Patagonian Sky

Chapter 11
Patagonian Sky
The road signs said we were on Ruta del Fin de Mundo, the End of the World Route. We reached the entrance to Torres del Paine National Park, and I could already see the massive granite towers in the distance.

Not long after entering the park, we came across a mother puma playing with her two cubs in the tall, dry grass. As we watched them from the road, a van pulled up beside us. An older, heavyset man wearing flip-flops and shorts hopped out.

"Hi, my name’s Tom," he said, with an accent that sounded like he was from Alabama. "This is my wife and two daughters. That’s Olivia, and that’s Emily.”

Andrea and I both said “Hi” in unison.

Tom walked towards me, then looked down and noticed my license plate.

"You drove that thing here?" he asked.

“Yeah, all the way from Kentucky,” I replied, sheepishly grinning.

"Is that right? Cool," he said.

His response made me realize, for the first time, just how far from home I really was.

Andrea and I explored the park over the next few days, but our time was short. Her return flight was already booked out of Ushuaia, Argentina. Again, we were on the road and heading south. It was raining as we rolled into Punta Arenas, a town made of concrete and metal, built to survive the wind and the cold. We opted to spend some money on a warm room and a hot shower. Andrea booked us a night at Palacio Sara Braun, a French-inspired stone and glass palace with twenty-foot ceilings, ornate moldings, and a massive bed. It was a dramatic change from sleeping in the back of the truck.

The next morning was a cold, foggy as we boarded the ferry crossing the Strait of Magellan. The waters were choppy enough that I had to steady myself with my hand against the wall while moving around the boat. Andrea sat outside and fought the wind, hoping for a glimpse of a whale or dolphin, but saw nothing. Two hours later we drove off the ferry in Porvenir and took the sandy, less-traveled coast road toward Argentina. Before long, we reached the border crossing at San Sebastián, a small village nestled along the Atlantic Ocean. From there, we climbed up and over the slushy Paso Garibaldi before dropping down into our destination, Ushuaia. We had reached the “End of the World.” But in reality, it was just the end of the asphalt, the end of the Pan-American Highway, and the end of Andrea’s journey. Her flight home was the next day.

I dropped Andrea off at the Ushuaia airport and became a solo traveler once again.

The following afternoon, I dropped Andrea off at the Ushuaia airport and became a solo traveler once again. Now, I had to figure out how to get both myself and my truck back to Kentucky. Based on recommendations from other travelers, I contacted a shipping company in Montevideo, Uruguay. They agreed to arrange transport for the truck back to the United States. This meant adding 2,000 miles and a new country to my trip. At first, the idea of heading all the way to Uruguay seemed like a ridiculous detour, but it was by far my best option.

It took five long days to drive to the Port of Montevideo. The landscape blurred as I focused solely on getting there quickly and safely. When I arrived, I felt a mix of relief and unease. The truck would be strapped into a container and shipped off to Houston, Texas, where I would eventually be reunited with it. But for now, I had to trust the process. I handed over the keys, packed everything I thought I needed into a backpack, and walked into town to find a hotel for the night. I flew back to Kentucky later that week. It would be three months before the truck arrived in the United States.

I returned to the familiarity of life back home. People asked me how the trip went. They’d ask, "Was it worth it?" To be honest, I felt incomplete. I couldn’t shake the fact that I hadn’t finished the entire Pan-American Highway. Back in 2019, when I was in Alaska in the bus, I turned around just after crossing the Arctic Circle. I hadn’t completed the stretch of the highway that ends in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It bothered me, like a missing piece in an otherwise completed puzzle. After just a few weeks at home, I was already planning my return to Alaska.

37,604 miles and counting