Chapter 18: Fin del Mundo / Tierra del Fuego

About two hours from Rio Gallegos on a bad ripio road, there is a place where you can live with penguins. At first glance there is nothing but scrub brush on low rolling hills and the sound of ocean breakers. But a movement catches my eye and I stop the truck. Suddenly there are two dumpy little figures in greasy white skins waddling towards the truck. Their heads bob as they walk, and their beady eyes are fixed on us, wary. We get out and start walking through the scrub, discovering penguins everywhere. These are Magellans, here all the way from Antarctica for the breeding season. They burrow under bushes, creating shallow wallows for their eggs. As far as the horizon line, there are heads bobbing in the scrub. These are strange creatures, but there is an ungainly elegance to their slow shuffle, and a cautiousness to their movements on land. In the sea they became more comfortable, diving through waves in search of fish. We set up camp in a clearing and watch penguins for hours. We can see them from our kitchen window. In the twilight a pair of foxes is plying their craft. The penguins are hopeless here on land, and the foxes don’t even break a sweat. They trot through the burrows, picking out the fat ones and occasionally an egg. Half-eaten carcasses litter the bush, and it seems that the collective penguin colony has resigned themselves to the required sacrifice. When the foxes have eaten their fill they lope over the hills.

Rio Gallegos is on the margin of Tierra del Fuego and the closest town to the Falkland Islands, which the Argentines call the Islas Malvinas. The Malvinas are a big deal ever since the war, and there are official government signs and graffiti everywhere with the slogan “Las Islas Malvinas son Argentinas” (the Malvinas are Argentinian). Legally speaking the British won the war, and the territories belong to them. There is probably a diplomatic way to repatriate these territories into Argentine hands, but the inhabitants themselves resist any efforts. It is much better for them to be part of the more stable British economy and currency. The Argentines are a proud people, and 40 years later the Malvinas are still a fresh wound.

We cross the Magellan Strait on a car ferry that bucks up and down on a pitching sea, making it almost impossible to stand on deck. The seas here are legendary, and have been plied centuries ago by the likes of Ferdinand Magellan, Francis Drake and Charles Darwin. We are now on the Isla Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire. In our trip notebook, we have pencilled out the remaining days between here and the end of the road. The prospect of finishing our journey sits uncomfortably in our hearts.

The culmination of a long journey brings with it the inevitable barrage of emotions and questions, and we find ourselves particularly introspective. Was it what we thought? What did we learn? Did we really achieve what we set out to do? In which direction will this trip tip the balance of our lives?

Daniella and I had so many goals when we set out for this trip. We had wanted our family to grow closer together, to deepen our faith, to help forge the character of our boys. I wanted to write and become an ace diesel mechanic. I was going to emerge from this trip deeply inspired and with a reinvigorated architectural perspective. We wanted to iron out some of the kinks in our family dynamics. Somehow, intentionally or not, we had foisted all of these expectations onto our journey down the Pan-Am. It doesn’t help that the North American perspective of a year off from work tends to revolve what the prescribed learning outcomes will be.

In so many ways this trip was much harder than we anticipated. Travelling with three growing boys in a space no bigger than a walk-in closet is not conducive to a peaceful, inspiring atmosphere. The roads, language barriers, geography, breakdowns, food, security issues, border crossings had both inspired and terrified us. There were arguments and short tempers. Long term travel has a way of exposing the fault lines, and we were no exception to this. We had peered deeply into each other’s souls, and seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I was surprised at how quickly we were consumed by the logistics of simply living on the road, and the difficulty of simple tasks like finding water. In the face of these challenges, it was easy to feel like the goals we had wanted to achieve were evaporating.

As our truck wound its way south along the curves of the road, Daniella and I talked more and more about these things. Slowly, one conversation and mile at a time, we began to peel off the expectations and baggage that we had been carrying about our trip. We began to realize that this trip was a starting point, not an end point in our family’s journey. Caught in the heat of the forge, we had begun to cast off our expectations, open our eyes and let our hearts learn. How this trip has changed us will be something we will only realize years down the road. I smile at the strange irony, that having reached the end of this particular journey, we had really only discovered the start of another one. The frustrations that had been building about the legacy of this trip slowly begin to give way to the optimism of hope for a future where we would discover what this trip had meant to all of us.

It is interesting to reflect that in all of our travels, we were never once asked about the “why” behind our journey by a Latin American person. This was usually the first question we were asked by many people back home. If we had learned something from our South American friends, it was that we may have set out with a bagful of very privileged questions. These friends might tell us that the most important thing about a journey was to open the front door and start. A journey does not need to be justified. Trust the process and see where it leads.

The prospect of a shipwreck tempted us from the paved road, and we turn onto yet another dirt track. This one winds through lonely estancias and groves of southern beech trees, their tops sculpted by the constant wind. We come across an abandoned lighthouse that is slowly subsiding, tilting to one side in a Pisa like fashion. I convince the boys that its safe enough to climb and we clamber our way to the top to look out over the ocean. From the lighthouse we can see the rusting carcass of the Desdemona, beached on the sand. We set up camp at the tideline in front of it and climb our way up through its structure. The ship was carrying a load of Portland cement when it ran aground here on a dark night in the 1970’s. We spend hours climbing through steel ribs, up delicate ship’s ladders and delicately crossing the rusted out steel plate decks. Our steps are tentative and nervous, not sure what will hold and what won’t. In places the plate steel is thick and strong, in others it has rusted to the thinness of an eggshell. In Nathaniel’s words, “a giant case of tetanus just waiting to happen.”

Like many other road ends we have visited, there is a sense of forgottenness here. The modern world has passed this place by, relegating it to the dusty top shelf. It has been left to a handful of subsistence farmers and those who wish to be left alone.  The weather is good to us that night and we retreat to a quiet night of board games in the camper, watching the fading sun throw long shadows from the wreck. The tide has pulled in and surrounds the ship with water, giving her the appearance of floating again. It feels almost like she wants to pull her anchor and move out to sea. 

Contrary to popular opinion, Ushuaia is not the end of the road. Neither is the Bahia Lapitia, the other place most often cited. The precise termination of the longest navigable road on earth lies at the end of a 90 kilometer section of gravel road that stretches south east along the Beagle Channel from the city of Ushuaia. This is the most southerly place you can drive in the world that is connected by road and ferry to the continent. Being committed end of the roaders, there was never any doubt in our minds as to whether or not we would make the extra trek out there.

The road hugs the shores of the Beagle Channel, where the breakers throw great rushes of glass green water on the shore. We drive through groves of trees, where the sheep take shelter. On the hilltops there are herds of Patagonian Criollo horses. These are a special breed that originate from this region. They have the Fuegian wind in their hearts and a rugged sturdiness in their bones. One gaucho we meet tells us he loves them because they are much more soft-tempered than their cousin, the American Quarterhorse. They are beautiful, tossing their uncut manes as they dance in the wind. Soon there is nothing but the road, which continues ever south. Slowly the kilometers tick by, and the mark we made on the far margins of a map back home six years ago draws closer and closer. Daniella is at the wheel. She has done the bulk of the driving and deserves to pilot our dear friend as we push toward the end of our goal. We round the corner, pass through a small gate and enter into the yard of a small naval station. Daniella shifts the truck into park. We have reached the end and there is no more road left to drive. Fin del mundo, the end of the earth.

The door to the naval station opens cautiously, and three young soldiers emerge, sleepy eyed and woken from their naps. They are clearly trying to figure out why there is a group of five gringos hugging and crying in their yard. We ask them to take a picture, and they gladly oblige. We then try to explain the momentous nature of this moment to them, but quickly give up. This is not a moment for words.

A couple of kilometers away there is a flat level gravel bed perched on the beach just above the tideline. We set up camp here. We are all alone and it feels right to be that way. Bundled in our foul weather gear we walk the beach, each picking out a rock that we will bring back home with us. We are a nautical stone’s throw from Antarctica here, and you can feel it. The air has a bite to it, and the light hits snow on the mountains in the distance that never melts. It is a special place.

There is much to celebrate, for the end of the road has not come easy. On our entire trip we have encountered only a handful of families, and none with children our age. We have scrimped and saved for ten years to be able to create space for this trip. We asked much of the people who filled in the work places we left vacant for a year. We pulled the boys out of school and sports and their social lives. Hot, sweaty and confusing border crossings. Never ending driving days. Bitter cold and sweltering heat. Altitude that sucked the energy from our muscles and the air from our lungs. Unknown food and the gastric complaints that accompanied it. The effort required to carry on any sort of conversation or build any sort of relationship with others in a language not our own. The doldrums of waiting while we nursed the Duramax through yet another mechanical relapse. Waves that hammered us and almost washed us out to sea. Storms that almost blew us off the tops of mountains. Fitful sleeps in our tiny home. The perils of conjugating French verbs, home schooling and the tedium of trying to keep a journal up to date. Heated words spoken to each other when patience ran thin, and the deep ache for home that no medicine could cure.

But then there were the good days, when we stood on the summits of mountains and felt like kings. When we watched a volcano explode before our very eyes. When the Milky Way appeared so close it felt as though we could touch it. The small towns and the big cities that we explored and discovered. The campgrounds that felt like a luxury retreat. The camp dogs and cats that showed us immediate, unconditional friendship. Salt flats so searingly white it felt like we had stepped into a different world. Strangers that took us in and made us feel like we were long lost family. Stalking through the Chaco bush with air rifles and fishing trout out of clear Patagonian rivers. Horse rides. Fresh mangoes the size of a volleyball. Crocodile hunts. Shopping in markets for food and that just right trinket. The perfect basketball court in a place we never expected it. Campsites that gave us peace, rest and a view. The landscapes that will stay in our hearts forever. Slow mornings with pancakes and hot coffee. Snuggles in bed and conversation starters at dinner. Family talks and important conversations about almost every topic on earth. Time, time and time. For the first time, more time than we knew what to do with. And we squeezed every last drop out of it. We have felt the hand of God in ways we never did back home. In the protection he granted us and the travelling mercies he bestowed on us each day. In the way He revealed the beauty of His creation to us, mountain by mountain, person by person.

We have prepared an end of the road ritual, the first step of which involves a polar plunge into the ocean. Five years ago we had braved the frigid waters of the Arctic and now we would do the same in the Antarctic waters of the Beagle Channel. Not all of our boys are made for cold water, but they are all brave. We don our swimsuits and pick out our entry point. After the plunge (particular attention is given by our very competitive boys to make sure that everyone was fully submerged) we boast through chattering teeth about how “it wasn’t that bad”.

The warmth of the camper has never felt so good. Here on the most southern shores of the continent, in the face of the biting wind and the deep cold we find a final refuge in the place we have learned to call home. We have asked the boys to each prepare a speech to commemorate the occasion. They have put a surprising amount of thought into their words, crafting them over the course of the last couple of weeks on scraps of paper torn from their journals. As they recite them there are tears in their eyes and in ours.

It has been hard for us to gauge the impact that this trip is having on our boys. They are most vocal about the things that have been making them uncomfortable, and slow to talk about what they are actually seeing or learning. But here on the shores of the tossing ocean we are given a rare glimpse into their hearts. They speak earnestly and there is a seriousness in their eyes. They look beyond the discomfort and difficulty and take stock of the world they have encountered and their place in it. Daniella catches my eye and smiles through her tears. I have a feeling that we are seeing the seeds of something here that has taken root deep down.

Our last ritual is a toast, champagne for the adults and sprite for the boys. Then we bundle up in our beds, emotionally and physically spent. It has been a long day. Through our front window the night stars emerge from a dark sky. Despite the wind and the waves this is a peaceful place and we sleep well. 

The next morning we pack up camp and prepare to hit the road back to Ushuaia. We are all set to go, but in a moment of extreme irony, the engine won’t turn over. The Duramax is being belligerent, telling me that it’s held up its end of the bargain and gotten us to the end of the road. Now it seemed to want a break or an early retirement. I pop the hood and manually prime the fuel pump, hoping the extra fuel pressure will help the injectors fire more quickly. Daniella turns the key and after an agonizing ten seconds the truck rattles it’s frame and shakes reluctantly to life. Before it can change its mind we throw it in gear and head for Ushuaia.

Our time in Ushuaia feels a little anti-climactic, both physically and emotionally. We have run out of good weather, propane and fresh water. The momentum that carried us to the end of the world has been spent, and now we must somehow muster up the courage to get home. Santiago is still several weeks and a few thousand kilometers away. Even the truck is complaining, and the camper needs a new battery. Daniella and I look at the itinerary and chart a course that will get us back north into warmer climates and easier travel.

Ushuaia however, has a few last surprises left for us. We visit the most southerly post office in the world, a small wooden shack on stilts that floats over the sea. Here we mail postcards to loved ones back home. I give the boys a stack of postcards to write, and then laugh when they start writing in the lines intended for the address. They’ve never written a postcard before! The Pan-American has delivered another small learning moment. Ushuaia is a fishing town, and the dockside streets are lined with restaurants serving king crab. We make our way through the doors of El Viejo Marino and order up a pair. Elias was particularly happy that the eating utensils were a pair of large shears. We tuck in, dissecting the giant orange carcasses and wrestling the buttery, hot meat from the shells. We camp on the main street running through town that night, and at midnight car horns are blaring and there is yelling in the streets. The election has been decided. Even here, in the far flung places of the world, politics matters.

We visit the Marine Museum, housed in an old prison. We wander through the old cells, reading the stories of the inmates. Like England did with Australia, Argentina used this remote location as a way to establish a penal colony. There were few guards, and if a prisoner escaped there was not much effort put into their recapture. They usually died or showed up voluntarily within a few weeks. There is no where else to go when you’ve reached the end of the world. Something about the cells feels oddly familiar, and I pace out the dimensions. The cell is the same size as our camper.

The next morning it is time to go. An air of optimism has crept its way back into the hearts of our weary band of travellers. We have done the hard work, we have reached our goal. We did not take the easy way to get here. People say that it’s the journey that counts, but then they jump on a plane. We took a left turn on Main Street in Vancouver and walked every mile of this world on our rubber treads. It has been the single most difficult and rewarding thing we have undertaken. Daniella shifts the truck in drive, and for the first time in a long time, the compass points north. It’s time to go home.