by Andrew Morrison | One of my dreams is to take our modified Westy way down south to explore the Patagonia region of South America. I’ve read Bruce Chatwin’s captivating 1977 travel book, In Patagonia, several times…

I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.

I’ve also been teased to the point of frustration by the blog Our Open Road. Penned by a young family of four, it details their 600+ day adventure from California to Tierra del Fuego and back in the exact same van as ours. And by “exact same” I mean the same make, model, year, and colour. Our two vans have also undergone many of the same GoWesty modifications. It’s uncanny.

Anyway, the Chatwin-esque landscapes I see in my mind’s eye when dreaming of such a trip are the ones I saw in this Design Boom post about the Awasi Patagonia, a Relais & Chateaux retreat in Chile. It’s where I would want to stay and decompress for a week after a month or two of camping.

Beautifully designed by Santiago’s Felipe Assadi Architects, it’s a complex of twelve guest lodges that are distributed on a hillside overlooking pampas, the Torres del Paine mountains, and Lake Sarmiento. Clad in local beechwood (“lengo”), they are connected by walkways to a main building, which contains a lobby, communal space, and restaurant. All photos by Fernando Alda.

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