the end of the road
it´s been a long few days on the road. our bus ride down to el calafate, deep in patagonia, started off down ruta 40, the highway traversed by a young che when being inspired to write the motorcycle diaries. it seems his imperative taste in beards was matched by his taste in scenery, as even from the confines of a bus the sun dappled lakes flanked by impressive yet gentle mountains provided a series of glorious vistas that seemed that they would easily make light of the 30 hour bus journey. unfortunately this is winter in the southern hemisphere, and the unseasonal sunshine in which we set out was an anomaly, to be replaced by bitter drizzle rapidly transformed to ice by the agressive cold which descended as we left the verdant lakes and peaks and trundled onto the patagonian tundra. the scenery retained a certain beauty, but of a fist clenchedly ruggedness rather than the postcard views of the lake district.the journey was actually much nearer the 35 hour mark thanks to jovial drivers more interested in cigarette breaks than progress and the treachery of the dark, icy road. when we pulled into el calafate however, it seemed a gorgeous little place rendered particularly quaint by its small size and the delicate layer of snow blanketing the streets and houses.
we were in el calafate to see the perito moreno glacier, a massive advancing glacier tumbling down from the andes, and thus early in the morning we shivered onto the road and slipped our way over the icy streets onto the waiting bus to perito moreno. the setting for the glacier was no disappointment, a massive lake set in a snow filled valley; the landscape was fortunately no anticlimax, as the glacier itself was simply awe inspiring, a massive jagged slab of ice of incomprehensible proportions, melting into mountains into the background whilst seeming to lurch towards the shore where we stood watching. the advancing nature of the glacier meant that the views were aurally enhanced by distant rumbles from afar as bus sized chunks of ice caved off the face of the main glacier to splash clumsily into the water.
from el calafate we set off at 3am to get to ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. this journey would have been trying enough even without the fact that argentina´s share of tierra del fuego is cut off from the rest of the country by a jagged shard of chile, pointlessly intruding on ruta 3 and meaning that to get to ushaia involved crossing into and out of chile for two hours, with all the attendant time wasting and passport stamping at the frankly pointless borders such an intrusion entails. still we pulled into ushuaia at around 11pm feeling pleased that a fairly significant box was being ticked, the end of the world, the final stop before the wilderness of the antarctic.
to be fair to ushuaia however there is more to it than just saying you have been here. the city is flanked on one side by the south atlantic and all the mystique of antarctica that it suggests, and on the other by snow encased peaks completely encircling it from behind. we spent the day in the parque nacional tierra del fuego, walking along the coast of the beagle channel and looking out over the water imagining what lay beyond, before heading to the end of ruta 3, very much the end of the line, the terminus of the last, southernmost, road in the world.
we are going to cheat a bit and fly out back north, partly because it´s not much more expensive and about two days quicker than taking the bus and partly because i haven´t got space in my passport to sustain another bout of bureaucratic faux border crossing. our flight isn´t till monday but a combination of, if the bbc is to believed, clear crisp skies and relief from beef, as lamb is the speciality of patagonia, means that this should be no chore.
posted by bicrom @ 5:46 pm
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