Page 172 - Ath Airport Profile

IT
was near freezing when I woke up with my sleeping
bag partly unzipped. If not for the brisk, glacial air
seeping in, I might have dozed right through the
night. There wasn’t a sound around to wake me, only
the faint whisper of an icy river in the distance.
It’s a good thing I didn’t keep sleeping. I had waited
all evening to see this, but after an arduous day of
hiking I couldn’t keep my eyes open much past sunset,
which this time of year in Patagonia is about 9pm.
With few clouds in the night sky, a rare occurrence
in this rainy part of the world, I looked for higher
ground to get an even better view.
Zipping up my fleece jacket I clambered up a small
rise, topped by a solitary legna tree, and there
shone the Holy Grail that I had come so far to
see: the Southern Cross in the midnight sky. The
only terrestrial light to dilute its brilliance was the to sail up to another ice field, the Glaciar Upsala,
faintest moonlight reflecting off the snowy peaks.
Even nature was silent for a moment, just a direct
exchange between the stars and me, alone at the
tip of the Earth.
Patagonia has always been a refuge for those
seeking the solace of remote spaces. Awestruck
Spanish explorers aboard Magellan’s ship were
the first Westerners to lay eyes on this land, which
they named after the tall natives who inhabited it
(Patagon is a mythical giant in one of Magellan’s
favourite novels). In later centuries, pockets of
Welsh refugees set up tiny villages here. They were
followed by Argentines, especially those in recent
decades escaping the country’s murderous junta.
They built cozy wooden cabins on the shores of
cobalt lakes, surrounded only by natural beauty and
more than enough firewood to get them through
the winter.
For them, that sense of solitude has endured up
until the present, inhabiting an expanse of steppes,
mountains and forests eight times the size of Greece
and with only about one and a half million people;
and even then, most of them live in the cities and
towns. On a cold night, gazing at the Southern
Cross on a one-tree hill, I might as well have been
the only person in the world.
When I folded up my tent the next morning and
made my way down to the Perito Moreno Glacier,
I realised I was wrong. Not only was I not alone in
Patagonia, mine was just one of dozens of tents at
this very campsite.
Other visitors were congregating at one of the lookout
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points over the expanse of rippling white mountains
of ice—a brilliant white with phosphorescent blue
streaks bursting through the cracks. They sat and
watched as if the glacier was putting on a show
for their entertainment. As I got closer I saw that
indeed it was.
It starts with a few crumbs of ice toppling off of the
face. Then a large fissure slowly appears behind one
of the pointed pillars—the height of a New York City
apartment building. Soon it starts to lean over the
water; the crowd gasps and cheers; and the massive
structure comes crashing down into the lake in a roar
like a thousand bricks falling on pavement.
For Patagonia, this was just another tiny cube falling
off the largest ice shelf outside Antarctica, and the
largest source of fresh water in the world.
What to do for an encore? I could hop on a catamaran
only accessible by boat. Or I could hike up once
again to Fitz Roy for another spectacular view of the
jagged peaks, trek across the icefield and hopefully
this time catch a glimpse of condors, lamas and
perhaps even a puma.
But my legs were tired; I was hungry; and I was
ready to sample some wildlife internally.
Restaurants in the national park are few, but I did
manage to sample the best of what the area has to
offer: lamb and Patagonian trout. The steppe below
these mountains is studded with sheep farms, well-
known to both the restaurateurs, who cook racks
of mutton with their special “cordero” sauce, and
also to the mountain’s pumas, who are known to
slink down to the lowland farms to get a bite for
themselves.
At the restaurant Estepa, you can warm your insides
with braised chunks of local lamb while gazing out
at a sweeping view of the Fitz Roy range through tall
windows surrounding the dining room.
All this wasn’t enough for me, though. I wasn’t
far enough away from the rest of the world. Sure,
I could do just any outdoor activity I wanted to in
Patagonia: from the world’s best fly fishing, scenic
horseback rides and glacier walks to see all the
penguins my heart desired. However, if I’m going to
go to the end of the Earth for all of that, I decided,
I’m going to the very tip.
The city of Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego
Province and more famously the southernmost city
in the world. Upon arrival, my first impression is