Skin of my Teeth / Teeth of Navarino

Sliding down a snow bank hiding the trail, we decide it´s time to turn back. Its only 4 hours into the 4 day `los Dientes de Navarino´ trek and we´re already lost. All is white at this point; clouds and snow intersecting on a seamless horizon, masking any clue of where we are or where we are trying to hike. The spectacular views the guidebook promised are here somewhere, but not for us; not today. So after a long descent and an expensive ´hostal´I decide its time to fly out of this place that has been one setback after another. I try the airline agency around 9:45 in the morning, and they are closed, like everything in this small impoverished community. Puerto Willams, a town of many stores but no consumers, meaning the doors remain shuttered except for small windows of time around lunch and dinner. I pass my hostel host and he tells me the airline opens at 10 or 10:30, apparently whenever the workers want to arrive. Luckily it is near Christmas, and many people are air-mailing gifts, so the store is open when I come back at 10:20. A flight leaves at 11 am I´m told, and there is a last minute cancellation which means I´m golden. All flights tomorrow are booked solid.

How did I get here? Although Ushuaia is the more popular end of the world, Puerto Williams across the border in Chile is a little further south and feels immediatly like the real end of the world. The customs office has cows laying in the yard. Riding into town I shared a bag of chips with the woman who stamped my passport. Later I will ride to the airport with the guy who sold me my ticket (who also takes my ticket at the airport) and the guy who will load my luggage on the plane; we have to stop at his home to get fuel for the baggage car. Cows, pigs, and horses roam free everywhere. The ¨information center¨is a choice between two restaurants open at lunch and dinner only. A waitress calls the ferry center and tells me that the boat leaving for Punta Arenas saturday is booked solid, and the next boat leaves December 28th; apparently my reservation has fallen through. This is an isolated place, physically and mentally-- at least for me. For the first time I feel small and doubt why I´m here. The people are reserved or shy; they know everyone here, and they don´t know me. Sometimes it takes straying from the beaten path to remind you just how far from home you are.