I do not want to visit the South Pole, or its northern counterpart, for that matter.  But getting close seemed attractive.  So last month my wife and I made a trip to Patagonia, timed to match the height of the southern summer. We were very lucky with our companions, our accommodations and the notoriously fickle Patagonian weather.

Although Ferdinand Magellan’s passage early in the 16^thcentury and a subsequent navigation south of the continent by Francis Drake opened Patagonia to recorded history, it is only with the entry of English navigators and missionaries in the 19^thcentury that a dense description of the area unfolds.  Two voyages captained by Robert Fitzroy, the second with Charles Darwin aboard, described the region’s topology as it charted its waters for commercial navigation.  Anglican missionaries, beginning in the 1860s when Thomas Bridges first settled among the region’s native people, documented their language and lifeways. We found ourselves amazed that humans would willingly subject themselves to Patagonia’s harsh conditions, coddled as we were in the arms of a safe and well-provisioned National Geographic expedition.

Our trip was divided almost equally between ship and shore. A Chilean-flagged vessel, the Ventus Australius, custom-built to ply the shallow fjords and to raise and lower inflatable boats off the stern, ferried, fed and entertained 152 passengers for a week.  The ship navigated parts of the major passages that link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and visited three of the regions major glaciers.  Patagonia holds 15% of the world’s ice, but here, as in the rest of the frozen world, its glaciers are in full retreat.  We marveled at the ice, its monumental volume, varied shapes and multi-coloration.

“Paine” is the Tehuelche word for the color blue which appropriately describes the huge rock outcropping at the center of the park.  The “torres,” a constellation of peaks foregrounded by Lake Balmaceda bears more than a passing resemblance to the Wyoming Tetons, rising from Jackson Lake.  And like the view from Jackson Lake Lodge, the Tierra Patagonia hotel offers a magnificent prospect of the peaks. From the vantage of our room, my wife and I watched the torres each morning and evening as the sun’s light and cloud formations changed the mountains’ mood—bright, dark, hooded, indifferent. We were very lucky.

Fit and daring visitors can arrange to climb several of the peaks or hike the challenging, four-day “W” circuit that reaches the high valleys and glaciers deep inside the park.  Even with this kind of strenuous exertion well beyond our capacities, our group of sixty and seventy somethings hiked briskly across the surprisingly diverse lower reaches of the park where rheas, foxes, condors and guanacos displayed themselves. The guanacos particularly charmed me.  These wild cousins of the llama and alpaca roam everywhere in the park, sometimes in herds of several dozen animals. While the main body of the herd grazes the sparse grasses, lookouts posted on high ground keep watch for predators.  Humans apparently pose little threat in the guanaco’s eyes; here pumas are the enemy. We had the rare privilege of spotting one of these handsome predators when our guide, alerted by a high-pitched whinny sounded by guanaco lookouts across the valley, pointed out a large, golden cat that sauntered out of a patch of grass before disappearing from view.

We all realized our good fortune.  The tour organizers provided comfortable accommodations and smoothed the passage across borders and through airports. But they cannot guarantee animal sightings or control local meteorology. We endured just enough rain and high winds to realize how unpleasant and capricious the Patagonian weather can be.  As I write, temperatures in Punta Arenas are in the 30s with rain and high winds.  We lucked out, for sure.

Heathrow the Horrible

My wife and I recently visited the Christmas markets on the Danube River.  We used London’s Heathrow airport for our European entry and exit and were amazed at how convoluted its intra-terminal transport system is.  Heathrow uses an escalator-elevator-purple bus-safety screening-train-airline check-in desk-bus-outside stairs delivery system.  How long would that take? you may ask.  We arrived in London two hours before our Houston bound flight and were (gratefully) the last passengers to claim our seats.

On the way from the States to the continent, we had a five-hour layover that allowed us to ponder the signage and ask for directions at leisure.  But that experience, and the knowledge that we would be running this gauntlet in reverse in two weeks, made us realize that we would need to put on our running shoes and keep our wits about us to get home without missing our flight.

The transit in three stages.

Stage one: follow the purple arrows from the arrival zone, down two escalators, to a waiting area that led to a bus that ferries passengers from one terminal to another. My wife asked the gate attendant, who had a curiously North American accent, if we would need to pass security at the next terminal. “Probably,” she said.  The answer should have been “you betcha.” Intra-terminal movement at Heathrow relies on a road and tunnel network that serves passengers, food services, maintenance vehicles and small, British Airways vans.  All of these conveyances bob and weave through a traffic system guided by stop and yield signs and an opaquely- acknowledged hierarchy of right of way.

Stage two: from the bus stop ride escalators from ground level to the second storey.  By this time we were getting anxious, and we were not alone.  Just as we boarded the stairway, a group of young women clad in spandex and carrying backpacks sprinted past.  Although it was not immediately clear at this point, we were all headed for a British Airways security position.  In preparation for the metal detector, I removed my iPad from my carryon, took off my belt, and put cell phone, wallet, and loose change into my jacket.  I thought that I was clean for scanning, but no. I had not removed my pocket handkerchief and had to go through a body scanner. 

Stage three: As we hoofed toward the train, I held my coat, my carryon, my belt and my pocket handkerchief.  I tried to reassemble on the run until my wife muttered “I don’t care about your damned belt, hurry up.”  An elevator dropped us at a train platform where we boarded a vestibule that stopped at the range of gates that included ours, and we hopped off.  At some point during the train ride British Airways changed our departure gate, but, luckily, my wife spotted this, and we did not have to travel far out of our way.  As we puffed up to the ticket position, the attendant welcomed us and said that she was just about to announce that we had forfeited our reservation.  All we had to do now was descend to ground level, board another bus and climb an outside staircase to the airplane cabin door.  

Everything turned out for the best, I suppose, and as it turns out, we could have been routed through Gatwick, where rogue drones had grounded all flights for the day.

To learn more, a YouTube video, “The Horrors of Heathrow: a short history,” might be a good place to begin.