Semi-cama to Atacama: Merino & Moreno

Writing this in a hostal in El Calafate in

Argentina

after a wonderful trip to the incredible Perito Moreno glacier. At this rate, I will run out of adjectives for Patagonia.

But first, 7^th March – and Torres del Paine in Chile. It was a beautiful day; a consistent pattern for my trip, and a departure from normal weather conditions – it had been wet and miserable up at the Parque all week long. My companions on the mini-bus; a Chileno family from Santa Barbara (this one’s a town in the Chilean Lake district), a fresh-faced twenty year old German girl (“my name is ‘Frischke’ – meaning fresh”!), a 50-ish French-Chileno who was trying to get frischke with her and two Hungarian women from the Hungarian Foreign Ministry in Brussels. Kate was round and hearty with the self-assurance of a leader while Csilla was pale and delicate with watery eyes and a classically sharp Slav nose. Csilla spoke of “spirituality in all that we see” and “we should be selective when we take photos because they are windows to our memories” and other Madeleine Bassett-isms. The tour was regular – stopping at the usual spots where hordes of minibuses lined up and other tourists del paines were busy clicking photos. First stop was the Cueva Milodon – where the remains of a giant sloth were discovered in the early 1900s. The discovery was made by Charley Millward, an unscrupulous relative of (the equally unscrupulous?) Bruce Chatwin – and was the inspiration for his trip to Patagonia. The cave has a large sculpted milodon at the entrance that ruined a view of the Ultima Esperanza with the mist burning away in the morning sun.

Even with the hordes, TdP is truly spectacular. Nothing prepares you for the jagged granite peaks towering above the flat scrubland. The centrepiece is the Paine massif, a gigantic granite monolith (24km by 13km I think – which makes it more than 10 times the size of Uluru) ringed by the Andes. The geography too is interesting – from sparse grasslands to mountainous scrub and as we climb higher, cool temperate forests; all in a 30min drive. And the animals! We saw herds of guanaco(relatives of the llama), a Patagonian fox, condors wheeling high up in the sky, pink flamingos in brilliant sapphire blue lakes and nandus (South American rheas – interesting how these birds exist only in the far south of the Southern hemisphere – emus in Oz, ostriches in SAf and rheas here in Sam).

There was much excitement at Lago Grey, where we had stopped for lunch and an afternoon trek. We were due to leave at 4pm but there was no sign of the Hungarians (there’s a pattern here but more of that later). Advance and rear parties were set up by the French-Chileno and the Santa Barbara pater familias to head the Hungarians off at the pass. Finally, after locating them, we headed back to PN at 4:45. At Cerro Castille on the Chile-Argentina border, we encountered 2 battered 1950s Citroens loaded with camping and travelling gear. Inside were 5 equally battered looking Dutchmen/Frenchmen. They were all 50+ and were travelling across Patagonia and up to Buenos Aires in their Citroens. We saw them again an hour later; one of the cars had packed up in the middle of nowhere. They were tinkering around under the bonnet and waved us on. I would see them again a couple of days later; trundling into El Calafate…they reminded me of the story I read in my Junior Digest on the Peking to Paris race undertaken by a bunch of equally eccentric Europeans in the early 1900s.

Had an early start this am – off to the Perito Moreno glacier and then to El Calafate. Up at 6:30 and out by 7:00. Running out of frischke clothes to wear! The minibus picked up a bunch of sleepy pasajeros. This time my companions were a Polish chap who I had seen at numerous photo op sites the previous day, a pair of young Brits who kept to themselves and a Chileno banker and his girlfriend (“Indian? I know many Indians who come from Bengalawr to Banque de Chile – Kreeshna, Sat-ya…”). We left PN just as day was breaking and stopped a few km out of town before it had fully broken. Lots of crackling and to-and-fro in Espanyol on the driver’s walkie talkie. Then, after 15 minutes, a car drives up and deposits my Hungarian friends. They were at it again.

We sleepily filled out forms at the Chilean post and then drove through 7km of no-man’s land to the Argentine side. The Chilean post was all grey and concrete while the Argentine post was a bright white cottage with a resident hen (name unknown) and merino sheep (name Bepo). Bepo took a dislike to one of the Brits and busily tried to butt him.

But those were the only bright colours we saw for the next few hours. The Chilean side had estancias, greenery, guanaco, birds - but all we saw here was miles and miles of bleak Patagonian pampa with snowy peaks in the distance. After 4 hours of this, we reached El Calafate to pick up our guide, Claudia (“my name ees Clowdia”), a busy-looking, angular Argentine. En route to Perito Moreno, Clowdia fed us with the kind of stats we Indians love - like the strike at the estancias in the early 1920s when over 1000 farmhands were killed and the fact that the Lago Argentina – along whose shores we drove – was almost a km deep. Perito Moreno is one of the few glaciers in the world that is not retreating. The glacier itself is absolutely awe-inspiring – it is around 30km long, 5km wide and its jagged peaks are over 60m high (yes, that’s 60m!), so its this broad expanse of ice sweeping in like a motorway to meet the Lago Argentina.

It is one of the most famous glaciers in the world because, unlike other glaciers, it encounters a headland of a peninsula. So every few years, the glacier advances and meets the peninsula and acts as a natural dam; slicing Lago Argentina into two. Global warming (that villain again) and the uneven water levels of the lake lead to the 'dam' collapsing in a thunderous spectacle. Clowdia – “the last time it happened, El Calafate was empty – everyone was here to see it!”. Although there is no specific periodicity, locals say it is happening more frequently nowadays. We had to content ourselves with watching it creak and rumble with the occasional crack of thunder when a piece calved. The front of the glacier too is amazing with that sheer white 5km expanse with brilliant blue crevasses that shine mysteriously. Everyone’s favourite occupation was glacier watching (‘where will the next chunk fall?’). I was lucky enough to catch a 10m high chunk slice off the face and fall with a thunderous roar. It completely filled the narrow waterway near the headland with ice and sent ripples out almost a km into the lake itself. Awesome!

Clowdia herded us back – “the Chilean border closes at 10pm, so we have to get back”. I was getting dropped off at El Calafate..Had become good friends with Kate and Csilla, so said goodbye with much chumma-chaati and headed off to the Aerolineas Argentina office to buy my ticket to BA for tomorrow. Kate certainly had an eye for creative photography – including a masterpiece of the glacier shot through a glass of brandy on the rocks (the ice in the drink was from the glacier). They’d come to Chile from Peru – and she told me about how wonderful Peru was while Madeleine talked about “the spirituality of the Machu Picchu experience”. They also draped a penguin soft toy with a ribbon that had the colours of the Hungarian flag and kept photographing it in various locations; a la the Amelian gnome (Amelie’s contribution to world travel).

El Calafate is a pleasant enough town full of American tourists and boutique souvenir shops selling ‘Artesanes’. ElC was also my first encounter with maté – something Argentines keep drinking out of these hollowed out gourds of pumpkinettes. Curiously maté is not available in restaurants, so had to content myself with PiscoSour.