Cabo de Hornos or Cape Horn is a maritime legend – the stretch of violent chaotic water between the southernmost tip of South America and Antarctica, the site of countless shipwrecks until the Panama Canal opened in 1914. Usually plagued by high winds and huge waves, we lucked out on a relatively calm early morning hike to the monument that is a silouette of the albatross. Here is the poem that goes with it:

I am the albatross that awaits you
At the end of the world.
I am the forgotten souls of dead mariners
Who passed Cape Horn
From all the oceans of the world.
But they did not die
In the furious waves.
Today they sail on my wings
Toward eternity,
In the last crack
Of the Antarctic winds.

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