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The Vista Social Club1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Itinerary | Home
Early in the evening, we descend to the bar for Explora’s mandatory boozing routine. Guests and guides meet every evening at seven to share tales of the day’s exploits and pore over maps to plan tomorrow’s. Designed by Chilean architect José Cruz, Explora takes inspiration from design traditions in Scandinavia, at the planet’s opposite pole. Where the Finns or Swedes would have built with birch, Cruz’s interior is made of slat upon slat of naked native lenga, or southern beech. The bartender foists upon me a calafate sour, made with pisco brandy but flavoured with the local shrub’s tart purple berries. The tables are littered with trail maps, but Lynn pulls me over to a big-picture map on the wall outlining the earth’s tectonic plates. Directly beneath our feet lies the collision point for three of them – the South American, the Antarctic and the Nazca – which helps explain the conflicted nature of the landscape. Tomorrow’s trekking choices range from boat tours to horseback rides. Some guests, notably the American retirees, are inquiring without shame as to which outing requires the least effort. We choose the most ambitious day trip on offer: a daylong hike beyond the Horns into French Valley, deep in the heart of the Paine Massif. In the French Valley, what lies beneath becomes visible to the naked eye. Juan explains that the three tectonic plates are still jostling for position, which means we are standing atop a land mass that is still rising up from sea level. Most places on earth are eroding away, withering with age, but Patagonia is young in geological terms. We speed past the occasional pair of backpackers as we wind precariously along a slope littered with small stones, then through a haunting lenga forest. Along the way, we are treated to the sight of – what else? – a receding glacier as tumbling ice chunks unleash small avalanches into the French River. Unexpectedly, we emerge in an open alpine valley, where a forest of Antarctic low beech in autumn bloom stands nested between sheer granite cliffs to the west and mountains of earthy sedimentary rock to the east. It is here that I finally stop running, where I have my own glacial thaw and learn to love geology. In the midst of volcanic tumult, two rock formations collide to create a fertile shelter. Juan serves up the lunch he’s been carrying for us, then immediately herds us to our feet. It’s a long hike back and there’s no time to waste. |
