In the Lenga Forests.
November 2018, Camp life near El Chalten, Argentina.
In 2018/19 we walked a linear, 1000 mile route through Chilean Patagonia. We broke it down into sections which used horse trails and drover’s routes in some of the most remote areas of the country. We carried all our equipment and food for up to 9 days at a time, meeting few people between settlements.
Night time and fitful sleep. Like being underwater in a dream world is being under the Lenga trees in a gale. The wind roars first far away then travels down the valley arriving above our tent and hurtling through the upper branches like the sea in a storm. White tops and crashing waves tossed and churned above, witnessed here from calmer depths. As each huge gust passes through this wooded valley, the trees jostle together awkwardly like a restless crowd. The winds above and below are not in tune and seem to move independently of one another. Some gusts heaving in the upper branches and others whipping the ground beneath us, sending fine dust across the tent and under the porch and up into the space between outer and inner. The forest floor is littered with huge branches. A constant cycle of growth, maturity and decline, aided by the fierce Patagonian storms which shed limbs and topple the old trees with their thick rough bark, furrowed and cracked from harsh weather.
Before dark, small resourceful birds came-a-searching for camper's crumbs. Mustard yellow fronted finches with grey heads and dark backs. Two bold, rufus-scarved sparrows, the males with little peaked caps, hop between fallen branches now used as benches. A tree-creeper looks in with streaks of orange-yellow across his eye. A previous night, a fox came at dusk, pale and deeply pelted, creamy yellow with a magnificent, full and fluffy tail. The wiley, silent quick-stepper moving confidently through the camp.
On the trails many wildflowers are out, as Winter gives way to Spring. Abundance is coming. Delicate Anemones with butter lemon flowers, some tall and some stunted by the wind, their crown-like flowers lining the pathways. The region's darling, Calafate, is in flower too. Deep yellow, smelling honey-sweet in the afternoon sunshine. Clump-forming spiny scrub and yet more Lenga trees in all stages of growth. Trail-side bushes scratch ankles and head-high tunnels catch backpacks. When the sun shines through the tiny leaves, they glow brightest green and from a distance the breezy branches appear to wave at you, beckoning you along. Inside the woods, time slows with the old trees. There is a stillness and simplicity in the single species forest, a heavy sort of peace. Somewhere further in, a bird heard but not seen.
