South Bound and Down

by Alison Majchrzak (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Argentina

Flying in to El Calafate we knew we were somewhere really, really far away. Somewhere unlike anywhere else we’d ever been, somewhere not many people had been ever to at all. The dried out prairie blanketed the ground, interrupted only by the white speckles of sheep herds and shoelace thin dirt roads. Menacing, jagged, icy peaks towered toward the sky from the tears in the ground they burst through millions of years ago. Bright aqua green rivers of glacial water snaked their way along the prairie floor so powerfully contrasting the colorless landscape that it was hard to make sense of how, why and even if they were there. There was a wind so strong that made even us grab our arm rests, close our eyes and wait for landing. The plane’s gradual descent was our only clue that we must have been getting close to some sort of civilization, while everything else around us indicated we were the only people crazy enough to come to the end of the world. We looked at each other in disbelief that we were actually landing somewhere amongst these hundreds of miles of emptiness, still not having seen any buildings, cars or runways. A quick wave of anxiety rushed in, the same one who’s sneering face watched us take our first steps in South America. It told me only olympians and career mountain climbers come here. It told me we were in over our heads, that my ten year old hiking boots that were currently superglued together weren’t going to hold and I was going to fall. We were going to get lost. We didn’t have the right gear. We weren’t going to be strong enough to climb. We’re two tiny humans in a snow globe waiting to be shook by Patagonia however hard and however often it liked. But we took a deep breath, grabbed each other’s hands and stepped out into the crushing winds.