think you could ride these roads for several eternities – the skies never end.”

The road stretching into no-man's land between Chile and Argentina. 

The tarmac soon turned to gravel road, and progress towards the Argentinian border suddenly seemed slow. But eventually we came upon a small collection of huts, an Argentine flag atop a flagpole, and a sign that read - Rebublica Argentina. Escuadron 43 “Rio Turbio”. Once again, we all filed off the bus and queued up at passport control. I’m honestly not sure what I was expecting, but at the very least I suppose I was expecting a few questions. But the guy behind the counter seemed both young and bored – he flicked idly through my passport before handing it back to me without a word and without a stamp. I lingered there for a second wondering if that was that – and as he gave no indication of anything else I walked out of the hut and back to the bus. I did wonder briefly that if I didn’t have a stamp in my passport did anyone actually know that I was here – I had officially left Chile but had since disappeared off the face of the earth! It was a funny thought really, and symptomatic of a world in which we feel like our very existence must always be verified. But here I was, in Argentina – the continuation of a dream that was dreamt up long ago.

Arriving in Argentina. 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Two

 

Punta Arenas has a wonderful familiarity about it – I have more Chilean stamps in my passport than from any other country. It is one of the main gateway cities to Antarctica – certainly for those folk heading in and out of Rothera. And it’s not just those who are working for BAS (British Antarctic Survey) – several Transiting Aircraft will fly from Punta to Rothera where they refuel and spend the night (or multiple nights if the weather is bad), before heading to various different locations on the continent. This might be to the Pole, Union Glacier, or Neumayer (a German scientific research station). Many of the aircrew for these planes will return year after year, and so it’s really not uncommon to bump into a familiar face when you’re in Punta. There is certainly a wider Antarctic community vibe about the place. But it’s not just that – it’s also the familiarity with the landscape, of knowing which cafes and restaurants you like, of knowing where to go for a walk, and the peace of mind that comes from all of that. I really like Punta – I’m never there that long that it gets boring or loses its novelty, and yet I know it well enough to feel completely content there.

That first evening after arriving back – after unceremoniously dumping kit bags just inside the hotel room door, and star-fishing on the double bed, and taking a luxuriously long shower without worrying that you’re going to drain the reverse-osmosis plant – I went out for a quiet dinner with the pilots and the engineer of the Dash-7. It was a parting of the ways – David, Vicky, and Kristina would be headed back to Rothera in the morning, Al and Marie would be making their way north to the UK and France respectively, and I would be staying put in South America for a while. After eating we took a wander down to the front – there was a delicious warmth to the evening sun, so we carried our jackets and stood watching some remote-control car racing for a bit. There were also folk playing basketball, kicking a footy about, and practicing tricks on skateboards and BMX bikes. I found it all utterly fascinating, and I felt a gentle happiness as I watched on with friends, simply observing the scene.

The next couple of days were fairly unremarkable in many ways – I found that I was sleeping quite a lot, that realisation of just how tired you are when you finally stop. I took short walks around the town, I sat in cafes, I booked a string of buses for the next part of my trip, and tried to keep calm at the almost overwhelming sense of freedom that was now mine. I was by myself in a foreign land, there was almost no direction to my life other than that which was mine to decide. This in itself may not seem like anything out of the ordinary – but when you put it in the context of how life had been for the past four months, it felt like a strange world to navigate at first. When you’ve been craving anonymity for so long, and an escape from such a highly predictable routine, and when you’re suddenly gifted with all that you’ve been dreaming of - it can seem a little bit like loneliness and a life devoid of purpose initially. I found that without a rigid framework to mark each day I had to summon up huge amounts of motivation to do even the most basic of things. And with the vast array of choices now available to me, my ability to make decisions of any kind had just about gone out of the window entirely. I had to decide which type of coffee I wanted to drink before I went into a café, or else I would have been sat there for so long I would probably have got into some sort of panic and left before I could order a thing! And I found that I would go to eat at places that I had been to before, and would order the same thing that I had eaten there the last time because it was far easier to stick to what you knew than to have to consider something new. For me at least I needed the comfort of taking the easy option – I’m sure that others post-Rothera are different – and different for me would come anyway in the next few days. I had booked my bus routes to Argentina – a land I had never been to before.

On my last day in Punta before my travels began, I woke to glorious sunshine, a strong Patagonian breeze, and something that vaguely felt like energy! I put my running stuff on, packed a small bag containing an apple, a snickers bar, and a book, and took a taxi to the Reserva Nacional Magallanes – a beautiful, forested area situated on the hill up above Punta. It felt incredible to be amongst the trees- to breathe in the sights, sounds, and smells that came from the dense vegetation. I ran and walked my way around the trails, and I was almost reduced to a crawl in the higher-up sections which were out of the trees and exposed to the full extent of the wind. I estimated that at least six pegs would have been required to keep a single item of clothing attached to a washing line up there!  I got back to the Rangers Station an hour and a half before the time I had booked my return taxi for. So, I took my book out, sat on the grass, and read for a while. I also ate my apple and my snickers bar. I did have to admit defeat to that eventually – the unrelenting wind got to me, and so I went to sit inside. Also in my bag were a couple of pens and some paper, so I started writing a letter to a friend. There were a few other people waiting around in there, including some French speakers who were waiting for a taxi, too. I didn’t let on that I knew what they were talking about – not that it was anything secret or particularly interesting, they were mostly just saying how windy it was.

My taxi ride turned up at ten past five, and I was starting to feel quite hungry and had decided that I would go to Mesita Grande for a pizza when I got back into town. The taxi driver asked where I was from, and when he found out that I was English he began talking very animatedly about Margaret Thatcher for the next couple of minutes. I couldn’t understand all that much – but I got the general gist that he was a big fan, and he threw General Pinochet’s name in there a couple of times as well. I strongly suspected that the taxi driver thought that Margaret Thatcher was still alive, and so I thought that I should probably break the ‘news’ to him. Upon doing so, he let out a sigh, pointed to the sky, and said that Margaret must be with St Peter now. I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I sat there without reply and went back to thinking about which kind of pizza I was going to order later on.