Part of me died when I reached Ushuaia.  There was a devastation, an emptiness for which I was not prepared.

    I turned the van around and, for the first time in fourteen months, La Bestia’s compass would most consistently show North.  All roads now led home.  For better and for worse.  But between here and there, I had saved some treats.

    A necessary deviation in protocol, I retraced my route, blasting back to and through Tolhuín and Río Grande to catch the 7pm ferry from Porvenir to Punta Arenas.

    I soaked up another stretch of the Magellan Strait, the fading sun on its water, breaking through clouds in splintered southern Chile.  When I arrived, I b-lined it for the free camping 15 km north of town, nestled my way into some trees, made instant soup, and passed out.

    The earth was similar on either side of the Andes – flatland, sagebrush, and wind.  I drove to the water’s edge again at Puerto Natales, laying sleepy and gorgeous next to the Última Esperanza (Last Hope) Sound.  An older couple told me I would be safe to camp there.

    The next morning, I crossed the Río Serrano and entered Torres del Paine just after sunrise.  I spent the next three days in what surely must be one of the most beautiful places on earth, winding my way through Zona Pudeto, hiking to Salto Grande and Miradores (Overlooks) Cuernos and Condor, and touring Lago (Lake) Grey.

    I crossed back into Argentina for the last time for two nights in El Calafate, which was my base camp for tours of two glaciers.

    The first was Lago Argentina, where I scrambled around the decks, jockeying for position, battling to capture huge, floating brilliant blue icebergs in the foreground, snow-covered majestic mountains in the background, giant glaciers varying distances from the water’s edge, and waterfalls in between.

    The second was Perito Moreno, probably the most famous South American glacier, an hour away.  It was a massive, beautiful blue organism to behold, beginning far up the canyon in the distance, stopping at the water’s edge as giant walls of spiked ice.  I paid for a boat ride that brought us closer.

    Later in the day, I offered this,

    …watching sheets slough off and fall into the lake was both awesome and bittersweet.  As others applaud and cheer, I am sad for her.  They call it “calving.”  She is melting, dying, never to return – well, not for us, at least.  I think of great, blue elephants…endangered and dying here to clapping hands.  These chunks of ice are trophies – her water, a blue blood sadly growing with each small, melting death.

    The next morning, I crested a hill 20-some kilometers away from El Chaltén and Mt. Fitzroy and his entourage took my breath away.  I’d seen them from afar, but all of a sudden I was face-to-face and speechless.

    I spent two nights at a dusty communal campground and hiked to Laguna Capri, took in great views of Fitzroy with his crown of clouds, then continued on to Poincenot, where a storm finally turned me around and back down the hill.  

    I advertised the van for sale and left Argentina two days later.  It was my last border and the quickest cross of the entire roadtrip.  In my path was a lake shared by the two countries.  Argentina’s side was Lago Buenos Aires, but I was headed to Lago General Carrera.  

    I stayed in Puerto Guadal and made food, variously sat in the sun and shade, caught up on writing, updated my Things to Do list, began tagging photos and videos of the roadtrip, and took the coldest shower of my life.

    I arrived in Puerto Río days later and took a boat tour of the Capillas de Marmol (Marble Chapels).  The combination of the cerulean blue, glacier-fed lake and the swirled marble rock formations was just so gorgeous.  I cannot remember shooting so many pictures in so little time.

    One of the loveliest drives in Chile was through Puerto Aysén and Puerto Cisnes and onto Puyuhuapi.  All in all, the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway) was one of the Top 3 roads of the journey.

    Soon came another misty, ethereal drive through enchanted lands.  I passed through Santa Lucía, where a glacier-fed landslide had decimated the village four months earlier.  It was still being cleared, merely a path through thousands of tons of rock, dirt, and debris that had hurdled down a mountain, down a valley, and steamrolled this place, killing sixteen.  Six were still missing.

    I slowed down and looked closer while camping in Parque Pumalín.  I went for walks and took close up pictures of tiny, precious things: flowers and bushes and berries, dew on leaves and pine needles, the stream’s water under the bridge, and the mist in the hills.  I felt something as I left the place and returned to the main road -  the road leading me out of there.  Each departure suddenly became noticeable, a bit painful, a further waking up from this beautiful dream.

    We took three ferries over two days.  We had been on boats before, La Bestia and I.  She had even sailed without me.  But these, likely our final moments on water together, felt different.  I felt her down there, close.  I do believe we both enjoyed our voyages.

    I left her below and spent most of my time above.  Despite the cold and the rain, there was no better place to be.  Chile had always been the prize, especially its jagged, disjointed, mountainous south.  And I was sailing through what surely must be one of the sweeter parts of her.  It was quiet and shockingly beautiful.

    It was a glorious five-hour journey through Chilean fjords in grey, rainy bliss.  Mist and clouds shrouded naked, green-feathered shoulders.  Snow-capped mountains rose strong and fast out of the sea, waterfalls and streams dribbled and rushed.  Life had begun and ended and begun again many times here.  And so it was with me.