A journey through Argentine Patagonia, a land of glaciers, penguins and thousands of miles of emptiness
The Palm Beach Post
Sunday, April 06, 2008
By ANDREW MARRA
Special to The Palm Beach Post
I wanted to see it all. I wanted everything Patagonia could throw my way. Cascading glacier chunks, crowded penguin colonies, staggering mountain vistas, gem-blue seas and the vast expanses of empty desert that make it an icon of isolation.
I wanted it all, and I wanted it cheap. Cheap and quick. I had a limited budget, and a week and a half to spend. I wanted to travel to the end of the world and - oh yeah - I wanted to do it by bus.
It’s more than 1,800 miles from my home in Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city (farther than from Miami to Cheyenne, Wyo.), and I wanted to feel every bump along the way.
Planning the trip seemed easy at first. I was going to stay on the Argentine side of the enormous Patagonia region (which is shared by Argentina and Chile) and hit three of the best-known points: Puerto Madryn, El Calafate and Ushuaia.
It’s the same itinerary I eventually stuck to but only after staving off various temptations along the way: lesser-known hiking and sightseeing havens that announced themselves through word of mouth as reprieves from the main track. As an Argentine might say, Todo no se puede. You can’t do it all.
This, then, was my best attempt. I spent 11 days traveling Patagonia. I heard penguins squawk and glaciers crack, saw ice gleam blue and wild horses graze. From a desolate cliff, I watched the sun set over the Andes and rode a bike far enough into nothing to stop and hear only the ringing of my own ears.
I lived simply, picked my battles, spent less than $1,000 and returned to Buenos Aires in an airplane with hundreds of photos in my camera and a new appreciation for this land.
Bump by bump, I saw Patagonia.
THE FIRST BUS TRIP
Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn
Feb. 21-22
The bus company’s Web site said the trip was going to be 18 hours. And that was just the first leg. I’d get off the following afternoon and barely be in northern Patagonia.
I boarded with a book and an iPod. I had splurged a little for a cama seat, a leather-bound chair that reclines 150 degrees, and was hoping for some decent sleep.
Most of the beginning of the trip was in darkness. I ate dinner, drank a glass of wine and slept fitfully. When I woke up, the landscape had transformed into plains of endless hilly scrub. It continued like this, unbroken emptiness, until I rolled into Puerto Madryn that afternoon.
PUERTO MADRYN
Feb. 22-24
My most distinctive memory of this place is that ringing in my ears, the complete absence of any external sound.
I was perched on my bike halfway up a hill on a sand-and-gravel road. The Atlantic Ocean was off to one side, lurking out of earshot under cliffs. And off to the other was nothing but rolling steppe, half desert, half bramble.
Nothing in the sky, no one on the road, and the town still miles away. A remarkable silence bellowed around me.
Twice in my 48-hour stay in Puerto Madryn, I was moved to rent a bike and pedal out of town. It was a punishing, hilly path, some 16 kilometers toward a sea-lion colony south of town. But every moment was sheer fascination. Each hill conquered awarded an impressive vista of oceanfront cliffs and empty steppe.
Occasionally, a car passed on the road, kicking dust in my face. I saw a herd of wild horses wandering a mile from the route. Otherwise, I and two travel companions were on our own. I found that trip so inspiring and seemingly “Patagonian” that on my second day, hours before my bus left, I did it again.
Puerto Madryn is best-known for the southern right whales spotted offshore during the peak season between June and December. Little more than an hour away is South America’s largest penguin colony, sea lion populations and other fantastic sights, including Trelew, a small town settled by Welsh and dotted with teahouses.
But it wasn’t whale season and I was minding my budget, planning for the wonders awaiting me further south. I limited myself to a museum trip, beach jaunts, a few drinks at a local bar and those fabulously punishing bike rides.
THE SECOND BUS TRIP
Feb. 24-25
Because the first bus trip hadn’t gone badly, I wasn’t as mortified as I might have been by the prospect of a second, somewhat longer trek. This time, I would be traveling to the town of El Calafate, an access point to the famous Perito Moreno glacier and Los Glaciares National Park.
But there was no way to go direct. I’d have to take an 18-hour bus south to the town Rio Gallegos, where I’d catch another bus for the five-hour trip west to El Calafate.
On this trip, I began to get a better sense of Patagonia’s romantic ruggedness.
At night, the bus curved through rocky hills under a big, pearly moon. I woke up in daylight to more rolling hills dotted by scraggly grasses, sheep ensconced behind fences and the occasional rheas (ostrich-like birds) along the road.
I arrived to Rio Gallegos and had to wait just an hour for the connecting bus to El Calafate. An hour into the ride west, we began to see the Andes Mountains on the horizon.
EL CALAFATE
Feb. 25-29
It’s difficult to find the words for Perito Moreno, South America’s most famous glacier. It’s an 18-mile-long expanse of jagged ice looming 200 feet above the water’s surface, tinted in a rainbow of blues and whites. The pictures don’t capture its vastness, but there’s a more important omission.
The sound.
Every 30 minutes or so, the truly awesome happened. An enormous piece of this enormous glacier cracked off and fell, careening as though in slow motion into the waters of Lago Argentino. This happened with a tremendous crack as the piece ruptured, then a boom when ice smacked water. Later came the roar of large waves hissing toward the shore.
By the time I got to Perito Moreno, I’d been in El Calafate two days and had already taken a six-hour glacier tour in a boat the day before. I figured I’d be glaciered out by the time the tour bus arrived that morning.
I was wrong. As impressive as the daylong tour of other glaciers and smaller icebergs had been, the views of Perito Moreno weren’t to be outdone.
From the observation deck, I was now looking down at Perito Moreno, watching it sprawl over the lake and up into the mountains.
As a Florida boy who’d rarely seen snow, I was wowed. I spent two days staring at glaciers in El Calafate, and it wasn’t enough.
I ended up having an extra day in town because the Thursday-morning bus to Ushuaia was full. I couldn’t get out until 3 a.m. Friday.
I spent most of my extra day relaxing and catching up on sleep. But in the late afternoon, I took a hike from my hostel out of town, following a stream up into the hills.
I climbed a steep hillside at great peril and staggered to a rock hanging over the stream.
From there, I could see the valley, the town, Lago Argentino and the Andes beyond as the weather cooled and the sun began to set orange.
THE THIRD BUS TRIP
Feb. 29
The last trip was long and slow (11 hours in all) but with the best scenery far and away.
We left El Calafate at 3 a.m. to make a 9 a.m. connection in Rio Gallegos for one of the few buses headed to Ushuaia.
From Rio Gallegos south, much of the stretch was like the previous bus ride, only somehow more stark and dramatic. Maybe because I knew just how far south I was, the hills of grazing sheep seemed more desolate, and the occasional outpost more dangerously remote.
We passed an ancient auto rusted to its skeleton and had to brake once for a cow in the road. Occasionally a guanaco (similar to a llama) would hop a fence alongside the route.
Ushuaia is located in Tierra Del Fuego, a group of islands shared by Argentina and Chile, and separated from the South American mainland by the Strait of Magellan. To get there, we had to cross into Chile and out again, requiring the bus and everyone on board to go through customs four times.
Then, to get to Tierra del Fuego itself, the bus boarded a ferry for a 25-minute ride.
It was after that crossing that spectacular took on new meaning.
In Tierra del Fuego, the hills turned into snow-tipped mountains. We wound along narrow roads, seemingly always on the verge of careening into the green valleys as we gaped up at the mist-shrouded peaks.
USHUAIA
Feb. 29-March 3
I’d promised my mother I’d see penguins, and on my last day in town I made good.
The tour picked us up at 9:30 a.m. and loaded us into a van. The long ride to the ranch where our boat would launch was scenic, but our group had only penguins on our minds.
On the motorboat to the island in the Beagle Channel, we saw seals swimming. It was a perfect day, surprisingly warm. As we approached the island, the penguins were waiting.
We were allowed, basically, to get as close as the penguins would let us. Only no touching. We approached on our knees to appear less menacing. Some let us get as close as 8 or 9 feet.
They were surprisingly silent, with only the occasional squawk and puzzled look. We were on the island for about an hour, but it seemed a lot shorter.
The penguins were the highlight of my three days in Ushuaia but hardly the whole story.
On Saturday, I spent hours in the national park a few minutes outside the town, hiking through lush forest along the rim of a blue lake, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
On Sunday, I walked into town from my hostel. I ate a bowl of lamb stew, browsed gift shops and the local artisan fair, and sampled pieces of Patagonia’s famous chocolate.
My flight home left Monday evening, just a few hours after the penguin tour.
With a $232 one-way ticket, I was back in Buenos Aires that evening. I had spent some 50 hours on buses winding my way south from Buenos Aires. In a plane, I was back in three.
I lived simply throughout the trip, sleeping in hostels and buying my food in supermarkets. I picked my battles because tours in Patagonia can be expensive.
In the end, I returned home having spent $979 in 11 days, including bus fare, a plane ticket, tours, hostel beds, food and other miscellaneous expenses.
In traveling one way by bus, I had saved a little money but, more important, I had seen a sliver of the region from start to finish.
And whatever the price, I had pictures and memories in which the glaciers would always gleam blue, the desert would always appear barren, and the penguins would always look skeptical.
And I would always remember that ringing in my ears.