The color of water
I went into Torres del Paine Parque Nacional on Tuesday.
Bill, the super-cool and friendly Oregonian who owns the super-cool and friendly hostel where I’m staying, pointed me to an expedition company called WCircuit Patagonia. I got confirmation on Monday night that they had a seat available on Tuesday’s tour and I ran over to their office on Eberhard just before ten to pay for my ticket and collect my voucher.
The minibus picked me up at seven-thirty in the morning. The guide came into the hostel to say hi to Bill and drink a quick cup of coffee.
Hola, he said. My name is Albert, but you can call me Al.
That's my favorite song, I said.
Mine too! Al grinned and downed his coffee.
I was one of the first on board the minibus so I jumped in the seat across from the driver and behind Al, a plum photo-op seat. We drove an hour and a half to the east entrance of the park, and somewhere along the way I got my first sight of the Torres - the mountain 'towers' - and I started to get what this was all about. From then on I was torn between wanting to shoot every fresh angle and wanting to trust the memory built into the lens of my own eyes. So I mixed it up, and at every photo-op stop I studied the changing light bouncing off every plane of these shining shards of mountain that point to somewhere beyond the sky.
We drove counter-clockwise through the park, ending at Grey Lake, a huge glacier-fed lake. At the foot of the five-minute trail to the lake shore I came out of the trees and was struck dumb by a wide-angle landscape of impossible shapes and otherworldly color, the color of iceberg, a luminous stuff that resists naming. The closest I can get is cerulean, pale topaz, soft azure. Iceberg-blue says it best. I've seen it once before, in the icebergs at Auraki Mount Cook, in New Zealand's North Island. I couldn't stop gazing at this body of water that had been frozen in time and was afloat on the lake. I wondered how many lifetimes ago it became this, and how long it would take to melt, to run clear through my fingers, perhaps. Today, despite its unworldly color, it was solid beyond a doubt. Farther away another iceberg floated, and another, genius origami creations of folded light.
I braced myself into the wind to walk around the miniature lakes in the sand, up a shallow dune and down to the shore. I stayed as long as I could stand straight, taking pictures, and squatting on my haunches in the sand to stare. The wind finally got the better of me and I walked back across the lunar shores of Grey Lake to find respite. I ate my lunch sitting against a rock at the back of this grand stage, the forest behind me and the glacier lake in front of me.
I picked up empanadas and a fresh peach the night before from Supermarket Bosca on Bacquedano. The empanadas were cold but spicy and the peach was a glory that dripped juice down my wrists. The sun was warm in my sandy refuge so I stretched out on the sand, laid my head on my tangerine rucksack, and took a little siesta.
Driving out of the park in the softer light of late afternoon I took more pictures, then packed away my camera to relax into the drive home and mentally catalogue the day’s sights.
But first I wrote myself a note: where in the color palette does iceberg blue belong, and does it have a proper name?
I regret not putting my fingers or my face to the water to taste its color.
GasFoodLodging — places I’m discovering.
Erratic Rock is a cool, cozy, hip, and well-run hostel in the heart of Puerto Natales where you can land and find your feet, get kitted out for a trek, learn from seasoned professional guides how to safely hike and explore the region, or just hang out, practice your Spanish, make real friends, and travel slow and deep:
https://www.erraticrock.com/
Parque Nacional Torres del Paine — hike for a week, camp in tents or refugios, tour for a day:
http://www.conaf.cl/parques/parque-nacional-torres-del-paine/
Grey Lake, a river of origami ice sculptures and otherworldly color: https://www.visitchile.com/en/grey-lake/
W Circuit - Trekking in Patagonia — offers excursions far and wide as well as a very professional bi-lingual guided day tour of Torres del Paine:
http://www.wcircuitpatagonia.cl/
