The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-10)

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE F5

sipped a cortado in Ushuaia, capi-
tal of Tierra del Fuego, southern-
most city on the planet and self-
proclaimed “end of the world.”
Behind me, a wall of saw-
toothed peaks towered over the
town. Out the window, I could see
gray waves churning the Beagle
Channel, which links the Atlantic
and the Pacific, and snow-capped
Andes soaring skyward across the
strait in Chile.
My wife and I were at the start
of nearly three weeks of hiking,
glacial kayaking, white-water
rafting, horseback riding and
more in Patagonia, the wild bot-
tom third of Argentina. It was our
20th wedding anniversary and
my 7 0th birthday, a nd I had some-
how convinced her that we
should celebrate with a far-flung
adventure.
Given the occasion, we had
decided to go all in. We hired
Travels with Tesa, a custom travel
adviser based in New York, to help
plan the expedition. The founder,
Tesa Totengco, is an old friend,
and after multiple phone calls,
she sent a 43-page proposed itin-
erary.
I’d never used a concierge trav-
el service before, but letting the
pros handle our logistics let us
focus on enjoying the magnifi-
cent landscape. Tesa and Loli Ma-
rino, her colleague in Buenos Ai-
res, booked all our internal
flights, hotels, private guides,
drivers and transport, activities
and even our nightly dinner res-
ervations.
Patagonians say they enjoy all
four seasons, often in one day, so
we packed lots of layers and rain
gear. We wound up wearing it all
on our first day in Ushuaia, which
dawned cold and drizzly.
Our guide, Maia Muryn, picked
us up at our hotel, and after a
90-minute drive, we were racing
down the Beagle Channel in a
rigid inflatable boat, headed to
the penguin rookery on tiny Isla
Martillo.
A vast f lock of Antarctic cormo-
rants crowded the shingle, each
one swathed in black and white. It
took a moment to spot the tuxe-
doed penguins waddling among
them. But then we did: dozens of
Magellanic penguins, which have
white stripes near the eyes and
down the chest, and gentoo pen-
guins, which don’t.
Both species swim 1,800 or so
miles north in the Atlantic each
year to feed, then return six
months later to this barren little
island — indeed to the same
mates and same nests — to breed,
raise their chicks and molt.
A day later, we took another
boat past the Les Eclaireurs
Lighthouse to a cluster of rocky
outcrops in the channel that were
carpeted with dozens of female
Patagonian sea lions and their
pups. Not far off, scores of huge
fur seals, which are more closely
related to sea lions than seals,
jostled atop a single islet.
As rain pelted down, they hud-
dled together in bobs of five or six,
occasionally barking or baring
sharp teeth, then curling up
again. A few clambered around
the rocks or dove in the frigid sea.

PATAGONIA FROM F1

They ignored a yelping pup who struggled to climb up from the water. Survival of the fittest, indeed. Sea lions provided food and pelts to an Indigenous tribe called the Yamana for thousands of years. Their bonfires lit the rocky headlands when Ferdinand Ma- gellan, the first European to sail these waters, landed in Tierra del Fuego in 1520. Accounts from his visit led to the name Land of Fire. Like many aboriginal people, the Yamana were wiped out by European diseases and genocidal policies. Or so I informed my wife after reading a local brochure. “The last Yamana died last month,” our guide, Mauro Guimaraenz, corrected me. He pulled out his phone and called up a local news clip. Cristina Calderón, age 93, “the last full- blooded Yamana and the last na- tive speaker of the Yamana lan- guage” died in February of covid- 19, it read. Tierra del Fuego National Park is only about eight miles from Ushuaia, and one day, we hiked on its misty shore, past mossy middens where the early Yamana dumped shells, crude harpoons and other detritus. A soft, golden light filtered through twisted trees draped with a straggly yellow-green lichen called “old man’s beard,” giving the glens a magical air. Years ago, Argentine officials introduced Canadian beavers, minks and rabbits in a misguided effort to build a fur trade. It was a disaster: The industry failed, beaver dams flooded fragile areas, minks ate local birds, and gray foxes were imported to cull the rabbits, putting pressure on other fauna. We saw some of the beaver damage on a long afternoon’s h ike on Gable Island, which was lined with peat bogs and deciduous beech forests. It was eerily silent, because there are almost no insects and few song birds this far south. There are also no poison- ous insects or plants. So we felt at ease eating so-called Indian bread, a fungus that grows on trees, and prickly heath berries, which taste like apples, along

the trail. Several days later, we flew about 550 miles north to El Cala- fate, and a driver took us the 133 miles to El Chaltén for some more serious hiking. He pointed out wild llama-like guanacos grazing on the steppe, a gray fox running across the road, and caracara falcons perched on the fence posts. We lucked out the next day. We were facing our most ambitious hike, to Mount Fitz Roy, named for the captain of Darwin’s ship. The Indigenous Tehuelche people called it Chaltén, or smoking mountain, because it is usually shrouded by clouds. But we set out under clear, sunny skies, giving us stunning views of the 11,171-foot-high pinnacle and other needlelike peaks as we ap- proached. It was 14 miles round trip, a grueling day of knee-pounding on glacial moraine, but it was worth the effort as we downed our sand- wiches on a high ridge overlook- ing a glacial lake, awed by the majestic spires. Two days later, we hiked 11 miles up to Laguna Torre, where glaciers collide and form a milky lake filled with icebergs. Our guide for both hikes, Juliana Eguia, described nearly every bird, bush and bug on the trails, as well as the history of local explorers. She also shared her own family history, one that reflects Argenti- na’s more recent past. She was born in 197 7, a year after a U.S.-backed military junta launched a reign of terror. Thou- sands of students, artists, trade unionists and other civilians van- ished forever. Investigators later found that hundreds of infants were taken from murdered par- ents and often given to childless military couples before democra- cy was restored in 1983. Juliana discovered in her mid- 20s that the military officer who raised her was not her biological father — but he refused to say more before he died. She has been haunted ever since trying to learn whether her birth mother was among the “desaparecidos,” as the disappeared are known, she told me.

We returned to Calafate a day later, and another guide drove us to the Perito Moreno glacier, part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the third-largest area of continental ice in the world after Antarctica and Greenland. The leading edge rises 18 sto- ries from the water and is more than three miles wide. It is one of the few major glaciers that is not receding from global warming, although scientists believe it is getting thinner. It is also among the world’s most accessible glaciers.

On a clear day, you can see a vast expanse of giant meringue- like whirls and peaks — and hear the constant boom of fresh cracks and calving — from passenger boats, from two miles of raised walkways on a nearby shore, or even by donning crampons and taking a guided hike on the ice. To my astonishment, the company that leads the glacier hikes doesn’t allow people older than

So we called Loli in Buenos
Aires, and she quickly booked us
with another company that leads
two-person kayak trips near the
glacier’s south face. Along with
three other couples, we were soon
squeezing ourselves into sealed
flotation suits designed to keep
you alive if you were to fall into
the frigid water.
Halfway out, the wind picked
up sharply. Icy whitecaps broke
over the bow, and we could see
water spouts spitting in the dis-
tance. We nervously rafted up
with another kayak until the
group leader called it quits and

we turned back. “Can the vacation be over now, please?” my wife muttered. Hardly. We still had the Upsala Glacier to visit and a rainy trudge in a canyon lined with marine fossils. Plus, after flying to Bariloche, we had a day-long hike through Douglas firs and then bamboo glades to the summit of the Goye mountain, which of- fered views of the azure lakes and snowy peaks of the so-called Swit- zerland of Argentina, and a white- water rafting trip down the Rio Manso Inferior in a gorge so steep horses are needed to bring the rafts back up. We a lso did another kayak pad- dle in a glacial lake and watched loons dive for fish and caracara falcons circle over the reeds. The leaves were turning yellow and orange, and the morning was un- forgettable. When we reached the far shore, our guide, Leticia Bocos, spread a lavish picnic on the beach — homemade pumpkin soup, three local cheeses, four kinds of em- panadas, dried pears and more — and as I sat back in the warm sun, a glass of Malbec in hand, I re- flected on Darwin. As it turned out, he was a grouchy guide to Patagonia. Sure, he correctly theorized about the tectonic plates that created the Andes, collected fossils of extinct mammals that made him ponder the origin of the species, and ate a puma. (“Remarkably like veal in taste.”) But he was notably unim- pressed overall. “The zoology of Patagonia is as limited as its flora,” complained the naturalist who would rede- fine our understanding of the natural world through variations in the beaks of Galapagos finches. “Everywhere we see the same birds and insects.” And yet, in his final chapter, Darwin singled out his visit to rugged Tierra del Fuego as a high point of his voyage on the Beagle. “No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved,” he wrote. He got that right.

Drogin is a writer based in West Tisbury, Mass.

In Patagonia, the ‘end of the world’ is the place to be

If You Go WHERE TO STAY Los Cauquenes De La Ermita 3462, Ushuaia 011-5411-4735-2648 loscauquenes.com/en Cozy hotel and spa beside the picturesque Beagle Channel. Rooms from about $190. Los Cerros del Chaltén Boutique Hotel Av. San Martin 260, El Chaltén 011-54-911-5236-9092 loscerrosboutiquehotel.com- hotel.com/en Comfortable hilltop hotel in a tiny town famed for trekking and climbing. Rooms from about $205 per night.

WHAT TO EAT Kaupé Pres. Julio Argentino Roca 470, Ushuaia 011-54-290-158-5 854 kaupe.com.ar/english/index.html Chef Ernesto Vivian and his wife run this award-winning restaurant that overlooks the port. The walk uphill is worth it to try the Antarctic scallop ceviche, baked Argentine hake and Beagle Channel crab legs. Open 8 to 11 p.m. Closed Sundays. Reservations recommended. Entrees from about $11. La Tapera José Antonio Rojo 50 74, El Chaltén 011-54-296-249- 3195 La Tapera doesn’t take reservations, but what do you expect from a restaurant in a log cabin? We liked the home cooking so much we lined up twice to get in. Leave room for the Volcán de Chocolate dessert. Open daily 7 p.m. to midnight. Entrees, from about $9, include steak and trout. La Tablita Coronel Rosales 28 El Calafate 011-54-290-249-1065 la-tablita.com/en/menu-eng-la- tablita Grab a table by the kitchen window to watch chefs grill slabs of beef and racks of lamb over a wood fire at this classic Argentine steakhouse. Open daily noon to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to midnight. Reservations recommended. Entrees from about $16. Alto el Fuego Calle 20 de Febrero 451, San Carlos de Bariloche 011-54-294-415-1 409 It’s a bit hard to find but worth getting to this funky family-run steakhouse. The vibe is laid back, and the dishes are huge. (Half- portions available.) Reservations recommended. Open Monday, 8 p.m. to midnight, and Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. to midnight. Closed Sunday. Entrees from about $9.

WHAT TO DO Travels with Tesa 917-664-229 3 430 Lafayette St., New York 917-664-229 3 travelswithtesa.com After extensive discussions, this custom travel service arranged our itinerary and booked all of our hotels, guides, transport and more in Patagonia. Founder Tesa Totengco designs personalized trips around the globe. Canal Roca 136, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego 011-54-2901-4357 77 canalfun.com/en Canal operates private and group excursions across Tierra del Fuego, including into the Beagle Channel to watch penguins on Isla Martillo and hike on Gable Island. Full-day trips about $127 per person. Extremo Sur Pasaje Gutierrez 828, San Carlos de Bariloche 011-54-294-460-3 309 extremosur.com/index_english.php This company runs rafts down the Manso Inferior rapids in the Andes to the border of Chile. Trips from about $125 per person. Minimum age 14.

INFORMATION patagonia-argentina.com/en

MARIO GOLDMAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Mount Fitz Roy, near Argentina’s El Chaltén; a tree bent by winds east of Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego; sea lion pups curl up on an island in the
Beagle Channel. Patagonia encompasses the southern parts of Argentina and Chile, with opportunities for hiking, glacial kayaking, white-water rafting and more.

BOB DROGIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST BOB DROGIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

I read from

Darwin’s journal as

I sipped a cortado in

Ushuaia, capital of

Tierra del Fuego,

the self-proclaimed

“end of the world.”

The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-10)

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