It was one of those deep, dark, velvety, southern-hemisphere nights, the kind where the sky goes black and opens like a flower, and you wonder how there could possibly be so many stars.

Then you wonder how you can see the stars anyway, with the headlights so bright, and realize those are not stars at all: They’re the lights of the lodge, twinkling on the hillside as the drive wends its way up through the trees.

At the end of a day that began before dawn in the hills of Patagonia, and led here through six hours of driving, two airline flights, a six-hour layover in Buenos Aires, and four visits to the Argentine police to clear guns, arrival at midnight is a blessed relief.

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