images-12Pategonia’s a land to bemuse and beguile,

The roads stretch before you for mile upon mile,

Vast open spaces, the smallest detail,

A vista that’s brutal and yet somehow quite frail.

Starting at Parallel 42,

There’s the road, the space and an insignificant you.

This is South America’s southern frontier,

Civilisation has not settled here.

This is nature left to its own devices,

Wild, barren, beautiful, no sacrifices.

This is a landscape where no quarter is shown,

You sense the solitude, silence;  feel small, feel alone.

Patagonian Roads

The Patagonian paradox was this: to be here, it helped to be a miniaturist, or else interested in enormous empty spaces. There was no intermediate zone of study. Either the enormity of the desert space, or the sight of a tiny flower. You had to choose between the tiny or the vast.
 
The paradox diverted me. My arrival did not matter. It was the journey that counted.

Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonian Express