"Ruso! Ruso! Conchetumadre!"
The Ruso has just disappeared from sight and not a sound comes from below. The darkness of night has seemed to complicate the descent entering the fortress and an unseen cliff has just swallowed your Russian comrade. The lack of moon and cloudy sky creates a near pitch black environment and a slight rain begins to fall on you and compañero Chileno. The Torres now seem that much further away.
--------------------------
Leaving Ushuaia was a longer process than expected and it wasn't until 1 in the afternoon that you found yourselves standing at the entrance to the city, as cold and windy as ever. 30 minutes yielded a ride from Mauricio, a local or Río Grande for 14 years who has owned many a restaurant in the area. He takes you two through the village of Tolhuin situated in the heart of Tierra del Fuego and famous for a small bakery that hand makes incredible pastries and houses an aviary complete with parrot and toucan. Probably the southernmost birds of both species. Before getting out at the roundabout in Río Grande, Mauricio gives you a kilo of bread along with a few pastries for your journey, proving once again that it is impossible to go hungry at the bottom of the world. Buena onda, buena onda.
A short walk along the highway and a most unlikely fellow decides to pull over. You never learn his name but the Frenchman is everything of an interesting character.
He's towing a catamaran, 100% carbon fiber straight from Europe, able to cut through the icy waters of Cape Horn and battle the high winds. You pass through various checkpoints with him as is necessary in Tierra del Fuego, the fact that he's shipped his v10 Tuareg and boat from the old world requires more paperwork and red tape to wade through. You realize that you'll probably not leave the island that day. While Franchito likes to gun his 400 horses to over 120kph on the gravel road, he's also a photographer and stops every 5 minutes to take pictures of the setting sun and guanaco. You arrive in Cerro Sombrero low on fuel, and luck would have it that the only gas station in town closed at 8. After a meal and a harrying ordeal trying to back out the trailer in which Franchuto begins to yell at you in all sorts of colorful French words you don't catch, it's time to find a place to camp. A churchyard will suffice and as it has a overhang it will help block the rain that comes the following morning.
At daybreak, you decide to ditch Franchuto and catch a ride with a lighthouse worker who's lived in various parts of the island, including a year at the end of the world on Cape Horn, and interesting profession it must be. After the ferry across the Straight of Magellan a Chilean family from Porvenir takes you to a service station that goes towards Puerto Natales, and a bit of a wait later a pickup drops you off at Villa Trehuelches, one of the smallest towns you've ever seen. There's another hitcher on the highway and it's always good to make friends on the road right? A is a Russian born in Kazakstan who's been traveling for more or less 2 years, working on and off to support the journey. Turns out he camped here the night before as the hitching was incredibly slow, not the greatest news as you return to your perch and watch the sheep graze and a lone grey fox runs across the road. A lamb roasting over a spit comes to mind.
It's not until 7 hours later that a pickup with two rowdy Chileans finally comes by and picks you and the Ruso up. The ride is full of crude jokes and music videos of "I'm sexy and I know it", one of the strangest tunes to be blasting as the landscape changes from boring, dull hills to dark, ominous jagged peaks. The truck summits a grade and the bay of Puerto Natales comes into view. The sun's rays pierce through the cover and illuminate the snow below. You try to take pictures but the words and images have no concepts to describe what lay in front of your eyes.
Thanks to your conversation with Ruso you now have contacts with Couchsurfing in the area that you can crash on. A few blocks later and you find the couch to be a very interesting home, essentially a bed and breakfast but through couchsurfing. They offer a place to stay but mention "contributions are gladly accepted" after explaining to you various times how humble and middle-class they are.
The next day is a late start to the road and hitching in groups of 3 is no easy task. 5 minutes in, a van stops and offers a ride for only 1, so there goes Ruso. "No problem" you think "there must be plenty of traffic going to one of the most visited parks in the country, somebody is gonna take us". After a 10k walk not a single ride has yielded and you stop to rest. It's not until 30 minutes later that a truck transporting gas takes you 15k. An hour more, 3k. 2 hours, 20k. 30 minutes, a solid lift to the road leading to the park entrance. Close, so damn close. And along comes your Winnebago, only Latin American so it's a Mercedes-Benz model. All the same, it looks the part. You had played catch-up with this family for most of your journey to Puerto Natales and finally, finally, it stops. The father drives mesmerized by the guanaco and the mother's head sits on a swivel as she whirls around with her binoculars viewing the landscape. Their grown son asks you questions that are barely comprehensible. You lumber along at an incredibly slow pace but hey, it's faster than walking. It's not until right before the entrance to the park that you see Ruso, sitting in the grass, he's been there for the majority of the afternoon. The three of you now ride to the entrance and see the place crawling with PDI and CONAF park rangers. The fee of 15 thousand pesos as a foreigner is nonetheless impossible, a stealth entrance, necessary.
The National Lampoon family is fed up with the list of rules for camping and decides to head for el Calafate but before they leave you, beers, water, crackers, and cake is stuffed into your undeserving hands. The three of you are left speechless.
Turning your backs to the tank kicking up dust down the road you hike it up the hills to find a place hidden from view and discover an open well, perfect for cooking a pasta dinner over open flames, but careful not to start another fire that's closed half the park thanks to a careless camper (Remember kids, only you can prevent forest fires). It's not until midnight that you descend the hills to the road in attempt to make a covert entrance. A few kilometers down the road and dogs from the sheep ranch begin to bark and a light comes from the house, fleeing to the hills you hit the dirt behind some bushes. Apparently crossing the road will be impossible and it's necessary to go up the hills to find the road on the other side. So up it is, pure bushwhacking and bush stomping through thistles and thorns. The starlight is scarcely enough to make out the mountains in the background and the ominous clouds that come promising rain.
From the summit you can see the sheep farm far behind and below, the entrance gate with lights from a television flickering through the window is still about 2 km away. A river runs around the border of the park like a moat and is much too deep and rapid to cross with equipment, on top of this, the cold water would cause hypothermia before you even reached the other side. The only option is to sneak past the entrance and cross the bridge soon after. Time for the descent. A gradual decline soon tilts to 45 degrees and you have to hold your pack on your front side to get more friction on the dirt. Your poor eyesight leaves you behind the others a few meters as the three of you negotiate routes down the slope. About an hour later the pale light reveals the road and the thought that you will finally end this tedious stumbling in the dark.
And then... Ruso disappears from view without so much as a muffled thud in return. Compañero Chileno lights his lamp, there are more important things than stealth at the moment.
"Ruso! Ruso!"...silence. Then...
"Ummpf, chicos... don't come down this way..."
To the right lies a soft sandy embankment and the two of you left on the hill clamber down to look for the fallen comrade. To your left he sits, nursing a nasty puncture.
"What hurts?"
"My foot, but it's not broken. I know what that feels like. But my back...hurts very much".
First aid is administered to the cavity in his shin and it's not until then that you look up at the sheer rock face that afflicted the damage.
"Holy shit...huevon you fell about 4 meters!"
The fall has given him quite a sprain and the clandestine sneak into the park looks as if it's been terminated. Supporting his weight the three of you trudge slowly towards the gate and a soft rain falls. The patter of the drops landing on your pack. Lights off. Nothing but the crunch of rocks and gravel underneath uneven footsteps. You pass the guard station as if it were nothing but a garden gate. Was it really that easy? You set up the tents below the PDI camper behind some bushes. "There's no possible way that we won't be discovered at daybreak" you think as the warmth of your sleeping bag causes your eyelids to close.
It's 10:30 and bright as day when you awake, emerging from your tent to see hordes of tourists pass down the road. You wave with a smile to the buses as they look back at your mangy figure with the tents in the background. "Did he really just spend the night there?" can be read on every face pressed against the window.
Ruso has awoken with a strong pain still lingering but is able to fight it off and mounts his pack. And you all set off, expecting to get caught by the authorities at any moment...but it never happens. Not once in the 3 days that you spend there are you questioned. The exit is just as care-free, exiting in the middle of the night under another cloud of rain.
Hitching the next day back to Puerto Natales is another long wait, and when you leave to ask a nearby restaurant owner a few questions, a ride comes and picks up your companions, leaving you to walk alone. No worries though, an hour later and you're able to find a ride back into town.
The current rain, and a tingle in your throat, has given a day of rest before setting off to el Calafate where there is supposedly a free lamb asado all week long. It sounds too good to be true, but there's only one way to find out right?
The Ruso has just disappeared from sight and not a sound comes from below. The darkness of night has seemed to complicate the descent entering the fortress and an unseen cliff has just swallowed your Russian comrade. The lack of moon and cloudy sky creates a near pitch black environment and a slight rain begins to fall on you and compañero Chileno. The Torres now seem that much further away.
--------------------------
Leaving Ushuaia was a longer process than expected and it wasn't until 1 in the afternoon that you found yourselves standing at the entrance to the city, as cold and windy as ever. 30 minutes yielded a ride from Mauricio, a local or Río Grande for 14 years who has owned many a restaurant in the area. He takes you two through the village of Tolhuin situated in the heart of Tierra del Fuego and famous for a small bakery that hand makes incredible pastries and houses an aviary complete with parrot and toucan. Probably the southernmost birds of both species. Before getting out at the roundabout in Río Grande, Mauricio gives you a kilo of bread along with a few pastries for your journey, proving once again that it is impossible to go hungry at the bottom of the world. Buena onda, buena onda.
A short walk along the highway and a most unlikely fellow decides to pull over. You never learn his name but the Frenchman is everything of an interesting character.
He's towing a catamaran, 100% carbon fiber straight from Europe, able to cut through the icy waters of Cape Horn and battle the high winds. You pass through various checkpoints with him as is necessary in Tierra del Fuego, the fact that he's shipped his v10 Tuareg and boat from the old world requires more paperwork and red tape to wade through. You realize that you'll probably not leave the island that day. While Franchito likes to gun his 400 horses to over 120kph on the gravel road, he's also a photographer and stops every 5 minutes to take pictures of the setting sun and guanaco. You arrive in Cerro Sombrero low on fuel, and luck would have it that the only gas station in town closed at 8. After a meal and a harrying ordeal trying to back out the trailer in which Franchuto begins to yell at you in all sorts of colorful French words you don't catch, it's time to find a place to camp. A churchyard will suffice and as it has a overhang it will help block the rain that comes the following morning.
At daybreak, you decide to ditch Franchuto and catch a ride with a lighthouse worker who's lived in various parts of the island, including a year at the end of the world on Cape Horn, and interesting profession it must be. After the ferry across the Straight of Magellan a Chilean family from Porvenir takes you to a service station that goes towards Puerto Natales, and a bit of a wait later a pickup drops you off at Villa Trehuelches, one of the smallest towns you've ever seen. There's another hitcher on the highway and it's always good to make friends on the road right? A is a Russian born in Kazakstan who's been traveling for more or less 2 years, working on and off to support the journey. Turns out he camped here the night before as the hitching was incredibly slow, not the greatest news as you return to your perch and watch the sheep graze and a lone grey fox runs across the road. A lamb roasting over a spit comes to mind.
It's not until 7 hours later that a pickup with two rowdy Chileans finally comes by and picks you and the Ruso up. The ride is full of crude jokes and music videos of "I'm sexy and I know it", one of the strangest tunes to be blasting as the landscape changes from boring, dull hills to dark, ominous jagged peaks. The truck summits a grade and the bay of Puerto Natales comes into view. The sun's rays pierce through the cover and illuminate the snow below. You try to take pictures but the words and images have no concepts to describe what lay in front of your eyes.
Thanks to your conversation with Ruso you now have contacts with Couchsurfing in the area that you can crash on. A few blocks later and you find the couch to be a very interesting home, essentially a bed and breakfast but through couchsurfing. They offer a place to stay but mention "contributions are gladly accepted" after explaining to you various times how humble and middle-class they are.
The next day is a late start to the road and hitching in groups of 3 is no easy task. 5 minutes in, a van stops and offers a ride for only 1, so there goes Ruso. "No problem" you think "there must be plenty of traffic going to one of the most visited parks in the country, somebody is gonna take us". After a 10k walk not a single ride has yielded and you stop to rest. It's not until 30 minutes later that a truck transporting gas takes you 15k. An hour more, 3k. 2 hours, 20k. 30 minutes, a solid lift to the road leading to the park entrance. Close, so damn close. And along comes your Winnebago, only Latin American so it's a Mercedes-Benz model. All the same, it looks the part. You had played catch-up with this family for most of your journey to Puerto Natales and finally, finally, it stops. The father drives mesmerized by the guanaco and the mother's head sits on a swivel as she whirls around with her binoculars viewing the landscape. Their grown son asks you questions that are barely comprehensible. You lumber along at an incredibly slow pace but hey, it's faster than walking. It's not until right before the entrance to the park that you see Ruso, sitting in the grass, he's been there for the majority of the afternoon. The three of you now ride to the entrance and see the place crawling with PDI and CONAF park rangers. The fee of 15 thousand pesos as a foreigner is nonetheless impossible, a stealth entrance, necessary.
The National Lampoon family is fed up with the list of rules for camping and decides to head for el Calafate but before they leave you, beers, water, crackers, and cake is stuffed into your undeserving hands. The three of you are left speechless.
Turning your backs to the tank kicking up dust down the road you hike it up the hills to find a place hidden from view and discover an open well, perfect for cooking a pasta dinner over open flames, but careful not to start another fire that's closed half the park thanks to a careless camper (Remember kids, only you can prevent forest fires). It's not until midnight that you descend the hills to the road in attempt to make a covert entrance. A few kilometers down the road and dogs from the sheep ranch begin to bark and a light comes from the house, fleeing to the hills you hit the dirt behind some bushes. Apparently crossing the road will be impossible and it's necessary to go up the hills to find the road on the other side. So up it is, pure bushwhacking and bush stomping through thistles and thorns. The starlight is scarcely enough to make out the mountains in the background and the ominous clouds that come promising rain.
From the summit you can see the sheep farm far behind and below, the entrance gate with lights from a television flickering through the window is still about 2 km away. A river runs around the border of the park like a moat and is much too deep and rapid to cross with equipment, on top of this, the cold water would cause hypothermia before you even reached the other side. The only option is to sneak past the entrance and cross the bridge soon after. Time for the descent. A gradual decline soon tilts to 45 degrees and you have to hold your pack on your front side to get more friction on the dirt. Your poor eyesight leaves you behind the others a few meters as the three of you negotiate routes down the slope. About an hour later the pale light reveals the road and the thought that you will finally end this tedious stumbling in the dark.
And then... Ruso disappears from view without so much as a muffled thud in return. Compañero Chileno lights his lamp, there are more important things than stealth at the moment.
"Ruso! Ruso!"...silence. Then...
"Ummpf, chicos... don't come down this way..."
To the right lies a soft sandy embankment and the two of you left on the hill clamber down to look for the fallen comrade. To your left he sits, nursing a nasty puncture.
"What hurts?"
"My foot, but it's not broken. I know what that feels like. But my back...hurts very much".
First aid is administered to the cavity in his shin and it's not until then that you look up at the sheer rock face that afflicted the damage.
"Holy shit...huevon you fell about 4 meters!"
The fall has given him quite a sprain and the clandestine sneak into the park looks as if it's been terminated. Supporting his weight the three of you trudge slowly towards the gate and a soft rain falls. The patter of the drops landing on your pack. Lights off. Nothing but the crunch of rocks and gravel underneath uneven footsteps. You pass the guard station as if it were nothing but a garden gate. Was it really that easy? You set up the tents below the PDI camper behind some bushes. "There's no possible way that we won't be discovered at daybreak" you think as the warmth of your sleeping bag causes your eyelids to close.
It's 10:30 and bright as day when you awake, emerging from your tent to see hordes of tourists pass down the road. You wave with a smile to the buses as they look back at your mangy figure with the tents in the background. "Did he really just spend the night there?" can be read on every face pressed against the window.
Ruso has awoken with a strong pain still lingering but is able to fight it off and mounts his pack. And you all set off, expecting to get caught by the authorities at any moment...but it never happens. Not once in the 3 days that you spend there are you questioned. The exit is just as care-free, exiting in the middle of the night under another cloud of rain.
Hitching the next day back to Puerto Natales is another long wait, and when you leave to ask a nearby restaurant owner a few questions, a ride comes and picks up your companions, leaving you to walk alone. No worries though, an hour later and you're able to find a ride back into town.
The current rain, and a tingle in your throat, has given a day of rest before setting off to el Calafate where there is supposedly a free lamb asado all week long. It sounds too good to be true, but there's only one way to find out right?
No comments:
Post a Comment