The sleek LAN airliner that’s carried me over the Andes makes a long, slow turn to the east and dips into Punta Arenas, home of the last big airport north of the Antarctic.  

Softened by the ordeal of intercontinental travel, I am grateful to renew my bond with Mother Earth. At the airport arrivals awaiting checked baggage swap silent glances with trekkers seasoned by adventure. They are longing for a return to pedestrian joys in Europe, America and beyond.  The trekkers look weary but deeply satisfied like couples who’ve been happily married longer than expected. 

In the van on the way to the hotel, my guide Maria shares the history of this stark region 1400 kilometers north of the Antarctic Circle. It is a sad mix of European colonialism, shifting economic fortunes and control of once vital sea lanes. 

  On the main road leading into the city, we pass homes designed to withstand harsh, wet winters. Red tin roofs crown walls alive with pastel colors in quiet rebellion against the dreariness of the landscape.  The homes resemble the features of the Chilean people who built them; lean, spare, handsome and somewhat feral. This is not a place for whimsy. 

For all the comforts imported by Europeans, the native worldview is still shaped by base elements and fundamental forces. To look into the eyes of a Patagonian is an experience defining and deep. Empathy is among the charms one finds there. Pity is not.

We pass Chilean Army outposts, where sleepy troops keep a wary eye on the border with Argentina. Argentines are known in the neighborhood for their territorial appetites. Chileans like to keep tabs on the border. 

Amid the blur of passing scenery, Maria points out the city cemetery. Buried within these walls are the larger than life settlers who stole from nature a foothold in a forbidding land. Like the landscape that surrounds them their history is one of forced choices. Many of the names in this walled oasis belong to Croat refugees, some of those exiles of atrocities committed during the Second World War. 

No place can escape its own history and Punta Arenas makes no apologies for its own. Patagonia is a land settled by outsiders imported to impose their will on a stubborn, unyielding countryside. As we purr into the city, European influences dominate.  Like the inhabitants of Punta Arenas themselves these structures are a mix of influences, hybrids dignified and distinct. 

Clusters of students strut past mildly curious tourists in high-tech hiking boots and fanny packs. Aged Chileans  watch from balconies and doorways silently hoping for any change of rhythm to lend spice to the day.  

A current of moderate weekend traffic drifts us past the city square where a statue commemorates Ferdinand Magellan’s discovery of this place.  Legend has it that if you kiss the toe of his statue, you will one day return to Punta Arenas. I decide Magellan's toe can wait until another day....