Imagine one mountain - a beautiful mountain - settled in the middle of a beautiful area full of lagoons, glaciers and wildlife. Then imagine to start building roads to connect all the points of this beautiful area, allowing buses, cars and everything else to land to it. Then imagine to make this area National Park, to start charging 30$ just to get into it, and imagine to see tourists flowing there as a river. Imagine that the tourists arrived are only "hikers" (average age 19 to 23) or those of the organized tours (average age 78 to 88). Imagine all these hikers queueing at the entrance of the park, all together squeezed to follow the same trail like diligent students, and imagine they do this in the middle of Patagonia, a region bigger than a European country and one of the less populated areas in the world. Imagine to promote the image of this park with very efficient territorial marketing tools, with the result that it's easier to hear speaking Hebrew more than Spanish; then imagine also, in the nearby town, to start writing signs, building hostels and tour agencies just because of the huge number of tourists from Israel. 
Imagine that Lonelytraveller didn't plan to go there but then he decided for a one day detour there, but imagine that he found such a shitty rainy day, with an unbelievable cold wind hard to describe and difficult to understand. Imagine that for all the reasons above (plus the fact that one gust of wind blown him away his precious sunglasses and cap...) he ran away that place angry like an ape.
Well, the mountain you have imagined is Torres del Paine, and I'm glad it's in the Chilean side of Patagonia. So, all these "tourists" will continue to come here ignoring the beauty of Italian mountains, and I will continue to enjoy the majesty of those peaks higher than 4000m in total wilderness and solitude.
The best deal for me, isn't it?
I am going to be in Nepal in few weeks, and i am a little scared i may find the same on the bottom of the Annapurna mountain. Like the Machu Picchu, there are places you "cannot" miss while travelling in a certain area, but more than likely the biggest emotions and memory from a travel will be related to something else of the country. You cannot fight the mass tourism, just try to stay clear from that!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, think about us, squeezed in the subways, in the offices, in the traffic jams, and then think your condition now... no doubt about who is feeling best!
Hasta luego!
Elettrico
Yeah, man, sure! But you know, I find much more interesting to write about all the things weird to me instead of talking about how cool is a place or another and blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this journey is definitely changing my mind and my way to see things and life as well. It's amazing. I will tell you.
Have fun in Nepal!