After a challenging 2015, Shawn Dye decided he needed a change of pace and a fresh start. On the insistence of a friend and work colleague, he took the leap and traveled to Patagonia on the southernmost tip of South America with a group of co-workers. There he learned to tango, ate his fill of local food, kayaked for the first time and climbed a massive glacier. In the process, Shawn confronted familiar forms of racism which put his experience as an international traveler of color in sharp perspective and simultaneously fell in love with the natural majesty of the region.
I’m a part of a rotational program at Google and a few of us work outside of headquarters. One of my good friends in our Chicago office, who happens to be in my cohort, wanted to plan a trip to bring us all together for something fun and exciting to kick off the new year. She pitched “Patagonia” to us in an email thread back in October. My first reaction was to google “Patagonia” (never mind that I wear a Patagonia backpack to my office every day). After realizing that it was the southern tip of South America, and having never been to the continent before, I thought that it might be worth checking out. The photos of the glaciers and the natural settings sold me. I wanted to do something that not many other people get to do. Trekking across a glacier had never crossed my mind before I googled Patagonia. I resolved that, if anything, it would be an “adventurous trip” instead of a vacation. The adventurer in me was looking for the right opportunity to do something active instead of defaulting to a resort during the winter months, which I did the previous year.
I put all of my struggles, trials and tribulations of the previous year into roughing it up a mountain, trekking across a glacier and kayaking across a lake.
We arrived in Buenos Aires and worked out of our office there for the first few days. We spent some time exploring the city by taking a Tango class, indulging in the steak houses, wine and other unique bars, and taking in the local artisan scene. Afterwards, we flew down to El Calafate to begin the physically strenuous part of our trip.
One of the first things we did was go kayaking in Lago Argentino, the biggest freshwater lake in Argentina. Not knowing how to swim, I let the group I was with convince me to strap on my wetsuit and life jacket and just take the leap of faith. It was an incredibly rewarding experience in the end (and I got a great workout)! The next day, we embarked on an eight-hour glacier trek across the Perito Moreno Glacier. It was by far the most memorable part of the trip for me. I remember being stunned by the natural shapes and forms the glacier took. I had to stop a few times and admire the streams that ran through it with the bluest water I’ve ever seen. We finished the trek with a shot of whiskey and an ice cube taken off the glacier.
The next day we went zip-lining across a huge ranch as alpaca and horses were grazing below us. We left El Calafate for El Chalten, which is best known for Mt. Fitzroy. We hiked for 10 hours to get to the top, which had stunning views of a small glacier that melted into a waterfall and fresh water lake. We realized that the famous “W” of Mt. Fitzroy was the inspiration for the Patagonia logo. After El Calafate and El Chalten, we took a bus across the Chilean border to Torres del Paine. There, we took in some more beautiful scenes that render mere words and photos pointless in even attempting to describe or show. During our last few days in South America, we flew back to Buenos Aires and boarded a ship to Colonia, Uruguay. We spent our time in Colonia brunching, exploring a local winery, walking through the historic Portuguese fort, hitting the beach and driving around the city in ATVs.
2015 was a pretty rough year for me, personally. It was fantastic to kick off the new year with such a physically strenuous trip to a part of the world that I originally had very little interest in visiting before. I put all of my struggles, trials and tribulations of the previous year into roughing it up a mountain, trekking across a glacier and kayaking across a lake. I came back to the States mentally and emotionally refreshed, albeit physically drained and exhausted. I had not anticipated the trip to be as taxing on my body as it was, which inspired me to get serious about treating my body better.
As a young Black professional, I’m always hard-pressed to see others who look like me when I travel. Having gone to the Grand Canyon a few years ago and not seeing other people of color in site prepared my mental state as I lunged myself into Argentina, the whitest country in all of South America. But I found myself getting very agitated by the consistently incredulous staring I got from the locals; the clear differences in service and treatment I received, compared to the folks I went on the trip with (I was the only Black person in our group for most of the trip).
As I walked to our office in Buenos Aires, I kept passing ads for the most recent Star Wars film that strategically removed John Boyega from being featured. It was just another reminder that traveling while Black lends itself to more overt opportunities to see how permeable white supremacy is outside of America. Nonetheless, the natural beauty I encountered in Patagonia certainly trumped all else.
