The road from Ushuaia to Rio Grande offers some incredible views. Patagonia is famed for its spectacular scenery and extreme ruggedness. Big imposing mountains, wild terrain, unpredictable weather and world famous glaciers form the basis of most perceptions of the southern section of South America.
But amongst this maze of bewildering landscape small towns exist and thrive. Purposely disjointed, the book brings together stories and real-life characters, which together gives Patagonia a sense of life, underpinned by a belief the people of Patagonia are formed by their rugged and extreme surroundings. Mass tourism showing us its teeth perhaps.
Hitchhiking as well is a relatively safe and cost effective way to skip from place to place in Patagonia. The friendly locals will be willing to pick you up after seeing your desperation after two hours waiting in the rain and enduring the famous Patagonian wind. One of the striking features is the sense of normality in places so isolated. But life carries on as if it was situated at the centre of the world. A central Government building is sullied by paint after student protests turned colourful.
Protests which have gripped Chile in recent years. On the Argentinian-Chilean border at San Sebastian. The towns of Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales and El Calafate, which is situated in Argentina and is most famous for being the access town to the Perito Moreno glacier, look like a composition of run down shacks situated on dirt-filled plains which are surrounded by impervious mountain rock.
Inside are modern, contemporary homes hosted by shop owners, electrical engineers and tech savvy students. Between the astonishing landscapes of the Glaciers National Park in Argentina or the Torres del Paine National Park over the border in Chile lay this incredible almost dead land between the two.
