There are places you do not seek. They call you.
Madre de Dios is one of them.
One of the most remote islands in Chilean Patagonia, facing the Pacific Ocean and set within a network of fjords where rain falls almost every day, shaping a landscape that is constantly changing.
Not a point on the map, but an edge, a boundary.
When we decided to leave, our objective was simple: to reach something authentic and remote. Not a point on the map, but an edge, a limit.
The expedition was complex: captains, sailors, specialized guides, researchers from the University of Santiago de Chile. More than ten people, each indispensable. Pacific storms, narrow channels and visibility erased by the wind reminded us every day of how small we were.
I remember writing a simple line in my diary after a long day of navigation:
“From the tunnels of the glacier, flows descend and return to the ocean. It is as if the mountain were breathing.”
I did not imagine that feeling would return so vividly on the day we decided to take to the water in our kayaks.
The boat could go no further.
It was early morning when we reached a narrow bay, carved between dark walls and soft curves shaped by water. The glacier descended toward the sea like a living mass, crossed by crevasses and invisible tunnels. The boat could go no further. The only way to truly enter the landscape was to get into our kayaks.
Entering a glacial inlet by kayak is like crossing a threshold. You no longer feel the distance between yourself and the environment; you become part of the scene. The paddles skim the water with a light sound, while small icebergs move around you, tilting, rotating, opening in silence.
It was like observing a boundary in transformation.
A little further on, the inner tunnels of the glacier released flows of fresh water that slipped into the sea with a slow, deep rhythm. It was like observing a boundary in transformation: the exact point where ice returns to ocean, where solid becomes liquid, where the mountain returns to movement.
In that moment, surrounded by primordial elements, I understood why we were there.
Not to document.
Not to reach a destination.
But to pass through a place where everything exists in a fragile, powerful, uncontaminated balance.
To listen to a nature that offers no handholds, yet gives visions that remain with you.
The ice vibrated, it breathed.
We were surrounded by pinnacles of ice suspended over the water, irregular columns reflecting a shade of blue that is difficult to describe. The ice was not static. It vibrated, changed, breathed.
A little further on, the inner tunnels of the glacier released flows of fresh water that slipped into the sea with a slow, deep rhythm.
It was like observing a boundary in transformation: the exact point where ice returns to ocean, where solid becomes liquid, where the mountain returns to movement.
The silence that marks the passage
This remote island of southwestern Patagonia teaches you this: what is essential does not need words; it needs silence.
That silence marked the entrance into another phase of the journey, toward the glacier front and beyond, where the expedition would find its deepest breath.
In the end, what remains of Madre de Dios is this: the understanding that some places are not crossed, but listened to. They force you to slow down, to face yourself without defenses, to recognize what truly matters.
Gilberto Ferrari