Breathe
By Edmée Pardo
I went to Chilean Patagonia which in travel time is far, far, far away. An 8 hour flight to Santiago, then a 6 hour flight to Punta Arenas, plus a 3 hour truck ride to Puerto Natales. It is almost the tail end of the world because even further down is Puerto Williams which is the last place where ships leave for Antarctica. I was carrying a 10-day suitcase weighing 12.4 kilograms, armed with the logic of the layering system. Clothes that you can put one over the other or take off in the same direction depending on the ambient temperature, since in those places all the seasons of the year occur during the same day. I went to fill my eyes with snow-capped mountains, steppes and pampas that only experts can distinguish by the color and length of the grass, glaciers and lenga forests, and the sympathy of the guanacos. The pretext was to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday.
