At the end of March, sports diver and underwater photographer Marcos Ponce traveled from his native Esquel to El Chaltén with his family to enjoy the natural wonders of that southern town. In addition, he was scheduled to meet with a colleague to take records of some lakes and mountains in the area. However, the trip took an unexpected turn. When he was walking along the pier after a day of diving, a glow in the water stole his gaze, he approached and found a gold ring, which – he realized later – had a love story engraved in the city of The Silver.
The story has several curiosities. Spotting the precious one from above the pier was just the beginning. Marcos had actually kept the ring in a bag and last Sunday, almost a month after that episode in El Chaltén, he remembered the object and took a photo of it with a special lens. Examining it, he noticed that it had a date inscribed on it: 03/21/2015. There he realized that behind the golden object there was something special, so he decided to post it on social networks to find its true owner.
In dialogue with EL DIA, he recalled that “in March we went on vacation with my family, with my partner, and we took some photos in the Beagle Channel, and on the way back we passed through El Chaltén, where I had planned to dive with my colleague Hugo Amparo, but a normal dive just to take some photos and share them on our networks. When we were coming back, on the dock, I see a glow and I spot the ring.”
Regarding the search for its owner, he said that “it occurred to me to find a way to send it to him. I take a photo with a macro lens and I see that the ring has a date. And it has an inscription, a word, which I preferred not make it known. So, I publish it on my personal Facebook. It was the only thing I thought. ”
“Destiny wanted it this way”
What would happen later, the repercussion and the story behind the ring, he never imagined: “I did all this search this Sunday. I found the ring on March 24, a month ago. To my surprise, at 4 hours later I see that the publication went viral. And I started receiving messages. What I did in the publication was not to put so much data. Around 10 pm a person from Río Turbio contacted me, who told me: ‘I am the owner of the ring. Suddenly everything takes on a striking edge,”
What he had found in the cold, crystalline waters of El Chaltén was an engagement ring of two young people, one from Río Turbio and the other from La Plata. “She tells me that the couple breaks up when she returns to her town in the Province of Buenos Aires. She tells me that she gets rid of the ring in a very romantic way: ‘When I throw it away, my thoughts say that this is destiny, and if he’s going to come back to me for something like that,” he said.
Marcos said that just a little while later “around 1, the other girl, the couple, called from La Plata to thank me.” “It’s very exciting. Both concluded that if fate wanted it that way, it’s because it should have been this way. It’s a story that is still open,” he estimated.
Open ending?: “It’s a sign…”
For her part, the owner of the ring told in conversation with EL DIA that she found out about the discovery of the alliance “because my sister sent me a message.” “It was all very unexpected. She described the ring to me and I recognized it right away. Then she sent me a photo,” she explained about that moment. In the dialogue she preferred not to disclose their names for work reasons.
On the decision to throw the ring in Lake Chaltén, he assured that “it was a farewell and what I thought at that moment is that if he has to come back to me, he will come back.” And so it happened.
One more curiosity about the history of this lost object is that they had traveled to that place some time before the breakup. “We had gone to El Chaltén several years ago. Then I came back alone, in January of this year. When I was there, I threw it away. I managed to do it. Now the ring is going to come back to me. After all, this is a sign that I have to have the ring at least,” he said.
As for the relationship, he commented that “we started dating in 2015. It lasted until 2019 when I came from La Plata to Río Turbio. Then we saw each other again a short time before the pandemic. Then we didn’t see each other anymore.”
About who his partner was in La Plata, he indicated that “she also found out about the whole situation, she had not told him what she had done with the ring at that time.” The truth is that with the discovery of Marco, what seemed like a closed story is now not so. “The truth is that today I couldn’t say anything. We have to see if something happens from now on. The one in Chaltén is ice water, who could have thought that they would find the ring there”.
Finally, he expressed his gratitude to Marco “because he is doing everything to send me the ring, he even told me not to make a problem that he is taking care of the shipment, which was a gift.”
