My First Time in Patagonia

Childhood photos ahead!

When I was nine, when my family was living in Chile, we went on a three-week road trip, driving as far south as we could manage. That was the first time I was awestruck by Patagonia.

My parents were linguists working on a literacy project with the indigenous Mapuche, and since they were missionaries, we didn’t have a lot of money to spare. But we loved exploring different parts of Chile. We regularly did family camping trips to the beach or the mountains, on weekends or during the summer—but the Patagonia trip definitely stands out in my memory and in our family lore.

My brother, Jonathan, and me during the Patagonia trip. I think we’re standing next to a petrified tree. And yes, these were the days before digital cameras, when we used actual film and could only hope the photo was focused on the right thing.

We drove through forests and wilderness, crossed the Andes, and stayed in frontier towns that looked like something out of a cartoon of the Wild West. We had an approximate goal of how far to travel each day, but there were a few stretches where towns with gas and lodgings were sparse, with many miles of empty roads in between. Sometimes we had to stop in a town that was smaller than we would have liked, to avoid driving into the night on roads that were unfamiliar, poorly lit, and with infrequent passers-by. Sometimes in these smaller towns, there was just the one “hotel” and we had to take it, regardless of quality.

Here’s the approximate route we traveled: a distance of more than 1500 miles. It definitely took us more than 32 hours of driving. We started and ended in Chile, but much of Chile’s southernmost region isn’t connected by roads, so you have to drive through Argentina—or take a ferry, like we did on the way back.

The most memorable place we stayed was one of those wouldn’t-have-chosen-this hotels. We grumbled about sharing the bathroom on the hall with (potential) other guests and about how cold the room was and about how thin and lumpy the mattress was over the hard platform of the bed we would have to share. “Definitely a hole-in-the-wall,” was my mom’s assessment, which was probably the reason it wasn’t even listed in her guidebook.

And then we noticed the painting on the wall, which felt out of place with the rest of the rustic decor and was hung in an unexpected spot. We puzzled over it, and then my brother lifted the painting—to reveal a cutout in the wall: a pass-through open to the hallway.