Locating Patagonia

It happened one day in September 2021 on Cudjoe Key that my neighbor asked me where I was going as I loaded the van in preparation for a retirement on the road.“Patagonia” I said shortly, my arms filled with crap for the dump. Silence.

“Pasta…what? Where’s that?” He. had no idea what I    was    talking about.

Wow I thought to myself I guess not everyone loves geography like I do. What a dumb ass. But pride comes before a Fall as any Sunday school teacher will instruct you and here we are in Southern Chile and I have no clue exactly where Patagonia is or might be.

We drove south from Villa Baviera thinking about taking an early day and stopping for an afternoon of lounging and reading. 

The PanAmerican was looking good under the clear blue sky and even though the air was fresh and cool, and blowing pretty hard, the sunshine illuminated the day with bright colors. I was enjoying driving. 

We drove off the main road a couple of times looking for a campsite.

The trouble with traveling right now is that no one is open.  The season doesn’t start till December, full summer vacation time and they weren’t ready for us.

We went looking but even the gas station rest  area   in   iOverlander didn’t  look   appealing  with tight parking and  lots  of  trucks.  Back roads led nowhere useful. We were stumped.

You wouldn’t think it would be that hard but we call ourselves Team Lost for a reason. We couldn’t find a campground to save our lives. But Patagonia, we couldn’t find an entire region of South America? Fabled land of ostriches and strong winds and mighty glaciers? Nope. No idea where it is.

Google is no help even though you see the clearly marked map above. Patagonia supposedly starts at the Rio Negro in Argentina. Or the Rio Barrancas. Or the Rio Colorado. Possibly. Or somewhere south of Mendoza. Tierra Del Fuego may be in Patagonia. Or not. But we are in Chile and all bets are off because Patagonia doesn’t extend across the Andes to Chile. Or if it does only south of Puerto Montt.

It felt like we were getting close to the end of the PanAmerican Highway at last, but if we were getting close to Patagonia we didn’t know it.  

Possibly  the  Lake District of Chile where we are now in Pucón is Patagonia according to some experts. 

Or maybe not. Some people say Patagonia starts south of Temuco which we drove past yesterday. Buggered if I have a clue, but we will keep going south until…we find Patagonia. This is Villarica thus possibly in Patagonia but certainly in the Lake District of Chile. 

And there’s a volcano too, wrecking the image I had in my head of Michigan in the summer represented by the waterfront, the greenery and the lake. 

Saturday afternoon was a good time to go out on the black volcanic sand beach apparently. Even in Spring the weekend brings out the beach goers in Patagonia. If this is Patagonia. 

The countryside is beautiful too but I never saw a big sign saying “Patagonia.”  

It was windy which is a hallmark of Patagonia. 

I do know Chile is lovely and easy and expensive and people are very kind at least until you ask them if they know where Patagonia is. Then they get shifty and anxious and change the subject. It was windy yesterday and sunny and bright after a cold night. That must be Patagonia.

My neighbor on Cudjoe would be laughing at the idiot next door driving off he knew not where. But wait, there’s another problem. I keep thinking we are getting close to the end of the PanAmerican Highway. Everyone knows it starts (or ends) on the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay. 

After that it’s a mess especially as Canada and the US don’t acknowledge any such highway on their turf. But down here at the bottom it’s equally confused.

After we drive back to the US we’ll go to Alaska but I’m not sure we’ll be wanting to drive hundreds of miles of gravel to get to the Arctic Ocean.  We don’t have to prove anything but even at this end we can’t prove anything as this end of the damned thing is equally confused. 

I had thought it ended at Ushuaia but technically it doesn’t as Highway 3 does. And Argentina Highway 40 is the famous road across all of Argentina from Bolivia to the bottom of the continent but it’s not the PanAmerican. 

However it turns out the PanAmerican doesn’t end in Puerto Montt as I had thought. Now we are 200 miles away I discover it ends a hundred miles further south at the bottom end of Isla Chiloe which we had planned to visit anyway as they say the island is gorgeous. 

In the end all these boundaries and markers don’t mean as much as just being here. Wherever we go, whatever we reach, whatever they call it we drove here and didn’t lose our minds. Ushuaia the actual end of the continent is probably a month away but we are in the final stretch. Wherever we actually are.