Heather's first steps
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2004
1
21
165
Trip End
Nov 23, 2006
Torres del Paine,
Chile
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
penguin out of our clothes and packs, we hit the road for Punta
Arenas in Chile. This is a twelve hour bus trip departing at 7:00am,
before breakfast (or even emergency junk food) purveyors are open,
and stopping for the first time, other than to cross borders, where
food could be purchased at 4:00pm!
We worked our way northwest to Rio Grande on the west coast of Tierra
del Fuego. This took us through the last foothills of the Andes
dripping lush valley farms, dramatic scenery plunging to icy gray
lakes and Norwegian green forests festooned with silvery beards of
lichen
lunch by the falls
. It was all very picturesque but the bus was bouncing toomuch over the gravel road to make recording it viable.
Turning northeast from Rio Grande we entered the emptiness of
Patagonia. Patagonia is big sky country in a way we had not
understood possible. Hour upon hour upon endless hour of it. It has
the unreality of a Victorian stereoscope - the light hard-edged, the
sky unrelenting azure and the base clouds painted static on a sheet
of glass while the upper numbus scud by at speed. The plains extend
further than you can see (even after hours of staring), covered in
sandy, scraggy grass and hardy tussocks rippling lilac in the gusting
wind. The only vegetation poking above extreme ground level are
frazzled saltbrush and Ent-like skeletal trees clinging to the earth
and bowing towards the east
Sinset from refugio
.This is where the first great sheep estancias were breeding the
powerful sheep barons of the early twentieth century. Often they
were so far from "services" and required so many hands that they
became entire towns. The fortunes of some estancias have changed now
but we passed ones that boasted their own churches, streets of
housing, stores and, even, port facilities.
The scale of the surviving holdings is incomprehensible (even to
those of us able to quote high country farming statistics): they
count and label their fence posts and it is not uncommon to drive
past single fields with 100,000 posts(we saw 310,000 on the way into
Torres del Paine); you will see ten sheep or five Herefords or a
single stately guanaco (big llama) or ñandú (ostrich analogue) in a
field the size of Auckland
Torres - approaching from south
. The fences are standard sheep/cattleheight fences although guanaco and ñandú are able to step over them
and spend as much of their time grazing on the verge. There is no
water (even artificial) to be seen until the Straits of Magellan hove
into view.
The history of this part of Chile was heavily influenced by the
English, Scots and Welsh, although, disappointingly, they only speak
Spanish. We have seen Chile described as the Britain of South
America. Certainly, common street names in Puenta Arenas could hail
from Dunedin: O'Higgins, Pratt and Sutherland. Cristobal Colon and
Magellan, however, are given their due - bit hard to avoid when the
town actually sits on the Straits of guess-who and the province is
Magallanes
Torres - not a bad view
. The merchant princes' taste in architecture was LarnochCastle rather than Versailles (most definitely nouveau riche),
although the city's taste in bronze statutory ran more to the
Mussolini than the Presbyterian school. And, boy, you should have
seen the cemetery! Frankly, Punta Arenas is Oamaru, with its tired,
grimey port frontage, 1/4 acre corro-roofed homes and air of faded
grandeur in its public buildings. We rather liked it.
If Punta Arenas was Oamaru then our next stop, Puerto Natales, is
what Glenorchy might become if it was en route to something of
touristic significance. It sits on the shores of Seno Ultima
Esperanza with the tail of the Andes looming over it like the
Remarkables. It is the gateway to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine
and, for three or four months of every year, it is swamped with
people, who stay for a day or two at most, on their way into or out
of the park. It gives the impression of a temporary town which has
grown up around itself, surprising itself in the process, but it
hasn't yet put down its roots. It's dumpy and sad and feels like
everyone is permanently hunkered down for the lean times ... but,
then, maybe they had no chance ... Seno Ultima Esperanza means Last
Hope Sound.
We used Puerto Natales as everyone else does - get in, stock up, get
out. David thought it was time I tried some tramping / hiking /
walking / trekking - take your pick - it depends which nationality
you're talking to - personally I call it determinedly trudging.
Where the mountains of Antarctica are the massed armies of the ice
gods, remote and majestic even while you're among them, Torres del
Paine is the bouncer at the gates of the Andes; 10,000 looming feet
of near-vertical rock, in your face and looking for an excuse to
rough you up. Add to that ... this is Patagonia ... guaranteed
driving rain and gales ... and it was shaping up to be a fun three
days for anyone in my immediate vicinity.
OK, whining aside it was an absolutely exhausting, fabulous three
days. The sun shone determinedly every day (30+ sunscreen didn't do
the job) and frankly a little breeze would have been nice. You can
almost see the tectonic plates working; the terrain is sharp edged
and harsh. It's magnificent and intimidating. The frostfangs
dominated every moment and poised above you was a glacier. The
refugio (hut) had a lobby, bar, lounges and internet access (also
only dormitories, communal bathrooms with erratic hot water and after
the beautiful solitude of a day's walking a communal kitchen like
being caged with parakeets so it wasn't that flash). It also cost
more than any hotel we've stayed in since leaving home.
On our last evening, having unfortunately not quite returned from the
day's walking, we watched the infamous Patagonian wind rise. The
lake one headland away was completely still. Within five minutes
whitecaps were racing across the surface and the wind was whipping up
sprays of spume. By the time we had crossed the headland it was
difficult walking into the face of the wind and tents in the camp
ground were under threat. Then the clouds came - not the ominous
gray clouds of an Auckland summer storm - black, mountain eating,
ones. Then, just as suddenly, having flexed its muscles, it was gone.
I'm not sure that the walking is necessarily going to become my
favorite hobby but a start has been made. And there is definitely
something to be said for whatever allows you to lunch where condors
fly or beside raging ice fed rivers or (as yesterday) within feet of
a waterfall similar to Huka, draining one glacial lake into the
next. Sometimes life is pretty damn good.
