Twenty years ago I had a plan of driving the Pan-American Highway to Tierra del Fuego in my F-250 which had already been to the northern terminus in Prudhoe Bay.
At the time, the passage through parts of Columbia and Ecuador were a bit perilous. The road was, at places, only a trail passable by motor cycle or bike and infested with criminals. The safe alternative route was to use an ocean ferry to get around those areas.
In one of my trips on the Dalton Highway, which is an unofficial extension of the Alaskan Highway and the Pan-American Highway, I met a gentleman who was in his 60's. He was only a couple hundred miles south of Prudhoe Bay, the terminus. He was heading north---and had begun in Tierra del Fuego. I forget now how long he had been on his journey but he seemed almost sad that it was going to end soon. He had been robbed multiple times in Columbia by highway pirates but his spirit remained undaunted.
I also, on another trip, met two young men in Washington who had just picked up their custom Unimog in Seattle and were beginning their trip north to Prudhoe where they would begin their "official" trip to Terra del Fuego. They were both Swiss and in their mid twenties. Obviously, there was a rich Daddy in the mix! I was, frankly, envious of what they were about to do. I saw them again about a week latter as they started up the Dalton and they were even more excited than they had been in Seattle, I think the reality of their adventure was converting from a dream to reality---good for them. I am sure by this time they are telling their children of that trip
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis