The Return Journey, A Patagonian Farewell

The journey home was a breeze, a stark, welcome contrast to the stress and queues of the outward leg. This was the easy part, a long exhale after over a month of wonders.

Our farewell to Patagonia began under fitting skies. On Thursday, 4th December, the las Lengas minibus collected us outside the Hosteria Confin Patagonico at 9am. A grey ceiling hung low, with a light drizzle falling, a perfect mirror for our reluctant hearts.

But after twenty minutes driving east, the landscape and our spirits shifted. The rain ceased as the vast pampas and steppes unfurled. Skies cleared, and the sun broke through, glinting off the astonishing turquoise waters of Lago Viedma streaming past our windows.

I never tire of this familiar road to El Calafate airport. The sheer, arid vastness of the pampas is a profound presence. Fences of remote estancias stitch across the land, and occasionally, a melancholy sight: the sun-bleached skeleton of a guanaco, caught in the wires and picked clean by condors. We even spotted a few rheas, those comical, striding "bushes on legs."

Check-in at the small El Calafate airport was effortless. With hours to spare, we savoured a final meal and our last sip of Patagonian Pale Ale, a quiet toast to the wilderness. Boarding the plane to Buenos Aires, we were gifted a parting shot, a breathtaking aerial view of the immense Lago Argentino from our window.

At Buenos Aires's Ezeiza airport, customs and transfer to international departures proved quick and efficient. Then began the long wait for our overnight flight to Madrid. Here, we succumbed to a classic airport folly, slightly carried away on a wave of Malbec, we paid a princely sum for a pittance of wine. Somewhat inebriated, we then discovered our flight was delayed.

We finally departed around 1:30 am. The twelve-hour flight passed uneventfully, a cocoon of dim lights and sleeping passengers. By the time we taxied into Terminal 1 in Madrid's Barajas, it was 5pm and already growing dark. We had lost a day of daylight crossing the Atlantic, leaving us with that peculiar, disembodied jet-lag sensation.

We had braced for Madrid's new arrival procedures, but to our relief, they were speedy and smooth. In no time, we were in a taxi, then dumping our bags in our room at the AP Hotel.

The hotel had no restaurant, but a short walk away we found "El Descanso", a posh, somewhat mysterious place (likely mafia-run, we joked) that served superb food. The Parrillada de Verduras was a mountainous, delicious plate. The accompanying Rioja was fruity and fine, though, of course, it couldn't quite live up to the Malbecs we’d left behind.

The next morning, a free transfer whisked us to Barajas's Terminal 4. From there, it was a simple matter of catching the Alsa bus back to Granada. The final leg was as seamless as the first, the journey home, true to its word, had been a breeze.