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Published: January 21st 2008
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The time had come, it was December 19, to journey north and then west, all within the southern cone of the continent, Argentina to Chile, Atlantic to Pacific, Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, 800 miles, twelve hours, bus liner.
The slowly burning southern sky was set at haunting brown, molten sun emerging from the Atlantic horizon, morning stillness pervading, as our road liner edged its way out of town, pausing to pick up an order of pastries, breakfast for the fifty-nine souls on board, bound for Rio Grande, first stop enroute.
The gently rolling hills and valleys around us are rippled with myriad lakes embedded in the terrain on either side of our path, all of it, mirage like, seeming to be of one with our cruiser in its gently advancing flow. The clouds from above paint striking images on the water below, so that land and lake is their framing on earth, and sky without limit is their curtain in the heavens.
We press on, for mile after vanishing mile, as the dusty asphalt of a two lane highway trains our sights on a distant horizon that zooms back along our peripheral sight lines, in a stirring showcase
of morning in its glory. Then, the tree lines join our day, first as faraway stalks bearing mushroomed heads, then as bare trunks with sprigs for branches and finally as sparse forest, where some trees are leaved only in faint grey, others in grey and light green and the remainder in a healthy sheen of green. This is springtime in these climes and the mystery of vegetal rebirth is before us.
As forest gives way to close cropped grasslands, lambs in the fields make their appearance, first a few, then many, and before long, hundreds at a time, lead by their parents, the persevering sheep. To be sure, there are cattle out there, lying lazily and self absorbed, curious llamas gazing at them from a discrete distance; but this is the land of lambs, they define the landscape which sometimes seems in motion, theirs. They are to remain with us for the rest of our voyage, a testimony that lamb in all its delicious forms is the meat of tasty choice in these environs.
The Atlantic reappears on our eastern flank, close by, at the shoreline limit of a very wide tide, with rivers flowing leisurely into it,
past snoozing sport fishers, as we approach Rio Grande, an industrial oil town, built from scratch in the nineteen hundreds, all bright and brassy, a collection of petite wood and concrete cubes for houses. Our bus liner inches carefully through the narrow streets, where each little house has precious little easement from the other, but is clearly well serviced with all the heat, light and sound it needs, the various wires emerging from little boxes on the front lawns attesting. We disrupt all business on main street where we fill up, simply by parking at the sole service station to do so. And then, to the relief of townsfolk, we are on our way west to the border.
Two towns, rather, settlements, both named San Sebastian, are the border outposts signifying Argentina and, sixteen kilometres later, Chile. There are formalities: passports, visas, computer enquiries, stand-up interviews, bag searches and rubber stamps, before we can exit Argentina from this remote station. Penny passes the exit test with flying colours; I hold my breath, as one uniform consults with a different coloured uniform over my passport; then I breathe again, as I discern a near imperceptible affirmative nod from the senior
official, followed by the involuntary tongue-to-bottom-teeth movement that precedes, “si”. The fellow traveller after us has a scary few minutes, as he is let in on the tidbit that his hosts have called the outpost to complain he left without paying his bill. He sets all to rights, with the explanation that as he left at four in the morning, he chose to insert his payment in the receipt book of his sleeping hosts, rather than awaken them at that un-Godly hour; a quick call to his hosts and all is a go; suggesting, I suppose, that land border exit procedures do have a place in our world. Heaven help us in Amerique du Nord, when this news drifts up from du Sud.
As instant emigrants waiting for our group to be fully freed, we share travel stories and get lightly acquainted, while having a sip and bite at the singular café out here, in the middle of nowhere; the simple essence, this, of travel as you go. Presently, we are on our way through the sixteen kilometres that make up no-man’s land, a border of eight, an ephemeral line, and a second border of eight; except that in
addition to wandering sheep and vistas of rolling nothingness, the odd homestead dots the contour. Entry procedures at the Chilean outpost are as routine as encounters of this kind go; but we need to vouch we are not bringing any cooked food into the country, dried and packaged are acceptable.
All fitted out with visas, we proceed to wander the countryside, as free as the chirping, chanting bird flocks weaving in formation overhead. The gaucho, cowboy life style meets our eyes at every significant turn: backs ramrod straight, horses at canter, husbanding their various flocks to pasture during the afternoon, and to estancia ranches, as the day gets done. Lagoons, calm and placid, festooned with light brown grasses, grace the landscape. Which, in turn, is imbued with the movement of flaming flamingos, as the pink feathered balls of their posteriors dance on spindles for legs, like some parade of gay, carnival figurines.
The reason for our meandering is to arrive at the Straights of Magellan at a point where it narrows, Puerto Espero, there to enter Patagonia, proper. The Straights of Magellan wind their ways, aimlessly at times, through the cone of South America, from Atlantic to Pacific.
They were first fully explored by guess whom? On our crossing, the stark, steep escarpments of Tierra del Fuego, on the eastern coastline, stand in contrast to the subtle, quiet, soothing rises that are Patagonia, the pretty. Tick a final one off on my personal voyage of discovery. Before long, we are at Punto Arenas, deep south, on the western banks of the Straights. Here all strays from adventures to Antarctic, Pacific and Atlantic, via the Straights, are warmly welcome; as are we, for the seven days we are to spend here.
Vernon
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