The Bulgarian was the
first to mention the boats. Then the four Brits. Then it became commonplace to
discuss the end of Carretera Austral, Villa O’Higgins, and the crossing of Lago
O’Higgins by barge.
I didn’t like the
discussions. I didn’t want to participate and I didn’t find them interesting. I
only discussed routes when I absolutely needed to determine something
important, such as the location of food and water. I had learned that as long
as I ride, I will get somewhere, and the whole process of getting to
somewhere, the whole process and everything it collects, as a snowball, is the
journey. Not the purpose or the goal of the journey. I have become more aware of the shape of things—namely, that the
concept of shape, the concept of time, is fake. Or that they are only first
steps, the adolescence of movement. It is easy to see how one can go off a deep
edge, a ramble of ‘nothingness’, ‘reality is an illusion,’ ‘time is false,’ and
so on. Most of the time this new lingo is just an adoption of jargon which
attempts to combat something, but in its combat simply further entrenches a man
deeper in the level from which he must eventually evolve. The concepts and the
words of ‘purpose,’ ‘goal,’ ‘time,’ ‘reflection,’ represent skills and
abilities acquired in a certain context or level of conduct. When the movement
changes to something different, they are left behind. Not fought against or discarded.
They are left behind, of no use, forgotten.
From
Cochrane, Carlos and I did not get on the road until about 12:30, speaking with and
saying goodbye to everyone at the campground. We rode about 50km—not anywhere
near as hard as two days earlier, but some decent climbing, and some rough
roads which made the flatter areas harder to ride quickly. The road was
narrower and there were green pastures and many more trees than I had
encountered earlier on Ruta 7. We passed many sheep—some with huge amounts of
wool—and cows. The homes were few and far between and ramshackle and small.
There were huge snowcapped mountains and all of them were angry, pressed with
great white rage. The streams were very clear and I filed up the 6 liter bag at
the end of the night from a clear stream. There where lagoons, rivers,
waterfalls, canyons, gorges, small plots of grazing land. I took some videos of
two descents. I repaired a flat on the front tire—a small piece of wire had
worked its way in a had created a good leak.
There
was camping everywhere, free, unfenced forests along Rio Baker. We found a spot
alongside the river under a tree, set up camp, drank yerba mate, and ate bread,
cheese, oatmeal, cream of wheat, powered milk, and mayonnaise.
Carlos
had a small speaker from which we listen to music from his Iphone—Cuban,
Chilean, Peruvian, Argentinean, and Mexican music. One Cuban singer sang of the
campesinos. One Chilean played beautiful folk guitar, the music of the campo.
The
tent was spacious and comfortable. The sleeping bag was warm. The tent worked
well in the rain. The bags worked reasonably well in the rain.
The
next day we sent off for Tortel. I felt good. There was open camping
everywhere, nearly no traffic. Cool conditions near a river but no frost in
morning. Arm and leg warmers in the morning. I sleep in the wool at night, then
put on rain jacket and warm pants in morning and at night at camp.
We
rode 70km to Tortel in some rough ripio with steep rolling hills. Tortel is a
city perched on a steep fjord. It would be impractical to pave sidewalks or
roads in such steep and rocky conditions, so the inhabitants created a system
of wooden staircases, deadly when wet with rain. We rode the last 15 km in
strong rain and began to ascend and descend the wet wooded staircases of
Tortel. Camping had been closed for the
season, and Tortel is surrounded by marshes and there are no beaches on the fjord.
We inquired at the three cheap alojamientos and chose the cheapest, heated by a
poorly functioning wood stove. A fat, grumpy old woman showed us the room and
started the stove. We bought bread from
her adjacent almacen and cooked a dinner of
pasta with cheese and banana with dulce de leche. It rained hard that
night and 2 dogs slept close to the bicycles outside. I dried the wet clothes
on the stove.
We
rested a day in Tortel and were perplexed by the cool reception of the
inhabitants. Perhaps I did not walk the wet wooded stairs correctly. Perhaps
this was obvious.
The
next morning we waited until the rain subsided at noon and began to ride the
wet ripio through the marsh. Three dogs followed, one small canine dropping off
after 5km. At about 8km we grew concerned the two young dogs would run too far
away from Tortel and starve and die. We threw stones at them to get them to run
back to town. But they would have none of it. It seemed they would withstand a
stoning than return to the fat grumpy woman. They never knew with
certainty their next meal or beating, the city was full of vagabond dogs, there
was constant fighting, and there was no space. Running with us, they had a
great freedom. And even if they died, as they might in the following days, they would have followed contours as they chose to run that day: following
streams, looking up to snow and ice in the sky, running down steep descents, and
moving up the mountains with a new lightness of the paws.
We
had ridden 43km to arrive here, the last 20 with some very steep climbing. The
road had narrowed and there were views of glacier covered mountain tops. It
drizzled towards the end but eventually dried. We had set off just before noon
after a heavy and cold rain finally subsided. Sunlight began to appear and warm
the area, but I would never be without my leg and arm warmers, taking off the
pants and jacket a few times during the day when the sun would appear. We
stopped at the intersection, the turnoff to Tortel, and ate cheese, bread, and
dulce de leche, and then continued.
The
roads in this section of Carretera are narrow and barely used. In the summer,
there are three boats per day that can transport 9 autos. For the rest of the
year, there are two barges, limiting traffic to 18 vehicles per day.
There
was a flash of hail around 4 and I unlaced my shoes, put on my rain pants in
haste, put on the rain hat, tied the shoes again, sat down on the wet gravel,
and cinched up my rain boots. The minute I remounted my bike, the sun came out
and the hail disappeared.
There
was another half hour of climbing and vistas of glacier covered peaks, and then
a descent. The tan and vanilla dog had caught up with me and ran along side
when she could but I would lose her on the steep, rocky descents. But she
continued, and I knew she had greatness and could run.
It
was a very steep climb to Yungay, 43 kilometers in total from Tortel (despite
the road sign at the cross to the road to Tortel, which indicated 30km to Yungay
from the cross, about 12km in excess of the actual distance). The two dogs ran
ahead and alongside us, and even through I attempted to lose the tan and crème
colored dog, it would catch up with me on the flats. I thought it might die
that day. How could it run so hard without any food, in the cold rain?
When
we arrived at Caleta Yungay there were two military buildings, 8 small homes, a
wooden church, and a small kiosk run by a woman. She and a man who worked the
ferry were the only ones living in Yungay at the time, and she offered us the
ferry shelter to camp for the night.
We
cooked a dinner of oatmeal, bread, powdered milk, and dulce de leche, and fed
the dogs a bit of each. Carlos joked that he would tell his friends in Santiago that the cuisine of Patagonia was excellent--one could eat dulce de leche in 10 different ways. They wandered around the area looking for food that
night but could not get into the well locked trash. The woman at the kiosk said
we had to take the dogs with us on the ferry lest they kill her chickens. That night she stopped by my tent and gave me an apple.
Carlos
and I set up camp in the shelter and cooked yerba mate. The boat crew arrived
at the office and offered Carlos housing but we declined. Soon after, Carlos
and I boarded the ship, as Carlos offered to help fix some electrical issues
that the captain had mentioned. We walked up a steep ladder to the control room
which was paneled in wood and had two laptop computers and other machinery. The
view from the captain’s control room overlooked the shore and the decks for the
autos. A smoke detector was malfunctioning, so we then went down to the
location of the smoke detector, and Carlos recommended a solution after
inspecting the wiring. We then went down to the engine room to fetch a space
heater, brought the space heater up to the main cabin, the two of us
disassembled the space heater, and Carlos used a electricity tester to
determine the bad circuit. One circuit had smoldered and was beyond repair.
Carlos photographed the circuit and used the wifi the next morning to email the
photo of the circuit to the captain for replacement.
The
crewman brought a basket of bread, meat spread, jam, knives, two coffee cups,
instant coffee, and tea to us for out work, and we ate the food in the warm cabin
of the barge. We spoke with the crewman about his life. We was from Puerto Mont,
had three children with three different women. It was the life of a marine. He
had been all over the world—Namibia,
Mozambique,
on sea journeys. Work was always there and he worked his whole life. Carlos
spoke of the cool reception by the people south of Puerto Mont
and the captain agreed. After finishing the bread we left the barge and
returned to the shelter where I ate some hot polenta and powdered milk, Carlos
oatmeal. I had given the tan dog some butter earlier, yet Carlos generously
gave the two dogs oatmeal, the tan dog some dulce de leche.
I
thought about land and claims and scarcity and the woman’s business on the
shore. I thought about the barge and the captain and his generosity. I thought
about language and language barriers. I thought about movement.
At noon the next day the barge took off and an hour ride to Rio Bravo
began. The barge moved through the fjord and we past untouched stone coasts,
glacier capped peaks, moss and green brush covering the severe and wet terrain.
The crewman offered us more coffee and tea and the three of us shared hot
coffee with sugar. The barge soon landed at Rio Bravo,
and the climbing began immediately. Rain began, and my gear worked well, this
time without the rain hat and without the feet covers. According to an
Argentinean we spoke to briefly at Rio Bravo,
there were 3 passes and three refugios. We hit all three passes, and after 50
km of climbing in the cold and rain yet in the spectacular rawness of the
glaciers and their stone, we were exhausted. The dogs didn’t seem to mind the
50km of wilderness—for them, their lives had just begun, perhaps haphazardly,
without a plan, without a clue as to where they were, at risk of death at any
moment, yet happy, living in the moment, stopping to look at the peaks as we
did. Mid day as I stopped to push the chain to the smallest chainring, I
spotted a huge condor. It dove in close to us, perhaps eying the dogs. Another
condor soon flew slowly in the air in tandem and the wingspan and the glide of
the birds drew great wonder. At the end of the day I spotted a turn off, and in
great amazement, a perfectly kept, unlocked cabin, offering a refugio with a
fireplace, firewood at the door, an outhouse, and a extra large storage
container (for ship cargo, the size of a tractor trailer) were in one large
stone covered lot from the turn off.
Raw
wilderness. Glaciers atop the mountains. Cold rivers, streams, small lagoons,
waterfalls and water gushing from the stark stone cliffs. Cypresses, felled
from fire, still stand till their last dying moment. All bow in respect to
their greatness.
Incredibly
the dogs ran 50km with us from Rio Bravo
through three very steep passes. I named the tan and crème colored female
Rapido, and Carlos has given the name of Furioso to the shaggy grey and tan
male
After
a quick mate, we set off to get fire wood. I was able to get a large amount of
dry kindling and a few small logs. Carlos found two dead and slightly damp
cypress logs—we dragged them to camp and jumped on them to break them up.
That
night we cooked polenta with chicken broth, spaghetti with tomato sauce and mayonnaise.
Rapido and Furioso were so impressive in their last two days of climbing and
running that we gave them a can of Argentinean pate (not quite fit for humans,
perfect for dogs) and polenta for dinner. They ran 94km in two days—they
deserved an asado, but we lacked an animal to slaughter. They were happy. We had
to coax both the dogs to sleep inside the refugio. Furioso was timid to enter,
but as the temperature dropped outside, he came inside to sleep. I then made
some chamomile tea, and drank three cups.
There
is a raw single lane gravel and stone road cut into the mountains here in this
part of Patagonia. There is almost no traffic
and fewer homes in the last 50km than I can count on two hands, perhaps one
hand. It is the Patagonia I have always
dreamed about. It can kill a man with its beauty and its cold and its wind and
its desolation, yet I am now prepared for this Patagonia.
There were 53km left of the Carretera Austral. The plan at that time was to reach Villa
O’Higgins, camp, buy a lot of food, and then make the 2 day crossing through Rio
Mayer. Then it would be Ruta 40 with its brutal cross winds, this time frigidly
cold, growing colder as it moves south. Ruta 40 South, to Ruta 9 South back
into Chile to Punta Arenas, then a barge from Punta Arenas to Porvenir, then Porvenir South
to Ushuaia. That was the plan at that time.
It
was cold in the morning at the refuge. There were hints of sunlight peering
yellow and red through the clouds over the mountaintops. Rain could come and
pour over the valley or the sun could come out strongly and make the day hot. I
wore my jersey, riding shorts, thermal hat, balaclava, arm and leg warmers,
full rainsuit, thermal socks, thermal gloves,
and rain gloves. After a half an hour of riding, I took off the
balaclava, and by mid day I rode in shorts, jersey, arm warmers and leg
warmers.
I
had named the tan and crème colored dog Rapido the night before. Carlos had
named the other dog Furioso (a dog resembling Bengie, from the American
television series). There
were two or three tough climbs but in general the road condition was good and
relatively flat.
There
were more waterfalls, more vistas of glacier covered peaks, more marshes, white
ducks and black waterfowl. Rapido and Furioso ran with us. The day earlier,
they had attacked 4 large cattle, chasing a large bull into the forest. On this
day, they fished a large bull from the forest, and he had nowhere to go but
directly at the two of is. “Toro!!!,” I told Carlos. He understood immediately
and the two of us found a speed we had not yet reach on the ripio. Rapido and Furioso
chased the bull for 800 meters until the animal found an opening among the
trees to hide. The two dogs joined us and ran with us. No one had yet given them
fear. No one had shamed or beaten them to obedience. To them, a bull was a good
animal to chase.
We
stopped along a bridge to eat bread, butter, and manjar. I gave some bread to
the dogs, but now I knew they could hunt.
Would
the dogs ‘have a good life’ when they reached Villa O’Higgins? They would at
least have the forest and the nearby mountains, not the marsh and wooden stairs
of Tortel. There would be fewer dogs and more space. Yet they had explored
150km of raw wilderness with us and drank the purest water a man can know, saw
the sweetest sunlight a man’s eyes can see, and took in air deeply lost in
ancient glaciers. Sometimes a man does the last beautiful thing he knows to do
before he dies.
We had heard about the campground at Villa O’
Higgins. Mauricio, from Temuco,
had bought a hectare of land, built a common kitchen from logs and stone, three
dry toilets using sawdust to digest the waste, with 7 campsites on wooden
platforms to protect the land. Plastic bags were stuffed into plastic bottles
used to construct a new shelter from mortar and bottles. A small battery ran
two lights inside the common building and was powered by a bicycle. In high
season, he arranged bird watching tours. His brother, Ricardo, lived in one of
the shelters, and had a morning radio show from Monday to Friday. He had to
think of things to say each day, but could play music when he had nothing to
say. He interviewed anyone he could.
That night the four of us cooked a dinner of noodles
and butter and we drank wine from a box. We spoke of the paving of the unpaved
sections of the Carretera Austral, and the attempt to damn the great rivers of Patagonia. Douglas Tomkins had purchased millions of
hectares of land in Northern and Southern Patagonia
and would not let the government pave a road through his land. Instead, there
were ferries to bypass his terrain. He managed his land well and it was open to
the public. Yet there had always been suspicions of Tomkins. Did he buy the
land in the expectation of a future world water crisis? Did he buy the land in
case Israel had to abandon
the Middle East? These rumors didn’t make
sense to me. The man had used his wealth to buy and preserve raw wonder. I did
not fault the man.
We spoke of men and women in Southern
Chile. Why were we treated so coldly at times? Why would very few men
and women greet us? Why was there little politeness? Mauricio explained that
the men and women had been isolated for many years and did not know how to deal
with the newcomers. They weren’t treating us any differently than they treated
each other.
Mauricio played the guitar and his brother the
bongo. Carlos, Mauricio, and his brother sang Chilean folk songs and all sang
sweetly and sadly of solitude and lost love. They were lonely dogs howling for
something they had once seen but could no longer recall.
The next day the four of us walked nearby
Mauricio’s camping. It was peatland, my first experience with the terrain, and
the moss was red, green yellow, orange, and tan, and one meter thick in some
instances. It can be used to filter water. We stopped to look at fungi and spot
birds.
There are no bars in town. 6 years ago at a bar,
two carabineros killed each other and they shut the bar.
Carlos and I had visited the Carabineros earlier
to inquire about the boat and the border. They said there was no ferry to
Candelario Manzilla and that the border was closed anyhow. Mauricio said this
was not true, and he spoke to two men who worked with the boats. There would be
an inexpensive boat in two days for the locals, and we could catch that boat.
We stopped by the home of Hans, who sold us two passages for boat used only for
the locals who lived on the estancias near Isla Central. The boat was to depart
at 7 a.m., which meant a 8km ride in the pitch darkness on rough ripio first
thing in the morning.
We cooked a dinner of lentils with apples and
vegetables and bread that night and all of us ate together.
We departed in the dark that morning and made it
to the ferry exactly at 7. There was only one man on the ferry and he was
originally from Santiago
and had given up a senior post at the public registry to work in Villa O’
Higgins. When locals needed a land title, a marriage certificate, a birth
certificate, or other government services, he would head out on the ferry, then
take a small motor boat to the estancias and provide the paperwork. The captain
told us the ferry would take all day, from 7 until 5 in the evening, as the
official needed to stop at several estancias to do his work. The ferry also
stopped at other estancias to pick up sheep and a few slaughtered animals. I
pulled two tied, live sheep into the ferry. Their ties were cut and they came
to life and huddled near my bicycle.
The official said the settlers were called,“colonos,”
the first to arrive in the area in the 30s and 40s. They lived in remote areas
and communicated by radio.
The official visited one hermit for a document
the hermit needed. He took a photo of the hermit and the man was very old with
a long grey beard. Many need land title services—handshakes from the past once
meant land claims, but things are more complicated now. We rode past glaciers
and snow covered peaks. The deepest part of the lake here is 800 meters. We
then stopped offshore Isla Pascua, where a family had a hacienda, a home and
two buildings. A man came out of his home perched on the rocky shore and
brought up 4 large burlap bags of provisions for the animals. There is little
grazing land on the rocky islands, and the goats, horses, and cattle need
provisions delivered to them.
We picked up a 72 year old man who had lived on
Isla Central his whole life. He was seeking medical treatment in Villa O’
Higgins. I didn’t ask him what was the matter, but he was in pain.
A man in a large wool sweater spoke to me and I
mistook him for a crew member. He asked me several times if I planned on
returning. We made a stop and I realized he was going to his home on the shore.
He lived alone with his dog. He asked Carlos and I if we wanted to spend some
time at his settlement. Maybe next time, we told him. I shook his hand and sadly said goodbye. I went to the lower level and ate chicken soup and bread
that they crewmen had prepared.
I spent the rest of the day watching the glaciers
and mountains and the rocky shores. There was water and stone and ice and
sunlight and red and yellow trees turning in the autumn.
At around 5 we arrived at Candelaria Manzilla
and I recognized one of the Carabineros from Tortel. He was a friendly and
helpful man and so was the other Carabinero. They said the minister of defense
was visiting their very base soon. They unlocked a refugio on the shore and
inside was a bag of apples. I camped on the beach that night and Carlos slept
in the refugio. Carlos made flatbread on the stove and we cooked pasta with
mayonnaise and some polenta with chicken cube broth.
I awoke that morning and cleaned up trash on the
beach that some dogs had overturned during the night. Carlos and I drank mate
and I cooked oatmeal with cooked apples Carlos had made the night before. We
had water from a local home. The man from the home was originally from Punta Arenas, but grew up
in Coyhaique. He smoked cigarettes and watched satellite television.
There was a steep 1km climb to the Carabineros
and we made it there by around 9:20. The men told us there was 18km to the
Argentinean control, were there were boats at 12, 3, and 6 across Lago
Desierto. Mauricio had told us the boat was necessary, as the 12km hike across
Lago Desierto was difficult without a backpack, very difficult with a backpack,
and an impossible portage with a bicycle and bicycle gear. We would have time
to make it by 6, maybe even 3.
The first 6km were very steep, with loose
gravel. I pushed the bike the majority of the first 3km, and then rode sections
of the next 6. Eventually the road evened out, at by about 16km, we had reached
the border, where were signs on each side welcoming backpackers to Chile and Argentina. Immediately a narrow
hiking path began, and soon logs, roots, boulders, streams, deep mud, rivers,
and deep riverways appeared. On the deep gutted riverways I walked atop with a
foot on either side with the bike in the middle. We soon realized we had 4 more
kilometers than the Carabineros had informed us. The last 4km were mostly
through the deep gutted streambeds, with two river crossing and huge fields of
mud. It was exhausting to constantly lift the bikes over rocks and hear the
grinding sound of mud and sand in the brakes while running with the bikes on
descents. Yet the mountain peaks, the trees, as they turned red and yellow, the
meadows, the rivers and streams—it was raw wilderness. When we descended to the
Argentinean control on Lago Desierto, we wanted to pass through passport
control and catch the 6 o’clock boat. We were out of luck—the last boat was the
day before, and the police captain radioed in to see if there would be another
boat, but no one would come.
We had one night and one morning of food. If we
were to portage, it would be 36km of hiking, and with the gear, 3 days of work.
The police had no food for us, but gave us a loaf of day old bread.
I washed the bike in the lake and removed the
mud which had caked the drivetrain and brakes. Mauricio had said the portage
with the bicycles would be a mierda of mierdas. We had no food for the journey.
Yet the police had mentioned a hosteria in the middle of the lake which sold
provisions and had a boat. We were skeptical. Why would there be anything in
the middle of the lake off a horseback trail outside of the backpacking season?
The worst case scenario would be to bring rain gear, hike the 12km of brutal
trails, then walk 36km to El Chalten, were we could buy food, rest, and hire a
boat to get the gear and the bikes, and continue on South.
The next morning we began walking the bikes
along the sandy and rocky shore
of Lago Desierto. After
1km the path turned up a very steep climb. I could not push the bike up the
climb over the rocks. After 20 meters, I could not move, and looked down to the
shore, holding the wheels to the ground with the front and rear brakes. Carlos
had dismounted his bags from the bike and began to portage his gear ahead. I
decided I had no choice but to remove the bags, tent, and sleeping bag, and
begin the steep hike. When the two of us had reached a flatter stretched, we
left the bags and returned for the bikes. When we returned with the bikes, we
repeated the process another 300 meters. We stopped to rest and realized we had traveled less than 2km in 2 hours. We were completely spent from the early attempt
to push the loaded bikes.
I convinced Carlos that food was the primary
concern. We needed to hide the bicycles and the gear and attempt to find the
hosteria, if it existed. We could buy 3 days of food, then return to camp, then
portage the bikes the remaining 10km. We set off in search of the hosteria, yet
after 2 hours could find nothing in the wilderness. We followed a stream to a
beach and could see a house in the distance. We had passed the only building
other than the police outpost. The house was on the shore, yet there was no
clear way to descend from the cliffs to the house. We backtracked, searching for
a way to descend, and after an hour located a path, hoping it would lead to
something.
In 15 minutes we reached a large wooded lodge
overlooking the glaciers and Lago Desierto. It was a 4 star lodge run by a
family from Buenos Aires.
Pato and Ivor had spent 4 years building the lodge and had operated the hotel
for 2 years. They had camped for the first two years while building the lodge
with the help of a few workers. They worked in difficult conditions, but it had
been Pato’s dream since 1998 when she had first seen the lake while hiking.
They had sold everything to build the lodge.
We explained to them our situation. They did not
have anything to sell us, they did not offer a boat service, but they would be
happy to feed us and give us a ride to the end of the lake at 2 in the
afternoon the next day. But we needed to hurry back to our gear and make one portage
that night. I was given a light by the senora, Pato, and Carlos and I began the
steep climb back to the trail in the rain. We reach camp at 7:40 and it was
dark and we could see nothing. We could barely find our gear. We were dead. The
risk of hiking back in the dark, getting lost on the trail, and not having dry
ground to camp was too much. The risk of a fall was significant. Instead, we
camped for the night, cooking yerba mate and polenta. It rained heavily that
night. Sunlight appeared at 8:20 in the morning, and we began the portage at 9
in heavy, cold rain. Our shoes were soaked by the many crossing the night
before. I tied the tent and sleeping bag to my back with bungee cords, and put
the two large rear panniers on my shoulders. I used two thick wool socks to
protect the shoulders from the bags and the bungee cords.
We made it to Pato and Ivor’s place by 11, and
realized there was no way we could return to camp and bring the bikes by 2. We
needed at least 4 more hours to make the journey.
Pato could see our exhaustion. She invited us in
to her kitchen and fed us granola, yoghurt, milk, eggs, empanadas, bread,
butter, and coffee. She told us they would wait for us with the boat. We ate
breakfast and put on the muddy and soaked shoes and were about to set off in a
torrent of rain when Pato told us to wait. It was too dangerous in the
conditions, she said. We could stay with them, eat their food, and there would
be a boat for us when we were ready. Carlos and I were stunned by the generous
offer.
By 1:00 the rain had subsided and we made it
back to camp by 3. Carlos strapped his backpack to his back, unloaded his rear
panniers, and carried his bike, shouldering his backpack. I put the small front
panniers on the rear rack, and strapped my sleeping mat to my rear rack.
It took us three hours to reach Pato and Ivor’s
home with the bikes. There was one large river crossing that was mid thigh deep. We removed
everything from the bikes in case there was a fall into the stream. In this
manner, the bags would not act as a raft and carry the bikes down the stream.
This time, I could see the large, slick stones, and did not fall.
I wore shorts, realizing that the rain gear
would be shredded by the thorns. The legs were shredded by the thorns instead,
and the pedals tore up the ankles. The steep, rocky sections were slow going
with the bikes and there were mild spills. In a few sections we could walk with
the bikes by walking on either side of the steep rutted trails while pushing
the bikes from above. On the top of the climb the severe peak of Fitzroy
was visible along with the glaciers. On the final muddy descent to the home, I slid
twice in the mud but recovered quickly. It was 6:00, and we had made it to a
boat with all of our gear. The brakes by that time were barely functional.
There were 3 young women and one young man
working at the lodge, one girl from North of Salta, one from Missiones, and one
couple, Juliana and Mariano, from Buenos
Aires. Mariano was the genius of the house, the
captain of the boat, then engineer of the electric system, the septic system, carpenter—the
overall engineer and handyman of the place. There were 5 rooms in the
lodge—light cypress interior, white couches, wooden furniture, large open
kitchen, huge deck overlooking the glaciers, three stories in total.
Powerbrokers, politicians, and businessmen would arrive at the lodge by boat
service and decompress at the lodge. They were in the final days of closing the
lodge for the season.
That night all of us ate a dinner of beef roast,
pasta, bread, and lemon custard—gourmet food I had not tasted in ages. Ivor,
Pato’s husband, was stranded in on the other end of the shore as the road to
Chalten was flooded. He spent the night at a police outpost.
Carlos and I were given beds in a room for the
workers at the lodge and it was warm, dry, and spacious.
In the morning, Mariano came by our quarters and
invited us to a breakfast of cornflakes, bread, mate, liquid yoghurt, and
coffee. I was instructed by Juliana on the art of preparing and drinking yerba
mate.
Carlos and I offered to work in exchange for the
extreme hospitality, and were offered to paint the front entrance with wood
sealant. We were interrupted twice with rain, but finished the work. Pato was
very happy with the quality of out work, and gave us two other section to paint.
We stopped for a lunch of handmade pizza and
apple tarts and returned to work.
We finished around 6, at the time Ivor arrived
by boat. Ivor, too, was happy with our work.
That night we had a dinner of trout from Lago Desierto
stuffed with onions and served with a rich polenta, brown rice, beans, and
potatoes. Ivor was originally from South Africa, and had settled in Argentina
decades earlier. He was a gifted squash player who had traveled the world. He
had visited Denver
once on business when we worked in for an industrial drilling concern.
Ivor wanted the South side of the house
completed by the time they shut down the lodge for the season. Carlos and I
worked on the scaffolding until we realized we required one more story of
scaffolding to complete the job. Mariano helped us construct the 3rd
story of scaffolding and gave us two harnesses and ropes which we looped
through a beam on the roof. When we completed the work on the scaffolding, I
roped myself in to the Far East side of the
roof to finish the last section of the lodge as Carlos stabilized the ladder.
Ivor, Pato, and Mariano were very happy with our
work.
That night at dinner we spoke about living outside
boundaries and there was good feeling in the words of the conversation. They
asked me my opinion of Chuang Tzu, and I spoke briefly about opening one’s
heart and mind to some other, unknown level.
The next morning was busy as everyone was busy
shutting down the lodge for the season. Mariano and Ivor were preparing the
septic system, and the women worked inside cleaning and covering the furniture.
Carlos and I were left with the job of
dismantling 3 stories of heavy steel scaffolding. I was uncertain about the
logistics. It was difficult to work with the harnesses and rope to paint. How
could we work unharnessed to dismantle the same structure?
After a quick breakfast we solicited the help of
Mariano for the third story of scaffolding, we worked together to dismantle the
bars—two large cross bars for each section of the third story (4 in total), and
two small horizontal bars for the other side (for small bars in total). After Mariano's
help with the third story, Carlos and I dismantled the remaining two
stories—the last section perched on an incline held in place by a wooden
structure nailed to the lodge. By 1:30 we were finished, but we still needed an
hour to haul the scaffolding under the lodge. Over a quick lunch we discussed
the logistics and Ivor determined we would not have enough time to haul the
scaffolding under the lodge, get to shore, and ride to El Chalten that day.
Instead, Mariano could finish hauling the scaffolding the next day.
Carlos and I packed our bags and bikes on the
boats, the two women from the North, Ivor, and Mariano left the shore and
headed to the South of Logo Desierto. Before departure, we exchanged
embraces of friendship, joy, sadness, and relief. Pato gave us a quick tour of
the lodge, and insisted on paying us each $100, which we refused several times,
until she insisted. We pleaded that their hospitality far surpassed the value
of our work. She then gave us 4 empanadas and two kiwis for the road.
Fitzroy and the glaciers were beautiful in the
midst of the wind and waves of the lake. We reached the Southern end, packed
our bikes, and gave final embraces to Mariano and Ivor.
How their open spirits welcomed and nurtured and
enriched the moments of two completely lost, exhausted, and hungry explorers. May
the gods shine great fortune and beauty forever upon great family and friends
of Ivor, Pato, Mariano, and Juliana.
It was strange to ride ripio once again, an open
two lane expanse of gravel to El Chalten. Then, pavement. Carlos and I looked
at the strange surface with wonder.
It is now time to continue South to Ushuaia.
