The Travelling Gringo Circus
In the cramped space of the souvenir shop, my full 50-liter Osprey backpack is decidedly conspicuous. Annoyed customers attempt to squeeze past my massive bulk as I fumble with a wad of Chilean pesos. I’m trying my best not to bump into any of the shelves lined with cheap Patagonian-flag-painted shot glasses and replica wooden Guanacos (a native Chilean animal looking like a mix between a horse and an alpaca). At this point, I have paid Clerc, a local tourist shop in Punta Arenas, Chile, 180,000 Chilean pesos for the privilege of renting what appears to be the shop owner’s personal automatic Chevy Captiva for the next three days. At no point did the shop owner ask to see my driver’s license, nor did he check that I was qualified in any way to be operating a motor vehicle. The terms of the rental agreement were hazy, due primarily to the fact that they had been laid out solely in Spanish; my knowledge of the Spanish language is limited to mostly food names and swear words. From what I am able to successfully translate, I discover that I now have to provide an additional 200,000 Chilean pesos as a guarantee, to be returned to me after the car is safely returned three days hence.
As I shuffle through the pile of unfamiliar laminated bills, I feel a finger poke my ribcage. I turn and see Hunt Cramer, the first third of the travelling gringo circus who will be riding in the rented Chevy sedan with me. With his odd assortment of hiking clothes, uncertain and slightly stooped posture, and look of panic on his face, he looks a bit like a lost child (if you ignore the strawberry blonde beard encircling his mouth). “Um…we accidentally spilled all of the wine in the trunk,” he whispers to me. I sigh heavily, close my eyes, and drop my chin to my chest. “I’m trying to pay for the car. Go problem solve,” I say, sounding much more like an annoyed parent than I intended. “Can you ask them where the bathroom is?” he adds. He lumbers off to find toilet paper and soap, and I continue fumbling with bills, hoping that the shop owner missed the exchange.
A few minutes later, I finish paying and walk outside to the car, feeling confident that I understood a solid fifty percent of the rental agreement. Hunt stands hunched over within the trunk of the car, dabbing furiously at the wine-soaked canvas with huge lumps of toilet paper. Looking on stoically is my other companion for the coming drive, Alec Fleischer, his hands in his pockets and an unconcerned expression on a face artfully framed by dark brown curls. “I think we’re going to need some seltzer water and baking soda to clean this up,” Hunt says as he glances up from his work. “Can you go get it?” he implores, adding “You’re the only one who speaks Spanish,” after I let out another exaggerated sigh. I storm off in the direction of a pharmacy, feeling like I probably overdid the whole overworked parent bit.
After a short wait, I return with my best attempt at the requested ingredients: honey almond-scented bodywash, rubbing alcohol, and cotton padding. I let the others clean, hoping to emphasize the trouble I went to in obtaining the entirely incorrect cleaning supplies. Confused locals stroll past, staring at our hiking implements and empty boxed wine strewn haphazardly across the sidewalk. A few scrubs later and the trunk looks as good as, well, not new, but probably as good as it’s going to get. We pack our things into the trunk and breathe a sigh of relief as Alec puts the key in the ignition, twists, and is rewarded with a dull click as the car fails to start. Apparently leaving the trunk door open for over half an hour killed the battery, so the now slightly aggrieved shop owner pulls around his van to jump the car for us. Two hours, 380,000 Chilean pesos, and one empty box of wine later, and we are finally on our way to the final section of our trip. After spending time in Torres del Paine national park and Cabo Froward, we are now headed to the dormant volcanic field known as Pali Aike National Park on the border of Chile and Argentina.
. . .
A week before, we were on our way to the end of the world: Cabo Froward. My bones vibrated and clunked as the bus rolled down the highway, with a view of the frothing ocean to the left and dusty green hills dotted with colorful cottages to the right. Every few minutes, the bus would roll to a stop, and a wrinkled, smiling couple would rise slowly from their seats, usually burdened by a heap of grocery bags. As they shuffled toward the creaking exit, they would pause to chat and say goodbye to their friends sitting farther up. The driver would then bid them farewell and take off for the next stop. Though this was a public bus, the atmosphere was as friendly and communal as it was on the bus that picked me up at the intersection of Forest Brook and Hardy Drive every Monday through Friday morning and delivered me to Mrs. Rankin’s second grade class.
A toothless old man with watery, smiling eyes attempts to start a friendly conversation with us, likely intrigued by the presence of three dirty, bearded, fleece-clad gringos on his regular Monday evening bus ride. Hunt and Alec, not understanding any Spanish, simply smile and nod at him. I, not understanding his accent but pretending I do so that Hunt and Alec won’t think me a fraud, simply smile and nod at him. Looking satisfied, he turns to another neighbor to chat. This was not how I expected to begin a difficult five-day hiking trip.
The bus is bumping its way down the final highway in the Americas to San Juan, a town nearly at the bottom of the South American continent. Once we arrive there, we expect to find a trailhead which will lead us to Cabo Froward, the southernmost tip of mainland South America. The point lies on the north shore of the Strait of Magellan, a sea route notorious for its treacherous and unpredictable weather. The strait cuts between an Erlenmeyer flask-shaped chunk of land hanging below the South American continent and the scattered island debris of Tierra del Fuego. For thousands of years, the region was inhabited by various nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes. Some, like the Tehuelche, would fish along the coast during the winter, then move north to hunt in the Andes during the summer. Others, like the Alacalufe, were maritime-based; families lived out of canoes, hunting seals and diving for shellfish. These tribes lived in isolation until 1520, when Ferdinand Magellan passed through the strait in his global circumnavigation voyage and earned himself the European namesake for the sea route. As we pass small trailer park communities and large farm compounds, I try to envision what the land might’ve looked like 500 years ago.
The bus is now quiet and mostly empty. All of the friendly locals have disembarked for their cozy cottages, leaving us and one other hiker couple. I glance at my watch: 7:45 pm. The bus wheezes to a stop at a large green sign reading “San Juan.” Uncertain glances pass between Hunt, Alec, and me. This doesn’t look like a trailhead, but this also isn’t your usual hiking destination. Sighing to remind Hunt and Alec how tirelessly I toil as a translator, I stand and shuffle my way to the driver. “This is the last stop,” I call back to them after a quick exchange. “Looks like we have to walk the rest of the way.”
After heaving our massive backpacks from the great belly of the bus, we stand around uncertainly for a minute, unsure of the next move. “I guess I’ll grab the map,” Alec says, unshouldering his pack. We pore over the laminated surface, noting the scattered quotes and small pictures of animals; this map was crafted by a local with an interest in cartography, making it much more fun and probably much less reliable than any professionally made map. After a minute, we realize that we have 5 kilometers to go until we reach the trailhead, then another 5 to the first campsite. My watch reads 8 pm. Alec has a vague smile on his face. Hunt looks exasperated.
We stumble into the woods and find what looks vaguely like a campsite. It is now 11 pm, and the sky has turned from a fiery pink to a watery turquoise as the late summer sun sets at the end of the world. We wearily set up camp in the falling darkness at a spot which appears to be inclined to the diagonal at 30 degrees; our tent clings desperately to the Earth’s surface. Recalling from the map that there should be a tiny hostel nearby, the last habitation for miles, Hunt and I set out for a warm place to eat a meager dinner while Alec shimmies into his sleeping bag. “Are you sure that’s not just a house?” Hunt asks as we come upon what appears to be a cute little cottage overlooking the sea, with buttery yellow light spilling from the windows. I shrug; “The map said it was a hostel, so let’s just check it out.”
My watch reads 11:30 pm as I knock on the door, which is promptly answered by a bespectacled and bearded old man wearing a beanie. I throw out a jumble of Spanish, trying to explain that we’re camping nearby and would like to eat our bags of cookies and peanuts in the comfort of what might be his home, and he lets us in with a bemused smile. Sitting at a table in what could certainly be considered a family room, Hunt pecks at his knockoff Oreos and glances nervously around. “Yeah…I really think this is someone’s house,” he whispers from the corner of his mouth.
A couple in their thirties comes and sits on a couch near us, followed a few minutes later by a boy around the age of 10. Hunt and I glance at each other. It’s as if the relationships between everyone in the house are intentionally as ambiguous as possible to keep us from figuring out whether this is a home or hostel. The older man who answered the door for us now comes in with a guitar, plants himself on the couch with the others, and begins playing softly. They glance up and smile at us, and we smile nervously back. At this point, we are uncertain which is ruder: to leave now, or to stay? After a few more uncomfortable minutes, Hunt and I nod at each other and stand up, wordlessly agreeing to leave. We shuffle quietly out of the back door and to the tent. Alec, still awake, greets us. “How was the hostel?” he asks. “It was…uh…” says Hunt as we slide into our sleeping bags. I glance at my watch one last time; the digits on the illuminated face now read 12:01 am. “Hey, Happy New Year, folks!”
. . .
Grunting, I reach up to grab the next knot in the rope, heaving my body upwards along the muddy slope, slowly exerting uncertain pressure on the tree roots and loose rocks beneath my feet. I accidentally kick a rock loose, sending it flying down the slope beneath me. “Rock!” I yell, and watch as Hunt quickly shifts to the side to let it tumble past. “I really don’t know if this is the right way,” Hunt calls warily up to us. “Somebody must have been through here, or there wouldn’t be a rope,” retorts Alec, turning to look down at us from his perch above. “What if they were just using the rope to come down?” calls Hunt. Alec pauses; “Let’s just keep going.”
Just a day ago, we reached Cabo Froward at the southernmost tip of the Americas. Now we’ve turned around and are hiking north, attempting to return to civilization the same way we came down. The trail enters dense woods, and quickly becomes less and less defined. Each time the path splits, we follow whichever seems to have received more traffic, though we can’t help but realize that few visitors appear to have passed this way. On the advice of a fellow hiker we saw yesterday at the southern terminus of the hike, we’ve attempted a shortcut. Where on the way down we initially passed through a soggy, clinging bog, sinking deep into a squelching mess of bread-like plant matter with every grunting step, we are now attempting to skip it entirely on the way back by instead hugging the coastline. The shortcut began easily enough, entailing some clambering over algae-covered rocks, then quickly became impassable as the rocks became larger, steeper, slicker. Attempting to hold to our course, we followed what appeared to be a path around the rocks, but which instead led us straight upwards into the dense forest overlooking the frothing sea below.
Another 20 minutes and the trail is no more than some broken branches and crushed leaves. We pause, wiping our brows and breathing heavily. “Should we just turn around?” Hunt says. Alec looks frustrated; “At this point, we’ve wound around too much to find our way back to that rope. We can’t just go straight down or we might hit those cliffs.” We stand around silently for a minute, not making eye contact with each other. “Welp,” I say, glancing at my watch, “it’s 7:30, so we have a few more hours of sunlight left. If we just keep going straight forward, we eventually have to hit the trail, right?” We decide to continue pushing forward. None of us have any delusions that we’re still on a trail; this has officially become bushwhacking.
We continue for what feels like hours. I check my watch again: 15 minutes. The going is slow and painful, requiring us to clamber up and over logs and through dense tangles of thorny plants. We pause again. “How far could we be from the trail?” I say, a note of panic now apparent in my voice. Hunt leans back against the aged, weathered bark of a tree and pulls out his phone. “Let’s see if my map app works,” he says. We all watch his phone screen as the app attempts to locate us. Finally, the small arrow denoting our position pops up on the map. We are directly in the middle of the chunk of land, far from the coastline from whence we came and even further from the trail. Glancing around at the dense forest slowing our passage, I start to panic as I imagine trying to pitch a tent between the close-packed trees and wildly uneven ground.
We all now clearly realize the situation we have gotten ourselves into, and none of us wants to make a decision as to whether we should continue moving forward or return to the coastline. If we continue forward and attempt to reach the trail, we might be hiking in dense forest the entire time, so we could be hiking for hours and would likely run out of sunlight. If we turn back, there is almost no chance we would find the route we took on the way up and might end up on the impassable rocky cliffs. “Well, we have more than enough food and water to spend the night out here if we have to. We’ll just have to be uncomfortable for a night,” Alec finally says. We agree to pull out the compass and try to hike due north until we reach the trail. As we squeeze through more tightly-packed trees and tangled brush, I think of spending the night on the cold, wet ground, huddling with Hunt and Alec for warmth, and I walk faster.
Eventually the forest thins out, and we are walking on the familiar bog surface which we had tried so hard to avoid. The promising shift of scenery pushes us forward, and after a couple hours of off trail hiking, we emerge into a clearing. A small wooden post stuck in the soggy ground with a bright orange ribbon on top marks the trail; we’ve made it back to the trail. We all sit down heavily, laughing giddily. We realize we haven’t eaten in hours, and pull out some snacks. I realize that unfortunately, rather than teaching us a lesson, the experience is probably just going to make us more confident in making bad decisions. We finish snacking and decide to hike another 3 kilometers to the next campsite before the sun sets.
. . .
Going back in time another week, we find ourselves standing at the top of the first pass in Torres del Paine national park. The ravenous wind grabs at our clothing, trying greedily to tear off hats and fleeces. At one point the wind succeeds in tugging my hat from its secure perch upon my greasy, unwashed hair (the woes of living in a tent for a week) and I have to chase it across the scattered rocky debris as it hops along like a small animal, propelled by the wind. I reach down and snatch the hat as it comes to rest against a small boulder, and as I stand up, I’m blinded for a second. The sunlight is reflecting brilliantly off the bright, crisp blue surface of a massive glacier stretching out all the way to the horizon.
At first glance, the glacier appears to be quite close. Only a hop and a skip down the rocky detritus and we should be standing on its surface, gazing up at the ominous, snow-capped mountains rising from behind it. As we begin descending, we realize that this was only a trick of perspective; the glacier is hundreds of feet below us, and even after a long descent, we won’t be anywhere close to walking on it. A closer vantage point also reveals what appeared to be cracks in the glacier as massive crevasses, deep indigo chasms tearing through the surface. The massive expanse of ice radiates cold, and we add layers of clothing to our shivering torsos as we descend further.
The descent leads us through a forest of strange, twisted trees with bright green foliage only in the top branches, creating a consistent canopy over our heads. Gnarled trunks poke out of the dusty earth, clinging to the steep incline with claw-like roots. The glacier is blocked from view, but we can still feel its presence in the chilly air. Sooner than we expect, we come upon our campsite for the night, named Sitio Paso. We had expected the campsite to be down near the glacier, but instead it lies nestled within the odd little forest high above the ice.
Outside of the campsite, the three of us huddle around conspiratorially. “Ok, here’s the game plan. Chris, you don’t speak Spanish if they start talking to you. If they scan the ticket and it doesn’t work, we all start talking and showing tickets at once to be as confusing as possible,” says Hunt, tugging at his sparse beard. I nod. “Guys, we’re going to be fine. There’s nothing they can do to us. We’re in the middle of the backcountry. What are they going to do, kick us out of the park?” Alec says as he rolls his eyes. “What if they make us hike 8 kilometers to the next campsite? Look, I spend a lot of time on these. I don’t want it to go to waste,” sighs Hunt. I shake my head, eyebrows raised. “There’s no chance we’re doing that. We’ll make it work.”
Hunt certainly had spent a lot of time on the tickets for our campsites. Our first encounter with national park bureaucracy was a month before the trip, when we realized we had to book tickets for every campsite along the Torres del Paine O-loop, our planned hiking route. The process was convoluted and difficult, requiring us to switch between four different websites and not allowing us to reserve certain campsites until we had reserved the others. Since we were hiking the loop in peak season, the summer, most of the campsites had filled up long before the thought of reserving them had even crossed our minds. So, we improvised. By improvise, I mean we forged the reservations. By we, I mean Hunt. He spent hours finding the correct ticket templates, editing them with our information, then creating QR codes and fake websites which linked to the forged tickets. We had planned for the loop to take up over a third of our entire trip, so we weren’t about to miss out on it because we couldn’t get campsite reservations.
We walk into the campsite trying to look as natural as possible. Up to the ranger hut, and we stop and drop our packs. One of the rangers pokes his head out of the small, dusty window set into the wooden siding. “Hablan Español? Do you speak Spanish?” he inquires. We all shake our heads, wave our hands, repeating “No, no.” Stick to the plan. “Ok, just go ahead and sign in on this sheet, then you can go find a tent spot,” the ranger says, handing us a rusted clipboard. Hunt opens his mouth, about to say something, then closes it. Alec and I look at each other and burst out laughing. Hunt smiles thinly and shakes his head, taking the rusty clipboard. All that hard work, and the rangers don’t even care enough to glance at the superb forgery. ¡Qué lástima!
. . .
My backpack, filled only with the necessities for the day, is lighter than it has been during our 9 days in Torres del Paine national park. I feel like an astronaut as I coast down the path winding its way across the hills, taking leaping steps that seem to launch me far above the pull of Earth’s gravity. Then the path curves upwards, and I’m reminded that gravity does in fact still exist, manifesting itself primarily through joint pain. I dodge and skip around other hikers, all of them young and adorned in the expected garments – Patagonia, North Face, Arcteryx. I’m frustrated at the crowds of people along the trail, but I can’t help but realize that I’m no different than them in this moment: just another hiker going to see the most picturesque spot in Torres del Paine national park, the namesake of the park itself, the three massive towers of slate-gray granite exploding from the ground and reaching upwards to the heavens.
The rolling waves of the path quickly transition to a direct upwards tilt. My pace slows only slightly, becoming a quick, hopping walk rather than a jog. Today is the last day we are legally allowed to be in the park (we did actually have real park entry reservations, not forged) and we have to catch a bus back to the nearest town at 2 o’clock. We decided to start early, emptying our packs of all but the necessities for the day, run about 13 kilometers to the Torres del Paine, then run back to our campsite. Running the route starts off as a fun challenge, but quickly becomes almost necessary; the Torres are probably the most popular spot in the park for their striking beauty and relative ease of access, meaning that the path is packed full of hikers. The trail begins as a dusty path winding above a canyon, then enters dense forest and finally transitions to broken rock. Though none of us are destination hikers, this is a case where we are all willing to speed through the actual hike for the sake of avoiding the mass of people.
The trail winds amongst broken and shattered rocks, some mere pebbles and others the size of boulders. With each turn I expect to round a corner and see the tips of the Torres scraping the brilliant blue sky. Yet I keep climbing higher and higher, each twist in the trail revealing more rocks. I’m sweating through my various layers of clothing, my throat is dusty with thirst, my knees ache. Finally, I step through a gap in the rocks and the landscape opens up before me. The broken jumble of rocks descends until it meets the water of a bright, clear lake. Across the water rises a wall of granite, gray streaked with brown and snow-covered, upon which the Torres sit. The three vertical spires almost seem out of place, as if a giant child haphazardly stuck some enormous party hats on top of the granite wall. This is technically what happened, if you think of glacial erosion as a giant child and sedimentary rock with granite beneath as party hats.
A small sign posted by the water contains a simple diagram depicting a human figure swimming in the lake with a large red X across it. The image must be in Spanish, because none of us understand the message. We quickly strip down to our underwear and jump into the frigid waters, watched over by the silent Torres and laughing hikers.
. . .
“Shit!” Alec yells as he slams on the brakes, barely swerving to avoid a tanker hogging the tight dirt road. I glance over and see white knuckles spreading across the steering wheel like a flesh-colored mountain range. Alec shakes his head and blows out a puff of air, easing slowly back onto the road. The tanker is gone as quickly as it appeared, a strange specter of this lonely landscape. We’re returning from our trip to Pali Aike national park, and today is our last day in Patagonia. Our last bit of time is now being devoted to fulfilling a dream I had nursed for the entire trip: seeing penguins. We had been bumping and vibrating along little more than a gravel path for the past hour, following a route recommended by a local park ranger which would hopefully lead us to a small family of penguins. Our rented Chevy Captiva had so far handled like a dream; specifically, a bad dream. The car swung out wildly at the slightest provocation, and we could feel every change in the road’s uneven surface with startling clarity. As we drive, the midday sun beats down on the roof and tears through the windows, turning the inside of the car into a cozy industrial-sized oven. Dust from the road filters through the air conditioning system, filling our lungs with a fine chalky residue. The road snakes further onwards.
Around a bend and over a ridge, and it appears we may have reached the end of the road. To our left is Argentina, and straight ahead the road curves along the coast until it reaches the ocean. All that separates us from Argentina is a wooden fence, each stake connected by thin metal threads. Given the size and security level of the border, it’s difficult to believe that in the past, it was hotly contested. Though Chile and Argentina were close allies during the wars of independence from the Spanish Empire, their relations were strained by a border dispute regarding claims to Patagonian land. The Strait of Magellan was an important trade route, so both nations had interest in controlling it. After many attempts at arbitration that nearly led to war, the two countries finally devised a treaty in 1881 which split up the lands around the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, but which declared the actual Strait of Magellan as a neutral area with free navigation by all countries. Would anyone care if we hopped the fence into Argentina?
The land runs out. At the tip, overlooking the ocean, lies a lighthouse straight out of a picture book: tall and spindly, with alternating red and white bands climbing the length of the structure. We park the car, and a man walks out, accompanied by a few dogs and cats. I approach the man and ask in my halting Spanish whether we’ve come to the right place to see penguins. He shakes his head, smiling, and tells me that the penguins are across the border in Argentina, but that we can take a tour of the lighthouse if we would like. Why not? It’s our last day here, and the guy looks a bit lonely, even if he does have a lot of pets for company.
I call over Hunt and Alec, and we meander around the lighthouse, surveying relics from ancient naval excursions as the cats and dogs wind their way between our legs, intrigued by the new visitors. Our guide seems excited to talk to us, excited to talk to anyone. We learn that the lighthouse, located at Punta Dungeness, marks the border between Argentina and Chile, and overlooks the meeting of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, delineated by a slight change from deep cerulean to a lighter turquoise. I get the impression that not many people come out to visit this remote spot. As we descend the spiral staircase which led up to the top of the lighthouse, now having seen all it has to offer, our guide deflates a bit as he realizes we’re about to leave. I wish we had a reason to stay a bit longer, but the (metaphorical) call of the penguins draws us onwards.
Another hour of driving and we find blessed relief as the dirt road changes to highway, cruising onward to another rumored penguin spot. The long, winding highway undulates along the coastline, the center line a yellow ribbon unfolding itself from our left front tire. Low on gas, we reach a sign pointing us in what might be the right direction. It reads “Seno Otway” and mentions pinguinos, so we swing the car onto another jostling dirt road. After another half hour of driving, we reach a small outpost with a gate. Apparently, the site is closed, but we can’t quite figure out why, so we park the car and hop the gate. We walk for an hour along another dusty dirt road, with farmland on either side. Cows give us inquisitive moos from their grazing spots. The road continues on, but we have to be back in town soon to return our car, so we sadly turn around and begin walking back to the car, our minds wandering to images of the penguins we could have seen. Nobody is around to see us hop the gate a second time. Nobody cares.
. . .
The plane lifts off from the tarmac at JFK International Airport in New York. I lean my head against the window as the wheels retract, the bright lights of cars and skyscrapers becoming tiny pinpricks of light in the gaping darkness. We’re bound for Bogota, Colombia, the first stop on our journey down to the bottom of South America. In about 48 hours, we will be arriving in Puerto Natales, Chile, our home base in between hiking excursions for the next 3 weeks. I’m nervous. We’ve only planned some of the trip, expecting to find interesting hikes and things to do once we’re there. We’ve forged our campsite reservations. We don’t have any lodging or transportation reserved for our nights in town. I lean back in my seat. I know I won’t be able to sleep, so I pull out a book.
. . .
The plane lifts off from the tarmac at Presidente Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Airport in Punta Arenas. I lean my head against the window as the wheels retract, the dim lights of shops and homes becoming tiny pinpricks of light in the gaping darkness. We’re bound for Santiago, Chile, the first stop on our return home. In about 48 hours, we will be arriving in New York City, and from there we will drive back to school in Middlebury, Vermont. I’m nervous. We’ve spent the last 3 weeks hiking around one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Our only responsibilities were making sure we consumed enough food and water and took good care of our gear and bodies. We spent almost every night in a tent, cooked our own food, never showered, met interesting strangers, lounged in the grass by sparkling rivers, ate chunks of ice broken from glaciers, drank wine by a lake and watched the midnight sunset, got rained on, got rained on more, ran out of food, got lost, got sunburned, got drunk on the beach with nobody around for miles, watched the sunrise illuminate snowcapped mountains, saw seals and dolphins and maybe whales, ran with Guanacos, missed busses, lost gear, broke gear, found gear, climbed mountains, descended mountains, ran, walked, hiked, slept, struggled, thrived. I lean back in my seat. I know I won’t be able to sleep, so I pull out a book.