In Patagonia

I suspend any effort to come up with a clever title for this post.  On the heels of our time here, I now realize Patagonia doesn’t need introduction by wordplay.  It speaks for itself.  The word alone—“Patagonia”—fully conveys what South America’s extreme southern reach represents: the natural beauty, the endless adventure, the simplicity of life, the danger, and yes, even the clothing (we needed every layer!).  My title, In Patagonia, I must admit is borrowed (read: stolen) from Bruce Chatwin’s 1977 travel-writing masterpiece by the same name.  Although I haven’t read the book—despite an ongoing search for an affordable copy—I find myself captivated by the mystery and wonder that its title evokes; a perfectly succinct phrase that seemingly says nothing, but actually says everything about a truly mysterious and wonderful place.  Patagonia can bring you to your knees—the savage winds capable of knocking you to the ground without warning; the jagged granite spires, pointing to the firmament; the cloud-streaked skies, forever lit by a restless sun; the blue-grey glaciers, towering hundreds of feet over emerald waters’ edge; and the exhausting but exhilarating journey that connects it all.   We hiked nearly fifty miles in five days.  We fought through a blizzard to see a sunrise.  We saw a glacier shed icebergs the size of houses.  Always in the moment, our minds, bodies, and spirits were held captive by Patagonia’s relentless grip.  We were nowhere else.  We were in Patagonia.

Over two months ago when we started our trip, we had no real intention of visiting Patagonia.  Like a curled arm, the region flexes its South American muscle towards Antarctica, far below where we thought our trip would ever take us.  Of course we’d heard of its beauty, but we continued to remind ourselves of what all travelers must keep in mind: You can’t do it all.  Not enough time, not enough money.

With one exception, our time in Peru and Northern Chile had been all we’d hoped it would be.  As we’ve previously written, we explored when we wanted to, relaxed when we didn’t, and made a number of good friends along the way.  With fellow travelers, our conversations invariably began with discussions of our travels—past, present and future.  Time after time, Patagonia quickly became the discussion’s focus.  Like a song with a beautiful, soaring melody, Patagonia made a cozy little place for itself in the corners of our minds.  We traveled further south and the song got louder.  Even further south, it became a roar.  It was too much to resist.  In Santiago, we bought a plane ticket to the edge of the Earth.

Patagonia covers over 500,000 square miles across southern Chile and Argentina, nearly 10% of South America’s total surface area.  Covering numerous climate zones of varying altitude, the region includes a wide diversity of temperatures and landscapes.  Along the Pacific coast, the Patagonian Andes separating Chile and Argentina intercept the humid air mass traveling overland from the Pacific, causing high amounts of rainfall that contribute to the massive collection of glaciers that make up the Patagonian ice cap—the largest ice-field in the Southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica.  With the winds stripped of moisture, the majority of Argentine Patagonia, just to the east, is left a near desert.  These flat, sparsely vegetated lands, referred to as the steppe, stretch northeast along the Atlantic coast.  Based on recommendations from fellow travelers, we planned to spend our time in Southern Patagonia, in and around the Chilean and Argentine national parks that include portions of the southern Andes and the Patagonian ice cap.  We were brimming with excitement.  We couldn’t wait.

We arrived in Puerto Natales, the gateway city for visiting National Park Torres del Paine, with one day to prepare for our five-day trek of the ‘W’—a fifty-mile, ‘W’ shaped trail connecting the park’s most impressive sights.  The trail includes a handful of free camp sites as well as a few expensive hostel-restaurants called refugios.  Keen on keeping expenses low—and due to a bit of hubris from our time on the Inca Trail*—we opted against the refugios and decided we’d spend all four of our nights on the trail camping.  With little to no prior camping experience, we decided we would do it completely on our own.  Thus, with our short time in Puerto Natales, we had to learn what food to bring (then buy it), learn what necessary gear we needed (then rent it), and learn as much as we could about the ambitious journey ahead of us—a journey that would see us shouldering heavy packs for an average of nearly twelve miles a day.  We were calm on the outside, but truthfully quite overwhelmed within.  Thankfully, Puerto Natales has seen a countless number of overconfident, uninformed individuals come its way with similarly formidable goals.

One of the city’s backpacker hostels hosts an incredibly helpful information session every day at 3pm.  The session we attended was led by a little mouse of a Chilean man named Nacho.  Nacho’s English wasn’t great, but he gave us some great advice including ideas for food, the best route to take on the ‘W’ (west to east), as well as some invaluable waterproofing techniques (garbage bags—not rocket science, I guess).**  At times, he turned parts of the presentation into an improvisational comedy show, reenacting how he would witness the park’s most beautiful sites while sitting with his chica.  With one outstretched arm around his imaginary girlfriend’s shoulder, he smiled and said softly, “Senorita, you have such more beauty, than dis amazing sunrise before us.”  I promised Cynthia I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to do the same. (I didn’t).

One thing we didn’t have to bring, Nacho told us, was water.  Southern Patagonia has some of the purest drinking water on the planet.  All you have to do is bring an empty bottle with you into the park, dip it into any of the park’s glacial-runoff streams, and enjoy the clearest, cleanest, coldest helping of water you’ve ever had in your life.  I had no idea this was even possible.  Nacho also stressed how volatile the weather is and encouraged us to prepare for all four seasons during our trek.  Finally, we were able to rent all of the necessary gear from the same hostel—tent, cooking stove, utensils, sleeping mats, walking poles.  We were all set.  After a quick trip to the grocery store, we were back at our hostel organizing our packs for five days of complete self-reliance.

Lago Pehoe

Our packs are heavy and the terrain steep, but we’re fueled by adrenaline and excitement as we approach our first campsite, seven hours after departing from the aquamarine shores of Lago Pehoe.  Shaded by tall forest, our campsite includes twenty-or-so small sites.  We choose a site that seems most desirable, trying to maximize privacy and minimize insects—efforts we will later find futile due to the massive mosquito colonies blanketing the area.  We shed our heavy loads.  Our campsite happens to sits on a cliff, perched only a few hundred meters directly above the convergence of the shores of Lago Grey with its source: the towering wall of Glacier Grey, the largest of the park’s vast collection of glaciers.  Grey’s presence is felt like a ghost in the room.  We’d gotten a few glances of it during the day’s hike but from very far away.  At 6pm, with the sun still high overhead peering through grey skies—still four hours before it was due to touch the horizon—we quickly navigate through the forest, weightless without our packs, to find a view over the cliff.   We reach the rocky lookout and find ourselves floating above an arresting landscape: the milky silver surface of Lago Grey stretches to our left, dotted with gigantic electric blue icebergs, aimlessly floating around like yachts in the Caribbean.  Snow-capped mountains surround.  Directly below us, the huge face of Grey’s glacial tongue meets lake’s edge.  This wall of ice—towering 150 feet over the lake’s surface—looks like a thousand frozen humped back whales, breaching in unison with gaping mouths pointed to the sky.  Deep gashes zigzag the wall providing glimpses into the glacier’s dark blue core.  The top of the craggy glacial tongue stretches to our right, connecting ice fields that continue on forever—a bleak, white desert that looks cold, windy, and void of life.  Soft, swirling winds blow past us.  Small waves gently lap at the foot of the glacier, paying homage to the ice-mass that brought it to be.  Awe-inspired electricity courses through my veins.

After a euphoric thirty minutes spent admiring the view, the reality of camping sets in.  Back in the forest we erect our tent and stretch our limbs from a long day of trekking.  Inside the tent—a location she grew quite fond of—Cynthia prepares an appetizer of cheese and summer sausage.   I prepare a dinner of rice, tuna, and hot sauce.  We eat directly from the pot on the pad-lined floor of our tent as the temperature outside drops. We share dessert of tea and chocolate—two squares each ensure proper rationing for a little bit every day.  Already late, we soon sleep, mummified in our sleeping bags, waking periodically to Grey’s powerful winds. Gaining force over the ice fields, these winds howl through the forest, flapping at our tent walls.  I dream that our tent teleports us to a remote section of the ice field, far away from civilization, leaving us no chance for survival.  The next morning, much to my relief, our tent’s unzipped door reveals our surroundings remain unchanged.

Glacier Grey

The weather in Southern Patagonia is just as jaw-dropping as anything else there is to experience in the region.  Its wild fluctuation deserves a little explaining.  The following is a drastically oversimplified, yet nonetheless interesting explanation of the cause of the region’s weather patterns that I gained from a recent reading of a much more thorough account in Greg Crouch’s Enduring Patagonia.  If you happen to have a globe or world map nearby, I assure you this information will be much more interesting.

Only thirty percent of the surface of the Earth is dry land, and most of that land lies in the Northern Hemisphere.  The continental dams of Eurasia and North America allow ocean currents like the Gulf Stream and the Japan Current to rush warm tropical waters into the surrounding ocean waters. In the Southern Hemisphere, most of the land is found above 30° south latitude.  Other than the obvious exception of Antarctica, Southern Patagonia is the only section of a continental landmass that lies lower than 50° south latitude.  At these extreme southern latitudes, the lack of tropical continental river flow keeps the ocean around 1 degree Celsius colder than its northern counterparts—a world of difference, climatically speaking.  Without the benefit of huge, continental landmasses to jolt the system, volatile storm bands of cool moist air develop over the southern ocean and get pulled south-east towards Antarctica, plowing over Patagonia on its way.  A perfectly sunny day can turn into a snow storm in a matter of minutes.  Not large enough to slow the storms, Southern Patagonia barely has enough time to brace itself.  It’s a small bit of land caught between angry torrents of sea and sky.

Our time on the trail saw us hiking through an ever-changing, vibrantly colored landscape along the park’s snaking path.  The word ‘Paine’ (of ‘Torres del Paine’) is the area’s indigenous Native American word for blue—a reference to the many varying shades blue found in the park’s lakes. The different hues are caused by the sun’s reflection off the water’s abundant minerals that have been stripped from mountains by the hulking glaciers and melted in the lakes.  In addition to Lago Grey and Pahoe, we saw Laguna Los Patos, Lago Skottsberg, and my favorite, Lago Nordenskjold—which we could never remember the name of (let alone pronounce) so we decided to simply call it Lago Elin on account of ‘Nordenskjold’ looking pretty darn close to ‘Nordegren’.  We hiked along its emerald shoreline for nearly a full day—first high on a cliff, then directly on its shores.  As we walked, the clouds’ long white fingers stretched above us like a gloved-hand checking the world for dust.  Lago Elin’s rocky beach includes only two kinds of like-sized stones: jet black and pure white with black spots.  You could scoop a glass punchbowl of its perfectly balanced contents and used it as a centerpiece.  The winds along its shores were the strongest we’d felt in the park.

Lago 'Elin'

On day three, we ventured into the French Valley, the middle part of the ‘W’.  Along the Rio del Frances, we hiked north with glacier covered Paine Grande massif to our left and the tri-colored granite spires of Los Cuernos to our right.  Like a layered cake—red velvet, topped by vanilla, then dark chocolate—the peaks of Los Cuernos are perfectly divided into three distinctly colored sections—red-orange, beige, and dark brown—on account of the rock’s sedimentary nature.  The weather in the valley fluctuated wildly.  Putting on and taking off our coats a handful of times just in the first hour, we were hesitant to continue for fear of getting stuck in a storm far away from camp waiting for us back at the base of the valley.  Due to a sore shoulder, Cyn went back to camp to rest.  I continued alone accompanied only by the throaty rumble of avalanches deep in the valley.  At the top of the trail, as far into the valley as visitors can go, I arrived just in time as the clouds parted and momentarily unveiled the surrounding scenery.  Atop an elevated boulder cluster, I was surrounded on three sides by a massive granite audience.  I stood triumphantly at center-stage of a horseshoe shaped stadium; imaginary applause filled the air, congratulating me for the day’s hike.  I may or may not have even danced a little bit.  With no other visitors around, I had my lunch, enjoyed the scenery and the silence, and scribbled barely legible notes in my journal.  Twenty minutes later the clouds closed their curtain—the show was over.  The granite view was blocked, the temperature quickly dropped, and it began to snow.  I quickly gathered my things and retreated down the valley.  With a minimal change in altitude, I soon enjoyed warm sunshine only twenty minutes later.

Los Cuernos

Another 3am alarm sounds. Large clumps of melting snow crash against our tent walls from the over-hanging branches above.  Cynthia is awake.  Already dressed for the day, I put on my head lamp, lace my boots, and step into the pitch black to retrieve our waterproof food bag hanging from a tree, eight feet or so above our tent.  We empty our packs, as Nacho advised, into the tent and refill them with only our sleeping bags, sleeping pads, camping stove, water bottles, mugs, and our tin of Nescafe.  Our final goal in Torres del Paine is simple: hike the steep 45-minute trek to the Los Torres lookout, boil water for coffee, climb into our sleeping bags warmed by our water bottles filled with boiling-hot water, and patiently and enjoyably wait for the sun’s first red-gold rays to dance off the granite massif of Los Torres.  Nacho is a genius.

Halfway up the hill, our efforts seem hopeless.  In the dark, we struggle up the steep, bolder-lined path through a deluge of wind and snow.  I think of the sweet Peruvian woman from whom I bought my (now obviously fake) baby alpaca gloves.  They provide my hands with only a thin, porous barrier through which to face the elements.  I grip my poles tightly then loosely, hoping to promote more circulation for warmth.  Cynthia’s headlamp batteries give out.  They lasted just long enough for the arrival of a grey twilight that reflects off the snow beneath us, just bright enough to light the way.  The sky is a blanket of grey, giving us little hope that the sunrise will even be visible once we arrive at the lookout.

Thirty minutes later, we join the handful of people already at the lookout.   We quickly descend the boulders to our predetermined viewing spot—a small, natural nook between a few boulders, just large enough for two people to sit, protected slightly from wind (yet hardly at all from snow).  The previous afternoon, we’d arrived at our campsite early and decided to make the trek to Los Torres just in case our sunrise mission didn’t go as planned.  Our first visit to Los Torres gave us the opportunity to select our ideal location from which to see the next day’s sunrise.  Thankfully, that visit also gave us a clear view of the massif—a view that seemed unlikely to present itself to us again on this snowy morning.

Los Torres - previous day's view

Having recently experienced wild fluctuations in weather, we figure it’s only a matter of time before the storm blows over.  We sit in our nook, a complete white-out before us, and start the stove.  We boil our water and enjoy a steaming cup of instant coffee.  Just as Nacho said they would, others walk by and stare longingly at our alpine beverage as they retreat from the cold.  Sitting in a blizzard, snow in our laps and coffee in-hand, we wait.

Two hours later, the sky looks exactly as it did during those first few minutes of twilight.  The view is still nothing but a blank white canvas.  Having run out of coffee and being nearly buried in snow, we give up and decide to head back to camp, the only disappointment of an otherwise perfect trip.

Los Torres - a sunrise in waiting

Not everything goes as planned in Patagonia.  Upon arrival, one is subject to the whims of nature.  All you can do is hope for a few days of good weather and, once you get them, do everything in your power to experience all the wonders that await you.  Our time in Patagoia has been unforgettable and without question the best times of our trip so far.  There’s so much more I could write of our time here—the Magellan penguins in Punta Arenas, Chile; the massive, iceberg shedding Perito Merino glacier in El Calafate, Argentina; the chilling, fang-like peaks of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre that sit on the horizon in El Chalten, Argentina.  During pockets of downtime throughout our trip, I hope to write shorter posts devoted to each of these memorable Patagonian experiences.

There’s a local legend here that says eating a few of Patagonia’s small, violet-colored calafate berries ensures that you will one day return again to the area.  During our treks, we never could figure out which berries were the calafate and didn’t want to take any chances.  However, we did discover a tasty Calafate Ale made by a local brewer who includes these particular berries in the brew.  Between the two of us we polished off quite a few during our two weeks here.  Hopefully those count.

Notes:

*In hindsight the Inca trail didn’t give us much practice.  When we arrived in Patagonia, over a month had passed since we’d left Peru.  Our tour operator on the Inca trail also treated us like royalty—pitching our tents, cooking amazing meals, and carrying some of our stuff.  Patagonia was a much different story, but the new challenge made it all the more exciting and rewarding.

** Many thanks are in order for food advice we received from Cynthia’s sister Liz who, along with her husband Casey, frequently ventures into the Colorado wilderness for weeks at a time with nothing more than the bare essentials and a GPS device to help her get back to civilization.  Another source for tips that we found helpful was an annual Patagonian “gringo” newspaper called Black Sheep.  The March 2010 addition gave us a number of suggestions including using gravel to help clean the oil out of your pots (no soap allowed in the park).  I tried the gravel technique and it really works.  Also, on timing: we originally thought we could complete the ‘W’ in 3 nights/4 days.  After the first day in the park, it was clear by our pace and body aches that an extra day was needed.  Thankfully we overestimated our food needs and had just enough for the one extra day (although or day-5 breakfast was nothing but rock-hard breakfast bars that had been nearly frozen in the snow!).

Where We’ve Been:

Erratic Rock 2: Puerto Natales hostel
Benjamin Zamora 732
Triple Room (private) with shared bath: $45 / a bit overpriced but had a great buffet German-style breakfast
Erratic Rock: Torres del Paine Rental Equipment & Info
Baquedano 719

We’re enjoying our last few days in Mendoza’s wine country before heading to Buenos Aires for our last week in South America.  Back in the States on the 16th!