Kilometre Zero

The Carretera Austral is not really one road. It is a series of roads with water in between, and the water is on a timetable.

We learned this at La Arena at seven in the morning, in a queue of four cars, two trucks and a man with a horse trailer who had clearly done this every week of his life. The crossing takes half an hour. The next one, further south, takes five hours and you book it weeks ahead or you don't go.

Hornopirén by evening: volcano behind, fjord in front, and a hospedaje where the owner asked how far we were going and then laughed in a way I'd think about for the next fortnight.