When I asked for a bus ticket to Bahia Blanca, they looked at me blankly. Surely I must've meant Buenos Aires, right? The bus continues on to BA after BB, so I must be wrong. I actually had to talk them into giving me a ticket.
While waiting on line, I asked the people going to Bahia Blanca what fun things I could do for a day. No one had an answer better than "Walk around the mall?"
Upon arrival, I went around to the side of the bus to get my backpack out from under. The driver wouldnt give me my bag. He was convinced I was in the wrong city, I had to show him my ticket to prove it. He still didn't want to get it, just because it was buried at the bottom of the Buenos Aires pile. He just assumed backpack meant BA.
Walking into the bus terminal, the extremely white and sterile-looking terminal, I began to look around to see if they have an internet kiosk so I could look up the address I came to find. A helpful employee came up to me and asked me if I was looking for the bus to BA.
Clearly, there's a theme. People come to Bahia Blanca to live (or die), but not to visit. The city is big and pretty and full of all the movie theaters and municipal parks and McDonalds one could want. I'm sure its a great place to live, but there really is absolutely nothing to do in this city. So why am I here?
To answer this question, I'm going to have to rewind back to September and my whirlwind tour of the Southwest US. After Burning Man and after seeing Dave in Boise but before hitting up the national parks in southern Utah, I passed through Salt Lake City. The biggest tourist draw here is Temple Square. Working with Kyra, lodging with Kyra's family, I'd learned alot about Mormonism, and was curious enough (though not in a conversion sense) to visit their Ground Zero. In Temple Square is their large central temple, the namesake tabernacle of the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir, an art museum, a family research library (to help baptize your dead ones... dont ask), a visitor's center, a missionary center (for doing God's Work), and lots and lots of office space (for doing God's Office Work).
Part of my reason to visit was curiosity. Partially it was to visit the family research library and see if I can trace my ancestors past Ellis Island (I could not). But in large part it was to fuck with the missionaries. To ask questions like "Why does God hate gay people?" and "If a guy gets a sex change to become a woman, then wants to marry a man, is that kosher?" (the answer to both: err, let me get back to you).
When I met the pretty young blonde servant of God, I didn't want to fuck with her. Well, not with anyway. Instead, I just struck up conversation. I told her about my travels in a bid to impress her. And that's where my misguided attempts to pick up a missionary fell flat.
"Oh, you're going to Argetina?! That's soo cool. My fiancee is serving a mission there!"
I was more confused than disappionted. "Wait, how old are you?" I asked. "Oh, I'm 19, but we've been dating since I was 14," she replied. "... and how old is he?" I followed up, afraid of what she'd say. But he was only 21, not 40-something.
I was prepared to move on, but she wasn't done. Instead, she reached into the folder she was holding, and pulled out a postcard-sized picture of the Temple at night, with some recruitment propoganda on the back. She pulled out a pen, and wrote on the back "Elder Drennan, Bahia Blanca. I <3 you".
"Can you give this to him?"
I stared at her for a few seconds, baffled. Was she serious? Where is Bahia Blanca? How big is Bahia Blanca? How am I going to find one starched-shirt white dude in a whole city? The request was so ridiculous, so absurd, what could she possibly expect me to say?
"Yeah, sure. No problem."
And really, it wasn't that hard. I know enough about the LDS structure that a brief internet search found the local stake, and the address for its mission office. After that, I just had to find the right time to go to Bahia Blanca. I could cut across after Mendoza, then bus down the east coast to Puerto Madryn to go whalewatching before getting to Ushuaia, or I could take a boat down the Chilean side, then bus up from Ushuaia through Puerto Madryn, too late to see whales, before stopping in BB on my way to BA. I made my fateful choice.
Fast forward to the Tuesday between Christmas and New Years. I took a taxi into town, walked to the square, into an internet cafe, and looked up the address. It was only 3 blocks from the square, a 5 minute walk. The office is on an upper floor of a pretty nondescript building. I ring the doorbell, with absolutely no expectation of what kind of reception awaits me. Will the man be excited to hear from the beau he hasn't seen in months? Or will he just think I'm a freak and shoo me off. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably pick the latter. I would meet myself and flee.
I was met with silence. No response. I rang again, but it was clear no one was inside. Perhaps they were out to lunch (at 10am?), so I sat in the doorway to wait for someone for return. Gave up on that after half an hour. Plan B.
Plan B was to return to the internet cafe, find the phone number for the mission, call them, and hope the doorbell was just broken, rather than the far more likely outcome of a voicemail.
To my surprise, someone picked up. It was a young American voice, clearly one of the missionaries. He explained to me the missionary office moved, to a place well out of walking distance. "Elder Drennan?" I asked hopefully. No, Elder Drennan has been moved to Mar del Plata, about 5 hours away.
Ok, time to move to Mar del Plata? It's on the way to BA... sort of. Its on the way in the same way that Chicago is on the way between St. Louis and New York. And I had no reason to go here except to deliver a postcard. Atleast Bahia Blanca had the excuse of being on the way. But I have a mission, and I went back to the bus station to find bus times to Mar del Plata.
As I found out, the bus to Mar del Plata was to leave in 10 minutes. I'd have to find Drennan today. I called the mission office back in a hurry, and gave them the excuse that I want to go scuba diving in Plata (a mediocre place to do it), and that I'll still be able to deliver my package in person. The missionary on the phone, who was skeptical when I first explained to him I had something to give Drennen, now sounded like he was ready to call the cops. I didn't blame him. He told me that they don't give out a missionary's address, and since Mar del Plata doesnt have a missionary office, I'd have to either find him on the street, or wait until Sunday and guess which chuch he'll attend.
So I did the only rational thing, and gave up. Got on the next bus to BA. I'm not going to bust my balls for a cute girl who isnt even single and her stranger fiancee. Instead, I wrote a very sweet and hokey letter about how far the postcard has come, and how I've persisted because her feelings were so radiant and genuine when I met her, and mailed it with the postcard to the missionary office. Frankly, I don't remember if she was radiant or genuine. I remember she was blonde and bubbly, but that's about it. I just wanted a cool story, and to see the completely flabbergasted look on the man's face.
I only got half.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
End Of The World As I Know It
I arrived in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, with a goal. The city proudly proclaims itself on all tourist information as The Most Southerly City In The World, and I was going to finally accomplish my trip's biggest mission. Mitad del Mundo to El Fin del Mundo. Now all I had to do was figure out exactly what I had to do to claim the prize.
Pete, who was not coming to Ushuaia, collects stamps. Not to send a letter, but stamps in his passport book. He got one on the Equator, in the Galapagos, in Macchu Pichu, and now mandated that I get the famous End of the World stamp and show it to him so he can atleast live through my passport vicariously. Often a man of my word, I set about attempting to find this stamp.
I first tried the tourist office, an easy choice, and was delighted to learn they had the stamp. In fact, they had four. And the dock had one. And the post office had one. And apparently there's one in the nearby National Park. I chose one, the Lighthouse at the End of the World one, and considered it mission accomplished... but wait, not yet.
See, Ushuaia may be the most southerly city in the world, but its not the most southerly town. Across the Beagle Channel is Navarino Island and the Chilean town of Puerto Williams. I bet they have a stamp. I went down to the dock and attempted to find a ferry across.
Well, boats dont just go to Puerto Williams and back. You have to pay 100 dollars each way, go through the entire immigration process again, and you'd still be wasting your time, since it's mostly just a town for the families of the military base which takes up most of the island.
Ok, so I can't get to the world's most southerly settlement, but atleast I can get to the WMS lighthouse, the one in the stamp, right? Well, no. Only military transports from Navarino go out that far. But the boats will take you to A lighthouse at the end of the world. That's kinda the same, right?
Well, to be fair, it was a lovely boatride, and I did get to stand on a spit of land even further south than Ushuaia, and climb up on a hill to give me a distant, hazy view of Puerto Williams. I was hoping to see across the island and all the way to the start of the Southern Ocean. Nope. I was hoping to at least see down the Beagle Channel, to the clear line where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet. Nope. The view was fantastic, but nothing different than what I'd see on Ushuaia's frigid beach. The only difference is that this inconsequential rock is the most southerly point I'm likely to ever reach in my lifetiome.
I needed a different way to claim Mission Accomplished, and decided instead to reach the End of the Road. In Tierra del Fuego National Park is a sign at the end of Route 3, proclaiming to the proud drivers who have the chuzpah to drive down the entire excrutiating route just how far they've come (and how far they have to go back). I took a bus into the park, posed next to the sign, and considered it mission accomplished... but wait, not yet.
Route 3 is the road between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia. It's not the end of the Panamerica, which deadended somewhere in the middle of Chile. It's not WMS road, since that's between Puerto Williams and the military base. That road, like this road, is gravel. If you really wanted to celebrate something, you'd be taking pictures at the End of Paving, which is a completely uncelebrated, unmarked, and barely noticed transition point some miles outside the park.
So it was back to the stamps. I walked a few miles across the park, on a surprisingly underwhelming and dull trail considering its location, coming out next to a jetty into the Channel. At the end of the jetty was a small shack, the WMS Post Office. And it was locked. Post office closes at 5pm, I'd arrived at 5:15. No stamp for me.
But, I'm a persistant little fuck, and started looking for hinges or busted locks or other ways to covertly burglarize the post office. Except I was hardly covert at all, and the ranger drove up in his massive Land Rover to confront me.
Him: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Looking for a stamp."
Him: "We're closed."
Me: "When did you close?"
Him: "At 5."
Me: "Why?"
Him: "It's Christmas Eve."
Me: "Yes, it's almost Christmas. Did you close it?"
Him: "Yes I... fine, come on."
Mission accomplished. Of course I'd never intended to burglarize a building, especially so blatently. I just wanted him to come over so I could lure him into the Christmas Miracle Trap.
I got my stamp, a giant page-stealing seal of a stamp featuring a family of penguins, despite the lack of actual penguins in Ushuaia or the National Park. In fact, I got an entire page of stamps, the ranger's frustration and generosity mingling to completely horde an entire page of my precariously dwinding passport space. I hope Pete is happy.
But more importantly, I got a beer. People who trek all the way to the WMS post office dont just get free stamps, they get a free beer: Cape Horn Microbrew. A beer you will not find anywhere else on earth. I laid back on the cloudy, freezing beech and drank my prize. Perhaps this I can call mission accomplished.
As it turns out, the last bus was also at 5pm, and I was left stranded in the park. Thankfully though, a pair of Europeans gave me a lift back to town. As I sat in the back seat and quietly stewed in my own arrogent sense of achievement, the pair start comparing birds here to those in Alaska. I stop them; "Wait, you've come all the way from Alaska?" Oh yes, they came all the way down the Panamerica, over to Route 40, and finally to Route 3, to reach the end of the road, having began at the start of it. I had a nice slice of humble pie to go with my WMS beer.
And yet, none of these objective-based material Mission Accomplished matter compared to the real goal gained. While traipising around Tierra del Fuego, I got an email welcoming me, with full scholarship, to postgraduate studies in Australia. I was finally finished chasing, both pointless mission objectives and an uncertain future.
And above the computer terminals in the hostel is a map, an upside down map of the world with Ushuaia at the top. And on this crazy inverted map, a slogan: The End of the World, the Beginning of Everything.
Pete, who was not coming to Ushuaia, collects stamps. Not to send a letter, but stamps in his passport book. He got one on the Equator, in the Galapagos, in Macchu Pichu, and now mandated that I get the famous End of the World stamp and show it to him so he can atleast live through my passport vicariously. Often a man of my word, I set about attempting to find this stamp.
I first tried the tourist office, an easy choice, and was delighted to learn they had the stamp. In fact, they had four. And the dock had one. And the post office had one. And apparently there's one in the nearby National Park. I chose one, the Lighthouse at the End of the World one, and considered it mission accomplished... but wait, not yet.
See, Ushuaia may be the most southerly city in the world, but its not the most southerly town. Across the Beagle Channel is Navarino Island and the Chilean town of Puerto Williams. I bet they have a stamp. I went down to the dock and attempted to find a ferry across.
Well, boats dont just go to Puerto Williams and back. You have to pay 100 dollars each way, go through the entire immigration process again, and you'd still be wasting your time, since it's mostly just a town for the families of the military base which takes up most of the island.
Ok, so I can't get to the world's most southerly settlement, but atleast I can get to the WMS lighthouse, the one in the stamp, right? Well, no. Only military transports from Navarino go out that far. But the boats will take you to A lighthouse at the end of the world. That's kinda the same, right?
Well, to be fair, it was a lovely boatride, and I did get to stand on a spit of land even further south than Ushuaia, and climb up on a hill to give me a distant, hazy view of Puerto Williams. I was hoping to see across the island and all the way to the start of the Southern Ocean. Nope. I was hoping to at least see down the Beagle Channel, to the clear line where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet. Nope. The view was fantastic, but nothing different than what I'd see on Ushuaia's frigid beach. The only difference is that this inconsequential rock is the most southerly point I'm likely to ever reach in my lifetiome.
I needed a different way to claim Mission Accomplished, and decided instead to reach the End of the Road. In Tierra del Fuego National Park is a sign at the end of Route 3, proclaiming to the proud drivers who have the chuzpah to drive down the entire excrutiating route just how far they've come (and how far they have to go back). I took a bus into the park, posed next to the sign, and considered it mission accomplished... but wait, not yet.
Route 3 is the road between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia. It's not the end of the Panamerica, which deadended somewhere in the middle of Chile. It's not WMS road, since that's between Puerto Williams and the military base. That road, like this road, is gravel. If you really wanted to celebrate something, you'd be taking pictures at the End of Paving, which is a completely uncelebrated, unmarked, and barely noticed transition point some miles outside the park.
So it was back to the stamps. I walked a few miles across the park, on a surprisingly underwhelming and dull trail considering its location, coming out next to a jetty into the Channel. At the end of the jetty was a small shack, the WMS Post Office. And it was locked. Post office closes at 5pm, I'd arrived at 5:15. No stamp for me.
But, I'm a persistant little fuck, and started looking for hinges or busted locks or other ways to covertly burglarize the post office. Except I was hardly covert at all, and the ranger drove up in his massive Land Rover to confront me.
Him: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Looking for a stamp."
Him: "We're closed."
Me: "When did you close?"
Him: "At 5."
Me: "Why?"
Him: "It's Christmas Eve."
Me: "Yes, it's almost Christmas. Did you close it?"
Him: "Yes I... fine, come on."
Mission accomplished. Of course I'd never intended to burglarize a building, especially so blatently. I just wanted him to come over so I could lure him into the Christmas Miracle Trap.
I got my stamp, a giant page-stealing seal of a stamp featuring a family of penguins, despite the lack of actual penguins in Ushuaia or the National Park. In fact, I got an entire page of stamps, the ranger's frustration and generosity mingling to completely horde an entire page of my precariously dwinding passport space. I hope Pete is happy.
But more importantly, I got a beer. People who trek all the way to the WMS post office dont just get free stamps, they get a free beer: Cape Horn Microbrew. A beer you will not find anywhere else on earth. I laid back on the cloudy, freezing beech and drank my prize. Perhaps this I can call mission accomplished.
As it turns out, the last bus was also at 5pm, and I was left stranded in the park. Thankfully though, a pair of Europeans gave me a lift back to town. As I sat in the back seat and quietly stewed in my own arrogent sense of achievement, the pair start comparing birds here to those in Alaska. I stop them; "Wait, you've come all the way from Alaska?" Oh yes, they came all the way down the Panamerica, over to Route 40, and finally to Route 3, to reach the end of the road, having began at the start of it. I had a nice slice of humble pie to go with my WMS beer.
And yet, none of these objective-based material Mission Accomplished matter compared to the real goal gained. While traipising around Tierra del Fuego, I got an email welcoming me, with full scholarship, to postgraduate studies in Australia. I was finally finished chasing, both pointless mission objectives and an uncertain future.
And above the computer terminals in the hostel is a map, an upside down map of the world with Ushuaia at the top. And on this crazy inverted map, a slogan: The End of the World, the Beginning of Everything.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Food List
Just a minor addendum, here's a list of everything I ate in 4 days in Torres del Paine National Park:
- 3 pasta dinners (tomato sause, sausage and mushroom, tuna bolognaise)
- the rest of the box of tuna
- 3 bowls of oatmeal with milk and jam
- 2 italian sausages
- 1 ham and cheese sandwich (cost $11)
- crackers with pork spread
- tube (12-15) of chocolate chip cookies
- tube of shortbread cookies
- tube of coconut cookies
- tube of vienna fingers
- 2 tubes of mediocre Oreo knockoffs
- bag of raisins
- bag of peanuts
- small box of chocolate covered peanuts
- 2 tubes of knockoff Pringles potato chips (lot more than 12-15)
- 4 bananas
- 6 hard boiled eggs
- 14 cereal bars
- 3 large chocolate bars (2 dark, 1 milk)
- an entire pound cake (eaten in under 4 minutes)
- partridge in a pear tree
- 3 pasta dinners (tomato sause, sausage and mushroom, tuna bolognaise)
- the rest of the box of tuna
- 3 bowls of oatmeal with milk and jam
- 2 italian sausages
- 1 ham and cheese sandwich (cost $11)
- crackers with pork spread
- tube (12-15) of chocolate chip cookies
- tube of shortbread cookies
- tube of coconut cookies
- tube of vienna fingers
- 2 tubes of mediocre Oreo knockoffs
- bag of raisins
- bag of peanuts
- small box of chocolate covered peanuts
- 2 tubes of knockoff Pringles potato chips (lot more than 12-15)
- 4 bananas
- 6 hard boiled eggs
- 14 cereal bars
- 3 large chocolate bars (2 dark, 1 milk)
- an entire pound cake (eaten in under 4 minutes)
- partridge in a pear tree
Monday, December 21, 2009
My Pal Murphy
I dont travel alone. I have a close friend who follows me around everywhere I go. His name is Murphy. No, Murphy is not a puppy, though I sure wish he was. Not an animal of any kind. Nor is he a particularly weak-willed person. In fact, he's kind of a stubborn dick. Murphy is a law. A law that states if something can go wrong, it probably will. On my camping trip to Torres del Paine, the two of us became very well acquainted in a one-man tent.
On the first morning, I needed to catch the bus to the national park. I asked the woman who works the hostel where I can find the bus. She takes out a map and points out the bus terminal in town. The nonexistant bus terminal. I hail a taxi and ask him to take me there. The taxi driver is confused, but intelligent, and asks me to show him my ticket. He reads it, and instead of the nonexistant bus terminal, he takes me to the bus company's office, a 2 minute walk that costs the town's flat taxi rate of 5 bucks. There he drops me off and takes off before he sees if everything is alright.
It's not. The temperature early in the morning is flirting with freezing, and I'm locked outside a closed office. A locked door I pace in front of for over half an hour. A woman pulls up in her car, gets out, and asks me if the office is open. I point out the obvious fact that I'm shivering outside. She tells me she'll wait, then gets back in her car and waits, the loud music only partially muffled by the closed doors keeping out the cold. At no point does it occur to her to invite me in.
Finally, someone comes to the office to let me in. I go inside and warm up my rigid fingers, not noticing the time past until well past when the bus was supposed to show. It never did. Turns out the bus was supposed to pick me up at my hostel, and never comes to the bus office or the nonexistant bus station. It's already on its way to the park. The old man who owns the bus company, back hunched from years of stupid kids like me, calls the bus, and has them pull off on the side of the road. Then he takes me personally in his truck 20 minutes to catch up on the bus. The bus driver starts swearing at me when I finally get on the bus, and everyone is giving me dirty looks, except for relieved looks on the faces of the 4 people waiting for me.
Pete, Jan, Martin, and Martin's friend Kristoff are waiting for me. Ben has gone ahead to do the longer circuit, in less time than it takes us to do the short. 6 friends in total.
The bus takes us into the park, stops at the entrance fee station, and drops us off at the little ferry pier half an hour before its scheduled departure. The advice we were given by our respective hostels was to not be first on the boat, as your backpack would just be crushed on the bottom of the pile. So we dont hurry, and leisurely wait to be the last ones on board. Except, the captain tells us he's full, but he'll make a special second trip, so come back in an hour. We deliberate what to do with our newfound free time, and decide to hike to a nearby waterfall. We're starting to walk away and the boat is preparing to sail, when suddenly, the captain stops and calls back "No, we have a little more room. Last call, all aboard!" We barely hear him, and nearly miss the only boat of the day.
Lucky too since the views from the boat were glorious. Glacier-fed eerie blue lakes, multicolored sharp spires and pinnacles, blinding snowfields, you really get a great slice of the entire park. In other words, we could've just taken the boat roundtrip and left, sparing ourselves the ordeal to come.
The park has a famous trekking system known as the 'W', a transect of the park with 3 parallel day trips up into the mountains coming off of it in the beginning, middle, and end. !_!_! essentially.
The first leg of the first trip up to the edge of Glacier Gray was pretty easy and laid back. We're walking along the edge of the lake with te glacier not yet in sight, and as we approach the first glacier lookout, the wind starts to pick up. It only gets worse as we clear the ridge, and by the time we're standing on the rock jetty overhanging the lack, the winds have reached near-hurricane force winds. Standing on that ledge is near-impossible, and frankly-near fatal. I only have the will to do it for a few seconds. It's scary, almost enough to wet yourself.
In fact, as I leave the ledge, I realize I haven't pissed all day and I really gotta go. I try and find some kind of sheltered rock cove, away from eyes and wind. I find what appears to be a suitable spot, and pull it out. I start to piss, and immediately realize my mistake. This curved cove is just acting like a bouncing chamber for the wind. Air is blowing in every direction simultaneously, and takes my urine with it, splattering the wall, my shoes, and my pants. I cut off the stream in just seconds, but the damage is done. Luckily, it's started to rain gently, and if I stand downwind from the group, no one is the wiser.
The going gets tougher and steeper in the second half, and its humid outside with the drizzle. I'm wearing boxers, imagining the hike to be easy. It's not, and before too long, the friction builds, and I'm in red-hot agony. Only 2 hours slog until I get the next chance to unpack my bag out of the rain and fetch some reliable tighty whities.
The hike between this nut-saving refugio and the next campsite is only 4 kilometers, but it takes us forever. Well, most of the group does it in normal time, but Martin's knees are troubling him, and I patiently keep him company. Worse, this stretch is past the traditional tourist W path, a small piece of the longer circuit, but the differences are immediate. The trail is much crappier, much more poorly marked, and the little wooden foot bridges over streams are nowhere to be found. We find ourselves rock-hopping across. Streams 1 and 2 were easy, stream 3 got my right foot slightly damp, but stream 4 had me taking a nice swim from the knees down in the glacial meltwater. My shoes weren't dry until a full day later.
Arriving in camp, I get to work setting things up, but I find my rented tent nearly impossible to put up. I can't figure out how to get it in place. This is partially because I've never encountered this particular type of tent before, and partially because one of the crucial sockets for a tent pole is missing. Oh, and the tent comes with no stakes. We dig in the tent pole, shore it up with rocks, substitute wet twigs for stakes, and hope for the best.
Ben arrives in the same camground that night, but thanks to a lack of coordination, we discover we're going in opposite directions, and he understandably doesn't want to backtrack a full day. We're together that evening, but starting early the next morning, we're down to 5. Well, early morning for him, anyway. The rest of us set out clocks for 7 to be able to see him off, but all sleep through until 10. Oops.
I have trouble getting up because I'm always tired. Martin has his sore knees and Kristoff has been traveling. Jan was expecting Pete to wake her up. Pete doesnt walk up on time because, as he discovers when he finally does wake up, he's become violently sick. Vomiting, fever, chills, shakes, the works. We'd all been told the water in the park is safe to drink unfiltered, and the rest of us are fine, but the word we hear on the grapevine later is that there's exactly one place in the park you shouldnt drink the water, a spot near where the cows graze (and shit). That's where Pete filled up.
Regardless, the obvious fact facing us is that Pete cannot go on. He needs to leave the park, immediately, and we're unsure if he can even hike back. A boat sails on the glacial lake though, and perhaps that boat can get him back to the bus. I give Pete an antibiotic to start him off before rushing back to the refugio to find out. I dont fall in the water this time.
The refugio owner agrees to talk to the boat captain when he makes his daily landfall at 1pm. In the meanwhile, I start to hike back to carry Pete's bag for him. Turns out he's got a porter in the park to do it for him, but I dont mind, as I got to indulge in my secret hero complex while not actually having to carry extra weight. We walk back to the refugio together and wait an hour for the boat. When it arrives, while normal passengers are getting on and off, the owner chats casually with the captain. The captain then comes and tells us that Pete can ride back for free, but Jan, his wife, will need to pay. $70 bucks in cash, significantly more than she's carrying. Jan can't afford to go, and Pete, the loyal husband, refuses to be separated from her, and says he'll walk. Except, he can barely walk 10 minutes, let alone 4 hours. The captain shrugs, and starts to walk back to the boat. Suddenly angry, I chase after him, and start to rant impassioned at him for his cruelty. He shrugs again, and continues walking away. I turn and start to huff off, when the captain unexpectedly calls after me "Ok, both can come free".
Now my hero complex is really satisfied, but we're down to 3, and I dont even like Kristoff that much. He's too introverted, and the two of them spend most of their time talking in German.
We continue our hike, but after not too long break for lunch. My shoes are finally starting to dry, and I take the chance to unpack and change my socks, and put away my warm fleece. I start to eat lunch, when the fast winds push a rain squall into our midst. I dig back into my bag and pull out my raincoat to eat. 5 minutes later, the squall is blown away with the clouds, and the hot sun necessitates a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms. I end up changing 3 times at lunch. This is what Torres del Paine is like.
Thanks to illness and slowness, we dont get back to the end of the first leg until late on the second day, when we intended to walk to the middle spot campsite. We debate whether we want to keep walking past dinnertime, when the ranger interrupts us and removes our choice. The other campsite is full and we need to stay here. In other words, at the end of the second day, we're back where we started walking on day one.
To make up for lost time the next day, we decide to wake up even earlier than we intended to that morning. We sleep in even later this time. Almost immediately, my allergies started acting up, and I began sneezing violently every few seconds until I took an allergy pill. That made my symptoms quickly subside, until the side effects kicked in, and I started becoming drowsy on top of general hiking fatigue. It was a long morning.
Thankfully, I started feeling better by our lunch break when we reached the next camp, where we were able to drop our packs and tackle the next section carrying just a little water. Without the weight, I was spry and energized, bounding my way up. This part, the French Valley, was easily my favorite part. Boulder scrambles, mud pits, windswept barrens, and every other fun part of hiking. Across the river, a glacier hung off the side of the mountain, and every few minutes, a small avalanche fell. It sounded like thunder. Thanks to the river, we were in no danger, but it still startled me everytime; the experience on Villarrica was still fresh in my mind. Only in Patagonia would you be grateful that "Oh, its only an avalanche".
But the clouds were pouring in, and rain was starting to come down. The other hikers on my path started turning around and coming back, since the lookout on the end would be completely clogged up with nothing to see. I however perservered, simply enjoying the hike for the fun and technical challenge, the rain just adding to the authenticity of the experience. And lo and behold, when I finally did reach the lookout, the clouds parted for just a few minutes, and I was rewarded with an absolutely stunning 360 degree ampitheater view of all the mountains and glaciers from the center of the park. This made it worth it.
However, giddily bounding back down the mountain, I managed to re-fuck up the ankle I'd fucked up back in Villarrica. I'd also managed to get lost multiple times, starting at the very top of the lookout. The trail is only well-marked in one direction. I found myself repeatedly wandering around until I found my own muddy footprints, when I'd then trace back along their drunken jubilent paths until I found my way home again.
I managed to make it up and down to the top in 4 hours flat, when even the map suggests you need atleast 5 and a half. My compatriots on the other hand used almost that much and never even made it to the top. By the time they reached the bottom, they were fully exhausted and wanted to once again camp short. I had the option of staying with them or going ahead by myself. Having already gone from 6 to 3, I didn't want to whittle our numbers down any farther and be by myself, so I opted to stay, understanding this would make it extremely hard to reach the final site and the bus tomorrow evening. I stayed out of loyalty, to spend fleeting time with my friends. They passed out almost immediately after eating dinner, leaving me alone anyway.
Later that evening, I go to throw out my trash, and wander over to the ranger booth to ask him where the garbage can is. The ranger - young, undertrained, underpaid, lacking in english, and absolutely clueless - sees me with a garbage bag and threatens to call the police. The ranger has no idea how to respond to my indignant reply (in english), and gets his english-speaking boss. The boss immediately surmises what happens and chews out his employee. When I join in, the ranger sheepishly runs off with his tail between his legs and slams the door behind him like a child. Then the boss tries to be buddy-buddy with me, chummily and inanely asking my name and where I'm from, ect, pretending to be my friend so I dont complain to his boss. Frankly, I'd rather he just call the police.
As the sun drops and the light starts to go to sleep, I set up my broken tent. Except, I discover that the zipper has somehow become jammed, and the door wont open. Struggling with it, I manage to open the door, only to render it stranded open, and the wind is starting to pick up again. I manage to stitch the tent up with duct tape. Satisfied with my ad hoc job and too tired to care, I start to settle in for sleep, only to remember I'd left most of my stuff outside. Fuck it.
And then the allergy meds wear off. And thanks to the winds roaring both outside and from my nose, I couldnt sleep a wink.
We got up the next morning as a team, and ate breakfast as a team, but as I was finishing packing, the introverted and silently frustrated Kristoff suddenly announced "We're leaving, maybe you can catch up." I could not. We'd started as 6, and now I was down to myself, left alone with my pal Murphy. As predicted, I had neither the time nor the energy to do the last arm of the W, to see the namesake towers of Torres del Paine. Instead, I just made a straight line for the exit. My W trek looked more like a sideways F, for fail. Yet, failure was liberating. I was free to go slowly, at my own pace, to dawdle through forest and laze around on soft grass. It was some of the most fun I'd had in the park. Without goals, lacking hurry, things stopped going wrong. When I'd let go of everything, even Murphy left me alone.
On the first morning, I needed to catch the bus to the national park. I asked the woman who works the hostel where I can find the bus. She takes out a map and points out the bus terminal in town. The nonexistant bus terminal. I hail a taxi and ask him to take me there. The taxi driver is confused, but intelligent, and asks me to show him my ticket. He reads it, and instead of the nonexistant bus terminal, he takes me to the bus company's office, a 2 minute walk that costs the town's flat taxi rate of 5 bucks. There he drops me off and takes off before he sees if everything is alright.
It's not. The temperature early in the morning is flirting with freezing, and I'm locked outside a closed office. A locked door I pace in front of for over half an hour. A woman pulls up in her car, gets out, and asks me if the office is open. I point out the obvious fact that I'm shivering outside. She tells me she'll wait, then gets back in her car and waits, the loud music only partially muffled by the closed doors keeping out the cold. At no point does it occur to her to invite me in.
Finally, someone comes to the office to let me in. I go inside and warm up my rigid fingers, not noticing the time past until well past when the bus was supposed to show. It never did. Turns out the bus was supposed to pick me up at my hostel, and never comes to the bus office or the nonexistant bus station. It's already on its way to the park. The old man who owns the bus company, back hunched from years of stupid kids like me, calls the bus, and has them pull off on the side of the road. Then he takes me personally in his truck 20 minutes to catch up on the bus. The bus driver starts swearing at me when I finally get on the bus, and everyone is giving me dirty looks, except for relieved looks on the faces of the 4 people waiting for me.
Pete, Jan, Martin, and Martin's friend Kristoff are waiting for me. Ben has gone ahead to do the longer circuit, in less time than it takes us to do the short. 6 friends in total.
The bus takes us into the park, stops at the entrance fee station, and drops us off at the little ferry pier half an hour before its scheduled departure. The advice we were given by our respective hostels was to not be first on the boat, as your backpack would just be crushed on the bottom of the pile. So we dont hurry, and leisurely wait to be the last ones on board. Except, the captain tells us he's full, but he'll make a special second trip, so come back in an hour. We deliberate what to do with our newfound free time, and decide to hike to a nearby waterfall. We're starting to walk away and the boat is preparing to sail, when suddenly, the captain stops and calls back "No, we have a little more room. Last call, all aboard!" We barely hear him, and nearly miss the only boat of the day.
Lucky too since the views from the boat were glorious. Glacier-fed eerie blue lakes, multicolored sharp spires and pinnacles, blinding snowfields, you really get a great slice of the entire park. In other words, we could've just taken the boat roundtrip and left, sparing ourselves the ordeal to come.
The park has a famous trekking system known as the 'W', a transect of the park with 3 parallel day trips up into the mountains coming off of it in the beginning, middle, and end. !_!_! essentially.
The first leg of the first trip up to the edge of Glacier Gray was pretty easy and laid back. We're walking along the edge of the lake with te glacier not yet in sight, and as we approach the first glacier lookout, the wind starts to pick up. It only gets worse as we clear the ridge, and by the time we're standing on the rock jetty overhanging the lack, the winds have reached near-hurricane force winds. Standing on that ledge is near-impossible, and frankly-near fatal. I only have the will to do it for a few seconds. It's scary, almost enough to wet yourself.
In fact, as I leave the ledge, I realize I haven't pissed all day and I really gotta go. I try and find some kind of sheltered rock cove, away from eyes and wind. I find what appears to be a suitable spot, and pull it out. I start to piss, and immediately realize my mistake. This curved cove is just acting like a bouncing chamber for the wind. Air is blowing in every direction simultaneously, and takes my urine with it, splattering the wall, my shoes, and my pants. I cut off the stream in just seconds, but the damage is done. Luckily, it's started to rain gently, and if I stand downwind from the group, no one is the wiser.
The going gets tougher and steeper in the second half, and its humid outside with the drizzle. I'm wearing boxers, imagining the hike to be easy. It's not, and before too long, the friction builds, and I'm in red-hot agony. Only 2 hours slog until I get the next chance to unpack my bag out of the rain and fetch some reliable tighty whities.
The hike between this nut-saving refugio and the next campsite is only 4 kilometers, but it takes us forever. Well, most of the group does it in normal time, but Martin's knees are troubling him, and I patiently keep him company. Worse, this stretch is past the traditional tourist W path, a small piece of the longer circuit, but the differences are immediate. The trail is much crappier, much more poorly marked, and the little wooden foot bridges over streams are nowhere to be found. We find ourselves rock-hopping across. Streams 1 and 2 were easy, stream 3 got my right foot slightly damp, but stream 4 had me taking a nice swim from the knees down in the glacial meltwater. My shoes weren't dry until a full day later.
Arriving in camp, I get to work setting things up, but I find my rented tent nearly impossible to put up. I can't figure out how to get it in place. This is partially because I've never encountered this particular type of tent before, and partially because one of the crucial sockets for a tent pole is missing. Oh, and the tent comes with no stakes. We dig in the tent pole, shore it up with rocks, substitute wet twigs for stakes, and hope for the best.
Ben arrives in the same camground that night, but thanks to a lack of coordination, we discover we're going in opposite directions, and he understandably doesn't want to backtrack a full day. We're together that evening, but starting early the next morning, we're down to 5. Well, early morning for him, anyway. The rest of us set out clocks for 7 to be able to see him off, but all sleep through until 10. Oops.
I have trouble getting up because I'm always tired. Martin has his sore knees and Kristoff has been traveling. Jan was expecting Pete to wake her up. Pete doesnt walk up on time because, as he discovers when he finally does wake up, he's become violently sick. Vomiting, fever, chills, shakes, the works. We'd all been told the water in the park is safe to drink unfiltered, and the rest of us are fine, but the word we hear on the grapevine later is that there's exactly one place in the park you shouldnt drink the water, a spot near where the cows graze (and shit). That's where Pete filled up.
Regardless, the obvious fact facing us is that Pete cannot go on. He needs to leave the park, immediately, and we're unsure if he can even hike back. A boat sails on the glacial lake though, and perhaps that boat can get him back to the bus. I give Pete an antibiotic to start him off before rushing back to the refugio to find out. I dont fall in the water this time.
The refugio owner agrees to talk to the boat captain when he makes his daily landfall at 1pm. In the meanwhile, I start to hike back to carry Pete's bag for him. Turns out he's got a porter in the park to do it for him, but I dont mind, as I got to indulge in my secret hero complex while not actually having to carry extra weight. We walk back to the refugio together and wait an hour for the boat. When it arrives, while normal passengers are getting on and off, the owner chats casually with the captain. The captain then comes and tells us that Pete can ride back for free, but Jan, his wife, will need to pay. $70 bucks in cash, significantly more than she's carrying. Jan can't afford to go, and Pete, the loyal husband, refuses to be separated from her, and says he'll walk. Except, he can barely walk 10 minutes, let alone 4 hours. The captain shrugs, and starts to walk back to the boat. Suddenly angry, I chase after him, and start to rant impassioned at him for his cruelty. He shrugs again, and continues walking away. I turn and start to huff off, when the captain unexpectedly calls after me "Ok, both can come free".
Now my hero complex is really satisfied, but we're down to 3, and I dont even like Kristoff that much. He's too introverted, and the two of them spend most of their time talking in German.
We continue our hike, but after not too long break for lunch. My shoes are finally starting to dry, and I take the chance to unpack and change my socks, and put away my warm fleece. I start to eat lunch, when the fast winds push a rain squall into our midst. I dig back into my bag and pull out my raincoat to eat. 5 minutes later, the squall is blown away with the clouds, and the hot sun necessitates a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms. I end up changing 3 times at lunch. This is what Torres del Paine is like.
Thanks to illness and slowness, we dont get back to the end of the first leg until late on the second day, when we intended to walk to the middle spot campsite. We debate whether we want to keep walking past dinnertime, when the ranger interrupts us and removes our choice. The other campsite is full and we need to stay here. In other words, at the end of the second day, we're back where we started walking on day one.
To make up for lost time the next day, we decide to wake up even earlier than we intended to that morning. We sleep in even later this time. Almost immediately, my allergies started acting up, and I began sneezing violently every few seconds until I took an allergy pill. That made my symptoms quickly subside, until the side effects kicked in, and I started becoming drowsy on top of general hiking fatigue. It was a long morning.
Thankfully, I started feeling better by our lunch break when we reached the next camp, where we were able to drop our packs and tackle the next section carrying just a little water. Without the weight, I was spry and energized, bounding my way up. This part, the French Valley, was easily my favorite part. Boulder scrambles, mud pits, windswept barrens, and every other fun part of hiking. Across the river, a glacier hung off the side of the mountain, and every few minutes, a small avalanche fell. It sounded like thunder. Thanks to the river, we were in no danger, but it still startled me everytime; the experience on Villarrica was still fresh in my mind. Only in Patagonia would you be grateful that "Oh, its only an avalanche".
But the clouds were pouring in, and rain was starting to come down. The other hikers on my path started turning around and coming back, since the lookout on the end would be completely clogged up with nothing to see. I however perservered, simply enjoying the hike for the fun and technical challenge, the rain just adding to the authenticity of the experience. And lo and behold, when I finally did reach the lookout, the clouds parted for just a few minutes, and I was rewarded with an absolutely stunning 360 degree ampitheater view of all the mountains and glaciers from the center of the park. This made it worth it.
However, giddily bounding back down the mountain, I managed to re-fuck up the ankle I'd fucked up back in Villarrica. I'd also managed to get lost multiple times, starting at the very top of the lookout. The trail is only well-marked in one direction. I found myself repeatedly wandering around until I found my own muddy footprints, when I'd then trace back along their drunken jubilent paths until I found my way home again.
I managed to make it up and down to the top in 4 hours flat, when even the map suggests you need atleast 5 and a half. My compatriots on the other hand used almost that much and never even made it to the top. By the time they reached the bottom, they were fully exhausted and wanted to once again camp short. I had the option of staying with them or going ahead by myself. Having already gone from 6 to 3, I didn't want to whittle our numbers down any farther and be by myself, so I opted to stay, understanding this would make it extremely hard to reach the final site and the bus tomorrow evening. I stayed out of loyalty, to spend fleeting time with my friends. They passed out almost immediately after eating dinner, leaving me alone anyway.
Later that evening, I go to throw out my trash, and wander over to the ranger booth to ask him where the garbage can is. The ranger - young, undertrained, underpaid, lacking in english, and absolutely clueless - sees me with a garbage bag and threatens to call the police. The ranger has no idea how to respond to my indignant reply (in english), and gets his english-speaking boss. The boss immediately surmises what happens and chews out his employee. When I join in, the ranger sheepishly runs off with his tail between his legs and slams the door behind him like a child. Then the boss tries to be buddy-buddy with me, chummily and inanely asking my name and where I'm from, ect, pretending to be my friend so I dont complain to his boss. Frankly, I'd rather he just call the police.
As the sun drops and the light starts to go to sleep, I set up my broken tent. Except, I discover that the zipper has somehow become jammed, and the door wont open. Struggling with it, I manage to open the door, only to render it stranded open, and the wind is starting to pick up again. I manage to stitch the tent up with duct tape. Satisfied with my ad hoc job and too tired to care, I start to settle in for sleep, only to remember I'd left most of my stuff outside. Fuck it.
And then the allergy meds wear off. And thanks to the winds roaring both outside and from my nose, I couldnt sleep a wink.
We got up the next morning as a team, and ate breakfast as a team, but as I was finishing packing, the introverted and silently frustrated Kristoff suddenly announced "We're leaving, maybe you can catch up." I could not. We'd started as 6, and now I was down to myself, left alone with my pal Murphy. As predicted, I had neither the time nor the energy to do the last arm of the W, to see the namesake towers of Torres del Paine. Instead, I just made a straight line for the exit. My W trek looked more like a sideways F, for fail. Yet, failure was liberating. I was free to go slowly, at my own pace, to dawdle through forest and laze around on soft grass. It was some of the most fun I'd had in the park. Without goals, lacking hurry, things stopped going wrong. When I'd let go of everything, even Murphy left me alone.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Cruising
In any kind of linear fashion, this story is boring. I was on a boat. Huzzah. I rejected taking an unreliable bus for 2 days down an unpaved road for 140 dollars, and instead took a junky boat for 4 days through tight channels for 400 dollars.
This cruise, I mean ferry, I mean cargo ship, could not have been any more spartan. A bare cafeteria served its pretty tasty but highly repetitious meals only during tight and unflinching meal times, and there was no other food to be had. There was a bar, with predictably overpriced beer and awkwardly rigid chairs. On the back was a large open space with a giant chess board no one used. Entertainment consisted mostly of booze and cards, occasionally punctuated by an older man singing Frank Sinatra covers with an electric keyboard and bizare latino twist, and once by a bingo game followed by a 'Best of the 70s' dance party. It was almost always cloudy. Rain came surreptitiously, randomly, and often.
Yet, these seemingly bland days of transit were, collectively, one of the most memorable experiences in South America.
Now, here's the hard part. How can I possibly express the intangibles of this? Laying on my bed, chatting with my unseen roommate on the bunkbed above me, carefully articulating our arguments for over an hour about whether jello is a solid or a liquid, and if a liquid, whether it counts as a non-Newtonian fluid. It's a solid, under certain parameters. Ben and I spent countless otherwise-empty minutes and hours crossing swords over bizarre and seemingly inane aspects of physics and engineering, and loved every second. A British navy sailor getting a full ride to Cambridge, Ben was both tough and brilliant, and the two of us connected in strange ways cooped up in this metallic bubble from the world.
Ben was probably the most fun, but hardly the only one. Pete and Jan were a cross-Atlantic couple (Britain and New York) who were also drawn to our table. eager to pick up our knowledge on South America and possibly come with us. Mike and Tim were a pair of freshly-minted college grads coming from some obscure college in northern California, egging us on to try new treks (anyone wanna do the PCT with me?) and antsy to get their feet moving into Torres del Paine. Like some clump of cosmic gas, we drew more matter into us until we all squeezed and burst into nuclear fire. The cruise was not just about the foreign land outside our portholes, but random strangers linking together from the common bonds of being lost down here.
One wasnt a stranger. Martin had come down from Valparaiso, and had come to join me on this cruise and Paine hike after. I'll never really understand how I connect so well with a 40-something South African gay introspective accountant, but I do. Over a bottle of wine (bought by him, drank mostly by me), we could giggle like children well into the evening. As the booze flowed farther, Martin would make more and more sexually suggestive innuendos, though I cant figure out if he's just loosening up some or if he figures I'm loosening up more. I don't really mind, since I've never had a gay friend who hasn't made a pass at me at some point. It's worth smiling and taking it (the jokes, people) to keep it well lubricated (the friendship). These recurring faces give a sense of stability and do wonders to dampen my mental storms.
Also, I needed Martin's moral support. Ever since my rejection of Artie's advances (remember him?), I've remained happily celibate in South America. Sex never even crossed my mind during Ecuador or Peru, mostly because I was ill and depressed. In Bolivia, I was too damn busy. Nobody attractive in Atacama. The issue only first returned to mind in Mendoza, where the punkish American girl who encouraged me to get a tattoo made my mind bend in slightly prurient directions. We hit it off well, but she was entirely to caught up by the novelty of foreign men to consider a fellow Yankee. Still, the seed was planted. Pucon had its share of attractive women, but none who I met more than in passing. It wasnt until I got on the boat, that insular metal bubble, that things could come to a head.
Not that one could have sex on these boats. The beds were small, narrow, and uncomfortable. And they were bunkbeds, where any headboard banging would result in head smashing. The cabins were freezing during the day and broiling at night. Even if you could work out the logistics, sex was hardly possible with 3 roommates. And people in these cabins were the lucky ones; an equal number of beds were placed out in the open halls. I suspect the best place on this boat to try it would be down in the cargo hold, in between the cow trailers, in ankle-deep mystery fluid.
Anyway. This boat was confined quarters, a captive audience, a few days to ferment, and nothing to do. It didnt take long for me to meet Amelie, a French girl in her late 20s with an insistance that she was still as young and fun as me. She was beautiful, and a skilled tango dancer, which made her seeming interest in me inexplicable. We talked aimlessly; I waited for her to get bored and leave, but she only seemed to get more interested in what I had to say, and stayed planted in her seat until it was me who finally left. Not that I would've even known how to seal the deal with a woman like this anyway. I retreated, no sugar coating.
I found her the next day just as absorbed in conversation at the bar with another guy. Ben. Sure I was jealous, but how was I supposed to compete with a sailor and avowed world-trekker? Well, I couldn't. Nor could he compete the next day with a transplant from Spain who could match her tango for tango. Nor could he compete with some old dumpy dude coincidentally also from the same region of France. No, we quickly realized, she wasn't interested in any of us. Amelie was just a nice, pleasant girl who loved the attention of men without ever putting out. And god bless her for that. Everybody else on the boat thought she was a tease by the end, but I knew better. She was just enjoying herself in a different but fundamentally similar way as me. Plus, she taught me tango and helped me practice charming beautiful women, so I really cant resent her at all.
Martin too opened up his charm wallet, but had his eye set on one of the seemingly inordinate number of gay couples. Not as a home wrecker, you understand, but simply as a side dish. I've come to understand, if not entirely accept, that gay couples are a bit more fluid like that. Non-Newtonian. Either way, I decided to help him, partially out of the hope he would stop his innuendos, but mostly out of genuine friendship. I introduced him to the concept of wingmanship by striking up conversation with one, then bailing before they try and pull me into some warped fourgy. Sadly, he too found his interest only wanted friends without benefits.
Since Quito, I've retreated into some form of purified heterosexuality, not visiting gay bars or really talking to gay people, and have really only had eyes for attractive women (when I've had any eyes at all). Joining the hunt with Martin reminded me of the scent of a kill. Not every gay boy here was in his middle age, as Joe was 20, from St. Louis, and had unsettling resemblence to other gay boys I've known. He too shared Amelie's appearance of a blank cheque, but I know gay boys better. I went for him, hard. (stop finding innuendos that arent there) I likely could have too, if he didn't get ill on the last night. But the damage was done. This cruise had gotten me in touch with my baser core, propping up my hetero and jumpstarting my homo. What this means for Buenos Aires and a tawdry New Years remains to be seen.
This cruise didn't have any structured entertainment because it was meant to be introspective. We were meant to bond with our fellow passengers, in whatever strange ways we wanted. We were meant to sleep long hours, read long books, and take our sweet time in giant chess. We were meant to sit and stare as solemn peaks went by, their snowcapped heads in the clouds and their feet at the water's edge. This place was something special, the third time I've been bowled over by a place in the natural world this month. But I won't even try to express this in words. I tried, and naturally failed, to capture it with my camera lens. Just know that's how it was.
And yet, natural beauty and human sparks aside, the greatest moment occured when I was alone and couldn't see shit. It had been raining all day, and everyone retreated inside. Except me, I'd spent too much of the day cooped up in my bed. I donned my pants and a raincoat, grabbed my ipod, and ran outside. I stood on the bow for awhile, listening to my favorite songs, recreating a moment from the Great Barrier Reef, when I decided to take a walk. The boat wasn't big, and I made a lap in just a minute. So I moved onto another deck and went around again. And again. The boat lurched, and I lurched with it. I spread my arms to keep balance and moved faster. Puddles soaked my shoes through. No matter, go faster. I ran dangerously, swooped, dove, and flew. Singing and dancing in the rain, when was the last time I'd done that? Everyone watched me from through the portholes, confused but smiling and jealous. We were in Patagonia now. All rules suspended, all bets are off. The score reset. I was going to have fun any way I could, and I could only hope to lead by example. I did.
This cruise, I mean ferry, I mean cargo ship, could not have been any more spartan. A bare cafeteria served its pretty tasty but highly repetitious meals only during tight and unflinching meal times, and there was no other food to be had. There was a bar, with predictably overpriced beer and awkwardly rigid chairs. On the back was a large open space with a giant chess board no one used. Entertainment consisted mostly of booze and cards, occasionally punctuated by an older man singing Frank Sinatra covers with an electric keyboard and bizare latino twist, and once by a bingo game followed by a 'Best of the 70s' dance party. It was almost always cloudy. Rain came surreptitiously, randomly, and often.
Yet, these seemingly bland days of transit were, collectively, one of the most memorable experiences in South America.
Now, here's the hard part. How can I possibly express the intangibles of this? Laying on my bed, chatting with my unseen roommate on the bunkbed above me, carefully articulating our arguments for over an hour about whether jello is a solid or a liquid, and if a liquid, whether it counts as a non-Newtonian fluid. It's a solid, under certain parameters. Ben and I spent countless otherwise-empty minutes and hours crossing swords over bizarre and seemingly inane aspects of physics and engineering, and loved every second. A British navy sailor getting a full ride to Cambridge, Ben was both tough and brilliant, and the two of us connected in strange ways cooped up in this metallic bubble from the world.
Ben was probably the most fun, but hardly the only one. Pete and Jan were a cross-Atlantic couple (Britain and New York) who were also drawn to our table. eager to pick up our knowledge on South America and possibly come with us. Mike and Tim were a pair of freshly-minted college grads coming from some obscure college in northern California, egging us on to try new treks (anyone wanna do the PCT with me?) and antsy to get their feet moving into Torres del Paine. Like some clump of cosmic gas, we drew more matter into us until we all squeezed and burst into nuclear fire. The cruise was not just about the foreign land outside our portholes, but random strangers linking together from the common bonds of being lost down here.
One wasnt a stranger. Martin had come down from Valparaiso, and had come to join me on this cruise and Paine hike after. I'll never really understand how I connect so well with a 40-something South African gay introspective accountant, but I do. Over a bottle of wine (bought by him, drank mostly by me), we could giggle like children well into the evening. As the booze flowed farther, Martin would make more and more sexually suggestive innuendos, though I cant figure out if he's just loosening up some or if he figures I'm loosening up more. I don't really mind, since I've never had a gay friend who hasn't made a pass at me at some point. It's worth smiling and taking it (the jokes, people) to keep it well lubricated (the friendship). These recurring faces give a sense of stability and do wonders to dampen my mental storms.
Also, I needed Martin's moral support. Ever since my rejection of Artie's advances (remember him?), I've remained happily celibate in South America. Sex never even crossed my mind during Ecuador or Peru, mostly because I was ill and depressed. In Bolivia, I was too damn busy. Nobody attractive in Atacama. The issue only first returned to mind in Mendoza, where the punkish American girl who encouraged me to get a tattoo made my mind bend in slightly prurient directions. We hit it off well, but she was entirely to caught up by the novelty of foreign men to consider a fellow Yankee. Still, the seed was planted. Pucon had its share of attractive women, but none who I met more than in passing. It wasnt until I got on the boat, that insular metal bubble, that things could come to a head.
Not that one could have sex on these boats. The beds were small, narrow, and uncomfortable. And they were bunkbeds, where any headboard banging would result in head smashing. The cabins were freezing during the day and broiling at night. Even if you could work out the logistics, sex was hardly possible with 3 roommates. And people in these cabins were the lucky ones; an equal number of beds were placed out in the open halls. I suspect the best place on this boat to try it would be down in the cargo hold, in between the cow trailers, in ankle-deep mystery fluid.
Anyway. This boat was confined quarters, a captive audience, a few days to ferment, and nothing to do. It didnt take long for me to meet Amelie, a French girl in her late 20s with an insistance that she was still as young and fun as me. She was beautiful, and a skilled tango dancer, which made her seeming interest in me inexplicable. We talked aimlessly; I waited for her to get bored and leave, but she only seemed to get more interested in what I had to say, and stayed planted in her seat until it was me who finally left. Not that I would've even known how to seal the deal with a woman like this anyway. I retreated, no sugar coating.
I found her the next day just as absorbed in conversation at the bar with another guy. Ben. Sure I was jealous, but how was I supposed to compete with a sailor and avowed world-trekker? Well, I couldn't. Nor could he compete the next day with a transplant from Spain who could match her tango for tango. Nor could he compete with some old dumpy dude coincidentally also from the same region of France. No, we quickly realized, she wasn't interested in any of us. Amelie was just a nice, pleasant girl who loved the attention of men without ever putting out. And god bless her for that. Everybody else on the boat thought she was a tease by the end, but I knew better. She was just enjoying herself in a different but fundamentally similar way as me. Plus, she taught me tango and helped me practice charming beautiful women, so I really cant resent her at all.
Martin too opened up his charm wallet, but had his eye set on one of the seemingly inordinate number of gay couples. Not as a home wrecker, you understand, but simply as a side dish. I've come to understand, if not entirely accept, that gay couples are a bit more fluid like that. Non-Newtonian. Either way, I decided to help him, partially out of the hope he would stop his innuendos, but mostly out of genuine friendship. I introduced him to the concept of wingmanship by striking up conversation with one, then bailing before they try and pull me into some warped fourgy. Sadly, he too found his interest only wanted friends without benefits.
Since Quito, I've retreated into some form of purified heterosexuality, not visiting gay bars or really talking to gay people, and have really only had eyes for attractive women (when I've had any eyes at all). Joining the hunt with Martin reminded me of the scent of a kill. Not every gay boy here was in his middle age, as Joe was 20, from St. Louis, and had unsettling resemblence to other gay boys I've known. He too shared Amelie's appearance of a blank cheque, but I know gay boys better. I went for him, hard. (stop finding innuendos that arent there) I likely could have too, if he didn't get ill on the last night. But the damage was done. This cruise had gotten me in touch with my baser core, propping up my hetero and jumpstarting my homo. What this means for Buenos Aires and a tawdry New Years remains to be seen.
This cruise didn't have any structured entertainment because it was meant to be introspective. We were meant to bond with our fellow passengers, in whatever strange ways we wanted. We were meant to sleep long hours, read long books, and take our sweet time in giant chess. We were meant to sit and stare as solemn peaks went by, their snowcapped heads in the clouds and their feet at the water's edge. This place was something special, the third time I've been bowled over by a place in the natural world this month. But I won't even try to express this in words. I tried, and naturally failed, to capture it with my camera lens. Just know that's how it was.
And yet, natural beauty and human sparks aside, the greatest moment occured when I was alone and couldn't see shit. It had been raining all day, and everyone retreated inside. Except me, I'd spent too much of the day cooped up in my bed. I donned my pants and a raincoat, grabbed my ipod, and ran outside. I stood on the bow for awhile, listening to my favorite songs, recreating a moment from the Great Barrier Reef, when I decided to take a walk. The boat wasn't big, and I made a lap in just a minute. So I moved onto another deck and went around again. And again. The boat lurched, and I lurched with it. I spread my arms to keep balance and moved faster. Puddles soaked my shoes through. No matter, go faster. I ran dangerously, swooped, dove, and flew. Singing and dancing in the rain, when was the last time I'd done that? Everyone watched me from through the portholes, confused but smiling and jealous. We were in Patagonia now. All rules suspended, all bets are off. The score reset. I was going to have fun any way I could, and I could only hope to lead by example. I did.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Changes Suddenly
Don't think I'm crapping out just because I'm not writing. Just the opposite, I've been very busy. After Valparaiso, I hopped over the High Andes pass to Mendoza, the most bizarrely European city I've ever seen (and I've been to Europe). Wide tree-lined avenues, limitless cafes, blah blah. Kinda boring really.
What sustained me was a proclivity for adventurous and stupid shit. I started Mendoza by paragliding (insisting on extra spins and flips, of course), and devolved into drunk biking. Mendoza is famous for its wineries, and biking between them while ever-increasingly sloshed is a regional pastime. Martin, Bart and I only managed to hit 2 before we got loose and goofy, getting lost on the return and requiring police escort back to town.
However, Mendoza just wasn't that exciting. I decided to up the ante by visiting Pucon, the alleged adventure capitol of Chile. Well, the trip there wasn't exciting, unless you count 4 hours stuck in customs as a thrillride. And the first day wasn't that exciting, as whitewater kayaking was booked and I had to settle on an unseaworthy plastic craft on the placid (but pretty) lake. I followed it the next day with a visit to the neigh-unpronounceable Huerquehue National Park. Nothing stops the heart more than 3 hours of running uphill because the shit bus schedule only gives you 4 hours in a giant park. I did see cool Monkeypuzzle trees though (google it).
However, this was all a warm-up. What I really came for was the perfect triangular snowcone of Villarrica Volcano. The monster smoulders over Pucon, threatening it regularly with death-by-mudslide, or worse. The town square actually has a volcanic traffic light system, where green means 'fine', yellow means 'get the fuck out', and red means 'if you are seeing this, your flesh is melting'. Handy system. The town also has evacuation route signs posted everywhere, pointing panicked people people towards the peninsula jutting out into the town's lake. Another clever system, as everybody knows the best place to be during an eruption is pinned between a pyroclastic flow and a large body of water.
Well, that's all well and good for the townspeople, but something like an active volcano is a beacon for me, a red lava flag encouraging me to charge. I booked with my hostel to climb the next day, barring of course foul weather. Weather.com said tomorrow was going to be sunny. Accuweather called for a clouds and a slight chance of rain. Weatherbug prophecized storms. Welcome to the Great Austral, ya?
I woke up at 6, ungodly early for me, and clawed my way to the window. Only the slightest whisp of mare's tail clouds hung in the air, perfect climbing weather. I threw on my clothes, tossed a few cookies down my gullet (breakfast of champions), and ran to the tour agency. They gave us a bag with snowpants, a windbreaker, hiking boots, crampons, a helmet, icepick strapped to the side, and a mysterious piece of synthetic fabric whose purpose I'd only learn about later. We were crammed in a bus, and before we were even woke up, off we went.
We were given an option. The real men could slog up the steep muddy side, through the thick slush of melting snow, and across the ankle-bending softpack to reach the start of the ice. Or we could pay a little extra and opt to take the skilift part of the way up the mountain. We unanimously voted to take the lift.
It was broken. We walked.
Distances are deceptive. What looked like a 20 minute trek just to the end of the chairlift became an hour and a half, and that's only a short way up the mountain. Looking back, it looked like we'd never moved at all. Then suddenly we looked back, and Pucon was just a tiny circle of prime real estate, the overpriced resorts and summer houses merely a blur against an otherwise unmarred landscape. We were high up. Tiny marshmellow cloudpuffs had started to form, but the view remained clear from here over the High Andes pass, over more postcard volcanos, well into Argentina.
Tony grabbed for his little videocam and started filming. I met him on this climb, a young man in the film industry, working as a cameraman for an indie Canadian documentary on Chile. Apparently he's also a music video producer, and occasional movieman. The resume he spouted off sounded improbable at best for a boy my age, but even if he were lying, the ease, complexity, and extravagence of his story (and business cards) would've placed him as a Hollywood man (or the Canadian equivilent) anyway.
We struck up a surprisingly easy friendship for two people so far apart in life. We do have something in common though, my amateur photography gives me a creative streak he could relate to. Believe it or not, my photos are good, and you should be looking at them (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155265&id=3108199&l=568d870c69). Tony agreed, and wants to use my photos in the documentary. Stay tuned to discover if I make a sudden career choice to filmmaker.
Anyway. As we continued climbing, the view got increasingly less picturesque. Marshmellows made way for overcast, and soon enough we had no view at all. Ascending higher, we climbed into the overcast, and could barely see more than a few feet in front of our faces. Our icepicks functioned both as walking stick and white cane. A light snow starting falling, and a heavy wind started blowing. In these conditions, climbing could be dangerous. The guides had the option of turning us around, but decided since we were so close (more than an hour) from the top, we should just keep climbing, so we did.
The guides, it seemed, had a sixth sense for these things. As we finally mounted the final push, the clouds started clearing. We were treated at the top to a broken, but beautiful, view of the valley below, atleast 260° degrees in most directions. A touch of snow still came down, but something odd was mixed in...
"Wait," you might be thinking. "Why only 260°?" Well, a cookie for anyone who guessed correctly: There was a crater blocking our view. Our position, in hindsight, was a bit precarious. One side was a steep decent way, way down. The other side was a poison-spewing hole in the earth.
I of course chose the poison hole. Edging closer and closer towards the sharp drop in, I could just begin to make out the actual vent, the glowing gullet that leads deep underground and into the boiling magma beneath Pucon's feet. It belched and spat sulfurous smoke and carbon monoxide in our faces. We all coughed and gagged, slowly choking to death to get one more slightly-closer photograph. You should've been there.
Unfortunately, our time at the top was limited, partially by our slow uncomfortable asphixiations, but also because the weather was starting to turn again. The clouds were returning with a vengence. Now we learned what the mysterious piece of cloth was for. A vaguely-square piece with straps to wrap tight around our waist and legs -it was, for lack of a better term, a soft toboggan. We were meant to slide out way back down the mountain.
And that's exactly what we did. I took a running start, and kicked my feet out from under me. I landed hard on my back, squashing my backpack, slamming my helmet into my bed, feeling the wind slapped out of me. Then I started sliding. Faster. Faster. Vaguely out of control... and a stop. Into a snowbank.
We got up laughing and ran to the next slope. "Hey Tony, a race!" Dozens of sledders before us had carved tracks into the ice, and we each picked one and jumped. His was smoother, so he expected to go faster. Mine was full of cruel bumps the whole way down. I hit the first one and went flying into the air, crashing back at an awkward angle, momentum not slowed the slightest. Seconds later I hit the next one, then another. My body flopped around like a ragdoll, nearly turning me around head-first. Snow shot up my pants, down my shirt, into my face and filling my nose. I couldn't see where I was or where I was going or how fast I was doing it. All I know is that when I finally came to a stop, I was far, far lower down the mountain than I was before, and I'd won the race. The two of us were both soaked to the bone, but Tony later had to go to the hospital for severe frostbite. I won twice.
After this point, the mountain started to flatten out too much for sledding, try as we might, using our ice picks like canoe paddles. Doesn't work. We tried walking out, but when you try walking sideways on a slope through slush while gravity pulls you down in a different direction, you just end up stumbling like a drunk, threatening your ankles every step. Our legs and joints were starting to get very angry at us, and the sky replied in kind, getting darker by the minute, nearly black. A clear gust front developed, and the hard wind threatened to toss us over the side.
It wasn't long before the rain started, and the rain quickly turned to sleet. Then the sleet started becoming harder... no, this wasn't sleet. Hail was pouring down, getting bigger every minute. The hail itself wasn't too big, pea-sized at worst, but highway speed winds turned them into missles, pummeling our heads, necks, and arms. We started running. Helmets started sprouting from bags, but our necks were left vulnerable. I tried covering mine with my hand, but it only made my hand hurt. Instead, I found myself crouching, like a turtle into my own body, hoping my helmet could protect me everywhere. I hunched over and turned inward and suddenly wished I was somewhere else. Then the lightning came.
We'd been hearing rumbles in the distance, rumbles which evolved into sharp cracks. But this wasnt a crack. This was sub-audible, a shove, a slap. Something terrifying. The thunder wasn't near us, but above us, the sound was the shockwave strafing our heads. The lightning had hit the top of a skilift pole, mere meters from where I was standing. I instinctively huddled up, involuntarily releasing from my mouth some sad hybrid of a yell and a moan. I stopped running then, my survival instinct robbed from me. I just started walking, slowly, swinging my metal icepick near the ground. Lightning continued to strike ground around us, once even throwing half a dozen people to the ground with its force. I kept walking. Running was useless now, and all I could do is play the numbers game and hope lightning hit one of the dozens of others and not me.
As some of you might know, I have a history with lightning. I've been nearly hit more than my share of times (thanks Kyra). Lightning is a raw power that makes me feel my mortality more than anything else on Earth, more than standing on the precipice of a live volcano. Here I think I came closer to being hit than ever before.
But the lightning, somehow, never hit any of us. We made it back to the vans and headed back to town. By the time we arrived, the sun was shining again. The people in town had barely seen rain, and not a hint of hail. I was still shivering, soaked in icewater, but still unhinged. I was cold. And wet. Hurt. Scared. And damn did I feel alive.
What sustained me was a proclivity for adventurous and stupid shit. I started Mendoza by paragliding (insisting on extra spins and flips, of course), and devolved into drunk biking. Mendoza is famous for its wineries, and biking between them while ever-increasingly sloshed is a regional pastime. Martin, Bart and I only managed to hit 2 before we got loose and goofy, getting lost on the return and requiring police escort back to town.
However, Mendoza just wasn't that exciting. I decided to up the ante by visiting Pucon, the alleged adventure capitol of Chile. Well, the trip there wasn't exciting, unless you count 4 hours stuck in customs as a thrillride. And the first day wasn't that exciting, as whitewater kayaking was booked and I had to settle on an unseaworthy plastic craft on the placid (but pretty) lake. I followed it the next day with a visit to the neigh-unpronounceable Huerquehue National Park. Nothing stops the heart more than 3 hours of running uphill because the shit bus schedule only gives you 4 hours in a giant park. I did see cool Monkeypuzzle trees though (google it).
However, this was all a warm-up. What I really came for was the perfect triangular snowcone of Villarrica Volcano. The monster smoulders over Pucon, threatening it regularly with death-by-mudslide, or worse. The town square actually has a volcanic traffic light system, where green means 'fine', yellow means 'get the fuck out', and red means 'if you are seeing this, your flesh is melting'. Handy system. The town also has evacuation route signs posted everywhere, pointing panicked people people towards the peninsula jutting out into the town's lake. Another clever system, as everybody knows the best place to be during an eruption is pinned between a pyroclastic flow and a large body of water.
Well, that's all well and good for the townspeople, but something like an active volcano is a beacon for me, a red lava flag encouraging me to charge. I booked with my hostel to climb the next day, barring of course foul weather. Weather.com said tomorrow was going to be sunny. Accuweather called for a clouds and a slight chance of rain. Weatherbug prophecized storms. Welcome to the Great Austral, ya?
I woke up at 6, ungodly early for me, and clawed my way to the window. Only the slightest whisp of mare's tail clouds hung in the air, perfect climbing weather. I threw on my clothes, tossed a few cookies down my gullet (breakfast of champions), and ran to the tour agency. They gave us a bag with snowpants, a windbreaker, hiking boots, crampons, a helmet, icepick strapped to the side, and a mysterious piece of synthetic fabric whose purpose I'd only learn about later. We were crammed in a bus, and before we were even woke up, off we went.
We were given an option. The real men could slog up the steep muddy side, through the thick slush of melting snow, and across the ankle-bending softpack to reach the start of the ice. Or we could pay a little extra and opt to take the skilift part of the way up the mountain. We unanimously voted to take the lift.
It was broken. We walked.
Distances are deceptive. What looked like a 20 minute trek just to the end of the chairlift became an hour and a half, and that's only a short way up the mountain. Looking back, it looked like we'd never moved at all. Then suddenly we looked back, and Pucon was just a tiny circle of prime real estate, the overpriced resorts and summer houses merely a blur against an otherwise unmarred landscape. We were high up. Tiny marshmellow cloudpuffs had started to form, but the view remained clear from here over the High Andes pass, over more postcard volcanos, well into Argentina.
Tony grabbed for his little videocam and started filming. I met him on this climb, a young man in the film industry, working as a cameraman for an indie Canadian documentary on Chile. Apparently he's also a music video producer, and occasional movieman. The resume he spouted off sounded improbable at best for a boy my age, but even if he were lying, the ease, complexity, and extravagence of his story (and business cards) would've placed him as a Hollywood man (or the Canadian equivilent) anyway.
We struck up a surprisingly easy friendship for two people so far apart in life. We do have something in common though, my amateur photography gives me a creative streak he could relate to. Believe it or not, my photos are good, and you should be looking at them (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155265&id=3108199&l=568d870c69). Tony agreed, and wants to use my photos in the documentary. Stay tuned to discover if I make a sudden career choice to filmmaker.
Anyway. As we continued climbing, the view got increasingly less picturesque. Marshmellows made way for overcast, and soon enough we had no view at all. Ascending higher, we climbed into the overcast, and could barely see more than a few feet in front of our faces. Our icepicks functioned both as walking stick and white cane. A light snow starting falling, and a heavy wind started blowing. In these conditions, climbing could be dangerous. The guides had the option of turning us around, but decided since we were so close (more than an hour) from the top, we should just keep climbing, so we did.
The guides, it seemed, had a sixth sense for these things. As we finally mounted the final push, the clouds started clearing. We were treated at the top to a broken, but beautiful, view of the valley below, atleast 260° degrees in most directions. A touch of snow still came down, but something odd was mixed in...
"Wait," you might be thinking. "Why only 260°?" Well, a cookie for anyone who guessed correctly: There was a crater blocking our view. Our position, in hindsight, was a bit precarious. One side was a steep decent way, way down. The other side was a poison-spewing hole in the earth.
I of course chose the poison hole. Edging closer and closer towards the sharp drop in, I could just begin to make out the actual vent, the glowing gullet that leads deep underground and into the boiling magma beneath Pucon's feet. It belched and spat sulfurous smoke and carbon monoxide in our faces. We all coughed and gagged, slowly choking to death to get one more slightly-closer photograph. You should've been there.
Unfortunately, our time at the top was limited, partially by our slow uncomfortable asphixiations, but also because the weather was starting to turn again. The clouds were returning with a vengence. Now we learned what the mysterious piece of cloth was for. A vaguely-square piece with straps to wrap tight around our waist and legs -it was, for lack of a better term, a soft toboggan. We were meant to slide out way back down the mountain.
And that's exactly what we did. I took a running start, and kicked my feet out from under me. I landed hard on my back, squashing my backpack, slamming my helmet into my bed, feeling the wind slapped out of me. Then I started sliding. Faster. Faster. Vaguely out of control... and a stop. Into a snowbank.
We got up laughing and ran to the next slope. "Hey Tony, a race!" Dozens of sledders before us had carved tracks into the ice, and we each picked one and jumped. His was smoother, so he expected to go faster. Mine was full of cruel bumps the whole way down. I hit the first one and went flying into the air, crashing back at an awkward angle, momentum not slowed the slightest. Seconds later I hit the next one, then another. My body flopped around like a ragdoll, nearly turning me around head-first. Snow shot up my pants, down my shirt, into my face and filling my nose. I couldn't see where I was or where I was going or how fast I was doing it. All I know is that when I finally came to a stop, I was far, far lower down the mountain than I was before, and I'd won the race. The two of us were both soaked to the bone, but Tony later had to go to the hospital for severe frostbite. I won twice.
After this point, the mountain started to flatten out too much for sledding, try as we might, using our ice picks like canoe paddles. Doesn't work. We tried walking out, but when you try walking sideways on a slope through slush while gravity pulls you down in a different direction, you just end up stumbling like a drunk, threatening your ankles every step. Our legs and joints were starting to get very angry at us, and the sky replied in kind, getting darker by the minute, nearly black. A clear gust front developed, and the hard wind threatened to toss us over the side.
It wasn't long before the rain started, and the rain quickly turned to sleet. Then the sleet started becoming harder... no, this wasn't sleet. Hail was pouring down, getting bigger every minute. The hail itself wasn't too big, pea-sized at worst, but highway speed winds turned them into missles, pummeling our heads, necks, and arms. We started running. Helmets started sprouting from bags, but our necks were left vulnerable. I tried covering mine with my hand, but it only made my hand hurt. Instead, I found myself crouching, like a turtle into my own body, hoping my helmet could protect me everywhere. I hunched over and turned inward and suddenly wished I was somewhere else. Then the lightning came.
We'd been hearing rumbles in the distance, rumbles which evolved into sharp cracks. But this wasnt a crack. This was sub-audible, a shove, a slap. Something terrifying. The thunder wasn't near us, but above us, the sound was the shockwave strafing our heads. The lightning had hit the top of a skilift pole, mere meters from where I was standing. I instinctively huddled up, involuntarily releasing from my mouth some sad hybrid of a yell and a moan. I stopped running then, my survival instinct robbed from me. I just started walking, slowly, swinging my metal icepick near the ground. Lightning continued to strike ground around us, once even throwing half a dozen people to the ground with its force. I kept walking. Running was useless now, and all I could do is play the numbers game and hope lightning hit one of the dozens of others and not me.
As some of you might know, I have a history with lightning. I've been nearly hit more than my share of times (thanks Kyra). Lightning is a raw power that makes me feel my mortality more than anything else on Earth, more than standing on the precipice of a live volcano. Here I think I came closer to being hit than ever before.
But the lightning, somehow, never hit any of us. We made it back to the vans and headed back to town. By the time we arrived, the sun was shining again. The people in town had barely seen rain, and not a hint of hail. I was still shivering, soaked in icewater, but still unhinged. I was cold. And wet. Hurt. Scared. And damn did I feel alive.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Living On A Prayer
I've had plenty of time to think lately. A 24 hour bus to Santiago (surprisingly, one of my least painful bus experiences), wandering around the downtown, getting lost in the world's most maze-like city park (a multi-tiered wedding cake-esque monstrosity with more stairs than an Escher painting), and getting lost in the convoluted neighborhoods and backalleys of hilly Valparaiso. Yes, plenty of time to think back on the first half of this trip.
See, Santiago is the halfway point, in both distance and time. About 3000 to Quito, another 3000 to Ushuaia. Yes, plenty of buses, though the buses in Chile and Santiago actually have working lights, reclining seats, and don't break down daily. Until now, buses have been the bain of my existence, a cheap but painful regular mental flogging. Now, the buses are a painful existence to my wallet, but an almost pleasant jaunt through the high mountains or along the sea coast.
I've been homesick, friendsick, lovesick, but most of all travel sick. I first came ill in Baños, Ecuador. I'd had both the Amazon and Rural Andean Village trips behind me, so I suppose it came at a fortuitous time, but sitting awake on the toilet in Cuenca because you've got a fever and the brutal shits and the mutant roosters wont stop crowing, never comes at a fortuitous time. I got ill again in La Paz, not taking the advice to not eat the 2 Boliviano (30 cents) streetburgers, but street food is oh-so-delicious. I may have eaten at the priciest, swankiest restaurant in La Paz (an unheard of 12 dollars for a 3 course meal), but the best food I have is the pan-fried mystery meat (typically llama) they sell on the sketchiest of street corners. In my opinion, those who are too pussy to eat street food in South America fail to really experience the continent.
I've also been anxious. Deep, pervading, insomnia-inducing anxiety for days on end. I replay thoughts and emails over and over, preparing what I'll say for all possible outcomes. I pray, an act I don't truly believe in, from every deity from the Amazonian tree spirits to Tio, the protector god of miners in Potosi. It steals my time, my money, and even some of my enjoyment when I spend hours ruminating while hiking along the Inca Trail or speeding hazardously down the Death Road. This specter over my head is Graduate School. Australia promised me an answer in early November, and in early November Macquarie accepted me, but put me on a scholarship waitlist until early December. In the meanwhile, Arizona State, University of Texas, University of British Columbia, Eastern Michigan University, Eastern Carolina University, and Boise State have all expressed come-and-go interest in having me, and even less promise when it comes to funding. So I slowly hack away at various domestic applications while Australia haunts my dreams, on the occasion it lets me sleep. Reading Stephen King's 'IT' didn't get me nearly as bad.
I've seen my share of culture, from the Wonder of the World known as Machu Picchu to the disgusting facimile known as the Floating Uros Islands. I've also seen my fair share of bars, from the disconcertingly American gay bars of Quito, to the hostel bars of Loki, to the cokebinge Couchsurfer Halloween Party in Lima, to the pile of vomit on the floor next to my bed in Cuzco. However, I've come to realize I really need to triage if I want to see even a fraction of what I want to see. I'm a scientist, a biologist, and I'm best served seeing the myriad of ecosystems that set South America apart. One of the first things I did after arriving in Ecuador was hop on the first bus to an Amazonian lodge, and there I saw nearly every animal on my wishlist, from Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula (on my shoulder) to Poison Dart Frogs, Bullet Ants, Morpho Butterflies, Piranas (in my stomach), to rowdy troops of Squirrel Monkeys. And I've continued to see the strange and wonderful, from foxes and bizarro wolf spiders on the Inca Trail to Vicuñas, Flamingos, and Rheas in the Salt Flats. Still ahead of me are the Arucaria forests and frozen Southern Coasts, replete with penguins, Elephant Seals, and perhaps even whales. And then there's the Galapagos, the biologist's version of a wet dream.
It's all been disturbingly expensive, far more than I budgeted for. I had maybe enough money to eat and sleep, but that'd make for pretty boring travel. If I want to ride the Devil's Nose Train in Alausi or visit the ancient pyramids in Trujillo or soar in the cloud forest canopy of Mindo, I need extra money. And ultimately, I had to do the thing I least wanted to do, short of selling my body to gross fat Peruvians: I had to come crawling back to my father and begging for money. Of course, he gave it willingly, happy to help me, but it didn't make me any less ashamed at having to admit I still can't take care of myself at 22 while traipising across the world.
No, ultimately I'm not independent. I'm not independent financially, and I'm hiking down the same Gringo Trail hundreds of others are and thousands have before me. I see some of the same faces from Cuzco pop up in La Paz. From Riobamba in Sucre. Everyone from Potosi in Uyuni. The further south I get, the more narrow the choices become, and the more likely I'll see the same faces again. However, this isnt an annoyance, it's something I look forward to. All those hours I spent in internet cafes, long conversations on Skype, uploading hundreds of photos, even updating this blog, they all exist to keep me from being independent, from floating free. I want to stay connected to my friends and family, they keep me sane in this insane continent, this crazy world. But most of my friends are thousands of miles away. Now I'm making friends here. Perhaps not the closest of friends, probably not even people I'll ever see again. Abigail, Nick, Christian, Eddie, Jessie, Tim, Andrew, Rose, and Martin: if nothing else, they're names I'll remember. Faces I'll see in my big boat.
I'll be honest though, months of solo traveling gets lonely, often. It's expensive, trying, and sometimes traumatizing. But I'm surviving. At this point, I'd even say I'm thriving. I'm adapting, I'm connecting, and I'm seeing both the larger world and my inner self in ways I never have before. And best of all, it's only half over.
See, Santiago is the halfway point, in both distance and time. About 3000 to Quito, another 3000 to Ushuaia. Yes, plenty of buses, though the buses in Chile and Santiago actually have working lights, reclining seats, and don't break down daily. Until now, buses have been the bain of my existence, a cheap but painful regular mental flogging. Now, the buses are a painful existence to my wallet, but an almost pleasant jaunt through the high mountains or along the sea coast.
I've been homesick, friendsick, lovesick, but most of all travel sick. I first came ill in Baños, Ecuador. I'd had both the Amazon and Rural Andean Village trips behind me, so I suppose it came at a fortuitous time, but sitting awake on the toilet in Cuenca because you've got a fever and the brutal shits and the mutant roosters wont stop crowing, never comes at a fortuitous time. I got ill again in La Paz, not taking the advice to not eat the 2 Boliviano (30 cents) streetburgers, but street food is oh-so-delicious. I may have eaten at the priciest, swankiest restaurant in La Paz (an unheard of 12 dollars for a 3 course meal), but the best food I have is the pan-fried mystery meat (typically llama) they sell on the sketchiest of street corners. In my opinion, those who are too pussy to eat street food in South America fail to really experience the continent.
I've also been anxious. Deep, pervading, insomnia-inducing anxiety for days on end. I replay thoughts and emails over and over, preparing what I'll say for all possible outcomes. I pray, an act I don't truly believe in, from every deity from the Amazonian tree spirits to Tio, the protector god of miners in Potosi. It steals my time, my money, and even some of my enjoyment when I spend hours ruminating while hiking along the Inca Trail or speeding hazardously down the Death Road. This specter over my head is Graduate School. Australia promised me an answer in early November, and in early November Macquarie accepted me, but put me on a scholarship waitlist until early December. In the meanwhile, Arizona State, University of Texas, University of British Columbia, Eastern Michigan University, Eastern Carolina University, and Boise State have all expressed come-and-go interest in having me, and even less promise when it comes to funding. So I slowly hack away at various domestic applications while Australia haunts my dreams, on the occasion it lets me sleep. Reading Stephen King's 'IT' didn't get me nearly as bad.
I've seen my share of culture, from the Wonder of the World known as Machu Picchu to the disgusting facimile known as the Floating Uros Islands. I've also seen my fair share of bars, from the disconcertingly American gay bars of Quito, to the hostel bars of Loki, to the cokebinge Couchsurfer Halloween Party in Lima, to the pile of vomit on the floor next to my bed in Cuzco. However, I've come to realize I really need to triage if I want to see even a fraction of what I want to see. I'm a scientist, a biologist, and I'm best served seeing the myriad of ecosystems that set South America apart. One of the first things I did after arriving in Ecuador was hop on the first bus to an Amazonian lodge, and there I saw nearly every animal on my wishlist, from Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula (on my shoulder) to Poison Dart Frogs, Bullet Ants, Morpho Butterflies, Piranas (in my stomach), to rowdy troops of Squirrel Monkeys. And I've continued to see the strange and wonderful, from foxes and bizarro wolf spiders on the Inca Trail to Vicuñas, Flamingos, and Rheas in the Salt Flats. Still ahead of me are the Arucaria forests and frozen Southern Coasts, replete with penguins, Elephant Seals, and perhaps even whales. And then there's the Galapagos, the biologist's version of a wet dream.
It's all been disturbingly expensive, far more than I budgeted for. I had maybe enough money to eat and sleep, but that'd make for pretty boring travel. If I want to ride the Devil's Nose Train in Alausi or visit the ancient pyramids in Trujillo or soar in the cloud forest canopy of Mindo, I need extra money. And ultimately, I had to do the thing I least wanted to do, short of selling my body to gross fat Peruvians: I had to come crawling back to my father and begging for money. Of course, he gave it willingly, happy to help me, but it didn't make me any less ashamed at having to admit I still can't take care of myself at 22 while traipising across the world.
No, ultimately I'm not independent. I'm not independent financially, and I'm hiking down the same Gringo Trail hundreds of others are and thousands have before me. I see some of the same faces from Cuzco pop up in La Paz. From Riobamba in Sucre. Everyone from Potosi in Uyuni. The further south I get, the more narrow the choices become, and the more likely I'll see the same faces again. However, this isnt an annoyance, it's something I look forward to. All those hours I spent in internet cafes, long conversations on Skype, uploading hundreds of photos, even updating this blog, they all exist to keep me from being independent, from floating free. I want to stay connected to my friends and family, they keep me sane in this insane continent, this crazy world. But most of my friends are thousands of miles away. Now I'm making friends here. Perhaps not the closest of friends, probably not even people I'll ever see again. Abigail, Nick, Christian, Eddie, Jessie, Tim, Andrew, Rose, and Martin: if nothing else, they're names I'll remember. Faces I'll see in my big boat.
I'll be honest though, months of solo traveling gets lonely, often. It's expensive, trying, and sometimes traumatizing. But I'm surviving. At this point, I'd even say I'm thriving. I'm adapting, I'm connecting, and I'm seeing both the larger world and my inner self in ways I never have before. And best of all, it's only half over.
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