For the second time after the Machu Picchu Inca Jungle Trail, I leave almost all my luggage behind. Five kilograms instead of 40 feels like a lot more than minus 35. I’ve dragged a good 25kg of kite material behind me for just 12 days on the water over more than 12,000 kilometres. Clearly too much. The journey may end without kiting in front of calving glaciers. But not with just 12 days on the water!
In the very south of Chiloé lies the small town of Quellon. From here, a ferry runs to several harbours on remote islands and the mainland in southern Patagonia. The Naviera Austral was only opened to tourists last year and, at €30 for 24 hours, is the only cheap ferry in the region. The large tourist ferries easily cost three times as much.
The sea rages at night. Swells of three to four metres beat against the broadside in icy winds and rain. The spray splashes up to the fourth deck. Some super monster rubbish is on the on-board TV. As the ferry rolls heavily, I dream that Godzilla is diving underneath us. I wake up in a slight panic. The backpacker four seats to my right looks like Celine Dion. Panic intensifies.
I reach the southern point of my journey early in the morning at dusk. As the crow flies, it’s another 1,000 kilometres to Tierra del Fuego and a good 2,500 kilometres to Antarctica. I’m further south than New Zealand or Cape Town. Puerto Cisnes sleeps in fog and rain at kilometre 12,248 of the journey in a piercingly cold morning wind. Apart from a few misty forests, it is the only thing I see on the whole journey in permanent white and grey.
From now on I’m heading back home. I still don’t know where the next journey will take me. But one thing is certain: from bar to board to sea, a maximum of 50 metres is tolerated. Accompanied by weeks of excessive non-movement.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.