This Is A Long One

Oh, friends! It has been quite a week. I don´t know how I am going to keep up with this blog now that I´m on the road! It´s like getting around to calling that friend that you haven´t talked to in months and that you wanna talk to but you know is going to use at least 1.5 hours of your time up (at least if you´re a talker like meeee).

I don´t want to get in the habit of copying my (edited) journal entries for you, though. They´re a bit raw. So I will do some copying and pasting and filling in.

So...

Monday was an incredible day in Chalten. I got on the trail to Laguna de los Tres around 10:30 AM, and it was an ideal day for a hike - crisp with warm sun and blue skies. The first two hours weren´t particular difficult - quite pleasant, actually, with amazing views of Fitz Roy. Apparently, most days, it´s impossible to see the very tippity top of Fitz Roy because there´s usually one annoying little cloud hanging over it, but I could see it! It´s quite a sight.

Passed by several huge campgrounds, swamped with people. Not sure what´s so very fun about camping amongst 300 other campers, but I am not a professional like these folks clearly were. Some of these "serious" trekkers can be real assholes, I have to say. I´d walk by people, say hello, and not even get eye contact from them. It´s just a hike, people. They were giving me looks like I was an idiot for hiking in my jeans and sweatshirt - like I am the tourist because I don´t have the real gear, but they, THEY own the mountains because all their clothing is gore-tex and "breathable". Just a day hike. Let´s not take ourselves so seriously. Seriously.

It was about 3.5 hours one way, and the last hour was a steep climb. The wind was blowing like crazy! It´s both terrifying and utterly exhilarating to be climbing up a mountain and be just about an inch from being blown right off. But I was in high spirits as I passed up the huge group of older Americans plodding up in their fancy gear.

The trail takes you right up to this beautiful turquoise lake that sits right at the foot of the glacier that creeps down from Fitz Roy. "Marvilloso!" a woman exclaimed, as the peak came into full view. And it really was. Marvelous. I´ll try to get pics up tomorrow.

I sat on a nice flat rock, enjoying my much deserved lunch and basking in the sunshine and stunning scenery. After lunch, I took the trail right up to the lake, where I found that group of older Americans. Chatted with them for a bit, had someone take my photo, yada yada. "Good for you" everyone says when I say I´m traveling alone. Coming from folks who are older than me and know more about life, I´ll take those words as a sign that I´m doing something right.

The hike back to Chalten was difficult, mostly just mentally. My little pinky toes were killing me, so when I had about 1.5 hours left, I laid down on a sunny rock by the river and took a little 30 minute recreo (of course, stopping only makes starting back up that much worse).

I headed straight for the cervezeria when I got back. Do not shower. Do not pass go. I was planning to just have one beer, journal, cool my heels, but then Ian and Helen, from Scotland, joined me at my table. Fell into a long conversation with them, which turned into more drinks, lots of popcorn, then a tostada with bacon (yum! bacon is sooooo rare here) and a brownie sundae. So much for that calorie burning hike! It was a great evening - a perfect end to a very hard but rewarding day, and I crashed into bed that night (literally - smacked my head quite hard on the bunk above me getting in).

Tuesday was cloudy and a bit rainy, which worked out well because my body was hurting after two long days of hiking, and I needed a day off.

Enjoyed a long, leisurely breakfast at the hostel that morning. I just love breakfast here. Coffee with milk, warm croissants, staring out at the mountains and the river. An ideal way to start a day. Surely I can have this in the states, too? Instead of - slurping down a bowl of instant oatmeal while standing over the kitchen counter and sucking down overly strong coffee while eyes glaze over at the computer. Surely.

Anyway, Tuesday I went out to Lago del Desierto. My Lonely Planet said it was a good rainy day activity, and you know, I believe everything they say. So a little van took me out in the rain to this lago, about a 1.5 hour drive, where we then got on a boat for another couple hours. In the rain. I wouldn´t call it big fun, but it was relaxing. Suited my rainy day mood. The lake, as all lakes here, was bright turquoise. I wonder what causes these colors. Stunning, but a very sharp contrast against the greens of the surrounding forest. Quite a clash, really. Amazing what colors come striaght out of nature.

When I arrived back at the hostel around 9 PM, I was greeted by Oliver, a 22 year old Colorado guy who I´d met earlier in the day. "What´s for dinner?" he said. When I replied probably pasta, he said, "Well, Hayden here is cooking up some lamb and potatoes, so maybe you should go buy yourself some meat and join us?" Porque no? I said. My new motto.

There were seven of us for dinner - Hayden´s from Oregon but is traveling with two San Francisco guys he meet along the way, Justin and Andrew. Then Celia from Australia, Sarah from London, me and Oliver. Quite a feast. I suppose Hayden fancies himself to be something of a chef, as he described the lamb sauce as being a "wine reduction" something or other. Por favor. The lamb was delicious, but the sauce was a really funky purple color. Sarah and I snickered as our plates were placed before us.

The majority of this group had been traveling together for a few days, and I felt a bit out of place. Outside of the inside jokes. The SF guys were nice enough, but I felt like I´d suddenly walked into a frat party. Let´s put on our coolest selves, people. Let´s tell our funniest jokes. Blahhhhh.

I put on my I feel like an outsider self, which people love. (I can just hear Kathryn saying "palms open, smile with your teeth showing!") No, it really wasn´t that way at all, but some people just make me feel uneasy right off the bat. I don´t know what it is - strong personalities, maybe. People that need to own a conversation. Just makes me want to hide inside myself like a mute.

Anyway, it was a fun night, more or less. Mas o menos. Another favorite phrase.

Oliver was quite a character, in the end. I think he´s lost. Not all those who wander are lost, as someone says. I´m not lost, for example. I feel mostly found. But Oliver is lost. The more I heard about his previous months traveling, the clearer it became that he stays high on something or other at all times. He talked about buying acid off the street in Bariloche like it was this thing he did every day. Really? On your trip to South America? How do you process anything that way? I guess that´s the point. You don´t want to process. There´s something in that head of yours you want to go away.

He went off on this tirade about Israeli travelers to Neal and me, which turned into a very awkward conversation. "Why are there more Israeli travelers than American travelers?" I give up. "Because nobody wants to be in Israel." Was I supposed to laugh? I´m sorry. I missed something. I didn´t get it. According to Oliver, there are tons of Israelis who travel after their service in the army over there, and they travel in fairly large groups and are very rude to women and service people. I can´t personally comment on this because I have no idea, but I told Oliver I thought he probably had a small view of the world at this point, and Neal said he hoped he fell in love with an Israeli girl, and the conversation ended. Ha.

The group travel probably IS a bad idea, though - you´re never forced to be very uncomfortable when you have familiars all around.

Boarded a bus for El Calafate on Wednesday afternoon. It was a day earlier than planned but I felt like I´d exhausted Chalten, and my pinky toes both had huge blisters on them from the day before, so I was not up for anymore hiking. I was in a weird mood for all of Wednesday and therefore did not do hardly any socializing with anyone in the hostel that night. I sat in the main room eating my dinner for a while, but they put on this reggae cover of my favorite Radiohead album, and I had to retreat into my bed and cover my ears. Why, oh why, would anyone think it was okay to turn Radiohead into reggae?

Thursday was a much better day. Woke around 7:15 AM to get ready for the trip to see the Perito Moreno glacier. A bus picked me and a few others up at the hostel, and we had about a 1.5 hour ride out there. Saw an incredible sunrise (Don´t worry - they stop the bus for these things so people can take photos. Gag, but I´m secretly glad I got a photo.) over Lago Argentino, which I believe is the largest lake in Argentina.

El Calafate is a total tourist haven, so it was somewhat disappointing for that. Nothing to do but sign up for tours. Glaciers, mostly. Horseback riding, too. And it´s full of the REAL tourists. The ones who only want tours, who can´t be bothered to walk anywhere.

We arrived at the site of the glacier around 10:15 AM. Had time for quick cup of hot coffee before practically being forced onto the hour long boat ride. They advertise the bus as just being 90 pesos, but then they drop you at this place, where there´s really nothing but a restaurant and a far-off view of the glacier and say, "We highly recommend the boat. Be back on the bus in an hour." Okay, so if you don´t want to spend the extra 40 pesos, what do you do? Suppose I could have just sat myself in the restaurant and read and drank coffee, but no, I surrendered. I went. Ugh! Make the tours and the spending stop! You come down to Patagonia to be isolated and do some nice hiking, and then, in order to do anything, you have to pay. Booooring.

The boat was good, though. It took us fairly close to the front of the glacier, which was immense. Magificent. An enormous, sprawling, field of ice. And it moves two meters per day! That´s actually a lot, I think.

There was this annoying American couple on the boat - probably 70s - and I overheard the strangest conversation between them. "There are some very pretty girls on this boat," she said. "You don´t usually see that." Then they sort of started critiquing these two girls who were out on the deck, out of earshot. Bizarre. I just wanted to turn around and hush them. We are looking at a GLACIER, remember?

After the boat, they drove us up to the main lookout area, and left us there for about 2.5 hours. I wandered all the way down to the lowest lookout and was sitting, eating my cheese and crackers and banana when a huge rumble erupted from the glacier. Like thunder. I had missed it, absorbed in my lunch, wondering if I could really spend two whole hours staring at the same glacier.

So I stood up, mosied down to the fence, where tourist after tourist was perched with camera, in anticipation of the next big one! And I have to say, I was sucked in, as soon as I saw a chunk of the glacier break off into the water. It was incredibly exciting. Did you see that?! Do it again, do it again! Lots of oohing and ahhing and applauding from the audience.

And so the next two hours were spent, standing, just watching that glacier, entranced. Maybe just an enormous chunk of ice but that thing was alive! You´d hear this squeaky groan, scan the glacier - where did that come from? - and then suddenly, a massive block of ice broke free, heaving itself into the turquoise water below, creating an incredible splash and a deafening kaboom.

Was in a grand mood when I returned from the glacier, and it was a gorgeous day, so I put on my shorts and my baseball cap and went out for a walk. I wandered out of the tourist-clogged "city center" because...it was tourist-clogged...into the surrounding neighborhoods. Calafate is sort of a mix between Bariloche and Chalten. It has the recently-slapped-together-for-the-purpose-of-supporting-tourists feel of Chalten, but is a bit bigger with some of Bariloche´s sense of stable community.

I spotted a huge hill with several dirt roads snaking up it, and as I got closer, I noticed a group of several children sledding down the hill on what looked like a side of a cardboard box. I hadn´t even thought of what it must be like to grow up in such a place, but now, I have some sense of it. It´s not stuffed with ballet lessons and piano lessons and soccer practice, I don´t think. Just you and your friends and your neighborhood and the things you can dig out of the garage or the neighbor´s yard. (Although, sliding down a hill on a cardboard box sounds exactly like what my brother and I used to get into.)

The houses are raw, bricks with hastily splattered cement oozing from between them. The yards are overflowing with tall yellow weeds and are enclosed by rusty wire fences. Clothes that have seen too many washings hang from the clothes line. Horses and roosters roam about. There´s trash everywhere.

I was climbing up this dirt road, getting further away from familiar territory and was struck with an odd realization. Nobody has a clue where I am right now. This has certainly been true before, but never before has it ever registered so fully. Is this what real freedom feels like? I wonder.

I got a lot of funny looks from women and kissy noises from men, as I fitness-walked past. Don´t think shorts are part of the dresscode down in these parts. I must´ve looked ridiculous. I felt ridiculous after a while.

I have no real sense of fear of things, like wandering into what may or may not be an unsafe situation, an unsafe area of a town I don´t know. I´m not sure how I got to be this way. I remember having a very hard time going on overnight trips with school in 6th grade. Got sick to my stomach before getting on the bus. Almost backed out. So how did I get here? There were three girls from SF staying in my room last night, one of whom is considering quitting her job and taking some time off. Go for it, I told her! But don´t you get scared? she asked. Like, did you see those big dogs outside of the hostel? Don´t you get scared of being alone? I´m scared of more intangible things, I guess. Too confident on some levels, not confident enough on others.

My old worries have left me, though. My head feels empty most of the time. Only processing what I´m looking at or who I´m talking to or thinking through the next move. It´s weird to be so completely relaxed. I´m not sure I´ve ever been so relaxed, in fact. A good thing, I´m sure. Just weird. But exactly what I wanted every time I was stuck in the middle of a bad day at work. Just let me escape for a little while, go blank.

Okay, let´s wrap it up! I´m in Chile now! Arrived in Puerto Natales around 2 PM this afternoon, and, for your information, I am now only one hour ahead of NYC. I can´t say much about Puerto Natales yet, so perhaps I will report on that tomorrow.

I am hitting a 4 day version of the W trail of Torres del Paine on Sunday morning. And that´s not W for you know who - it´s the shape the trail makes. My trekking partner is going to be Sarah, who I met at the hostel in Chalten. She was also planning to do the W solo, so we said, why not just pair up? She´s arriving tomorrow afternoon, so I imagine all of tomorrow afternoon and evening will be spent getting ready!

I went to an information session at one of the hostels today. It was unbelievably helpful and got me super excited for the hike. We are going to camp all the way - three nights - so we´re renting all the necessary equipment. Eeee! I´m excited. Did I say that already? EEEEE.

And I bumped into two girls I met on the bus down from Bariloche at the session. Turns out they are staying at my hostel, too! So we are going to get some dinner together in a bit.

Will try to get back here and post pics in the morning. Til then!