Patagonia! - Director´s Cut

We pulled into Puerto Madryn in South American style. Our swish bus had carried us in luxury style over 1500km from Buenos Aires to the start of Patagonia province in a little over 20hrs. As we left the bus we were still reeling a little from the comparison with the Indian bus experience. We'd travelled cheapest class in South America on semi-cama. We couldnt imagine how it could get more luxe - smooth suspension on flat roads, with deep reclining seats, free water (hot and cold), air-con and movies...!

Stomping through the small town with our backpacks fully laden, we arranged our tours - nominally 'penguins' at Punta Tombo and 'whales' on the Valdez Peninsula and treated ourselves to a taxi to our campsite. We'd spent neary 250 quid in the capital on camping gear - stove, tent, etc. Dormitory rooms in hostels here cost upwards of 10 pounds a night minimum, with better joints upto 15. For any privacy, double rooms started to clock in at the 25 mark. Camping, we could do at half the price of a dorm and if our budget was going to stretch through Argentina and Chile - effectively "European" priced countries - we`d have to economise. So as we pullled up in a taxi, the wind swirled dust up around the car and light rain pattered on the stony ground. It's windy as hell here - in fact they are spending $3bn on the continent's largest windfarm in Patagonia. But it never rains. At least, Not until Mhairi and I decided to camp here. In all honesty though the shower passed we pitched our tent, ate some packet noodles, drank a Quilmes and went to sleep.

Patagonia is a vast unending steppe of featureless shrub land. The sheer barren scale is amazing and only the huge vault of azure sky above it compares. Yet as soon as you start to pay attention, life swarms out of the low-rise undergrowth. From the obvious guanacas and rheas, to hares, foxes and hundreds of birds and smaller animals, the whole ecology balances itself precariously against the harsh climate. Patagonia was our chance to get some real animal spotting under our belt, and true to form we were packed into a (deluxe) minibus, driven down seemingly endless arrow-straight roads, in search of our prey.

 

First up was the painfully small town of Rawson. 20,000 people clustered onto a blustery and inhospitable coast and a town only because it was the first place Welsh settles landed in the 19th Century. The draw here is to head out and see Commerson Dolphins - the smallest in the world , and like their large Orca relatives, black and white. At an extra 50 quid per person on top of the tour cost of 60 (plus a hundred for the whales the next day), we passed on the dolphins and spent the time on a mini photo project of the bleak landscape. After more driving, we hit the penguins with a vengeance - jamming our cameras right into their either inquisitive or totally uncaring faces. The gentle nature of penguins, and their toddler waddle on land makes them beguiling companions for an afternoon walk around the beach. Their donkey-like braying all the more sympathetic when you realise it's for a life partner that is late back from feeding in the sea. These little monogamous birds  mate for life and find their way to the same nest every year on a shoreline of a million such burrows: when someone behaves like an animal, they'd do well to be a penguin.

Day 2 brought us up close with the whales. These 40 ton giants roam the coast of Peninsula Valdez from May to December and we'd arrived in time to see last few mothers and calves before they begin their epic trip to the antarctic. The male whales had long since disappeared - their fatherly duties are only of the biological minimum in whale society. Placid and restful, the mother-baby pair swam languorously  around and under our boat, obligingly popping up for a few headshots now and then. We didn't see any leaping or splashing so heavily advertised in the brochures, but getting an eyeful of the behemoths was stunning regardless. Their dark shadows, pocked with crab-like crustaceans on the mouth, swam under the boat and dwarfed our little craft. Coming up for air, we got sprayed by a powerful snort of water as the mother whale exhaled, and we watched in awe as the gigantic creature slipped slightly across the surface until flipping its tail and powering back down underwater.

The champion chefs at Estrela grilled up some kidneys, black pudding and salty pork sausage for my lunch - again, enough to comfortably feed three. Mhairi looked on gamely, while
Popping delicate ravioli onto her fork - though again there was enough pasta for a small family. All of this was to fatten ourselves for the 22hr bus trip down to El Calafate. South American buses without services still give you snack breakfasts and a ham/cheese sandwich at some point, but we liked the excuse to eat out - and Mhairi´s tolerance of ham (zero) and dulce de leche (barely above zero) meant that we needed pre-fuelling.

Several hours of mesmerising plains and sky later, we pulled into El Calafate, Alpine chocolate-box Argentina. Swiss chalet style cabanas and log-hit bar/restaurants crowded the long, wide and leafy high street. Shops crammed with overpriced hiking gear, emphasising style over substance, filled any gap. Both flora and fauna were to take a back seat here: everyone comes to El Calafate for one thing. The Glacier.

It is a wall of saw-toothed edges, aggressive and poised. The whiteness sparkles and blinds in the sun, while lustrous neon and  baby blues glow out of its jagged depths. Deeper still at the root the blues are of ocean-deep darkness - the weight and pressure of millions of tonnes of ice concentrated into its leading edge. Perito Moreno - one of the last few advancing glaciers on the planet and the only one accessible to everyday journeymen like Mhairi and me. The ice towered over us, and we felt its urgency, its desire to move forward. The lashing rain and wind of the morning chilled us to the bone, while Perito Moreno stood implacable, unaffected. Suddenly, cannon style reports shot through the valley. The air echoed with an ear-splitting crunch that made our hearts hammer in our chest: and  ice cascaded down the face of the glacier wall, hurtling so quickly it looked liquid while carrying a huge slab of iceberg with it. Smaller chunks of ice chased in its wake, dropping a hundred meters vertically like a pack of predators. All the ice smashed into the leaden depths of the lake at its base, sending the water into a sub-zero rolling boil. Previously sturdy iceberg outriders that had sat placidly in front of the glacier beforehand began to bob and rock on the waves like toy boats in the bath.

We spent 6 hours at the glacier, and as the sun cleared Perito Moreno's activity increased. Small and large deposits were thrown at the lake, and the glacier groaned and creaked more often as heat caused motion deep under the ice. Watching its slow and inexorable daily activity, the cares of our frenetic and brief lives seemed so insignificant. In winter the ice can move upto several centimetres a day and while we can circle the globe in that time, Perito Moreno has been at its task for thousands years, and will be there long after we are buried in the land it seeks to cover. At its face, we are like flies buzzing - a short lived annoyance that cannot detract from its inevitable purpose.

Next up was El Chalten, Argentina. In a few days' time we'd attempt our biggest trekking challenge in Chile - the Torres del Paine W-trek. El Chalten was to be our warm up. It was a wake up call.

Two popular trails run from El Chalten, one up to the base of Cerro Torre - a singular spire of rock that defies the Patagonian wind, and another up to a viewpoint on Fitzroy, the mountain that smokes, its jagged fire-coloured form thrusting up to the sky a few kilometres north. The hardy take a triangular trek west out of Chalten, the two peaks mentioned form the vertices of the triangle to the south west and north west respectively. They camp out, and Poincenot campsite at the base of the Fitzroy ascent is where the hardy tough it out with only a long drop toilet as permanent comfort: everything else is carried in and out. More moderate walkers like Mhairi and I undertake two day hikes out and back, to save us carrying our tents on our backs (TdP would not be so kind).

Kindly dropped off at the warden's hut by the bus on entry to the town, we took our simple map and looked pleasingly at the 3-4hr trails that would leave us gazing on awesome views for a moderate effort, before making a similarly timed return journey downhill for dinner in our tent.

Day 1
Clear blue sky broke through frequently as the brisk Patagonian wind continually pushed and pulled a smattering of cloud cover around the heavens. Direct sunlight was hot on the skin, but an instant chill descended in the shade. With reasonable precautions for the weather, we set off. Views over the valley were spectacular, and as we crested a ridge out of town, we saw the tower of Cerro Solo rising up in front of us. A harbinger of the views to come, we smiled, took pictures and kept a steady pace. Around 1pm we started up the gravel track that led to the Cerro Torre view point, nestled above a glacial lake with floating icebergs. And indeed the lake and mountain were there - albeit covered in a thick and unrelenting cloud that obscured the very mountain we'd come to see. As the wind picked up again, pushing cold rain across our faces despite sunny skies and giving rise to our shivers, we took up our gear and started back. The climate warmed, and we made steadfast progress. We reflected on the beauty of the walk in general, how we'd made good time and seen some mountains even if we didn't get the crowd-pleaser view at the end.

In the night, there was an absolute stillness. 

We awoke to find overcast weather, yet still with the promise of sun lurking in blue patches in the distance. For our second hike up to Fitzroy, the views of the valley were even more impressive. Mhairi's camera went in and out of her jeans every couple of minutes and eventually she just carried it in hand waiting for the next photo opp. Descending from an open plateau into the woods, we saw several small groups of travellers stood motionless. As our eyes became accustomed to the gloom a sudden loud knocking rang out in the trees. The flashing red hammer-heads of Patagonian woodpeckers jumped out at us, and we watched as the birds see-sawed their bodies violently up and down to smack sharp beaks into the bark. They scuttled like squirrels up and down over the trunk, listening for termites then knock-knock-knock and success! One caught a fat wriggly bug clenched between its beak, that was duly gulped down.

Female Patagonian Woodpecker.

Coming out of the woods, the wind was up and a light rain whipped across the marshy land in front of us. The sky had thickened with bluish-grey cloud. The trees began to lean in obeisance to the force of the wind pushing them over. We passed Poincenot (the aforementioned camp of the hardy) and then reached the Rio Blanco shelter 3hrs in. It had started to rain persistently - a swirling, needling rain that gusted around us, fed by the strong Patagonian wind straight from the glaciers.

From Rio Blanco it's an hour's hard climb to the Fitzroy lookout. Game for the challenge, we set off and started what developed into a boulder scramble. The rising rock pushed us to higher altitude and made us more exposed. The wind was bitterly cold now and our layers of warm clothing slowly succumbed to a chilly damp. As long as we kept moving we stayed warm. As we clambered over the rocky ridge, we had our hopes disappointed a second time: the grim weather obscured Fitzroy entirely. But as we looked on, the majesty of this barren and icy cold enviornment slowly grew on us. It seemed like a place no human should be, a mystical other-worldy presence hung in the air. As the now freezing temperatures lashed ice instead of rain against us, the view seemed like the entrance to some majestic foreboding underworld. We took it as long as we could then started our descent. It was 3pm but the obscured sun made for an eerie twilight. No one was coming up any more, and those descending ahead of us had the urgent tread of the cold and fearful. By now the wind was so strong that it pushed and pulled us around as we trudged down the rocky path. The ice lashed our faces and we covered up as best we could. Neither of us had waterproof trousers, and our legs were the first to get drenched, also sending a slow creeping wetness into our boots.

'Oh my Goawd!' - the nasal American accent startled me and I looked up to see three teenagers gamely fighting up the muddy scree. They looked dressed for a chilly day on Jersey Shore. 'It goes on forever!', continued the blonde girl. Her blonde friend shivered in her leggings and hoodie, while the young guy muttered something back to them both. They pushed on up. An older Israeli guy headed up after, covered head to toe in the fattest warm clothes I'd seen and with a shapka on his head that you find protecting against Siberian winters. I feared for the Yanks, but the Israeli was hot on their tail. Mhairi and I continued down. We hit the refuge at Rio Blanco again and hid from the rain. A Mexican trekker was changing from his drenched lightweight clothes into heavier warm gear, 'Up or down?'
I gave him a look as if to say, I'm not that crazy - 'Down'
He nodded sagely, 'there were three and then the one guy. I don't know...' he shook his head. I understood. Mhairi was freezing and we'd wrapped up warm. The weather was getting worse and worse. As we thought in silence and the Mexican shared his cookies, the Israeli burst in,
'Man, I go up, I stay for a minute and then down. This weather, man, it's unbelievable'. He took a proferred cookie.
'Did you see the three Americans?' I asked.
A frown and a shake of a head, 'well, I am getting off this fucking mountain.' 
And he left, at speed. I looked at Mhairi and the Mexican. Mhairi and I both needed to get down. As we sat in the shelter, I could feel the water had penetrated to the skin all over, regardless of waterproofs. Mhairi's eyes stared quietly out from beneath her rain hood, mouth munching mechanically on her second cookie.
'Will you wait for them?', I asked.
'A little while,' the Mexican replied.
Mhairi and I set off. I'd wanted to stay and help but we were wet and of limited use. We forced the pace to keep ourselves warm, but by this time Mhairi's soaked jeans were dragging across her skin with each step, forming red-raw rashes on her legs. Water had flooded down into both our boots:  they squelched uncomfortably as we trod onwards, and threatened blisters. And all of this we endured while the cold dark rain closed in on us.

It was a long hike back to El Chalten and the weather pushed us all the way. No woodpeckers worked on the trees during our descent, the only sounds we heard were the wind and rain torturing the trees around us. Twenty minutes out from the end I heard strong footsteps - the Mexican was powering down the hillside, catching us up.
'Did you see the Americans?'
'I waited 20minutes, got really cold and had to come down. I told the guys at the Poincenot campsite to look out for them and get help if they didn't pass through'

He shrugged, disconsolately and I knew how he felt. You want to help, and I still kick myself for not saying something when we passed the Americans the first time. With the severe weather though, we just weren't equipped to go looking for them, whereas the guys at Poincenot could if they felt they had to. Passing that responsibility over though, moving it from me and the Mexican who'd seen the kids and how poorly dressed they were, it felt like abandonment. Admittedly, all the campers at Poincenot are experienced - staying out in the wilds was what they'd planned for. Those guys would have the spare clothes and hot drinks to rub life into anyone caught by the storm.

As it was, Mhairi and I got back to the tent, changed and headed off to a warm restaurant for dinner to de-ice our frozen bones. We sat in the window of El Muro restaurant, looking out on the road that leads back from the Fitzroy trail. We ate good food, with great wine, and some other trekkers we'd passed during the day joined us. Whenever I glanced back out on the road though, it stayed empty and desolate.

We spent one more day in El Chalten, with the weather mercifully cleared and some warm sunshine to relax in. We took a small hike up to the Chorillo waterfalls across an easy flat path along the gravel track north and finished of the majority of our food so that Chile´s notoriously strict food import rules wouldn´t catch us out (we were to discover that they literally x-ray every bag going across the border looking for edible flore and fauna). We treated ourselves to a beer at the Artisan Cerveceria along the road from our campsite and reflected: we felt happy and contented. We felt like survivors, we felt like we´d done our treks and learnt our lessons and had high hopes for Torres del Paine where we´d be 5 days and 4 nights on the trail. And so it was that early next morning we got on the bus to Chile enjoying the views out of the window with some satiscaction. Windswept estancia ranches dotted the rolling foothills as the land gave way to Patagonia´s habitual flatness.