January 13th, 2024
Snoring away with my mouth open, no doubt to the delight of the old woman next to me, I almost missed them. A two-hour leap from Buenos Aires to Santiago takes you across South America’s spine – the largest mountain range in the world, outside of Asia. As an armchair orophile, this was a big deal for me. Sure, I was semi-comfortably wedged into the back of a 737 trying not to think about Alive, so it was hardly an epic journey, but it moved me.
I remember an interview Roger Waters gave about the recording of the Pink Floyd album, Meddle, and something he said has always stuck – “all that matters is whether it moves you or not.” Well, I was an A-level geographer (bear with me, this works), and even considered reading it as a degree. I admitted as much to a friend recently (you know who you are), who remarked “oh, how embarrassing for you”. I think this comment perfectly sums up our society’s obsession with the perceived sophistication of the arts – simply by definition – ahead of science (geography is a science). It’s okay to admit you don’t know how to factorise a quadratic equation (I couldn’t), or calculate a P&L (luckily for the various businesses I’ve worked with, I can manage this), but tell someone you don’t really get Shakespeare, or Mozart doesn’t do it for you, and you’ll be looked down upon from some of the highest rungs on the social ladder[1]. Maybe we can hide our intellectual insecurities more effectively in the murky greys of artistic interpretation, but science, and by extension geography, can be just as moving as great works of art. (I’m going to dig in here and bat this out, at least for a draw).
Jolted awake by a particularly loud snort, I threw the blind up and there they were – awesome. I’ve flown (been flown) over the Alps, the Rockies, the Cascades; but the Andes, are different. They’re noticeably more massive[2]. Close, too. So close, in fact, that if the fuselage of this Boeing performs to spec and blows a hole to my left, it wouldn’t be long before I was trying to get part of a glacier out of my mouth. In the distance, one or two peaks even give the illusion of being at parity. And we can’t have been far off cruising altitude.
It’s mid-summer, so the immediate impression is dust. Dust that frames the endless layers of strata protruding at every angle – all offering their stories of the ages. Pollack-ed with muddied ice – burnt sienna seeping into the occasional purity of titanium white. Rich, deep reds of terminal moraine; hints of green in deep valleys; but mostly warm greys reflecting the sun’s brilliance. This is not just a snapshot though; this is a layered story of time. Glacial lakes feed capillary-like streams, working their way down over epochs into the bedrock and (possibly) ultimately discharging East, into the Amazon – the great river of the world. Each formation draws more questions in the peeling back of the palimpsest.
If he’d know about its existence, jealousy of the awesomeness of this natural fortification would surely have even tested my friend Marcus’ Stoic principles. There was no way Hannibal was getting his elephants over these hills. You get the sense the Spanish knew that when they conquered this place over a millennia later (and the countless civilisations that came before them). Chile remains the longest country in the world, mirroring one of the most effective natural defences known to humanity. Once you’re in, you’re in. Unless you’ve got an Armada, of course.
And in the way that the re-emergence of David Gilmore’s guitar in one of my all-time favourite songs, Echoes, builds to a crescendo that has brought a tear to my eye countless times, so did my first crossing of the Andes – it moved me. And that’s all that matters.
But, as quickly as it started, it was over. Despite their continent-spanning length, this mountain range is not blessed with girth. The steep sides wear softly down to plateaux and plains; irrigation and settlements. Salt flats like giant concrete spills appear. Vast solar farms the only giveaway as to what decade this could be.
And now to Santiago, tucked up neatly against this formidable formation. It immediately feels compact, upwardly mobile and erudite. In deep contrast to my source, which lies slutily splayed at the mouth of a dirty river.
[1] I recommend Richard Dawkins’ book Unweaving the Rainbow – a brilliant defender of science in the face of snobbery
[2] My friend Neil and I used to laugh (we were cool) in physics lessons about the concept of things being quite massive. According to Mr Holland, they can be.
Another Door In the Wall 