Patagonia Travel - The Land of Giants

Penguins and mountain peaks

The explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, landing on the shores in 1520 of what was to become the region of Patagonia, immediately encountered the Tehuelche tribe. Ranging between six and six-foot-six they appeared gigantic to the short-statured Spaniards.

Some say naming the area, comprised of Southern Argentina and Chile, was the result of Magellan’s particular fascination with their enormous feet. He dubbed the tribe “Patagons” derived from “pata” the Spanish word for foot; hence “Patagonia”.

As adventurers moved across this land, titans of nature were discovered throughout. Even the vast emptiness this area is known for is in a league all its own. “Nothingness” or “colossal” with “no in-between” is the way all who have traveled here over the centuries have described this curious phenomena.

A mysterious magnetism has been drawing travelers back time and time again. Our intrigue had been sparked; my partner, Rick and I were soon on a quest to seek out the giants of Patagonia.

After a few days in the energetic, fast-paced capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, we headed out by bus to the gateway of Patagonia which begins 950 km south. The rugged coasts are graced in mega proportions with an amazing cast of wondrous sea creatures. I was soon to realize a life-long dream - to walk among the penguins.

I would wager my fascination with these unique characters equaled a young Charles Darwin’s, who scoured these same shores in 1831 aboard the Beagle commanded by Captain Robert Fitzroy. Magellanic penguins arrive, after six months at sea, in their nesting area at Punta Tombo; the largest of a multitude of penguin colonies.

By mid-November the eggs have hatched. Being January the chicks, now teenagers, were molting and taking their first dip in the ocean under adult supervision. It was a peak experience to slowly maneuver among half a million braying, tuxedoed sea birds waddling aristocratically to and fro, some close enough to reach out and touch.

The mammoths of nature in Patagonia go back to Jurassic times. It was a dinosaur paradise as evidenced by the bone-yard of skeletons and fossils found here. The “ultimate” Paleontological Museum at Trelew overflows with re-assembled skeletal remains reaching up to the top of the cavernous ceiling.

A glass-walled lab allowed us to watch scientists chipping and dusting the debris from recent discoveries. Further down the road, 250 km from Puerto Deseado, lays the 15,000 hectare Petrified Forest Natural Monument Park. Sections of Proaraucaria trees, some thirty-five meters in length and up to three meters in diameter, are strewn where they once reached heights of 100 meters. It was surreal to rub our hands over the bark of the same mighty conifers the dinosaurs brushed up against a hundred and fifty million years ago.

Patagonia brings a new meaning to barren expanses of windswept terrain.

It became an occasion when the boundless stretches of parched grasses and low growing shrubs were broken by Nandu, an ostrich relative, sprinting away on gangly legs or by llama-like Guanacos peering up from their grazing.

The southern tip, Tierra del Feugo, brought an abrupt end to the flatlands. Mountains, deep green lenga forests and crystal blue lakes heralded our arrival in Ushuaia, the southern most populated city in the world, where passengers spill out daily from cruise ships bound for Antarctica.

It was time to rumble onto RN40, the famed gravel highway extending the length of Patagonia, paralleling the Andes.

The behemoths along the way more than compensated for the washboard sections where dust seeped through invisible cracks in the vehicle and the only source of air-conditioning, the air vents, had to be closed. El Cafate is a stop leading to the breathtaking sight of Moreno Glacier; measuring 30 km long, 4 km wide, 60-70 meters high with 140-150 meters dragging perpetually forward submerged underwater.

Our eyes were riveted to the translucent pale mint and aqua wall of ice waiting for the startling shotgun-like blasts signaling calving. Thrice we witnessed massive chunks come crashing down turning the turquoise lake below into a turbulent milky froth and leaving the newly exposed section of the ice-wall a gleaming azure blue.

The jagged peak of Mt. Fitz Roy enticed us to take a second detour off RN40 to El Chaltén where a hike promised an unsurpassed view of this almost vertical spire reaching 3405 meters. All four seasons, from searing rays in a cloudless sky to bitterly cold rain spilling from swift moving nimbostratus, encased us on our four hour trek through verdant forests and up steep, rocky inclines.

Along route a dark shadow jarred our attention upward. A condor, with a five foot wing-span was circling. I thought we were done for as this lord of the skies dive-bombed inches away into nearby bushes after some carrion. Reaching the 1260 meter vantage point, Mt. Fitz Roy loomed in Olympian splendor, a glacier on each side, one larger than Moreno. Sheltered from the fierce winds beside a sublime royal blue lagoon at its base, all recollection of the arduous climb melted away.

In the thirty six countries we have already traveled, we have never felt so completely immersed in the pristine grandeur of nature, leaving us with a renewed awe of its powerful forces and our need to respect and protect our ecology.

The giants of Patagonia are etched in our minds. Just as others who have ventured here have been affected, once back home, we were filled with an inexplicable yearning to go back.

Fortunately, before leaving, we partook of the Calafate berry; as legend dictates - those who eat the succulent fruit will return

Author : Irene Butler and Rick Butler