A cancer patient visits Patagonia to hike, heal Posted on January 7th
PATAGONIA, Argentina - These are not normal times. The Phillies won the World Series, and, more important, the country elected Barack Obama president. So, why couldn’t a metastatic cancer patient venture to the bottom of the planet?
Normally, such a trip to the tip of South America - about 1,000 miles from Antarctica - would be unthinkable. Imagine a place that combines the beauty of Switzerland, New Zealand and Iceland with the primordial terrain of Jurassic Park. It has Mesozoic fossils on rock canyon walls, imposing glaciers, and a wilderness landscape streaked with iridescent blues, greens and browns.
Creatures such as foxes the size of collies, the Magellanic woodpecker, hares, ibises, and the Andean condor make trekking a wonderland of wildlife. Then there is the wind: From desert steppes to mountain peaks, it swirls and gusts with enormous force, challenging all comers.
But Patagonia represented more than a destination. In my case, the ability to move, to walk, to breathe the air in obscure parts of the world could heal me more than any treatments.
Besides, I never could see cancer as a fight. Why should it be a battle? It does not seem right to make it about winning or losing.
Instead, I generally regard it as the ultimate alternative travel. Cancer is a hellacious trip with occasional frequent-flier opportunities to upgrade the seats. The quality-of-life improvements run from drugs that reduce treatments’ side effects to activities that enrich our existence.
For me, travel is more than a change of scene. It’s an affirmation that I can still function as a relatively healthy person - sometimes. Patagonia would be proof that I could continue to be alive - if I could get there and navigate it.
The flight out of JFK International took about 10 hours to reach Argentina’s exciting, European-style capital of Buenos Aires. From there, a three-hour plane ride got us to El Calafate, gateway to the Santa Cruz province of Patagonia.
I was able to take this trip with my husband, Orn, because of my extraordinary oncologist, who came along with his wife. My doc (he asked that I not use his name) displays a vital emotional involvement with his patients. It’s as though he puts buoys on the water that keep us afloat mentally as we confront our illnesses. He provides hope, caring and knowledgeable support, and he and his wife have become dear friends.
We began our exploration by driving to the town of El Chalten, site of the Fitz Roy peak. Sheltered by cliffs, the village was returning to spring life after being buried by heavy winter snows. Colorful buildings nestled in the valley include hostels and lodges.
Our tour was designed primarily for hiking, and we joined a group of 10 and a local guide. Our hotel, El Puma, offered dining and easy access to trails with astonishing vistas. We walked for hours; every bend produced a gorgeous panorama of lakes, mountains and streams. Windswept, twisted beech trees dotted the area, while llamas passed us with supplies on their backs.
The next day, we took a ship from Punta Bandera to the Viedma Glacier. The southern Patagonian ice field boasts three impressive glaciers that wanderers can access: the Viedma, the Upsala and the Perito Moreno. The Viedma Glacier feeds Lake Viedma and Lake Argentino.
Greeted by an intimidating rock wall, we scaled the rocks, then donned crampons and climbed about the glacier. Struck by the raw force of nature, we gazed in awe at shimmering blue slices of ice, deep crevices, and wind sculptures decorating the glacier’s surface.
There are no guardrails or liability forms here. One misstep, and life is over. Maybe this glacier walk was a means of conquering fear - we felt a sense of accomplishment as we returned to the rocks.
We spent the next few days at Estancia Cristina. Originally a sheep farm stretching for hundreds of thousands of acres, its few white cabins and dining hall punctuate the remoteness of Glacier National Park.
Day hikes to waterfalls, horseback riding, and a bird’s-eye view of Upsala Glacier are available. While exploring gorges carved by glacial erosion, we learned that our guide was an avid tango dancer. Persuaded to give us lessons, he later showed us basic steps amid calafate bushes, to the sound of the whistling wind.
On a misty morning, we left the isolation and beauty of Estancia Cristina and returned to the Calafate region. We settled into Hotel Eolo, a small new retreat built into a mountain with commanding views of the countryside. On an outdoor stroll, we encountered upland geese and lesser rheas, a small relative of the ostrich.
At nearby Perito Moreno Glacier National Park, we watched icebergs calving and crashing into Lake Argentino, their thunderous splashes echoing around us.
From Eolo, we took a seven-hour bus ride to Torres del Paine National Park. On the way, we stopped in the frontier town of Esperanza, or Hope, that hinted of its forsaken yet colorful past.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once lost themselves in this region’s wilderness. With the wind howling at 50 m.p.h., and sheep bones visible against wire fences after the long winter, the desolate expanse seemed unchanged from the time when Welsh farmers tried to eke out a living. Like the remaining gauchos, our driver drank yerba mate (pronounced sherba mahtay), an herbal tea sipped from a hollowed gourd through a metal straw.
A Chilean guide met us at the border crossing and joined our tour. Rounding a mountaintop ridge, we caught the Rio Serrano snaking into view. The river, packed with salmon, flows to the Pacific Ocean, and the valley is dotted with buildings, including Hotel Rio Serrano, our base camp for remarkable Torres del Paine National Park. The torres are 2,500-foot towers of volcanic rock and smooth granite walls.
One of our hikes took us to Lake Nordenskjöld and an excellent view of the towers. Another came to a lonely, frozen beach resembling a setting in the Planet of the Apes. Icebergs thousands of years old were planted on the rocky shores. Air so clean it practically hurt to breathe whipped about us. We faced one of life’s basic conflicts: man vs. nature.
Guanacos, similar to llamas, grazed in herds along the trails. Bright orange flowers miraculously bloomed on brush kept close to the ground by strong winds. Unlike the desert steppes in Argentina, Torres del Paine features lush forests, because of unrelenting rain on its side of the Andes.
Back at the hotel, one of Chile’s master sommeliers, Héctor Riquelme, happened to be preparing a wine-tasting for the evening. Having appreciated Argentine malbec earlier in the trip, we sampled Chile’s carmenere and cabernet sauvignon.
I used to joke that I would go to the ends of the Earth for my doctor. Instead, my doc traveled there with me.
We accomplished our goal of exploring this spectacular land together. Perhaps the promise of Patagonia also included the chance to escape danger or death - an ideal scenario for a doctor and his patient.
Whether it was negotiating the surface of a glacier, keeping our footing on a narrow mountain trail, gingerly descending into a rocky gorge, or conquering a windy cliff, we managed to meet all the challenges. So, whatever the future holds in the uncertain universe of cancer treatments, there will always be Patagonia.
Eve Adalsteinsson lives in Kennett Square, Chester County.