Slowing Down In El Chaltén
A story
I had been moving through South America at a rate rivaled only by the speed of sound. Blasting through cities and sites for various reasons, and sometimes regretfully for no good reason at all.
One of the better reasons was to keep pace with a solid travel partner. Like way back when I was in Perú and spent all of 36 hours in the beautiful mountain village of Huarez. I know I would have loved to spend more time in the mountains there, a collection that includes the highest peak in the Peruvian Andes. Perhaps I would have dished out for a week long guided trek. However, I was traveling with a Dutch lady I met in Ecuador and wanted to stay with good company.
Another good reason was leaving a place that didn’t strike my fancy. During the almost month I spent in Ecuador, everyone I met was either coming from or going to this adventure town called Baños. So I went, too. I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t care to zip line, I felt too faraway from the Andes and the hostel was crappy. I spent one night and left the following morning.
Since arriving in Colombia in October of ‘17 I had not spent more than three days in one place. The only exception were the holidays. I visited an old school friend in São Paulo for Christmas and New Years, two weeks of not moving and eating extremely well as Brazilian hospitality dictates. It had been restful, restorative and was extremely hard to leave when the time came to catch my flight south to Buenos Aires.
A person of few complaints and great endurance, I can find it hard to know when to slow down, to enjoy, to take care. This continuous movement culminated in periodic fatigue, sometimes illness that would demand staying still for at least 24 hours. Arriving in El Chaltén I felt worn thin, my body ailing and tired. I knew I needed to take it easy, take a few days to recover, but I also felt Patagonia was too expensive a place to linger. I hate to reveal thoughts valuing money over my injured knee and blistered feet, ailments that needed time to heal.
Were it not for the grey, wet weather hiding the Fitz Roy for days, I would not have been forced to slow down, to sleep in, eat well, lay low and finally read the book I had carried all this way. Had I spent two days in El Chaltén, I would have missed out on sipping craft beers in the company of my friend Olivia and an incredible flamenco singer. I would have missed out on buying cherries from the flat bed of a pick up truck.
So, I must say thank you to the crappy Patagonian weather for forcing me to take care of myself. I won’t say lesson learned, but learning.