In Patagonia

Small Things:

Bountiful bumble bees busily harvesting on sunflowers.

 Delicate golden grasses bending in the wind

Plethora of rose hips blushing in ripeness

The Colors of Water:

Can the written word capture the true color of water?

General Carrerra Lake (Chelenko) on a cloudy day – steel, pewter, slate

Catalina Bay in bright sunshine – bright teal, cerulean, azure

Lago Negro – indigo, ultramarine

Baker River – turquoise, aquamarine

                                    

The rhythmic sounds of indigenous place names:

Pichi Mahuida – little mountain

Chelenko – lake of storms

Coyhaique – lagoon-camp

Chacabuco – slopes of chacay trees

The Trail of Torture:

The sign indicates 9.3 kilometers to Lago Leones. One way. The guide tells us it’s relatively flat most of the way. What he didn’t say that the flat was over a rocky glacial moraine. Loose rock. Boulders, pebbles. Angular, round, flat. He didn’t mention that we’d be balancing on branches and wobbly wooden slat bridges to cross rivulets of glacial melt water. Or that the flat rises into steep slopes bedeviled with protruding tree roots and narrow rocky ledges. I cling to a rope to clamber along a slanted wide rock face. A precarious wooden ladder facilitates a tricky vertical descent. Most appreciated are the hands of Sebastian the young guide designated to keep to the end of our line of hikers. I’m the end. I feel like an aging mountain goat, left by the herd to die. What are the others trying to prove anyway? The head guide checks with Sebastian often by radio: How am I doing? Keep in mind the return trek.

            “How much further?” I ask Sebastian. I don’t want to give up, but worry I’ll slow the others down.

            “About 3 more kilometers.”

            That’s it. Sebastian and I have our lunch under some trees and begin the return, a return that seems interminable. I’ve developed a blister on my foot and my progress slows to a crawl, one-foot- in-front-of- the- other, skirting rocks, fording streamlets.

Is it worth it? What can I take from this experience?

The majesty of the towering ridges on the sides of the valley.

The glowing glaciers looming from the edge of the southern ice cap.

The milky green of the roaring river.

Determination to get into better shape.

Acceptance of my limitations.

Knowing when it’s time to call it quits and being alright with my decision.

Patagonian Moments

Magellan Straits:

Is there anything as white as a seagull’s breast?

The Brookes Glacier creaks and growls as it shifts on its granite perch. Turquoise columns break off the glacier and thunder into the bay. Again and again. I watch in absolute wonder.

Our zodiac speeds past sculptures floating on the water’s steely surface.

I hear the mountain ridges proclaiming: We are. Impenetrable. Immovable. You are just passing through.

I learn the names of the hardy, local vegetation, adapted to this rugged climate: wild strawberry groundcover, berry bushes, mosses and gnarled beech trees of the Nothofagus family.

Beagle Channel and Darwin Cordillera:

Young, sleek seals frolic in successive arched leaps as if imitating dolphins.

The total whiteness of the Darwin Cordillera overwhelms. It is home to over six hundred glaciers.

 A full, yellowy moon glimmers in our wake as we navigate through the last of Glacier Alley.

Cape Horn Island:

One hundred and sixty steps to climb to the plateau, a palette of yellow, ochre, beige and green vegetation: tall grasses, robust shrubs, moist mosses.

On this mild morning, it’s difficult to imagine the force of the wind that ripped in two the steel albatross monument dedicated to shipwrecked sailors.

An albatross parallels our ship, its long, outstretched wings narrow and regal.

Torres Del Paine National Park:

Our first fauna encounter: two green and red charanga parrots peeking out of their tree house home- in- a-hole.

Glacier-carved peaks towering over teal blue Lake Nordenskjold contrast sharply with the bleached bones of skeleton forests we pass through. The extent of the stark landscape devoured by a man-made forest fire shocks. The recuperating shrubs and grasses spark hope.

Climbing to the Condor Lookout, I breathe in the fragrances of the vegetation enhanced by last night’s rain.

Estancia Tercera Barranca sheep ranch (east of the Park):

We joggle and bounce along the dirt road winding through the wide expanses of pampa – tufts of beige grass and prickly tough black shrubs.

 Sheep graze behind fences that pose no obstacle to the long-legged guanacos. Rocky bluffs rise in the distance.

The lights of the Estancia (sheep ranch). Nancy shows us our room, puts more logs on the fire in the living room and explains that the generator is turned off at eleven p.m. After that, no lights and no heat. It is a chilly night.

A stone path leads to the separate kitchen/dining area, warm and fragrant, where Carmen in a white chef’s hat serves us a savory salmon dinner with homegrown vegetables. Nancy and Carmen pamper us, the only two guests, and tell us their stories.

I've come to see the sheep and the gauchos, I tell them.

Oh, the sheep have been taken to another Estancia to be “bathed”, they explain, to be disinfected for ticks. Seeing my disappointment, they assure me the sheep will come back the day we leave.

The next day we pick our way through the prickly pampa shrubbery to climb a rocky bluff from where the pampa stretches endlessly in all directions.

Ready to leave the following day, I hear the shouts of the gauchos in the distance and run outside. Here comes what I’ve been waiting for – a moving wooly mass flows over a low rise, heading for its home pasture.