Parque Nacional de Los Glaciares - the Perito Moreno Glacier
Lise's journal entry 12/18/07
A glacier spoke to us today. As the early morning mist lifted off the mountainsides and spilled over the jagged edge of ice into the milky green lake, dull booms and sharp cracks echoed out from glowing blue caverns and crevasses. The glacier face was 60 meters high and stretched 5 kilometers across. Its mass was unfathomable. It poured out from the bowls between dark mountain peaks, slipping off their shoulders and oozing around their corners, joining into a mass of frozen sapphire shards that marched down the wide valley like an encroaching army carrying spears of giant hoarfrost. Although it did not appear to move, it felt alive, dynamic, burning with an icy energy that made the crispy cold air vibrate. Birds trilled vibrant songs from the dense brush on the hillside. We enjoyed their melodies as we listened to the glacier's music. Loose crumbs trickled down the ice wall like gigantic sugar crystals and blocky columns toppled into the lake with thunderous roars that sent shock waves rippling through the air and the water. The motion tipped the balance of the floating icebergs, flipping their pockmarked surfaces under and exposing their glassy aqua blue undersides. As the sun broke through the gray clouds, the glare was blinding but I left my sunglasses in my pocket. I did not want any barrier between me and this brilliant force I faced. What was the creeping ice saying? What was the chilly wind whispering? What ancient lessons of time and pressure and persistence could I learn from this magnificent mass of moving ice?
Most of the glaciers in these mountains are retreating (as they are all over the world) but the Perito Moreno is still advancing. We wondered why and were told that a recent earthquake enlarged the feeder basin for this glacier so it is still managing to move forward, although less predictably than it used to. Compared to the continental glaciers that shaped the land during the ice ages, this gliding block of ice is just a petite (slow motion) dancer, gracefully tap dancing over the landscape, kicking stones around with its toes. But standing face to face with it has helped us to better comprehend the massiveness of those ancient ice shields and also to grasp the immensity of our loss as their remnants slink back into the mountains and disappear.
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Punta Walichu - Arte Rupestre
The town of El Calafate crouches in the rain shadow of the mountains of Los Glaciares, receiving only 20 mm of rain compared to 2000 mm in the park 80 km away. Despite the adjacent glacial-milk waters of Lago Argentina, the largest lake in the country, here we were back in the parched steppes, where the eroded plateaus are tipping and sliding under the crust of the rising Andes. We made contact with Mark Dunn, brother to our La Lucena host Peter Dunn, who works at a small archaeological center containing prehistoric rock paintings. With his intuitive interpretations we were able to sense the power of the place and reach across 8000 years to feel a connection to these ancient people. Crouching in the cracks of the weathered cliffs, we could experience the appeal of the sheltered sites and appreciate the perspective they provided of the surrounding landscape. In this mindset, it was easy to imagine the significance of the etchings and paintings and the ceremonies they represented.
Cueva de las Manos
The visit with Mark inspired us to add another archaeology site to our itinerary. Five hundred kilometers and 16 hours north, on an insanely bumpy gravel highway (Ruta 40), we stopped in Perito Moreno, a bleak town we were grateful to have reached since our bus lost most of the bolts on one of its wheels literally in the middle of nowhere. We will remember this as classic Patagonia. The snow-capped peaks of the Andes looked like mirages at the edge of the hazy desert. Empty pop bottles chased us down dusty streets and we wore sunglasses for the flying dirt as much as the glaring sun. Perhaps if we had camped in the wild scrubland we could have better appreciated the reality of this harsh land, but we were in the gravel lot of the municipal campground, sharing space with a rolling hotel full of saurkraut-eating elderly Germans and two buses of budget-traveling Aussies and Brits with their small city of matching pup tents. The surrounding grassland was not particularly safe anyways, as we found out when we returned from an evening stroll and noticed a sign posting the area as a national guard explosive range. Oooops!
The remote Cave of the Hands site turned out to be in an unexpectedly beautiful gorge that appeared in the middle of monotonous miles of sheep estancias. Herds of guanacos and flocks of rheas ran along side the narrow road. Flamingos and ibis waded in shallow ponds of evaporating water. We hiked across the canyon to the cliffsides that were covered with hundreds of painted hands and a myriad of other designs. The official tour was scientific and unrevealing, but with the insights Mark had given us, we were able to read more in the symbols: the negative hands meant people were drawing power, positives were placing the power, dots represented the spirit world. It helped us absorb the magic of a place that obviously had incredible significance in these ancient people's reality. If we inhaled deeply and listened intently we could almost smell the lingering campfires and hear the whispered conversations still floating through the shimmering desert air.
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Christmas Morning
David's journal entry 12/25/07
Bombs, gunfire, flares, and a full moon hover over the city. Car horns blare, sirens sound, and families scurry along the roads and sidewalks. I hang out the bedroom window, taking in the cooler smoke-filled air, risking errant bombs and rockets for the sight of a city under siege. Is Chile claiming this part of Argentina? Is England trying to capture more than the Falkland Islands? Is it Argentina's Independence Day? No! It's Christmas Eve giving way to Christmas Morn. A call to the neighbor children playing in the street, "Comida!" (food!) as the asado meat is finally ready to eat just before 1 a.m. Christmas Day. And now a knock on the neighbor's door and a "ho-ho-ho!" early morning visit of a red-suited Santa at almost one-thirty. Yes, we are in Argentina.
Lise found us the Welsh-settled city of Esquel, at the northwestern edge of Patagonia, to celebrate Christmas. This dry, hot, semi-arid city's mountains are quickly losing their remnant snowfields and the holiday unfolds in its own way, despite Lise's carefully calculated plans. No church choirs belting out Christmas hymns. No oven in this attic apartment's "kitchen" for baking Christmas cookies and a holiday meal. No refrigerator or burner even, just a bowl-sized sink and microwave in a meter square closet. A trip to the market gave us a taste of the Christmas rush with overflowing carts and early closing times, along with the strange summer heat, sweaty bodies and melting ice cream. We ate in waves, as our microwave chicken patties with ham and cheese slid onto our plates, hot dogs rolled onto Tremayne's, and frozen vegetables balanced out our dining. We ate on our bed (no gathering space or table in this place), watched cable TV, did laundry, checked our dwindling vacation budget, repacked the cookie cutters Lise had been carrying all around Patagonia for this time, minimized our movement outside because of the heat, and then shared a disagreement or two to finish out our holiday. As the fireworks fade, and as our boys return to bed with a candle lit and some Christmas songs playing on the i-pod, we have to pinch ourselves. This is the day of hope and renewal. A day to celebrate the birth of Jesus. A day called Christmas!
Parque Nacional Los Alerces
How delighted we were when we slipped into the forest haven of this national park that protects the last stands of giant alerce trees, some of which grow up to 5 meters in diameter and live over 4000 years. Definitely our kind of place - giant trees, giant horseflies, icy water and clean air. This pocket of lush forest exists because the relatively lower mountains in the region allow the moisture to actually reach this side of the Andes and, of course, these trees are near extinction because of their valuable timber. Our campsite sat on the shores of exquisite Lago Verde, where we shrieked our way into the greeny-blue water of melting glaciers. So refreshing and invigorating! Why on earth did we make such a fuss? We were surrounded by gigantic false beech trees, one as old as 600 years and the boys kindly agreed to the rare family photo at its base. As in all the Argentine national parks, we shared the place with the occasional herd of cows or horses. Other local fauna included loud young Argentines who, in typical fashion here, didn't even begin cooking their suppers until almost midnight. We tried to accept it all as part of the ambiance of Argentina.
Lise's journal entry 12/27/07
At the end of the grandfather alerce tour I still felt disconnected and dissatisfied. We'd seen a stunning mountain lake emptying into a foaming cascade tumbling over boulders beneath centuries old trees. We saw a 2600 year old alerce, 2.2 meters wide, twisted but solidly standing as a testament to time - a different time than humans live. All this wasn't enough for me. I didn't FEEL anything. I snuck off the trail near the boat landing where people were gathering to wait for the trip back across the lake. I hadn't seen it before, though we had walked right past it. A middle-aged alerce - maybe only a millennium old - stood just behind the park shelter, its shaggy bark reaching in perfect straight lines up into the forest canopy. Dropping to the soft ground at its base, I leaned my back up against its trunk and closed my ears to the murmur of people, trying to listen to something deeper, more intimate and meaningful, something that could seep through the pores of my back. I straightened my spine, slouching seemed an insult to this great structure behind me. My hands pressed into the duff of shredded bark and bamboo leaves as I tried to correct my posture. I leaned my head back and tried to reach my arms around the trunk in a sort of backwards hug as I gazed up to the bushy branches holding up the blue sky above me. It was incomprehensible. The length of time this tree had been standing here was impossible to grasp. What did it mean? What does my life mean? I thought of the whales and their slow motion lives, but their life span is still similar to ours. This tree, growing 1 millimeter in diameter per year, takes slow motion to its absolute minimum. It lives in a geologic time scale, like the inching glaciers, but it is alive and breathing the whole time. And it keeps on living - if we let it. Sunlight sparkled off the glacier-watered lake through the dense green canes of bamboo and the cinnamon colored branches of the arrayan shrubs. I wanted to bask in the aura of this ecosystem that was clustered at the foot of this ancient being, but I heard the boat engine sputter to a start and I was jerked back to the human reality I am subject to - the reality I am obliged to occupy for the remainder of my puny life on this Earth..
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New Year's Eve Adventure
Since we were carrying backpacks and traveling as light as possible, accumulating souvenirs was not in our plans. We collected many, many memories, of course, and hundreds of pictures! And as a special Christmas present for Colby and Tremayne, we sent them on a white-water rafting trip down the class IV rapids of the Manso River, 14 km to where it meets the border of Chile. We fudged Tremayne's age by a few months, and we worried a bit about their safety, but they returned to us invigorated and exhausted. They have grown up so much! Can you recognize them?
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Patagonia's Lake District
Our final days were spent visiting farms in the dramatic valley of El Bolson, where we found kindred spirits striving for the same earth-healing lives as we attempt in Minnesota, and then taste-testing chocolate in the lakeside tourist resort of Bariloche. A bit of a contrast, but a relaxing way to end a dramatic trip.
This was a desert trip mostly, bookended by the giants of the sea at Peninsula Valdes and the giants of the land at Los Alerces. From the Atlantic to the Andes, in a big loop that wrapped around the tail of South America at Tierra del Fuego, the thread of glacial waters running through it all from their mountain sources to their ocean outlets. Whew! What a journey it was!
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