Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/787068
168 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S the sweeping landscape, and in whose ever- present shadow I shall always remain. But most keenly, I remember that one last trout. H e was an old trout. He struck like an old trout and he fought like an old trout, and when I finally brought him to hand, he looked like an old trout. I had been standing deep in the Rio Malleo (pronounced Ma-zhay-o) when I first saw him rise. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible rise a foot off the far bank, and I made a single, probing cast to him. I didn't see his take; instead, my dry fly simply disappeared and I struck . . . more out of obligation than expectation. At first I barely felt his weight. But I saw him clearly as he swirled upriver, an inordinately long trout it seemed. He ran ten yards and then turned and charged me, his moves and maneuvers those of a wise old fish who had most likely played this game before. Except for him, this was not a game. It was Life itself, an unexpected and unsolicited fight for his very existence, and now that I think about it, it was much the same for me. For we had each already lived the better parts of our respective lives—his, the life of a classic rainbow trout in what is arguably the finest trout river in the world; mine, a life of having traversed the face of that world for as long as I could remember, in an admittedly self-indulgent attempt to live instead of merely exist. I had come here to the Olsen family's Hosteria San Huberto, one of the oldest and most famous sporting lodges on earth, irrevocably rewritten by all that I have experienced in the past few weeks. But Patagonia has been far more than mere experience, and I know I will most certainly return. I must return. For the seeds that have been sown so deeply in my soul have already begun to germinate, both outwardly and inwardly, filling me with an ardent sense of longing as I remember the places I have seen, the trout I have encountered, the birds and boar and red stag I have stalked and photographed, and especially those now- dear friends who not so long ago were strangers to me, there in that land whose plains and mesas and river edges still bear my boot prints. And soaring above it all, the lingering image of the volcano Lanín, towering more than two vertical miles above El arroyo de la sierra Me complace más que el mar. (The stream of the mountain Pleases me more than the sea.) — José Martí : "Guantanamera" Editor's Note: In our January/February issue, the author recounted the first part of his epic "autumn in April" pursuit of Patagonia's wild trout on the rivers Chimehuin and Collón Curá. Now he shares his final days in Patagonia on the legendary Rio Malleo, in the shadow of the volcano Lanín. A nd now begins my long journey home, from the vast and soothing expanses of Patagonia to the more urgent and urban environs of my native continent so far to the north. Patagonia has been one of the pinnacle events of my life. And as the big jet plane lifts from the runway in Buenos Aries and banks north out over the silver surface of the Rio de la Plata, I realize that my entire perception of reality has been Patagonia guide Mark Lewis (left) and Mike Altizer, having entirely too much fun on the Rio Malleo. Opposite: The author slips one of Patagonia's elegant brown trout back into its element. Below: A tranquil autumn April afternoon on the upper reaches of the Rio Malleo.