 n its broadest sense, Patagonia is the region at the tip of
South America, south of the 40th Parallel, north of the Magellan
Strait and Tierra del Fuego, and spanning the countries of
Argentina and Chile. It is a place of superlatives and
Contradictions. To the East, the vast and arid Patagonia steppe--
considered to be the largest desert in the Americas-- stretches to
the Atlantic. To the West, a dense temperate rain forest cloaks
Pacific fjords, and glaciers tumble from the highlands to the
sea. Patagonia encompasses the sweeping granite landscape of
the southern Andean Cordillera, with some of the most
inaccessible summits in the world, and the broad expanse of
the Patagonia Icecap--350 kilometers of inaccessible glaciers,
and the only substantial icecap outside of the polar regions.
Arching over it all is the Patagonia sky, with spectacular clouds
whipped into fantastic shapes by the constantly howling wind,
the one unifying element in this Land of the Tempest. |
