Tierra del Fuego

 

 

Tierra del Fuego has always been a distant jewel, a place where adventures start, a desolate wonder, a frontier island. The ‘Land of Fire’ that hooks out of Patagonia, the name a reference to the first people, indigenous Fuegians, who burned fires in front of their huts.

 

I’ve always imagined travelling this outlandish mass, half way between world and non-world, an in-between of realities. I drove there in February taking the crossing of Estrecho De Magallanes from Faro Punta Delgado to Bahia Azul. I wanted to capture images of the land, the wildlife but most of all I wanted to feel the wilderness creep into my bones.

 

I found myself in a cold dusk, a grand expanse drawing me in. The dark came slowly as I drove deteriorating gravel tracks. Guanacos come out of the grey, lazy runs exaggerated by long necks and spindly legs, road signs warning me to beware of them.

 

In the dark I go straight instead of turning left. A few miles down the track I find a pull in where I sleep. I wake as the sun rises and see that the road goes on. Two Andean condors fly over. They drop down into the pasture to my right, their shadows are Tolkinesque.

 

The road is a wet-mud slip that heads into high mountains and through the snowline. I’ve missed the turn to Argentina but the view to Lago Fagnano o Cami, close to the border where Tierra del Fuego National Park starts, is exceptional. Dead trees, barkless and sun bleached protrude from mossy swamps, a vast conifer forest extends through the valley. This is the southerly stretch of the Andean-Patagonian forest. At its heart this vast strip-lake nestles between mountains. The waterfalls draw white lines down crags as they feed it.

 

The wind on Tierra del Fuego is fascinating. Occasionally a fleet wind overtakes my car dragging the dust I’ve stirred to the front where it spin-drifts into view. With all but meagre vision I slow the vehicle till it subsides. But at Parque Pinguino Rey the wind takes on a new level of fierce. It comes in strong, interspersed with angry gusts. The sea is green topped with simmering froth. It rises in heavy waves that may be pushed to the other side of the island in this wind.

 

Three foxes are hunkered in grassy hollows. They allow me to get within a few metres where I snap photo after photo. The scene doesn’t change, one fox occasionally yawn, yet I seem programmed to take hundreds of photographs.

 

Hunkered down in the vegetation with the foxes is one thing. Out in the open is different. When I take off my gloves my hands are pained by the wind before heading into numbness. I manage three or four photos at a time before giving up.

 

King penguins huddle together or walk against the wind. Their sea-evolved feathers and thick fat-layers push back against them so you see each detail of their figures. Occasionally one leans back to its partner to cross bills against the backdrop of a sea rising up with impending violence. Despite the cold I stay till the afternoon.

 

On the way out I pick up two hitchhikers travelling to Porvenir. They’re taking time to travel before making the decision to go to university. They talk with an easy friendliness I never had at their age. I enjoy the company but envy their calm outlook. I wish them well when I drop them in the town. I feel empty as they walk away leaning into each other like the penguins had.

 

On the way back to the ferry a group of guanacos run along a fence line, a mother and baby turn to the open expanse beyond the line. I’ve waited all week to get this chance of a guanaco leaping a fence. My camera is focused on the animals. From a standing position they leap the fence. When I check the photos are nothing like I’d expected. I head back to Bahia Azul to leave Tierra del Fuego.

 

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