national geographic

Now I am in El Chalten. It is the famous climbing outpost town giving access to the legendarily unclimbable Cerro Torre and the iconic Fitz Roy. My state of awe began during the plane ride from Bariloche to El Calafate. Never have I been so humbled by the surface of the earth. Pocked gray moonscapes gave way to blinding turquise lakes. We would disappear for a moment into thick white clouds only to reemerge amongst snowy jagged peaks, winding neon rivers, lush valleys. It was an hour and a half with my face pressed against the already greasy plastic of the window before making a dramatic landing over the piercing blue

I spent only a few hours in the tourist town of el calafate before boarding a bus to el chalten. During the five hour bus ride between the two towns, I came to understand what is commonly understood as Patagonia. An unfathomable expanse of what seems like nothing. It is not nothing. What look like tiny influctions on the horizon, are, in fact giant mesas of rock and sand. Those influctions become, very slowly sun-blocking giants upon approach. There is only one road. We met no more than a few cars, though we almost hit what I assumed were alpacas leaping, so carefree across the desert. I later saw their massive hides hanging to dry from barbed wire fences. But whose fences? Who is to keep out or in here? I had thought that texas was huge, the deserts of New Mexico, arizona, oklahoma. They are, they are all very large. But those states secure its travellers always with a feeling that perhaps, just over the next rise in the road, there could be a walmart. There is not that feeling here. To say that one feels small here, would be a gross understatement.
I arrived in El Chalten after dark. I spent the night in a fairly inoffensive hostel. Inoffensive in that more spanish was spoken than english and people kept their voices at a reasonable volume. I awoke this morning to find what it was that I could not see in last night's pitch--the giant forms of Fitz Roy and Torre looming over the dusty town. The town not only hovers between these two peaks, it also lives perhaps awkwardly between being an rugged outpost town and a tourist comfort station. There are all traces of luxury in the tiny almost trendy cafes and freshly painted hotels with thick-paned glass and central heating. At the same time, the roads are still gravel and the dogs that hang around look bored, hungry, full of fleas.
But topography once again brought me to my knees. It is the kind of place that makes people either really believe in science or really believe in God. Or else, you are a freespirited young soulsearcher: you do not know enough to believe in science and you are still too scared to believe in God. And so instead you take local hallucinogenic drugs, San Pedro or the like. It is a safe alternative; your mind is blown and yet you do not have to thank god or science. I am scared of both science and god. And only hallucinogens frighten me more. I am left, thus, with nothing but disbelief.
Tomorrow I try ice climbing. It is not really my style, what with all the harnesses and wrap around polarized sunglasses. But I have already been humbled.