the end of its northern section. From here, a ferry will
take you to the southern section where the landscape
changes again to the windswept pampas and vast
emptiness of the far south. But I detoured to the west for
an alternative, and arguably, far more romantic inish to
this northern stretch.
When the legendary English travel writer Bruce
Chatwin wrote of this region in his seminal book In
Patagonia as ‘the farthest place to which man walked
from his place of origin’, he was surely describing the
village of Tortel: no cars, no roads; a tiny settlement of
approximately 300 souls built entirely on stilts around
an idyllic bay. It was like inding an oasis at the ends of
the earth.
Although I’d reached the end of the road, I hadn’t
reached the end of the adventure. Further south still,
accessible only by boat, was the Jorge Montt Glacier, on
the edge of the Southern Patagonian Iceield — one of
the largest non-polar bodies of ice in the world. Captain
Noel, a local man whose family has lived in Tortel for
generations, agreed to take me out on his handmade
wooden ship for a night on the ice. But this wasn’t just
any old dinghy. Featuring a large lounge with panoramic
windows, four cosy cabins below deck, a wood-burning
stove (yes, on a wooden boat) and a irst mate who
doubles as a gourmet cook, this was the Patagonian
equivalent of a luxury cruise liner. For two days, we
were completely alone. We moored on remote beaches
to fetch fresh water from mountain cascades and
chipped glacier ice to cool our cocktails. In the evenings,
Noel taught me to ish the traditional way with spool
and line. In the mornings, we kayaked around icebergs
glowing neon blue from minerals in the ice, as if lit up
from within.
Kayaking around icebergs is one thing, getting hit
by one in the middle of the night is something else
altogether. Peace and stars, the comfort of my bunk, and
then suddenly a sound like an earthquake ripping the
side of the boat in half, shouts in Spanish and people
running about on deck above. I raced up, visions of the
Titanic looding my brain. But I needn’t have worried.
Noel just shrugged. There were no leaks. I guess gettingFROM TOP: Chacabuco
River, Patagonia National
Park; Torres del PaineIMAGES: LINDE WAIDHOFER
CHILEOctober 2019 109