The Five Seasons of Patagonia

There are five seasons in Patagonia, without a doubt. You learn that the moment you step foot down the street in El Calafate. There is Summer, then Fall, which is followed by Winter, which is surprisingly followed by Spring, but then you have Wind. More wind than you know what to do with. So much wind that any wind energy company would make an absolute fortune out in La Pampa for 1 month out of the year, if they can work their way around Argentine bureaucracy - which is no small task. So much wind that running down the street would keep you competitive with molasses coming out of a jar. It literally blows you over. And people still wonder why no one lives in the great plains of Patagonia. The fact that there is absolutely nothing there (a solitary bush constitutes the highest point of elevation) until you hit the mountains becomes obvious.

Our welcoming committee at the airport was a short rotund anarchist who runs some questionable business practices within the city. It was a non-stop discussion on the way to the hostel of the corruption and monopolization by a few families who essentially run everything within and surrounding the city limits. I half-expected to hear how the world was going to end and which was the most popular conspiracy theory of the day, but we made it to the hostel before we could all learn how the calafate berry isn't actually a berry but a genetically modified fruit straight out of 'Brave New World'.

Our taxi driver, we found out, actually works at the hostel, so that wasn't the last we saw of him. We were met by our welcoming hippie hostel hosts at the door who looked like they could be on the receiving end of said shady business deals. But they were incredibly nice and knowledgeable, and probably one of the best hostel staffs I've had.

The next day we had big plans to see the Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate's claim to fame. It's about 80km outside of the city, so naturally one has to take a bus. We bought our tickets through the hostel, and wandered down to the bus station. There had been some confusion about when the bus was actually leaving - the ticket had at least two different times on it and two different hostel workers gave us two more departure times, so it's safe to say we knew exactly when this bus was leaving. We wound up missing the bus by just a few minutes, of course. So here we were in two taxis caravaning and beating the speed limit by an easy 30km/hr rocketing down a highway in the middle of nowhere trying to catch up, but no bus was in sight. I guess that's one way to see the countryside. I think the taxi drivers had fun a) racketing up a huge fare and b) going 100+km/hr down the road in what seemed like a reject-Ford with below-legal safety standards. We wound up spending the rest of our afternoon walking through a bird reserve chasing seagulls.

The next day we got up early and got to the bus station with plenty of time to spare. We got on the bus. No Dakar Rally-style catch-up today. As soon as the glacier popped out from behind a mountainside, I knew it was one of the most impressive geological features I'd ever seen. It's a 60-meter-high (180ft) block of ice that covers 270 square kilometers - with another 180 meters of depth below the water surface - stretching up the valley and beyond where the eye can see. We spent the day walking along the convenient boardwalk taking it all in. This glacier, Perito Moreno, is special in that it is one of the only stable glaciers in the world. By that I mean enough is being created to cancel out that which falls off. We took a boat ride that brought us within a few hundred feet - it's pretty awe-inspiring. It's positioned in such a way that it bisects a lake by making contact with a peninsula. Every few years, as the water works its erosive magic in order to keep both parts of the lake connected, a huge arch is formed that eventually collapses. It's apparently quite the show. Occasionally some huge chunks would fall off (although nothing compared to the massive arch), and it sounded like the HMS Surprise had just been given the order to fire by Captain Aubrey. It was loud. Half the time we'd hear it, then snap our heads around to see it, but of course the ice had already fallen. That didn't stop us from whipping our head around every time we heard something and every time not seeing anything, except a mini-tsunami from where the ice fell into the lake. You'd think we would learn. 'Ah man that was awesome!' 'Did you see anything?' 'No!'

After a day of looking at ice, we hitched it on back to El Calafate as the temperature started to drop. As soon as we got to the bus station, it was a quick turnaround before jumping on another bus to our next destination: El Chalten. I read somewhere that El Chalten has one ATM, and it works maybe a quarter of the time. So naturally I thought I should bring all the cash I would need from El Calafate, and of course I told myself I'd get it in between our two buses when we would have a 15-20min break. Logical, right? The one factor that I was forgetting was that I was in Argentina. The bank had a line out the door. So here I am impatiently waiting thinking of every Spanish swearword I know, and the people in front of me are literally using about 5 different cards to take out cash. I eventually bailed and decided to put all of my eggs in a basket that dispenses money 90 days a year. In a town of 300, debit cards might not work so well, so here I was thinking I had some serious issues. Digging snow caves and licking plates clean for money suddenly came to the forefront of my mind.

And the wind. That howling, cold, biting wind. 5 debit cards? Really?

El Fin Del Mundo

(The following posts are from my final travels, a 3 week circuit of southern Patagonia, during the first three weeks of December)

Ushuaia, Argentina. Arguably the most southernly inhabited settlement in the world. The Chileans would take issue with that, with their town called Puerto Williams across the channel, but what else is new? I feel like it's a rivalry between all countries on this continent. Chi chi chi, le le le!

After 1 hour of sleep the night before - you have to love these Buenos Aires nights - I stumbled to the airport to catch my flight to Ushuaia. Getting on an airplane in this country is never a straightforward experience, and it seems as if you can't complete a flight without being delayed during some point of your journey. But hey, we got here without any problems. Not that I remember the flight - I slept through the peanuts and everything. We reached Ushuaia uneventfully to be met with a coastal settlement nestled up against some touring peaks under a cloudless "ceiling" (the flight captain searched for the english word for cielo, which means sky, and came up with ceiling - close enough). After spending the last few weeks in the blistering heat of the rio de la plata, stepping off the plane to temperatures in the 30s was a bit of a shocker.

The town itself acts as a jumping off point for all expeditions to Antartica. The main pier is lined with big supply ships and tourist cruisers. Somehow dining on white table-cloths and sleeping in king sized beds while going to one of the most remote parts of the world doesn't really work in my mind. But if I were to drop a few grand, the cost of these tourist trips to Antartica, like the rest of the passengers on my plane down, I'd want golden goblets filled with the best of malbecs.

The afternoon saw us cruising the Beagle Channel in a small yacht, taking in the wildlife populating the rock mounds littering the channel. Sea lions competed with Patagonian seagulls for a piece of rock to take a nap on. Our pilot would take us to within inches of the rock, making me wonder if we were trying to find a rock to take a nap with them. It turned out to be a fantastic ride - after telling us that spending any more than a few minutes in the water would give us hypothermia, our guide suggested we walk on up to the front and sit in near-freezing water spray and enjoy the view from the front. We eventually made it to the symbolic lighthouse that marked 'el fin del mundo,' and all our guide could say was 'welcome to the ass of the world.' Indeed welcome, amigo.

Word on the one street in town was that the glacier up the hill (read: mountain) was pretty spectacular, so we headed up to check it out. The trip turned out to be a failure, with us finding ourselves in the middle of a whiteout following a river that had a very thin layer of ice on top just waiting to shoot us down the mountain in some of that hypothermic water. We decided to turn around before we turned into the next lost party of unprepared guys who thought they knew what they were doing but got spanked by Mother Nature. We kept things a little tame for the afternoon by wandering the halls of the Shawshank of Argentina hearing ghost stories of the first prisoners. Dufrane! I couldn't help but think of Port Arthur as we walked the dark, cold, cell-lined hallways. Anyone up for a light afternoon tourist activity?

Our final day in Ushuaia saw us going on our first true hike in Patagonia. All that hype you hear from people about hiking in Patagonia, they don't know what they're talking about. It's more than what words can describe. That's assuming you have good weather. If you don't, I can think of a lot of words that can be said that better not be posted here. But we lucked out with the weather gods - they probably took pity on us from our whiteout windstorm the day before - and found ourselves wandering along a coastal trail in the Tierra del Fuego National Park with absolutely spectacular, albeit somewhat chilly, weather. We gingerly moved past an extremely protective herd of wild horses as we made our way to the shores of the bay. From there, it was a four hour hike of non-stop magnificent vistas. Water as blue as Thailand but cold as water can be, quiet green forests dense with brush and trees, hawks and condors circling up above just waiting for a rabbit to be stupid enough to run out into the open, beaches littered with skipping rocks and tall snow-capped andean peaks keeping constant watch from across the bay - truly a hiker's paradise. That's when I don't mention the wind, but let's just return to the utopia I just mentioned. In all seriousness, it is probably one of my favorite hikes I've ever done.

Unfortunately our time ended in Ushuaia following that hike. But on to the next adventure of this Patagonian expedition - El Calafate, home of the Perito Moreno glacier. And what better way to call it quits to Ushuaia? Spend three hours waiting in the airport because our flight was delayed.