cheerfully cataloguing the parts of our bodies that hurt. A few
hours earlier we’d been cantering through golden fi elds on the
third day of a fi ve-day horseback trek through Chile’s Torres del
Paine (pronounced pie-nay) National Park. The exhilaration hadn’t
faded, but my back wasn’t happy. Nor were the parts of my pelvis
that had come into relentless, sometimes percussive contact with
the saddle. Also sore? My knees, ankles, quads, inner thighs,
trapezius muscles, upper abs, right elbow, and, as a kind of
garnish, my pinkie toes, whose circulation had been cut off all day
by my socks. Bailey dug through a stuff sack for more ibuprofen.
“I guess we know why it’s called Torres del Pain,” she said,
pronouncing it like what we were feeling.
Our group consisted of our guide, Armando, a pair of gauchos
who tended the horses, a pub owner from Calgary, Alberta, and the
two of us. We’d spent the morning riding from our campsite on an
estancia to Grey Glacier, inside the park. The journey, across terrain
that abounded with fl at expanses ideal for galloping, should have
taken two-and-a-half-hours. But Calgary, as I’ll call her, wanted to
stay at a walk because, she claimed, her horse kept tripping.
“You don’t like the horse?” Armando asked.
Calgary grimaced and shook her head. “This one’s a bit of a dog.”
Bailey and I exchanged glances. Never, ever blame the horse.
We plodded for more than four hours through cold wind and
spitting rain until we reached the shore of the glacial lake, where
we had a damp picnic near the Hotel Lago Grey, an airy lodge
connected to blocks of rooms by raised walkways. Electric-blue
icebergs fl oated on the milky water. Calgary had signed up for a
boat excursion to Grey Glacier, but since high winds had made its
departure uncertain, we retreated to the hotel bar to have a cerveza
while we waited. Clouds scudded over the lagoon. Then, after an
hour: a miracle. The boats were going, which meant Calgary would
catch a lift later with the support truck, and Bailey and I could
return to camp with Armando and the gauchos at our own speed.
We practically skipped back to our horses.
Set loose, we breezed across the meadows,
passing in and out of sun-showers while black-
faced ibis took fl ight around us. A magnifi cently
craggy clump of ice-topped mountains and
cloud-snagging granite spires loomed in the
near distance. This was the Paine
Massif, the centrepiece of Torres del
Paine. Its individual rock features
are named after things like horns
and cathedrals and fortresses and,
most saliently, towers, or torres.
Paine is a native word for 'blue,'
as the massif appeared at a distance
to the Tehuelche people. According
to Armando, they preferred not
to approach too closely, spooked by
the frequent thunder of avalanches.
Back at camp, Bailey checked our
time. Two glorious hours and
15 glorious minutes. We high-fi ved
before dismounting, then staggered,
groaning and bowlegged, to the tent.
Worth every ibuprofen.O
ur friendship began with
horses. Bailey and I had
both been competitive
show jumpers in our teens
before meeting on our college
equestrian team—which sounds
fancy but was, in truth, a scrappy club
sport practised on freezing New
England Saturdays by hungover
riders. Bailey fi rst struck me as
a woodsy Vermont goofb all, cheerful
and game but lacking a certain
essential seriousness. Once she was
in the saddle, though, her talent,
burnished by long experience, was
unmistakable. Later I learned she’d
ridden with a top trainer and, every
year, had attended high school by fax
for two months while competing inOpposite: The
Balmaceda Glacier,
as seen from
a catamaran on
Last Hope Sound.
MY BEST FRIEND BAILEY,
AND I WERE LYING
IN A TENT ON A WINDY
PATAGONIA NIGHT ,
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