What lies at the end of the world?

Photo Credit: Patricia Angoy

There are countries you pass through, countries on your bucket list to visit, countries so far away that you cannot reach them during your lifetime and others that don’t allow you to visit. There are countries that are an easy train ride away and others that require crossing several time zones and weather changes to finally get there. There are countries where the language and customs are familiar and others where you can’t figure out the characters, don’t know the directionality in order to read them if you could, and still others where it is hard to distinguish one sound from another. 

There are countries that we go south to or others that were we turn the maps upside down in order to view them through different eyes; the eyes of those who fly high in the air where a south-up orientation affords a different world view. Would Chile then be at the top of the world or would it remain in our mind’s eye somewhere else?

A few weeks ago, I embarked on a long journey from chilly Luxembourg to an even chillier and windier Patagonia; Puerto Rio Tranquilo to be exact. I travelled by many kinds of motor vehicles and finally ventured out on the 1,850 square kilometres of the General Carrera Lake on a small outboard motor boat, wrapped in umpteen layers of clothes, and a bright orange life-jacket. My three-hour journey on with water with four other passengers, together with the captain and a guide, brought me to the most amazing marble caves some 3000 years old. This is young marble is partially submerged in pristine aquamarine waters. The tenuous sunlight of late spring reveals a myriad of colours within the layered and undulating rock, produced through thousands of years of compression and expansion, tinted with minerals from the melting glaciers nearby and the huge thunderous rives in the area. 

I had time, out on this wide expanse of water, to contemplate my good fortune. To witness this natural beauty, to be reminded of what brought me to this long thin country during the darkest years of Pinochet’s dictatorship and to be blessed with friends that have accompanied me for over 40 years, and others more recent in my life; all these thoughts came flooding into my mind. These women and men are an eclectic group, scattered in and around Santiago. From Molina to Valparaiso, from Estación Central to La Dehesa and everywhere in between. Those from monied families and those who live from pay check to pay check. Those who own their own homes and others scattered around the country, to others who eke out a living, only enough to pay the rent, and for yet others, someone else pays their rent.  All close, dear friends whose religions, political persuasions, states of health and ages are widely different but each one has remained constant in my life. 

This time, I decided to share a meal with all of them; some in their homes, others in restaurants, some alone, just the two of us and others at a large gathering where we shared our dishes, laughing and catching up on news of our extended families. I also had the good fortune to encounter a dear friend in a park near her home, wearing a mask to protect her from all that could affect her recent transplant. We embraced briefly and were grateful for the moments spent in the open air, together but apart. 

Chile may lie at the end of the world, which-ever way you look at it, but it remains a huge part of my life because it is where I was received with open arms when times were tough. I grew as a young mother, a professional and a compañera. I learned to take elevenses or onces at 6pm, to drink good wine and make pisco sours. I became a vegetarian in a meat- eating land of Sunday barbeques. I still love to savour Chile’s many national dishes made with corn, pebre from ripe tomatoes, hot peppers, onions and cilantro. I enjoy maraquetas, double rolls of fresh bread, sopaipillas made from pumpkin and borgoña in the summer, a red wine punch with ripe strawberries. Mote con huesillo, empanadas, peaches where the juice runs down my hand, almost to my elbow, and candle light chats late at night in the Santiago heat of summer. 

What really lies at the end of the world for me are my friends; my Chilean friends to whom I will be eternally grateful. Despite the great distance that separates us, your care and love have comforted me over the these decades and have helped me through this life so far – full of adventure. I wonder who lies at the end of your world?