Magda had to leave me in Recife. A job came up in New York that was too lucrative to pass on so we started figuring out a place for me to make camp while she broke the continuity of the trip and went home. I might not have chosen Recifé, even knowing what I know now …

“Es en Fuego” I said to the man sitting outside of his restaurant. He was splayed out in a plastic chair, enjoying his siesta and I was a wandering gringo, rudely interrupting. “What?” He said in abrupt English. “Where do you want to go?” I tried again. “La Fuego?” He was losing his patience when …

Puerto Natales looked like a smaller more panoramically located version of Punto Arenas. The panorama consisted of a wide azure inlet from the Pacific surrounded by a curtain of dramatic snow-capped mountains – the southern tail of the Andes chain. As we’re now used to, the sun still stubbornly skimmed the horizon though our arrival …