The one constant

The sun was just emerging over the mountains, with the light turning from a light blue florescent to bright pastels of blue, green and brown, when I heard her stirring in my tent. I was standing outside, crunching on a pear, with a small container of yoghurt in my left hand. I smiled. “Come look at the sunrise,” I said to her (Catarina was her name), in hushed tones so as not to wake anyone.

The other tents were quiet. So, I suppose we were the first up. The idea had been to wake early so that we had time enough to make it on foot to the ferry that crossed the lake, and get to El Chalten before night fall.  

When she emerged from the tent she was still half asleep, her hair covering her face. Those strands of dark, loose hair that fell across her forehead, covering her eyes and cheeks made her look vulnerable, awakening in me some deep feeling of wanting to take care of her. It was her idea that we use my tent. She said hers was old and probably had holes in. Lucky that, because a few hours into the night it began to rain. First it fell in a veil of fine drops but this soon became a steady wall of water. As I tossed and turned, I looked over at her. Not a sound, except for the pattering of rain on the tent. I wondered if she was really asleep or whether like me, she too was lying there, thinking about whether I was asleep.

Earlier we’d made love after turning off the light and I’d wondered, if others could see our silhouettes, or at least those of the sleeping bag and myself, as we carefully went about things. Perhaps the other couples we’d met at the wooden shed, where we’d cooked and sat and enjoyed one another’s company as the blue light of dusk hang suspended in the air, had been thinking the same thing as they slipped into their tents that night. There was a kind of comradery among us.

We’d all come down to the bottom of the earth to hike into Argentina. One group had been walking from the other side, from Argentina and has been waiting a number of days for the boat to arrive – the same boat that had dropped us off earlier, at the end of the lake. It was tied up for the night but was expected to return the next day to Villa O’ Higgins. I wondered where the captain slept, perhaps on the boat or perhaps with the family in the farmhouse to which this campsite is attached to. In the group were a couple, a small yet excitable German woman and a quiet Spaniard, who claimed they’d walked for over a week, from El Chalten along the long lake that most (like us) would’ve crossed by ferry and then into Chile. I briefly pictured them ambling along the long dirt road that runs for tens of kilometres between El Chalten and the lake and then gradually growing more tired as they followed the lake towards the border with Chile. In all, it was a few hundred kilometres. Over pisco the night we arrived, the woman showed us her blisters. I could see Catarina’s eyes open wide. Maybe she was having second thoughts about the hike the following day.

I marvelled at how Catarina had come to trust in me so quickly. Perhaps it’s what happens when you meet someone on the road, during a long journey. And I’d come all the way from the capital to get down here, first on a series of buses and then by hitching rides with delivery vans and pickup trucks, sleeping in hostels or in small guesthouses, and sometimes in my tent on the side of the road. It was on one such day, that Catarina and I had met, as two travellers heading south.

Now, as I stood there crunching on the pear, I handed her the half-eaten container of yoghurt. She smiled and then disappeared into the tent. She appeared alongside me a while later, with a teaspoon and pulled open the plastic foil that covered the container. We were both facing in the direction of the rising sun, which warmed our faces as it broke through the clouds.

“You think it’s going to rain again?” she asked.

“It’s hard to tell. Seems to be coming and going,” I said, as I stared out at the mountains surrounding us.

I hoped it wouldn’t rain. I’d forgotten to pack a waterproof cover for my backpack. Catarina had one. She’d probably used it to hike the whole of Europe with already.

“Is there any coffee?” she asked.

“Let’s go check in the shed. Maybe someone left something there.”

We padded off together, with Catarina still licking on the spoon as we made for the wooden shed where we’d hung out with the others last night. Behind us, as I looked down towards the lake, lay eight, nine or maybe ten tents. Everyone was probably still asleep and I was keen for us to hit the track as soon as possible.  

We scratched around in the shed, in cupboards next to the wooden tables we’d sat at last night and around the stove and hotplates where we’d cooked a simple dish of pasta when our turn to use the stove had come.

“Is this it?” she said, pointing at a non-descript tin lit up by the morning sunlight.

I nodded to her, letting out a grunt of sorts. There was no kettle, so we boiled some water on the stove. Catarina seemed anxious. In a few days’ time she was due to take a plane out of El Calafate, near El Chalten, and head back to Spain. Was she excited to get to El Calafate, or just to walk in the forest along the lake and cross into Argentina? Her friends, she said, did not believe that she could do it, she said.

As we waited for the water to boil she showed me the comments her friends back in Spain had made of the photos she’d posted on Facebook. She scrolled down the screen slowly. They were mostly in Spanish, but together with the smiley-face emoticons I could make out most of them. “Wow”, “amazing”, “incredible” appeared under her photos of her in front of waterfalls, glaciers, lakes or overlooking valleys below. There were even a few of her posing to hitch a ride with a truck or of her in front of the hostel we’d slept at. All of these photos had one thing in common: they were all taken by me. But I appeared in none of them. Lifting my eyes from her screen, I smiled, and jokingly told her that they were all excellent photos. I thought she’d catch the hint. But if she did, she wasn’t showing it. Instead she laughed. “Why thank you, but I was lucky to have such a good photographer along with me.”

Our photo-sharing session was interrupted by the sound of the water boiling in the pot. I stepped away from her and as she continued to squeeze and strain her eyes at the comments on her Facebook photos, I turned down the heat on the stove. Then I found two mugs on a shelf nearby and carefully poured the water into each mug and took a teaspoon of coffee for each mug and stirred it in. I looked around for the sugar. “Catarina, did you see where they put the sugar?” She was still busy on her phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll find it,” I said. She didn’t look up. There was an old cupboard across from the stove. Catarina was standing in front of it, still on her phone. “Sorry, I just need to get to the cupboard,” I told her and without saying a word she moved out of the way. There were old condiments, packets of sauces and spices that past travellers must have left behind. Otherwise the cupboard was vacant. “Looks like we’ll have to have coffee without sugar,” I said. Without looking up she said that would be alright. I stirred the coffee again until the water in each mug had turned pitch black. There was no fridge here and I couldn’t see any long-life milk and well, we hadn’t brought any either. So, black coffee it was.

With the coffee in hand, I stepped outside the shed and spotted the old Korean man who’d set up next to us. I watched as he began taking down his tent. It was time to start walking. We couldn’t let this guy get ahead of us. I took one last sip and called to Catarina that we’d better be off. She still wanted to take a shower and so we headed back – me to start packing away things and her to collect her towel and change of clothing for the shower.

I paused as we passed the Korean man. “Hi,” I said. He looked up and smiled in that serene Buddhist way and then carried on collecting pegs and pulling folding things. “See you at the ferry,” I added.

“Yes,” he said. “Have a good walk.” Catarina smiled as she passed me in the opposite direction, heading to the showers, next to the wooden shed. I watched her, with a towel and toiletry bag in her hand and a small rucksack slung over her one shoulder, as she headed off in the direction of the shed.

I set about removing our backpacks from inside the tent and folding out sleeping bags. The rain had kept me awake for most of the night, thinking about what would become of Catarina and I when she got to El Calafate. Would we try to stay in contact? Try to do the long-distance thing and promise to see one another soon again? I imagined the scene at the airport, then seeing her photos on Facebook, with her and her friends back in Spain. Would she tell them she had a boyfriend in a far-off country, or would I remain her special secret?

The Korean man had finished folding his tent away. Everything went into one large pack. I watched as he headed off towards the shed. Then I stuffed the tent into the small bag it had come with and secured it to the side of my backpack. I placed our two packs together, there on the grass, and as I waited for Catarina, I stared out over the blue turquoise lake in the direction which we’d come, the long thin strip that if you follow it towards the end, will take you to Villa O’Higgins. We were leaving all that behind now. Later today, we’d be in a new country.

Looking towards the shed, I caught sight of two figures in conversation. It was Catarina, and I could just make out strands of her wet black hair covering her face, and the Korean man. They were laughing and talking in rudimentary English.

Soon we were off, shouldering our heavy packs. We’d set off before anyone else, before the Korean. The Chilean border post, we were told, was just down the gravel road that lined the lake. We’d have to make a stop there before we could go any further. But as we left the campsite, dark clouds began closing in, blocking out the mountains. Then it began to rain, softly at first. We stopped to put our waterproofing covers on our packs, before setting off again. This time we picked up the pace. The border post couldn’t be too far now, for a large dog that looked like an overgrown German Shephard appeared before us, barking. It ran off past us in the direction we were heading, chasing a bird, or maybe another small animal. As we came around a corner, we saw it, the border post.

It was a log cabin. We cleaned our wet boots on the doormat and went in. Inside were two Chilean policemen. In Spanish they asked for our passports. The first officials looked over them carefully. He handed Catarina’s passport back to her, but held on to mine. “Just one moment,” he said, in broken English, before disappearing to the back where his colleague was milling around a fireplace. We heard the two deliberating. I looked at Catarina and shrugged my shoulders, for I had no idea what was going on. There was a problem with my passport, I was told. The policeman from the back was holding it in his hand. He opened it to the front page and pointed at the something. The expiry date, he said, there is a problem with the expiry date. “What problem?” I asked, not understanding what was going on. “Too soon,” he said.

“Too soon?”

Catarina interjected in Spanish and she and the official conversed for a moment. “He says there’s a problem with the date of expiry for your passport. Your passport is set to expire soon,” she said. The policeman simply nodded. “Problem,” he said.

Okay, I told him, I’ll get it sorted out later. I’ll renew the passport as soon as I’m back in my country. He gave that same disinterested expression. “For now, it’s not possible to enter Argentina,” he said. Catarina interjected again. “He says it won’t be possible to enter Argentina. They won’t let you in,” she said, as if I hadn’t understood the first time. “You will have to return to the capital, Santiago to sort out your passport, or you will need to return home, also through Santiago,” she said.

I paused. Catarina wore that same deadpan expression on her face as the Chilean policeman. It was as if a new kind of Catarina had revealed itself to me. At that moment I felt helpless. How would she get to El Calafate now? I wondered. I had dashed not only my plans, but hers too. There was of course no doubt what I would have to tell her. “I suppose you will have to go on without me,” I said. “You have a plane to catch and I don’t want to stand in your way.”

She looked at me with those soft brown eyes. The same ones I had woken up next to this morning. The policeman at the desk stood towering over the desk. He still held my passport. Hers lay flat on the desktop. In his other hand he held a stamp. He gave Catarina a look, as if to say, “what will it be”. It was as if he were waiting for the signal from her. And then there it was. She nodded. Everything seemed to go into slow-mo, as I watched the policeman lift his stamp and listened as the rectangular-inked rubber was placed firmly on a page in her passport and then lifted, to reveal the new mark on an otherwise empty page in her passport.

“I suppose this is it then?” she muttered, as she picked up her passport from the desk. The policeman held his hand out to me. “Señor, please,” he said, as I took my passport from him. Catarina turned towards the door. An arm then thrust out towards me, in the direction in which we’d come. “Señor, have a good trip back.” I looked back at him. “Gracias,” was all I good say, as I turned and followed Catarina out into the rain outside.

She stood there on the gravel, with her backpack, looking ready to go. She had a kind of disappointed look, or perhaps it was just a guilty expression. I don’t know. I almost tripped coming down the three or four wooden steps that led off the log cabin. She gasped. I sighed. We embraced there on the gravel road. “I will let you know when I arrive in El Chalten,” she said. I nodded. But all I could think was of her warm body that morning next to mine. The way she lay curled up, with her arms around me. All those evenings that we’d been together. And this was how it would end. “Wish me luck,” she said, in her lisping Catalan accent. I thought of how she’d written “Catalan” as her nationality in the guestbook at the hostel in Villa O’ Higgins, instead of “Spanish”. It didn’t mean anything now.

I thought of walking with her until the Argentinian border and then turning back, trudging halfway back and having to camp out in the middle of nowhere. But, I found myself more than anything frozen, as she headed off down the gravel track towards the mountains and into the falling rain and the clouds that seemed to be coming from the direction she was headed in.

I must’ve been standing there for some time because the next thing I noticed was the Korean man passing me. When he was some metres away from me, he turned and smiling back at me, said “hello”. Then he too disappeared, in the mist and rain.

I trudged back to the camp. The boat had just left. But in the camp there was movement. Tents were being packed away. Everyone was on their way out. And here I was moving back in. I waited some distance away until everyone had left, too ashamed to face anyone about my situation.

That evening I sat and watched the lake. Have you ever done that? Just looked out at the water? It’s meditational you know. And as darkness slowly ebbed on, I watched as the moon rose from behind the mountains. Then when it was high enough I studied its reflection in the lake. And I thought to myself, how strange life is. Yet the moon, the lake, the mountains, remain as one constant, while everything else is forever changing.