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We reach the gates of Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park, at the bottom tip of the toothpick nation of Chile, in the black of night. My wife, Lynn, and I have, by this point, been travelling for 24 hours straight. Our driver, Willy, whisks us along the winding dirt road at breakneck speed, clearly knowing the route by heart. It feels like riding a roller coaster blindfolded. I can’t shake my light-headedness, which I suspect comes not only from exhaustion but also from having just landed upside down, so to speak, at the far reaches of the southern hemisphere. Patagonia is not merely a geographical land’s end but a human one, too. Always sparsely populated, it was first glimpsed by Magellan, the seafarer who in 1520 discovered the strait that offered some shelter from the region’s notoriously wild winds. Rounding the Horn was for centuries a feat for sailors to brag about, just as travelling to Patagonia is today for backpackers and travelistas, whether sleeping in tents or in king-size beds – in our case, the latter, at the outpost resorts of Hotel Explora Salto Chico and Remota. Lynn, who enjoys luxury but prefers rugged destinations — a combination I find sexy – has always wanted to travel to Patagonia. I wanted travel at its most primal, to a destination whose greatest virtue was its sheer distance from home. Since Lynn and I met, we had been a happy pair of voyagers, regularly tackling ambitious treks. We’d celebrated our first anniversary with a death-defying hike of Vancouver Island’s famed West Coast Trail. Torrential rains forced dozens to abandon the trail while we came through unscathed, and we’d bragged to ourselves since that there was no challenge we couldn’t meet. Only two years later, we found ourselves worn down by nothing more than the daily grind. Our first child, Luke, was a whole new kind of adventure, ushering in the daily battle of diapers, bottles and laundry. Drowning in responsibility, we needed escape. On a Friday night, we put Luke to bed, gave his grandmother the keys and stole away on a red-eye for South America. Primal travel puts you back in touch with the root meaning of the word “flight.” To get from Santiago to Punta Arenas, you fly low over the heart of Chile – the Pacific to one side, the snowy peaks and volcanic recesses of the Andes to the other. I haven’t stared out the window like that, captivated, in ages. From Punta Arenas, it’s a windswept two-hour drive past cattle and alpaca ranches to the town of Puerto Natales, then a further three hours of mostly dirt roads to Explora. When we finally arrive, limp and disoriented, we hear wind and water but can see no further than three metres in any direction. For the first time in months, Lynn says to me, tomorrow’s surprises will be welcome. |
