The Last Resort

Patagonia was my last resort. I had been dreaming about it as one of the furthest destinations to visit, and I did not know why!

I departed from New York City on the last day of August 2019. A friend of mine and I took a low-cost flight to a local airport near the city of Bariloche; then we took the rental car to drive all the way to a town near the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. It was a 1025 km road trip. Two full days in the car. Patagonia was not green. At least, the Argentinian part was very plain and flat. Long roads and very few cars passed by from time to time. Where the hell was it here? I knew there was something in this boredom, calmness, and vastness, but I did not understand what it was until the last night. 

After about a week of visiting mountains, lagoons, and glaciers, we drove back. On the last night, when it was getting dark, we started getting worried about running out of gas, so we stopped and found a big traffic sign to park next to. “Is it safe enough here?” we asked ourselves. There was no other choice. We stayed and turned off the engine. The car became silent. We became silent. The world was silent. The sky was all over us and watched our tininess. Our nothingness! Patagonia was kind, vast, and observant, and we were safe. That night, in one of the furthest destinations I have ever traveled to, in the middle of nowhere, I felt the safest moments of my life. 

September 2019

(Having visited Patagonia a second time in spring 2022, I view this story as a long term endeavor)