The Stark Beauty of Desolation: The Land at the End of the Earth

Story and photography by
Eric Anderson & Nancy Allen 

 

If you stand on the tip of Chilean Patagonia, lean into the wind and peer south into the mists of the Drake Passage, the Antarctic Circle lies about 1500 miles beyond your gaze yet you are closer to it than you are to Santiago, Chile's capital. The distances are immense -- and national boundaries complicated. If you wished, for example, to visit the capital by road, you'd have to cross into Argentina to get there and the journey would take two and a half days, much of it on gravel highways across vast, featureless terrain.

You truly are at the end of the world and it wouldn't take much to make you join the Flat Earth Society. You almost feel this wind could blow you off the frozen terrain and into space away from this untouched land. Patagonia is austere. Chile's favorite poet, Gabriela Mistral, whose view of life was always bleak, called her first book of poems about this place "Desolation."

It's a long way from North America, 18-19 hours by plane from Los Angeles, for example, to reach Punta Arenas, the world's most southern city. A great seaport in the golden age of sail, its fortunes changed when the Panama Canal opened in 1914. A tentative effort to bring sheep from New Zealand to the flat lands beyond the sea had astonishing success and the grand mansions in town sparkled again with carefree wealth. The development of synthetic fibers killed the sheep industry and the left wing politics of Chile subsequently killed the rich landowners -- literally --but Punta Arenas manages to offer an intriguing historical glimpse for visitors.

Patagonia's infrastructure is starting to anticipate tourism but long journeys by bus are still de rigeur and probably are more restful for visitors than having to drive a rental car. The mistake for tourists would be trying to see too much. First time visitors should browse the bookstores in USA where the travel books are in English and make hard choices. The two main attractions in Patagonia are the Torres del Paine ("Blue Towers") National Park in Chile whose snow covered spires have become the Patagonia signature image and the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina, not the longest or the biggest glacier in this land of ice but the most accessible and, arguably, the most beautiful.

Both are world-class attractions but the visitor's pleasure, as always, depends on weather. You could well come away with memories but no photographs; it really is in the lap of the gods. You need extra days at those locations because weather can move through quickly and tomorrow, truly, may be a better day.

Torres del Paine (www.gochile.cl/html/Paine/TorresDelPaine.asp ) rears up on the west side of the Andes and is best reached via a funky, colorful little town of 12,000, Puerto Natales, 150 km away. Probably the hotel with the best location (on the fjord) is the 10 year-old Cost Australis. I chose the Black Neck Swan (Hotel Cisne de Cuello Negro) – it was less expensive but turned out to be five kilometers from downtown and the rooms were small, bleak and dark. Yet its owner also owns the luxurious Explora Lodge in the park. On the wayin lies Cueva del Milidon, the cave of the remains of the 10,000 year-old ground sloth mentioned in Bruce Chatwin's captivating, In Patagonia. 

But the memory of Patagonia is the Perito Moreno Glacier in the National Park Los Glaciares, 450 km distant in Argentina www.losglaciares.com/en/parque . Designated in 1981 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, the park is reached via an Alpine-like village of 4,000 called El Carafate. The glacier, its snout five city blocks wide and 20 stories high, is one of the few in today's world to be advancing -- about six feet a day in the center. As it advances it gets closer to a land mass, the Peninsula de Magallanes, and gradually blocks off the current from the lakes to the north that are at a higher elevation than the lakes to the south. Historically about every four years the ultima ruptura happens, the face of the glacier breaks apart and God and science equalize the water levels between the two huge lakes with a roar and crack famously heard in El Carafate, 50 miles distant.