Puerto Natales is a small and colorful riverside town in Southern Chile. It is surrounded, like most of Patagonia, with cloud enshrouded mountains of blue and purple all dressed with glaciers. The river is quiet, sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, and its color mirrors the color of the day. Gunmetal in the morning, denim in the afternoon, and sometimes indigo, maybe even burgundy during the sunset.

I arrived in Chile two days ago; I’m in town for the famous Parque Nacional Torres del Paine just two hours away.

I wandered around this town, and walked into a riverside hostel and café, Concepto Indigo, that had an artificial climbing wall built onto the dull, gray shingles outside. Inside I found a quirky, comfortable décor with large windows looking out onto the river, walls paneled with saw cut logs, Asian paper lanterns hanging from the mustard ceiling, and lots of bright, local artwork. They had a Jenga game on the counter. They had candles and plants and antiques. Dave Matthews’ first album was on the stereo, the menu was full of vegetarian food, two computers were stuck in the corner, banana bread was in the pantry, and they had a wall-mounted magazine rack literally full of old back issues from Rock and Ice and Climbing - and even a couple new motorcycle mags floating around.

Short of Adriana Lima tending bar, the place was perfect.

I think they are either going to file a restraining order to evict me or I’ll have to buy the place outright.

As Chile isn’t blessed (cursed?) with the same phenomenal exchange rate as Argentina, I’m not sure I can afford too many more of those veggies sandwiches – the sandwiches that come complete with heart of palm, avocado, and a fresh, tangy mayo. Dammit, now I need another.

Puerto Natales reminds me a little of the Pacific Northwest. The town is filled with rusty tin and battered aluminum structures, the buildings are decorated brightly with shades of red and blue, and the air has that salty, pungent taste of both life and death from the water. It’s loaded with fun and funky little taverns and cafes. Puerto Natales definitely seems more artistic and stylish than the dusty tourist towns of their Argentine neighbors, but it also seems less fashionable. And I mean this in a good way. In much the same way that LA is more fashionable than San Francisco, but San Fran just has way more style. If this makes any sense to you at all.

I am still traveling alone, but alone is rarely as lonely as it sounds.

In virtually every stop I have met someone. Although I still eat a few too many meals alone, I’m not drinking alone, and conversation isn’t hard to find.

I have met two medical students from San Antonio, a honeymooning couple from Kentucky, and one fellow backpacker from DC. I also met a snowboard instructor and climber expat living in Chile. Note to self. Keep Ryan in your Rolodex. I have met no less than a dozen Israelis, at least five Dutch, and a whole slew of Aussies, Canadians, Germans and Brits. What doesn’t make sense to me is why I have only run into six Americans on this trip. Well, it makes sense, but it disappoints me. Despite our famously vagabond history, and all our perceived mobility and bravado about exploration and freedom and the call of the open road, Americans, for the most part, have become lousy travelers. Too many of us too content with a beige life in a beige house in a beige neighborhood with beige neighbors. Unless it comes complete with a concession stand and corporate sponsorship, we don’t seem willing to venture out beyond our collective comfort zones. We went from frontiersmen to Frontier Land. Disney even added an extension to their suburban SoCal monstrosity, called California Adventure. A theme park based on California for people already in California. I can’t wait for New York, the ride. Complete with simulated muggings in Central Park.

Sorry. I digress. Again.

It disappoints me because Patagonia is possibly the most diverse and rewarding countryside I have ever seen. It’s wide and uncluttered and despite all the usual conveniences of society that make living and traveling here relatively simple, it still retains a frontier flavor. The land doesn’t feel tamed and divided under grid of roads and fences and power lines. It is virtually impossible to go anywhere, even across the endless, yellow expanse of the steppe without seeing something beautiful. And when the light is right, usually just before dusk, Patagonia glows. The grass becomes gold, the mountains glisten from the glaciers catching the light and tossing it back toward the valleys and shimmering lakes and rivers. It turns the mountain into a lantern illuminating the land high above the dusty road you are rolling down. And with the winds that roar across the continent from every direction, the clouds form in complex layers, swirling and billowing up around and into each other. I’ve never seen skies like this.

In short, I’ve never visited anywhere better.

I was walking back to the Hosteria Oasis, a basic, relatively quiet guesthouse filled with tacky furniture and figurines and such when I saw a familiar lip ring flash from a diner in a restaurant window. For the third time in the third town in the second country I ran into Paddy and Amy. I surprised them at dinner, they invited me to sit down, and we ate and finished off a bottle of wine that I still owed them from El Bolson.

It seems, however, that this will be the last chance encounter for us, as they had just finished three days in the park, and I was just arriving. They were heading north again, and I was just days away from heading south. So unless I extend this trip of just happen to bounce into them again in Buenos Aires or Uruguay, my good friends from across the pond are finally free of that bald annoyance who keeps drinking their wine and interrupting romantic dinners.

But this is how it goes. Travelers travel. It’s expected, and the relationships and friendships made on the road are, much like the places you are visiting, frequently fascinating but tragically temporary. But like most journeys, you can never be sure where those paths are really going and just when they might cross again. I have seen Hans from Sweden twice now. Russell and Lisa from Canada all across Patagonia now. Walter from Denmark three times in three cities. Maya, the nurse from Switzerland was my roommate in Calafate. We saw each other first in Chalten, then on the trail in Paine, and just shared a drink in Concepto Indigo when she walked in for a coffee. Doris from Munich and her father Ernesto saw me countless times in Chalten, Calafate, and we are supposedly to be in Ushuaia on the same day. There’s Rob the Chemical Engineer from Alberta, Melisa the tour agent in Chalten. Martin in Bariloche. Mailen and Maribel in El Bolson. Ivan from Buenos Aires, Amil from Israel, Paula, the manager of Concepto Indigo, Victor from Mochilero, and the dozens of others whose names I never learned or won’t ever remember. They are the faces and stories that have shared this adventure, even if only briefly. The people I have met and met again along my way in just this first, short month of a trip so far from home – a trip that sometimes feels more familiar than home ever did.