new country

So I almost did all the things I was supposed to do. I did El Chalten: ice climbing on the Cerro Torre glacier and the Lago de los Tres trek of Fitz Roy. I was thoroughly wowed by both. Wowed by the spectacle of it all as well as the ability of my legs and especially my sad little canvas sneakers to bring me to these points of spectacle. Then I took the bus back to El Calafate and did the Perito Merino glacier. The only way to access the glacier is by doing some sort of bus tour. I chose the "Alternative tour" as it was said to be imformative but to the point, no frills. My fellow tourists were all Australian and easy to hate. The phrase "I´m not here to make friends" kept running through my mind. They seemed to pick up on it and left me to myself. The special little extra surprise of the tour was that we took a rugged dirt road to the glacier where we got to take an early morning stop at a primative estancia for tea. The leathery men of the ranch looked uncomfortable to have us there, like they wouldn´t have invited us if they didn´t have to. They were burning gasoline soaked tree trunks and garbage in large aluminum oil cans. We huddled around them to keep warm. We sipped our tea and watched the resident baby llama play with the baby cat. Then one of the men prepared a baby bottle with some chunky white formula and we took turns feeding the llama. Then we got back in the bus and rumbled away to the glacier. The glacier was massively impressive. Truly beyond anything I had ever seen. I felt too cool for the whole tour experience but definitely not too cool for the glacier. Noone could be unimpressed. And the day was perfect, bringing out the violent blues of the ice. We were lucky to witness giant ruptures as well: the equivalent of an 18 storey building crumbling to the ground. we spent a good four hours wandering up and down the steel balconies that traverse from one side to the other. We took a boat right up close to the glacier. The boat people pulled a chunk of ice out of the water and broke off pieces for us to suck on. We sucked at the ice and looked at the glacier while the boat idled, spewing black smoke into the crystal air. On our return bus ride, the australians showed eachother the photos they had just taken. They had a sort of rating system and got very raudy and competetive.
I spent the afternoon wandering up into the outskirts of town where the dirt roads disappear into the endless Steppe. There are all sorts of concrete structures that are either being built or being taken apart. It is difficult to tell which. I met no one on the roads and could hear nothing but the electricity running obediantly through the power lines above and the distant barking of dissastisfied dogs. It was magic so unlike the glacier.
The next morning I boarded the bus to cross into chile. There was nothing exciting about the border crossing except that we all had to give over any animal and plant products. Puerto Natales, Chile is a port town and also the main town to access the famous Torres del Paine. I am not doing the "circuit" in "del Paine." All the dedicated trekkers and big-talking backpackers are dissapointed in me. "you going to Paine tomorrow then?" they ask. When I say no, they want to argue. "but you are so close" they say. Some have the skills to sense my irritation and leave it at that, while others (and they are usually the Australians) keep pushing the issue. They want to know what treks I have already done, perhaps what climbs, etc. I entertain very little of this discourse. So I will not do Torres del Paine. I have thus not done all I am supposed to do. I feel no regret. It is not that I don´t like the mountains. They are breathtaking. As I have said, I have been humbled and amazed. But I am ready for salty air and rusty metal. Puerto Natales has given me a taste of this, while giant glacial peaks still provide that sense of nervous wonder. Puerto Natales is more tired than sleepy. The kids are not so cagey as they were in El Calafate, where they seemed downright angry. Here the people are just tired. They have all painted their corrugated metal houses bright colors too many times, only to have the unforgiving salty glacial air wear the paint down to the same rusty gray every time. The men here work with both fish and sheep. Some of the men are unloading boats of fish while others are unloading trucks of sheep. I saw both happening yesterday. I also saw a group of young children beat a partially mummified cat carcass with sticks. I wanted to take a photo but as I approached them, the stench of death brought blinding tears to my eyes.But my humble explorations of the town have grounded me. Would it be too much to say that I don´t need Torres del Paine? I don´t think so. I am somehow so satisfied to watch the men pack sheep and fish and the children bat-around dead cats. I need very little.
With that said, I am tonight boarding a giant frieght boat which will take me up through the fjords. I am supposed to be amazed by this too.