We savor our hikes in and around Torres del Paine National Park, one of the world’s most stunning array of mountains. The great traveler Lazlo Mecir found himself at a near loss in the silent presence of these skyrocketing peaks. He called them “insanely spindly exclamation marks and huge rocky thoughts, sitting out there to be read somehow.” We explore stately and cosmopolitan Santiago, a bustling yet charming city, and we roam the salubrious wine country of the Casablanca Valley. We meander through the enchantments of the Lake District, which contains some of the earth’s finest alpine scenery, complete with searingly cobalt lakes and piercingly emerald forests, set amidst glacier-capped volcanic cones. Jan Morris called Puerto Montt, the region’s gateway, “a sort of volcanic Norway set on a South Pacific shore.” And we voyage through the Strait of Magellan toward the southern tip of the Americas, the last landfall before the Drake Passage and the waters of Antarctica.