This journey has facets, legs and branches. For me it is an emotional expedition as well as a three dimensional one. I am trying to get as far south as I can, to the bottom of the world, to the bottom of my mind and to practice how to travel with ghosts. My traveling partner and I connected at the departure gate at the Dallas-Fort worth Airport. She in her chair and I carrying a pack that must have been thirty pounds or more on my back. Our mutual destination—Santiago, Chile, sub-Antarctica, Patagonia and around Cape Horn to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The big question is will we actually go around the Horn or will the weather be too bad and cause our ship to go through the Straights of Magellan instead?

In Santiago, the airport, we are met by our guide to be, Mark, and taken to the Marriott Hotel where we wait until our room is ready and then freshen up. Off we go on a tour of Santiago’s business and political centers and lunch. I started my day of March 14th at about 5:30 PM take off, flying to Dallas Fort Worth. The length of the flight to was to Dallas, about 2 hours and the flight to Santiago about an 8 or 9 hour marathon in a packed plane where we tried to sleep (with our seats “back” a whole inch, with little success. I was dead on my feet and Cheryl, on her butt. Time for us to hole up, have room service and sleep, which we did. Sunday, a free day, found us spending money at a Lapis Lazuli shop. Otherwise we hung out at the hotel with Cheryl in bed, her legs in two large and long vacuum chambers that forced blood from her feet and ankles to bring down the swelling there. We did, however, get a tour around the city and landed at the central market’s fish market and had lunch in one of the many restaurants in the center of that market.