| October / November 1999 |
| Embrace Around The World | |
a romantic tale in several parts - Part 2 The Honeymoon Down, down and still further down. Our plane was traveling south to the very tip of South America. Below us the mountains had become interspersed with lakes growing in size and frequency and punctuated by the huge snow capped cones of sleeping volcanoes. Eventually we circled over a remote township on the shores of the Magellan Straits where shipping was able to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific avoiding the treacherous Cape Horn. The low corrugated buildings of Punta Arenas disappeared in the dust of the dirt road as our bus bumped us north towards the next town of Puerto Natales. Another tiny town cowering from the harsh near arctic weather. The bus doors were immediately surrounded by locals seeking business for the bed and breakfast and we duly found our bed for the night. The next day saw another even bumpier bus ride out across the plains of Patagonia past huge ancient forests of stunted trees hung with cobwebs of lichen. The landscape was vast with the undulating grass plains populated with a few sheep and occasional groups of Ostrich like Nandu. As we traveled on the horizon rose up in great escarpments and the bus wound its way down broad valleys until rounding one large bluff suddenly we saw the Towers ahead of us. Torres del Paine – a great national park in one of the remotest areas of South America. Here the rocks have crashed together and huge slabs forced up into the air. A cluster of huge mountains reaching up from the plains with their tops caught up in clumps of cloud from the winds racing across from the Pacific ocean. We tumbled from the bus and collected our back packs ready to move off, ready to start out honeymoon trekking through this incredibly beautiful landscape. Some while later when we’d eventually hoisted the immense loads onto our packs we started out along the trail, out knees nervous at the impossible loads we were carrying. Within a few minutes we had to stop and redress in shorts and tee-shirts as walking in the sun and mild air was unexpectedly warm. Now the real climbing began. Passing over our first rope bridge our trail suddenly began to rise very steeply. The path was narrow and split again and again as those before us had tried to find easier ways of climbing the steep valley walls. Every few minutes we’d stop to catch our breath, still unaccustomed to this exertion. As we rose higher the view behind us opened up displaying the wild and remote beauty of this land. Suddenly as we topped a rise the wind ripped past us pushing and jostling. Our packs pulled left and right resisting the fierce wind. Another crest saw the wind intensify even more. It shrieked past forcing us to crouch down and hold the ground. In between the gusts be staggered forward. Now the trail began to descend slightly but had narrowed to just the width of our boots as we crossed a great scree slope plunging at 45 degrees to the frothing water way below us. Now the wind was really scaring us, one slip here and we’d go sailing down the rocky slope. Many thumping heart beats later the path had descended further and the shelter of stunted trees broke the force of the wind. As we rested on a fallen tree the leaves around us were at once full of manic chattering and squawking as a dozen parrots rushed in out of the wind. Moments later the wind |
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