The B Circuit
Patagonia Diaries #2
This piece is part of my Patagonia Diaries series about repeating a 16,000km roadtrip my parents did with me as a one year-old, where I share my reflections about myself and what I saw throughout the trip, covering a wide range of topics.
"Are you sure it's here?", my mother asked.
We were standing in front of a waste management facility, and the gate where the trail was supposed to start was the gate to a dumpster.
"I'm sure, online it said to cross the basural to get to the trail", I replied.
We circled around and, not wanting to park the car just somewhere in front of the dumpster, drove a few minutes back to the city and called an Uber.
Upon being dropped off, we set off on our trail and the smell wasn't great. The morning had been a mess for us and I was worried I'd be responsible for messing up our second and last day in Ushuaia. The overall mood was quite low.
Having passed the dumpster, a trail appeared going up the hill.
Right away we saw three large carcaras standing right in front of us on the trail, and suddenly, everyone was engaged.
Then, it was all uphill from there (literally).
We arrived at the climbing spot and had a blast. The views of the city were fantastic, and as we descended a bit into the Tata valley, so were the views of the mountains around.
The climbs were newly bolted and there were a lot more of them than the online guidebook suggested, and, above all, we were alone.
The day before we had done the hike up to Laguna Esmeralda, a great trail up to a beautiful spot that’s quite famous in Ushuaia.
The one problem was: it was full of people.
Personally, the experience of being in nature for me is significantly impacted by how many people are around.
I actually enjoy a bit of chaos and like going to football games, festivals, and going out on the packed streets for Carnaval, but when out in nature in particular, I’d rather be alone.
The feeling of “nobody’s been here before”, even though someone clearly has, just not at the same time as you, is unbeatable for me.
And so, for our second day in Ushuaia, I suggested to everyone that we ignore all recommendations of what to do and go climbing.
Now, I learned about this climbing spot from José, an Uber driver, and while I later found it online, there wasn’t much info available about it.
But we took a chance on it, and it turned out great.
This is a common trend in my travels, which dad calls "The B Circuit".
My travel plans are very often influenced by Uber drivers, obscure blogs, and just generally speaking to locals.
It often it makes the logistics more complicated, but is usually worth it, and has led to some fantastic experiences like swimming in a hot lake in the middle of nowhere in Iceland, visiting a cafe where people go to discuss taboo topics in China, and summiting Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia.
Now, I think there’s absolutely nothing new about this. It’s certainly possible that I’m more inclined than others to visit lesser-known places and skip tourist spots, but the idea of searching for “hidden gems” is far from something that’s unique to me. After all, there are infinite resources online dedicated to helping you find these spots.
But I think the reason I’ve been thinking more and more about the idea of the B circuit recently is that I’m becoming more and more willing to skip the A circuit entirely.
A while back, I used to subscribe to the idea that “if you’re in Rome, you gotta see the Colosseum”. And in some ways, this still holds true to me.
It does not matter how crowded it is, I still want to go to Yosemite and see El Cap, period. Because there is usually a reason why touristy places are touristy, and that is that they are indeed usually very interesting or visually appealing.
Yet I’ve been increasingly disappointed with many of the touristy spots. They are often crowded, involve some annoying logistics, or are expensive. And at the end of the day, don’t live up to our expectations.
So now I actually think it is totally ok to go to Rome and skip the Colosseum. This will of course depend of what you’re interested in and what your objectives are, but usually there are equivalent spots that perhaps might not be as impressive, but will be as enjoyable.
I think the idea I’m trying to convey here, mostly so that I myself internalize it, rather than to preach, is exactly that: more impressive does not mean more enjoyable. And more enjoyable should mean more.
In Ushuaia, we skipped the Beagle Channel boat tour that is a “must” and went climbing in a not-so-impressive crag instead, and we were pretty happy with it. And I hope to be ok with making more of these decisions in the future, without holding onto regrets about not seeing a certain thing.
I remember Jon Krakauer posted something about the fact that it’s great that people in Colorado obsess so much over 14ers (14,000ft+ mountains), because it leaves a bunch of 13.9ers for him to explore alone. Similarly, if you just put in a little more effort you’ll find that Farofa de Cima is a much nicer waterfall than the busy Farofa in Serra do Cipó, and that there are numerous better (and free!) alternatives to Iceland’s Blue Lagoon.
So yeah, I think this piece is more of a note to self than anything else.
And for everyone else, if you weren’t already onto it, Uber drivers are a great source of tips to help you find the B circuit.
