January 20, 2024
“I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.”
― Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia
How this land was named seems as good a place to begin as any. On Wednesday, March 31, 1520, Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet of five ships reached a bay off the southern tip of present day Argentina. There, according to Antonio Pigafetta, his chronicler, they encountered indigenous natives of great height.
Pigafetta wrote, “so tall was this man that we came up to the level of his waist-belt,” and “he was gigantic in stature and practically naked.”
Magellan exchanged some trinkets with them and decided to call them “Patagons” after a 16th century fantasy novel character. Patagonia became the land of the Patagons.
Magellan would not survive his famous journey. Later his personal notes were discovered about that famous day showing the foresight of the famous navigator.
“….Such an interesting land, these Patagons possess. Perhaps one day they can start an environmentally conscious clothing company and acquire significant gold. This must be studied further…”
Patagonia is huge covering thousands of square miles and much of southern Argentina and parts of Chile. Much of the geography is comprised of steppes with some glacier fed lakes and rivers. At least the area we are at is dry desert like with brown stunted shrubs, devoid of trees, and occasional low hills.
Charles Darwin was not impressed with the area. writing, “The country remained the same, and was extremely uninteresting. The complete similarity of the productions throughout Patagonia is one of its most striking characters. The level plains of arid shingle support the same stunted and dwarf plants; and in the valleys the same thorn-bearing bushes grow. Everywhere we see the same birds and insects. Even the very banks of the river and of the clear stream-lets which entered it, were scarcely enlivened by a brighter tint of green. The curse of sterility is on the land, and the water flowing over a bed of pebbles partakes of the same curse.”
On its western border lies the granite walls of the Chilean Southern Andes that extend the length of the continent. This great range sets the weather pattern here. The mountains inhibit the moist ocean air from entering the area leading to very wet conditions of the Chilean side and dry desert like conditions of the Argentinian side.
If there is one distinguishing feature of the land it is the wind. My son Stephen, who spent time here doing research in geology for his PhD, would send back videos of this broad empty land scape with gale force winds. As he tried to face time with us, behind him you could see his tent cartwheeling across the hill being chased by his colleagues. He looked like one of those hapless weathermen trying to cover a hurricane for the news outside while his fellow reporters were warm and safe in the studio.
He tried to warn us. He was right. As our plane landed the turbulence was quite violent. The attendant said, “oh this is normal here”. The cabin passengers applauded when we at last touched down. The wind gusts were greater than 40mph and quite cold.
The reason for the constant wind is the vast treeless plain provides no shelter from the persistent dry, South polar winds that blow from the West. It turns out Antartica is a very windy place.
We spent the night in El Calafate, where we will return again in Part 3. The next morning we went on our first road trip of this journey in a three hour drive to El Chalten, the home of Mount Fitz Roy.
Side note - Although they have been very popular here, the mountain was NOT named after these guys.
Moving on. It was our first time to really see this area. The vistas are stark and stunning at the same time. The wind was cold and persistent which made driving our small car a little more exciting than normal.
There were several observations to take in. The first was the complete lack of animals. Despite miles of fencing we only rarely saw livestock other than the occasional Guanaco.
On our route we passed rivers and lakes of startlingly turquoise blue. These glacier fed bodies of water stood out strikingly to the rolling brown plateaus.
Despite the vastness of the steppe, there are almost no buildings to be seen anywhere. The traffic on the road was very light and at times even deserted. Amazingly we passed the occasional cyclist, one with a baby, try to ride against the constant headwinds.
About half way through the trip we came across La Leona. This old half way house, now a small hotel, sits next to a river with some trees to protect it from the winds. It has been here over 100 years.
In 1905 three Americans unexpectedly turned up here and asked for lodging. It was Robert Parker, Harry Longabaugh, and Longabaugh’s wife - Etta Place. They stayed for only two days before riding on into the plains of Patagonia.
To Americans, the men were better known as Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid. The legendary outlaws had fled the U.S. due the relentless pursuit by the Pinkerton Detective agency. In South America, they briefly had a ranch on Patagonia, before returning to a life of crime. The targets were softer here, banks, etc and for awhile they were successful.
Although the details are unclear, the two would end up in Southern Bolivia where, after a botched robbery they were cornered by units of the Bolivian Army. They died there but the details are murky. It is fun to think, like the famous movie, that we don’t know if they lived and would continue to live out their lives somewhere around here.
Finally, on the horizon, we saw the peak of Mount Fitz Roy, our destination.
We were headed for one of the most beautiful mountains we have ever seen. As if the lines of the great edifice were taken straight out of sketchbooks from John Howe or Alan Lee, the great peak continued to fill the front windshield as we made our way to El Chalten.
NEXT - Part 2 “The Shadow of the Mountain”
Comments