By the fourth day, the rain and snow had finally relented, and we departed the town of Ushuaia with one objective in mind—to ride the 50 miles that remained of the most southerly road on earth. We were burning to complete it; to ride until the road and the soil and the grass dried up; to take off our boots and stand on a shore of whole, uncrushed seashells and look out towards whatever lay beyond the limits of this land.

Yet, before we could get there, a matter of great importance still needed to be addressed. While Nathan had installed heated handlebar grips on the bike in anticipation of the cold of Patagonia, the winds were truly merciless and the skin of his knuckles were pummeled flaky and red. And while we had hoped to find handlebar muffs, or mangas as they were called, before our arrival in Ushuaia, we had had no luck whatsoever. It wouldn’t have been the first time we had rigged something up ourselves. Would a cheap foam windshield screen and some duct tape do the trick? We pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store and got to work.

By the time we left town, the muffs were already showing signs of fatigue from constant battering by the weather. But the sun was bright. Our hearts were surging and the end of the road promised to be beautiful. A few lonely farmhouses dotted the road on our right and brilliant, snow-capped mountains lined the sea to our left. With only 25 kilometers to go, we slowly rolled to a stop. Just ahead, a sign hung from a heavy chain was slung across the road. What did it say? Was there a detour?

It was no desviación—the road was closed on the orders of the Argentine military. Had we missed a turn-off somewhere? We consulted iOverlander again, but all the coordinates indicated that this was indeed the end of the road. What? We scrolled through more iOverlander entries and came to a post from two years prior. Two years to the day, in fact—again, the road had been closed by the military. We looked around in disbelief. Now, a work crew of some sort was stepping over the chain.

No entry, please, they called out, in advance of our query. That settled it.

Take a good look around, I thought. This is the furthest south we’re going to get.

We were disappointed, but didn’t want to head back into town to wait for the end of the road to re-open. For who knew when that, or the next storm-free forecast, would be? Neither of us is a fatalist, exactly, but the universe did seem to be telling us that the utmost end of the road was not for us to traverse. Indeed, as our friends posted their celebrations on Instagram only a few days later, the road was free and clear.

✻

We had learned and re-learned that plans always derailed in our best interest. As the breadth of our experiences and strength of our intuitions grew, our needs for experience to confirm or fulfill expectations dwindled. So we promptly turned around and made our way to the shores of Lago Fagnano. Temperatures dropped down to freezing that night, and our shared pot of spaghetti and broth chilled in the air faster than we could slurp it down. I barely slept. When it was still very dark, I awoke to the certainty of some kind of large, four-legged animal sniffling and snorting around our tent. Pine needles shifted crisply under its footsteps in the cold, utter quiet. I didn’t dare breathe or move. But by the time I had gathered the courage to silently prop myself up and peer out through the mesh of tent, the creature had gone.

The next morning, the top of the tent was velvety with snow and the cold seared down to our finger bones as we broke down camp. Backing out of the campsite, the bike hit a gnarled root and toppled to the ground. Nathan untangled himself from the machine and flung his helmet away from him in a rage. It thudded down on the forest floor against a tree trunk. I retreated inward and retrieved the helmet, keeping perfect time with our relational dynamic at its most dysfunctional. But then anger welled up inside me. Why did he always have to make an unpleasant situation worse? I wasn’t going to let it go. Nope, not me. Not that day.

When you crack your helmet, I began coldly, what are going to put on your stupid head? Sometimes—even now, with only a month to go—we were the same frustrated, impatient kids that we were when we left. Our first morning northward was off to a rocky start.

Turns out, it was nothing a little warmth and caffeinated cheer from the nearest panadería couldn’t cure, however. We had smoothed things over by the time we were pulling up to the curb in front of the famed Panadería La Union, and were giggling over my choice of insult. Portraits of wader-wearing men cradling their prize bass catches from Lago Fagnano plastered the walls inside the bakery, and once we were sufficiently thawed, we began planning our route northwards.

We knew that no road could take us northward through Chile until we had gotten as far as Puerto Montt. By land, our only option was to turn around and retrace our steps up Argentina’s Ruta 40. But what Argentina possessed in a single highway through arid, monotonous steppes, guanacos, armadillos, and desert, Chile possessed in milky, sea glass-colored fjords discarded by glaciers. It possessed channels rippling with dolphins and mist-stitched forests. Northwards by a four-day ferry journey from Puerto Natales it would be.

The wind snatched at our faces and parted our eyelashes as we wolfed down the salami, cheese, and tomato sandwiches that we had purchased at La Union before joining the usual song and dance of Customs procedures. To be honest, the Chilean agents probably wouldn't have made a fuss about the cured meat or bread—it was the sliced tomatoes, the frutas, that would have gotten us in a pickle.

We arrived at the town of Porvenir with minutes to spare before the ferry ticket office closed for the day. We would make it to Punta Arenas that night after all. Nathan’s DIY handlebar muffs flapped in the wind that billowed down the main street like the wings of an exploded gargoyle and was held intact by only a few strands of duct tape. 

The ferry was packed to bursting with work crews and families vacationing with small children, and we were just able to wrangle two seats together. We were numb to the ruckus of conversation and laughter after our day in the wind and our previous night in the cold. We stared blankly out over cups of the most expensive instant hot chocolates we had yet encountered, in a private bubble of silence.

When we arrived in the city of Punta Arenas, it was already dark and we had two options for accommodation in mind that suited our budget. Although $20 a night for the two of us was hideously expensive in other countries, it was a steal for Chile—even when it meant sleeping in a tent in a hostel’s garden. However, upon ringing the doorbell of one family home cum hostel, it became apparent that this place was not, in fact, where we would rest our weary bones that night. The garden grounds were already covered with high-tech, abstractly-shaped tents, and when the door was finally answered by one of the guests—the hosts were nowhere to be found—I could see that every available corner, chair, bunk, and countertop had been claimed by a body. It was the same story at the second hostel. And the third. When we eventually found a place with warm beds and central heating, it was close to midnight and the establishment itself was a hastily cobbled-together affair. The women’s restroom, for example, was clean but lacked privacy stalls around the multiple toilets; and lacked an opaque shower curtain; and lacked a lock on the door. The whole place evidently operated without any record-keeping or logbook—we simply handed cash over to the caretaker of the place and were told to keep the kitchen clean. After breakfast, Nathan discovered that his phone had disappeared after accidentally leaving it unattended in the men’s restroom. Fortunately, after a few minutes of searching, he heard it buzzing from within an unlocked bathroom cupboard, hidden under a pile of clothes. Absolutely, it was a careless mistake to have made. But the hostility of the reprimand upon realizing that the phone had been retrieved from the cupboard was highly suspect. Nathan was the only other male guest, after all. We weren’t interested in making accusations or posting negative reviews online, however. We just wanted out of Punta Arenas.

On our way out of Dodge, we stopped briefly at an outdoor outfitter’s shop and emerged with a cheap, foam sleeping mat. Handlebar muffs v. 2.0 were forthcoming. And at a small auto shop, where the interior walls sported just two unframed posters of shyly topless ladies, we bought a new tire to carry us to Santiago. The tread of the tire we had bought in Mendoza, only a month or so earlier, was somehow already scrubbed thin. And while the comfortable gas stations and municipal campgrounds had disappeared entirely on the Chilean side of Patagonia, we didn’t despair—we had stocked up on sandwich fixings for a few easy, fuel-free meals, and Nathan had downloaded a movie or two while we had wifi access in Ushuaia.

✻

The interior of Tierra del Fuego was grey, slate, light black, cement-colored, and monotonous. But all we needed from this night was a buffer against the wind and the freedom to rest when we grew tired. A gravel pit lay just off a dirt road that snaked between several rain-darkened mounds of pebbles. We picked a reasonably level place to lay out the several-times-patched, moldy, yet dutiful carcass of our tent.

Our here, now of the moment wasn’t gorgeous. Our here, now, wasn’t a destination. In fact, by the time we left the next morning, it had become apparent that we had chosen an abandoned natural gas—not gravel—quarry for our bed. But none of that mattered. I looked around at the spot away from our campsite, which I had selected for my last pee of the evening. The vast, seemingly empty setting that gave definition to our array of misshapen and precious belongings, and to our own bodies in their present conditions, carried a charge that made me look over my shoulder, made me scan the horizon and the clouds for its origin. It didn’t matter that we weren’t in a place of more obvious majesty; still, the feeling arose. Throughout our journey, whenever that particular feeling wound itself around my chest like some kind of muscular, flickering tail, I would quicken my steps. Indeed, I did still.

In the loneliest places I was no longer feeling alone. Rather, I had become aware of having entered upon a distinct sort of atmosphere of which we’d played no part in its creation. Surely, if someone had told me then that what I was feeling was only the fullness of being, I would have laughed at the glibness of it. But the feeling had become a more constant and more insistent companion. Not always a congenial one, exactly, but certainly as much a force upon my psyche as Nathan was.

The loneliest places, whether grand, forgotten, or simply unexploited, all contained a sort of presence greater than the sum of their uncountable parts—their sprinklings of plucked feathers, their fields of low-growing brush dotted with berries, their billions of pebbles. It compelled as much emotion within me as any person who might stand before me, judge me, or love me. But it wasn’t judging me or loving me just then, as a human being might. It was the fullness of being, and my own being made more full, and the pathways within my memory for arriving at the places—far from the noise of advertising and social obligation and self-consciousness—growing more numerous and intertwined than before. But a body can only contain so much. I was still learning and I hurried back to my orange abode before darkness could scatter my way back. 

In our froggtogg rain gear zipped up over our long underwear, we enjoyed a film and then lay down to wait for sleep.

We skipped camp breakfast the next morning upon realizing that Puerto Natales was, in fact, only an hour’s ride away, and planned to find coffee in town. It was Sunday, however, and upon arriving into the charming town full of cabins with wood smoke swirling from the chimneys, we stopped at the only eatery in operation that day—the bus station. Parque Nacional Torres del Paine lay in wait within our imaginations, and we rode toward it.

✻

Incredible! fellow travelers would say, the whites of their eyes gleaming and their arms outstretched, swooping. Somewhere in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, or Chile, they had gaped up at giant birds swooping over canyons and circling unimaginable peaks. Unlike anything else, they would say. Condors. The largest flying bird. We had seen so much incredible wildlife on this trip for which we were earnestly grateful, and earnestly trusted Mother Nature to present us with what she wished us to see. But our hearts felt chewed on, a bit, to have missed the soaring silhouette which figured so prominently in many of South America’s mythologies and folk art. We had traversed Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina without seeing a single one, as I had gone without the dark, shaggy anteater; as had Nathan without the python, except in a dream. For the most part, though, we had made our peace with the shadowy places in our imaginations where it seemed they would stay, lumbering, slinking, coiling and uncoiling, just out of sight.

We wandered along the pebbly shore of Lago Grey, further acquainting ourselves with the nearly-black Andes of Patagonia’s southern ice field and with the slate grey sky. Snow shimmered in the mountain crags, like the angular limbs of electricity that enliven experiments of mad science in black and white films, and like real bolts of lightening that only seem to strike in the countryside. We could just see a sliver of Glaciar Grey glowing in the shadowy light. It was still late summer.

The clear water of Lago Grey reflected the sky and lapped at the edge of land. We sat before the rolling waves, still a little sore over the $40 we had spent that morning on eggs, coffee, and toast. It was quiet. And full of something. Suddenly, our senses stood at attention.

A far-away dark shape, like a child’s heavy-handed rendering of a bird, came swooping out from behind the peaks. It careened towards our spot on the pebbles. It ducked in and out of sight, carving an invisible scrollwork in the thick clouds as if it knew we sat watching, awestruck. It was enormous; more mythic beast than bird commanding the airspace. We could just make out its cartoonish-ly fluffy, white collar and the white stripes on the backs of its wings. We could clearly see the spindly feathers of its wingtips, splayed as if to comb each cloud for whatever might present itself for the taking. But “vulture” and “scavenger” didn’t seem to do it justice. And how could we have dreamed of sighting one in any other place than here, surveying these fortresses of iron and ice?

✻

We felt we were meeting our limits. We had previously expressed distaste for the type of “beg-packer” whose enjoyment of a place centered wholly around how low one could haggle down the cost of a meal, accommodations, or a tour or trinket. We had striven for balance, and were happy to pay the modest fees charged for the preservation of wilderness areas. But we hadn’t done our research on Chilean Patagonia. Had we done so, we wouldn’t have found ourselves bitterly complaining about the $11 bag of spaghetti and $5 small cup of instant Nescafe for sale at the only bodega within several hours of the park. We claimed personal offense at having to reserve a tent site three months in advance at $20 per person, all horribly exposed to the wind and clustered close together, on top of the $30 entry permit. (Lodges within the park could be reserved at upwards of $300 a night). We felt cramped and unrewarded for our intrepid nature, and we simply didn’t have the budget for the show-stopping sights that have inspired trekkers, adventures, and entrepreneurs the world over.

I didn’t sleep a wink all night. My sleeping bag and liner were not warm enough, and we had camped on a horribly exposed plain on the outskirts of the park. The wind slam-dunked the walls of our tent on my head all night long. I was reminded of a game popular among the Magik the Gathering kids on my college campus called “Boffing” in which players wearing vaguely-medieval attire stood evenly-spaced apart and rooted to one spot on one of the campus’s many grassy knolls. And then they wailed on one another with foam pool noodles. As far as I could tell, that was the extent of the game. And there I was, nearly ten years later, with neither shield nor sword nor faux fox-tail, being boffed until morning dew began to fall.

We would get the most out of our three day permits, we were determined; even if we hadn’t shelled out on guided trek packages. We parked Horace on a dirt trail and began the short walk up to the Mirador de los Condores. Half-way to the top, we were bowed at the waist in the turbulence of the wind, holding tightly onto our hats with one hand and holding onto the sides of the rocks to maintain our hard-won ground. It was like walking through honey, and tears streamed from the outer corners of our eyes. At the summit, we squinted and knelt down on both knees to take in the view of the horned and towering mountains, in a reverence born of necessity rather than any habit of righteousness. For the view was more like the brilliant, burning bush, more like the voice of mind-ending volume, than it was like being gathered into the eternally-laundered robes of a modern, beneficent god. On the way down, while we were still high enough to look out over the parking area, we could see a dark, hulking mass lain in the dirt. It was Horace, all 600-plus pounds of him, bowled over by the wind.

✻

The ferry to Puerto Montt from Puerto Natales was completely full. Our only option to move northward from here was to retrace our route up Argentina's Ruta 40. Once again, we turnstile'd through Immigration and Customs, and once again we arrived in Calafate, where we indulged in our last exquisite, ample bochas of Argentino ice cream. From a vista point along the highway, outside of town, we spied a family of five foxes. Two of the kits were tirelessly engaged in bringing a newfound treasure to their mother—a ribbon of toilet paper at least 7-squares long, which the wind kept spiriting away.

At the fuel station outside of the single-street hamlet of Tres Lagos, where we had slapped a Two If By Land sticker on the already sticker-embalmed single pump, we relished expertly pulled espresso americanos and homemade pasteles de batata, fried pastries filled with candied sweet potato and bathed in honey. With these comforts, we steeled ourselves to repeat the most difficult section of R40, with its deep, loose gravel overlaying deeply rutted road. And once again, we were blessed with miraculously still, hot air.

We also found ourselves back in the tiny settlement of Bajo Caracoles. Their fuel station was out of nafta and wouldn’t be replenished for a week. Though we would be okay, if only just barely, we lingered, slowly sputtering down the dirt road toward the edge of the “village” in search of Pablo. Pablo was the groundskeeper who had offered us a lean-to shelter and circuitous conversation the last time we had passed through. It had only been ten days since we had seen a familiar face, but we found ourselves craving meaningful hellos and farewells. He wasn’t around.

We said our goodbyes to Argentina with one last night on the pampa. The guanaco were plentiful and unbothered by our presence, and we chose a place in the shadow of a ridge, next to a thorn bush with two inch spines. I recalled the roofing nail that popped our first tire while we were still in Mexico. Here, the only indicators of civilization were the wire fences on either side of the R40, seemingly without beginning or end, and which were systematically pulled down every so often to allow the guanaco to roam freely without becoming caught and left to cure in the desert air. The fences, and a cluster of skinny, Spanish poplars inclining vertically in the distance. A small, brown rabbit, also unimpressed by the racket of our arrival, chubbily pondered life on the other side of the fence as if it couldn’t easily hop under the bottom wire of it.

I wanted to stay here, with the stiff, yellow, coiron grass with shallow roots and with the frosty gray santolina shrubs. Goodbye, yellow wildflowers pursed shut to our fantastically long-legged shadows. Goodbye, half-buried, antique wagon wheels and hills made iconic by their surroundings, which appear to be negative space until given closer examination. Goodbye, beetles. Goodbye, exquisitely painted sky. Goodbye, goodbye, for now and quite possibly for good. We had been sad to leave most of the previous 12 countries, but this last evening felt especially tender. 

As I unfurled and fluffed our sleeping bags within the tent, I heard Nathan pause his maneuvers with the billowing nylon of the motorcycle cover. He seemed to be considering his words.

I think I just saw a puma, he said slowly.

The guanaco are plentiful, I observed again, aloud.