In the afternoon, we pile our luggage into a waiting van before setting out on a 247-kilometer journey north to our next destination, the town of Puerto Natales.
The two-lane highway leading us north seems to stretch into geographic oblivion. Occasional cars and buses hurtle past in a hooting blur. A moment’s inattention is a death sentence here, as is attested to by the surprising number of makeshift shrines along the roadside.
We press on across thousands of acres of pampas and steppe. Gnarled and misshapen beech trees huddle in clumps like shipwreck survivors. Beyond the scrub the plains gradually give way to low foothills and the smaller mountains that are the servants of the Andes.
Eduardo, our lead guide, dozes impassively in the front seat. We pepper him with questions about our surroundings, which he answers somewhat wearily, like a parent responding to an overly curious child. He was born to the continental vastness that gives the rest of us pause.
In another life, Eduardo was a molecular engineer before he realized that God cannot be found in a lab. His religion is the land and sharing it with his young son. When he speaks of his son, his broad face brightens visibly and his mouth involuntarily warps into a smile.
To our west, low clouds drift across the endless plain. Like enormous Portuguese Men O’ War, they trail hanging bands of rain that temporarily obscure the foothills beyond. We turn west onto unpaved roads that carry us into the glacier region of Chile. Along the way we pause at the Cueva Del Milodon (Cave of the Milodon), home to an herbivorous bear-like sloth that roamed here in the basement of geologic time. The enormous cavern was licked from surrounding rock by the erosive forces of a vanished inland sea. It is vast enough to accommodate more than a thousand people and is the site of a popular annual film festival.
Further west we pass Lago Del Toro, the largest lake in Chile. Its water stained a vivid turquoise by suspended glacial silt, the lake sits like a massive gemstone inlaid in the rugged terrain that surrounds it.
We arrive in Puerto Natales, a squat borough of about 20,000. The city occupies the banks of a fjord that stretches west to the open sea. A spanish navigator in search of the Strait of Magellan dubbed the fjord the Ultima Esperanza (last hope), a despairing moniker which survived its creator.
Gratefully, we unfold our cramped limbs like firewood and stack ourselves outside the van. Luggage is lugged and after a brief washing up, I head down to the bar. There I am introduced to Pisco, a South American liquor distilled from grapes. A Pisco Sour is an unlikely combination of Pisco, egg whites and local bitters such as Amargo. Vaguely reminiscent of a daiquiri, it is also the nectar of the gods after a long day of traveling.
In the bar of our hotel we meet Sebastian, the manager of the outfit shepherding us around Patagonia.
A thirty-something refugee of a corporate career, he now helps ferry mid-lifers like me around his home region. Sebastian seems more suited to a bank in Santiago than the outskirts of the Earth. He is handsome and urbane but I sense somewhat relieved to be in a place where humanity is prized over position. He speaks lovingly of his family and the life they have built here. Like the others I meet in Patagonia, I sense there is nowhere else he’d rather be.
In the morning I wander the town. As was the case in Punta Arenas, life is spare here but there is an underlying vitality that is bracing. Above the city pier an angry gash of blue black clouds surrenders to the healing light of dawn.
A lone gull, hoping I’ve brought breakfast, circles overhead feigning disinterest. The burned out shell of a large waterfront hotel looms nearby. It is a sad reminder of the impermanence of things once majestic.
I wonder that I’ve travelled 9,000 miles to this outpost on the edge of the world. I have come to Patagonia in part to cope with the loss of my wife to breast cancer the year before. It is a difficult time of transition and for the moment I join my friends in wanting to be nowhere else on Earth.
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