It was on January 10th that I flew from Istanbul to Mexico City to begin a long Latin American voyage. Now, at the end of March, I’d been on the move for more than two-and-a-half months. During that time, I had experienced a variety of microclimates — hot, humid, cool, rainy. April is autumn in South America, and there were days ahead in Patagonia that would feel like winter. It didn’t seem to rain much, though; the skies were often bright blue.
The four-day tour package I bought from the internet turned out to be less than that. It did include four days, but days one and four were transfers from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales and back. The only real tour days were two and three in the middle.
So it was, that on the last day of March, I was collected after 7 in the morning and driven to a dock where a large catamaran was moored.
I joined more than one hundred others aboard, finding a seat at a table with two young women, one of whom was accompanied by her grandmother. The women were studying midwifery, which I learned is an important component of women’s health care in Chile. Midwives work in hospitals delivering babies and attending to neo-natal care. The women, one whose name was Olivia, were completing an internship in Puerto Natales. With an American mother and Chilean father, Olivia was bilingual.
It was her grandmother who was visiting from Valparaiso.
The boat took us a long way to a scenic fjord named Ultima Esperança (Last Hope) and to a spot where we went ashore and hiked to a glacier.
I had never seen one like this before. Its icy surface was impressive.
The hike going and returning was rigorous with steep climbs and descents. It rained part of the time, and when the wind gusted, I looked for something to hold onto.
Back on the boat we were given glasses of whisky with ice from the glacier that could have been 1,000 years old. I received a bonus, when the women declined to drink theirs and gave them to me.
We viewed another, smaller glacier from aboard the boat and then proceeded to lunch in a barn-like structure, on what my companions called a ranch. We were served at table where I sat next to a couple from London. There was broth, a lettuce salad, grilled lamb, and some tasty potatoes. We drank red wine with our meal.
Back on the boat, I dozed along with the others, as we made our way back the dock where we had started. Disembarking, I saw a man holding a sign with my name. He drove me back to my hotel.
April 1. This was my day to experience the country’s national park Torres del Paine, about which I had heard great things.
My guide for the day, Juan Pedro, picked me up just after 7 in the morning. I took the last seat in a small bus filled with others. There was a family from Guadalajara with a ten-month-old girl who turned out to be a great little traveler. There were four women from Costa Rica and four young persons from Jakarta. A couple from Spain and an Indian man loaded with fancy camera equipment completed the group. We would spend the day together.
Approaching Torres del Paine across a wide steppe, we stopped by the roadside to photograph a field of grazing guanacos. Those animals are the principal food source for pumas, so their presence in such numbers meant that we might have seen one of the big cats. Alas, we did not.
My first view of Torres del Paine was a beauty. I could clearly see the peaks of the three towers that give the park its name.
The park has several lakes, one fed by glacial water.
Lake Sarmiento is the largest. It and the others made good foregrounds for the photos of the craggy mountains behind them.
After 1 o’clock we stopped for lunch at a spot called Rio Pingo that had a cafeteria and a mini market. My lunch was included in my tour package, so I was seated alone at a special table where I was joined by a couple from Latvia. The food, a thin soup and a dish called chicken oriental on rice were not tasty. I drank water.
Our last stop before our return to Puerto Natales was the Cave of Milodón, reached after a one-and-a-half-hour, bone-jarring drive.
I had never heard of the cave nor of the prehistoric creature called a Milodón, a skin of which was found long ago in the cave by a German explorer. The Milodón was a large herbivore that weighed about a ton.
The following day I had barely begun to eat at 6:30 in the morning when I was told that my pickup was waiting. Skipping breakfast, I ran to get my suitcase that was almost packed. The driver took me to a bus station where dozens of backpackers were lined up to board a bus to Punta Arenas. My driver gave me a ticket that allowed me to board quickly. I went to the upper level and took a seat in the first row with a clear view of the highway.
The drive took three hours, and I closed my eyes intermittently during the first hour and a half. There were signs, one after another, saying Ruta del Fin del Mondo (End of the World Route).
The bus took me to the Punta Arenas airport where I looked for a car to rent. I was doubtful because Kay in Istanbul had tried in vain to reserve one for me the day before. To my surprise, Avis had one for rent in town. There, I was well taken care of by the manager who spoke English well. He not only provided the car, but he also bought me a plane ticket to Santiago for April 5th.
Tierra del Fuego is an island at the end of the world that had been a dream of mine ever since I had seen it on a map as a teenager. Now, in old age, I was finally going there.
My rental was an underpowered Suzuki sedan with a 1.2-liter engine. Once up to cruising speed on the highway, it performed well enough. Because there was no ferry from Punta Arenas to the island until late afternoon, I chose to make a long drive up and around the estuary to where there was a second island ferry that left hourly. The land along the highway was almost entirely steppe with nothing to look at. There was no roadside commerce at all, no filling stations or eating places.
Missing my turnoff for the ferry, I retraced my steps and found it. The crossing took half-an-hour, and sitting in my car without visibility, I had no sense of movement. Landing on the island, I drove a short way on pavement until a turn off for the town of Provenir took me onto an unpaved road that I feared I would have to stay on for more than one hundred kilometers.
Alongside the unimproved road was a new highway under construction.
It was a bright, sunny day and the land, steppe with a few bodies of water and hoards of grazing sheep, was beautiful with a few low clouds on the horizon.
Along the road on both sides were many guanacos feeding. When I stopped a couple times to photograph them, they scattered away from the road.
The only agriculture were a few ranches that raised animals. In addition to the sheep, I saw cattle. There were ranch houses and barns in the distance.
After forty kilometers the dirt road led me onto a patch of new highway where I could increase my speed to more than 100 kph. Then, I was back on dirt again. This happened two or three times until I was on highway that was lined and properly marked.
As I drove into the small city of Provenir, the buildings were brilliantly lit. Many had bright blue roofs and some, bright yellow walls. The sight reminded me of Iceland’s Reykjavik. After driving around a bit, I found the Yendegaia House where I would be staying.
I was tired from driving when I entered and met my host Vicente who showed me to my room on the second floor of the old house he had converted to a lodging. Downstairs, Vicente offered me tea that I sipped while we chatted. He was a musician and singer who fronted a rock band in Santiago until the pandemic cancelled its bookings.
At 7 o’clock when the restaurants opened, I went next door to one called Espana and ordered the menu del dia: a starter of vegetable quiche, a nicely grilled piece of salmon with rice, and a ice cream dessert. I drank two classes of Sauvignon Blanc before returning and getting into bed with a John Grisham novel.
April 3. I thought that I would drive a long way to the south of the island and visit Karukinka Park. After fueling the car at the one filling station in town, I started off but turned around after ten kilometers. The distance seemed too great and I was concerned about finding a laundry. I finally found one that promised my clothes by 9 o’clock the following morning.
For lunch, I ate a beef-and-cheese sandwich at a restaurant where I returned in the evening for Oysters Parmesan.
April 4. The way the sky looked early that morning portended a gloomy day. However, by late morning, the sun shown in a blue sky. I drove out to Provenir’s tiny airport and found a side road leading to Laguna de los Cisnes (Lagoon of the Swans).
On a boardwalk, I walked several hundred meters over a large field of dead stromatolites . . .
that Wikipedia says are “layered sedimentary formations created mainly by photosynthetic microorganisms like cyanobacteria.”
The boardwalk ended where stromatolites of a reddish color meant that they were alive. The air was cold and windy, so I didn’t linger.
At the Plaza de Armas, I parked and walked into the square to take a few photos. When I left, I couldn’t remember on which side of the square I had parked. Several white Suzukis confused me.
At a quarter to 11, I began a two-hour drive to the Reserva Natural Pingüino Rey, (King Penguin Reserve), most of it on gravel roads. The drive was tedious, and when I arrived at the gate, it was locked. Soon, a man named Rodrigo opened it and invited me in.
In a shelter where I waited in the company of two women, Rodrigo gave a short introduction, saying the the penguins there were several kilos heavier than others elsewhere because they have no competition for the fish they ate.
Rodrigo led us out along a roped path to a structure from where we could see a colony of standing penguins facing us across a river. The wind was terrific, blowing at 75 kilometers per hour. Although I was warm enough in my puffy jacket and long underwear, it was hard to stand looking at the birds. Two telescopes mounted on stands gave soft-focus close-ups. Next, the four of us walked to a small tower from where we could look down at a group of brown penguin chicks guarded by two adults. With no reason to linger, we walked back.
Getting back into the car, I spotted a clutch of people standing in the wind at the roadside, waiting for someone to pick them up. Feeling I had to help, I drove the woman, her five-year-old son, and her boyfriend to Provenir. The woman spoke some English, and we talked for some of the drive. She made jewelry and sold it to support the three of them. They led an itinerant life, spending time in various South and Central American locations for different stretches of time. In the center of town, they didn’t seem to have any idea of where they would stay or even where to get out of the cold. They were people who seemed homeless by choice. I’d never met the like.
I went for an early dinner at Espana again. It was very quiet. I ordered the menu del dia but didn’t enjoy it as much as I had the first one. I liked the woman who ran the place, though. She was competent and looked terrific.
Back at the house, I mentioned to Vicente that because I had seen several local men ordering soft drinks with their meals, I thought they just didn’t care for alcohol. He replied that they didn’t drink during the working week but that they let go in bars on weekends.
On Friday, April 5th, I was packed and up early since the Ferry Company told me to arrive at 7, even though the boat wouldn’t sail until 8. Vicente made me breakfast before 6:30. I said goodbye and drove six kilometers through the darkness to a large brightly lit car ferry. Of course, I was the first car on. Up in the waiting room, I had plenty of time to watch a strikingly beautiful documentary of a sailboat negotiating Antarctician icebergs. There were hundreds of penguins, enjoying the cold and shots of seals and whales. I would like to make that trip.
Disembarking, I had to refuel the car and find the Avis office in unfamiliar Punta Arenas by 11 o’clock; it gave me a stressful hour. Avis paid for a taxi to take me to the airport where I checked in and had time to wait in the Pacific Club Lounge. A head cold I’d felt coming on, developed in the day, making me ill and tired. The flight to Santiago was long because it made a stop in Puerto Montt where many disembarked and others boarded. There was a crew change, too.
At the Santiago airport, I pulled my case across to the Holiday Inn that was thankfully so close. Tired and ill, I checked-in and went back to the airport to buy a roundtrip ticket to Easter Island for two days hence. I needed a rest day before traveling again. I was fortunate to be able to buy some effective cold medicine at the airport’s Cruz Verde pharmacy.
Although Easter Island belongs to Chile, it has an immigration process as though it were a sovereign country. For that reason, there was an on-line form to fill out that frustrated me, because it wouldn’t allow me to enter certain fields and the pull-down menus didn’t work. A man at reception tried but couldn’t help me. I would have to go to the airport without it. C’est la vie.