Patagonia amazing place - it can easily break the man's heart, although in the south of Argentina does not melt even ice. The author of the novel Tyulyakov went back to the height of summer to go skiing, but as a result lost the rest of the whole year: it turned out that the edge of the world much closer to the Russian soul than you have imagined looking at the map.

I still somehow embarrassing to talk about the real motives of this journey. I do not know how to explain a normal person who needs to be that jerk from Moscow in July, at the height of summer, in Patagonia, 15 500 km in the southernmost city on earth, Ushuaia, where at this time of year - winter waist . Typically, with Argentina all the way around. They come here in summer, in our opinion - in the winter. Watch waterfalls of Iguazu, dance the tango in Buenos Aires, at worst - to drink wine in Mendoza. And what am I? " Drove to the other end of the world, in most of these places for a lousy weather, passing waterfalls, tango and wine - you know, for what? I was going to ride on most southern ski resort - Cerro Castor is located, as strange as it may sound, in Tierra del Fuego. And the ride, but it warms me now. Amazing places and extraordinary people - that's what I still remember.

Olga, El Calafate

; Soon after arriving in Argentina became more dependent not on me, but from my Argentine friends. And on the way to Ushuaia had one more stop. On the plane, which, as the bus, sits down every hour in the middle of the pampas, to release some and pick up other passengers, I'm flying from Buenos Aires to El Calafate for a meeting with Olga. With the Russian guide, which is not clear how the wind has brought into this hole - a tiny town in Patagonia, from where Antarctica is closer than to the Argentine capital. Out the window of El Calafate, named after a small bush with yellow flowers and dark blue berries (a type of barberry), which grows in Patagonia everywhere, really looks like a lone bush in the garden after the rain. A beam of thin twigs, streets, clusters of little houses scattered here and there, and next - a huge turquoise-colored "puddle", Lago Argentino, feeding water melting glaciers, whose pieces of drift over him like white swans. Russian Olga atmosphere recognize from a distance, without plates - this is it, dear, is like a grandmother, waiting for his grandson. It is indeed a grandmother - her sixty. Her husband, Argentinian, seven adult children, left for the whole country, and grandchildren. This unexpected meeting with compatriot Olga happy even more than I, nor belmesa not understand Spanish and who suffers from this enormously. Throughout his short journey from the airport to the city she looks at me with adoring eyes, gives to drink mate from his own flask and thanked Mary for the happiness which it suddenly fell into my appearance. Around for thousands of miles away no Russian, but there must have been - there was! W Ima! Yourself! From the sky fell! Washed down with our first meeting with hot tea (that's right, it seems, from somewhere, and cakes will), we're going to have El Calafate, which if not a garden-summer resort association, then certainly any regional center, which arose in the middle of the reserve. Houses and little shops in one or two floors, the small farm truck and a horse, squinting in the sun cat and dog on roadsides, from coast rybachat men, a hundred yards from their knees in water graze pink flamingos. Still further, the turquoise lake - these, swans ... Well, icebergs, that is. And on the other side of the water - as far as the eye can see - the mountains in the snow caps under a blue sky in a puff of colorful clouds. Such is the oil painting. Really wanted to finish somewhere cherry ... However, this rustic "pie" confused confuses except random tourists like me. For local El Calafate has evolved into a very tasty kusochek.Darom that here his Estancia acquired and the main woman in Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez, reorganize itself a plain-looking ranch into a luxury hotel Los Sauces, included in the network Small Luxury Hotels of the World . Transshipment point for traffickers hair, which until the beginning of XX century and the village-it's hard to be called, in 1937, El Calafate began settle in far-sighted people from Buenos Aires, anticipating the beginning of a tourist boom in the establishment of the national park Las Glasyares the middle of which and was eventually the town. Boom really happened, but later, when from El Calafate 78 km paved road to the famous Perito Moreno glacier, a huge 30-km long tongue sliding down from the mountains to Lago Argentino, and UNESCO has made a World Heritage Site is a net are a marvel of nature area 250 square meters. km. Actually, meeting with the elderly (about 30 thousand years) and the giant has brought us together with Olga, who hastened to tell the whole truth and all the stories about Perito Moreno, which has managed to translate from Spanish into Russian, as it were. "As if" - because it speaks Russian, Olga, had never been to Russia, a little better than a foreigner, but the letter does not speak at all. When I heard her story, then almost cried, but because "I'm crying!" Was a favorite expression of most of Olga, to whom it is invoked whenever wrong with the cases, declinations or could not find the right word, and I politely corrected her or prompting. I am the way, thus, to the forest of its joys and for the benefit of future visitors from Russia, straightened the whole Russian ekskursovodcheskogo interlinear text, inscribed in Latin letters between the Spanish lines. It says that the Glacier Perito Moreno, closely moving closer to the lake shore, grows a mighty fortress wall right in front of a delighted audience, watching the snow giant with special walkways at the edge of the earth. Agape, standing, looking at him and me. Dimensions of this thing near not just astonishing, and frightening. Protrudes above the water only 80-meter blue fence, 100 meters of which are hidden under water. "Fence" that stretched for five kilome-ters. Double-decked sightseeing boat, scurrying along the wall of ice, in comparison with it seems not even paper boat. In the best (snow) years by December, when summer starts in Argentina, under pressure from "the back rows" Perito Moreno strand icy tentacles, forming a very broad-arch bridge, which is easy to pass all our Victory parade. Considered to be more luck in front of this edifice in the summer, at the time of the collapse of the arch, but the experience is enough, and in winter, when from the front of the glacier break off huge chunks and with a deafening roar of falling into the water. Under the applause of several rows of the audience (compared with the summer tourist season now here are a few), cheering once effectively submerged in the water block of ice, we Olga rise on the footbridge back to the car. I had finished her mate, and she tells how this turned out. Grandparents immigrated to Argentina after the revolution, which is not accepted category of algebraically. In the new house in Buenos Aires, there was nothing that would be like a home, the adults no longer speak their native language, c Russian guests were talking in whispers in the kitchen. So Olga's mother grew up in the same spirit and educated herself. Then she married an Argentine, they left Buenos Aires and settled in El Calafate, raised and released to the four children of their own. And then, at fifty, it suddenly slipped: Olga zatoskovala by non-familiar to her homeland. In this case, she not only knew the language, but do not really imagine what Russia. As a foreigner, she heard only about nested dolls, Kokoshnik, red caviar and bears. Seeing me on the flight to Ushuaia, she laughed through her tears and showed photos of the household and neighbors and kissing the little birch-bark doll from Russian fairy tales, which I gave her the day before. A beat-up Spanish-Russian dictionary, which sent her daughter a few years ago from Buenos Aires and in which she taught language, clutching his chest, as the Bible. She no longer hopes to someday take a trip to Russia - said that the expensive and not to anyone. But the high hopes that it will come back to me. Or someone else with whom you can talk, laugh and cry in Russian. Sadly it was unbearable, as if leaving for good from the home, in fact, my grandmother. And it is not even a hand wave, the plane - not a train ...

Gaston, Cerro Castor

Couple years ago in spring (November, in our opinion) when I went c Tierra del Fuego cruise on Antarctica, from the deck of a ship moored in the port ushuayskom, I took a ski resort Cerro Castor clearing in the woods overlooking the city. Returning here in the winter, first thing figured out that it was not any the southernmost ski resort in the world, as well - kreselka over a single track in the 200-meter drop. This is Cerro Castor is located 26 km from Ushuaia, on the sidelines of the Pan American Highway, which begins in Alaska and ending in Tierra del Fuego. Owner of the resort on the edge of the world in person or in absentia here knows almost everything. Born in Ushuaia famous skier Gaston Begyu, plenty of dash to the best resorts in the world, left in 1996 and the big sports, to serve his homeland. In 1998, Gaston's father knocked his mountainous piece of Tierra del Fuego, which is from zero to master and develop, together with his son. Ten years later, the most modern and young ski resort in Argentina, happily celebrated the anniversary of the first large, counted about five million dollars net profit. Like not-bad to the very edge of the Earth! For Gaston is not just a business, and favorite child, for which no shame either in front of their own, either before visiting. Not without the intervention of the Argentine friends, I had the pleasure to spend half a day on the slopes along with the owner and manager in one package. And with all responsibility that of Cerro Castor, he did an excellent resort in the best European traditions. In a nutshell. Here, only twenty-three tracks (or 24 km runs), eight lifts, two bars, six restaurants, only fifteen apartments in Castor Ski Lodge, yes Igor match for all this: the highest point - 1,057 feet. True, the base is located at 195 meters and elevation is obtained is not small. As long as we climb to kreselke, Gaston proudly says that this slope compact size is quite sufficient for cup races and training camps for the best ski teams. In Cerro Castor European summer come for the snow against Italy, Switzerland, Austria and many other countries. And they, in general, can be understood. Here, the longest ski season in South America - four months full-fledged winter starting in June. Good and reliable snow cover, due to scarce, but regular rainfall.
And of course, a great advantage for the pros, and for us mere mortals is that man manages resort who knows how to conquer the snow, and so here perfectly prepared and marked trails. "Master's hand" and recognize the profile tracks: Gaston specially selected and designed the resort so that the entire ski area as a whole had a sporting bias. The longest and interesting route - complex, "black". Pass in one breath the entire slope from top to bottom, one of them - it is a good load, and great fun. Organization trails, topography, forest belt on the best mountain, and all its appearance of Cerro Castor reminds Norwegian resorts. Bit does not fit unless absurd throughput system for elevators. Ski passes this test, they say, by hand. Special staff at all stations all day "probe" your eyes in search of dangling somewhere in the paper subscription. On the other hand, in the evening on it just forgotten, and hanging from the belt on the side or rear, in any bar or restaurant in Ushuaia you will recognize like-minded talkative th inhabitant of Buenos Aires, tired of spouses and noisy children. And zavyazhetsya between you talk. First, the mountains, then to women, children and the end or the beginning of the world ... as if you were sitting with a friend on a country kitchen on Saturday night, sipping beer from time to time exchanged toasts to each other: "Sir," - "Sir! . By the way, is "Sir", reminiscent of the language barrier, made me feel every time I wanted to be moved to share something enthusiastic and intimate with some nice guy. I only just managed to do it - in their native language for me. Departing, I wrote to Olga: "I'm going home. And weep! "Because the Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina and the whole - a place of extraordinary and without Cerro Castor. Go here just for the sake of it, certainly not worth it. As for the end of the world, in every way reprinted in souvenir shops, stores and restaurants Ushuaia. It is necessary to dig a little deeper into the history of the last on the way to Antarctica, the city of the New World - and understand that for many it was the beginning, not an end. For myself it started here familiar with Argentina, two years later, thus continuing the tour that's strange. And, as then, has not gone away, I again wanted to return to the top and to live all these wonderful things again.
Ski resort of seasonal runs from June to October. The average winter temperature - +5 ° C to-51oS. How to get there first needed to fly to Buenos Aires. From Moscow to the capital of Argentina with one landing fly Iberia, Lufthansa, Air France. Travel time - from 18 hours without docking. Price round-trip ticket - 50 thousand rubles. From Buenos Aires to Ushuaia flies Aerolineas Argentinas (3,5 hours on the road, the ticket in both parties - from 0). Level 4-5 * hotels will organize in the winter for its guests daily shuttle service to Cerro Castor.
Where to stay in the hotel Las Hayas 5 *, located in the relict forests of Ushuaia, with stunning views the city, bay and the Beagle Strait. Standard Room with breakfast - from 5 per day. lashayashotel
Prices skipass 1/6 days -/240. Ski package -/96 to 1/6 days.
Sites turismo.gov.ar tierradelfuego.ar cerrocastor

author: Roman Tyulyakov