Has it really been three months?

...so I'm being pressured to write something by my lovely soon to be hitched bff. It's been three months or something crazy like that. Gee time flies. Maybe I'll just do a bullet list of updates, though most of you know a lot of what's been going on with me. :)

• Dog bite healed and I finished up all five rabies shots. It's called a vacuna antirabia. Rabia also means anger/rage. So I like to think I'm safe and healthy on a range of levels.
  
• I've been traveling since the end of April, went to visit a Chilote in Castro on the main island of Chiloé. Fun, but realized that my tourist visa was about to expire, so I had to cut my trip there short and travel to Bariloche (in Argentina) to renew my 90-day entrance stamp.
  
• Vipassana Meditation, 10 days in silence, no communication of any kind, no music, no reading, no nada, in the middle of May. This was probably the most intense thing I've ever done in my life. It beats a marathon stamina-wise. You wouldn't expect it, but sitting 10 hrs a day or so hurts! And just sitting with yourself with zero distractions is serious business. I'd recommend it to anybody (http://www.dhamma.org/). There are all kinds of these retreats in the States. It's free, a donation at the end of the journey. Plus the food, wow, delicious, simple vegetarian and super healthy. (I've been veg ever since, apart from seafood, something I'd been thinking about doing for ages.) It was a cleanse in many ways, just about every character I've met in this life visited me. Been pretty good about keeping up the morning meditations, though it can be hard with overnight buses, dorms, etc.
  
• Hung out in Santiago, taking a travel writing workshop for the magazine. Here decided that my travels would take me to Ecuador, so I could be trained and help organize a bit the remodel of our web site. I've been doing this whole trip overland and visited quite a few little places on the way north in Chile.
• I turned 30.
  
• Traveling traveling north to San Pedro de Atacama (though I meant to go to Salta, Argentina, but either the pass to get there was closed or the buses weren't running on the days I was ready to go.) From Atacama met some folks and we traveled 4x4 style to Salar de Uyuni. World's largest salt flat (4,085 square miles according to Wikipedia) in the altiplano of Bolivia. The group of people on this trip were so fun and we did all the crazy Salar photos, one of the girls brought toy dinosaurs as props. Awesome. Here's one photo one of the guys sent to me... It's not the funny Salar posing type of foto, just me holding the sun at its dawn... basically the vast expanse of white makes it so that you can take zany pictures because you have no sense of depth out there.
  

• This was also part of the trip where I bribed the Bolivian officials at the border to let me in for only four days. I traveled pretty extensively in Bolivia last year before the new Visa regs they have for USA. Now, if you're from the States, you have to pay $100 buckaroos to enter the country. What? I guess it's fair if you consider how hard it is for them to get a tourist visa to the states. Anyway, supposedly Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and you can (and often must) bribe your way around. That means in my passport I have an exit stamp for Chile and then I'm nowhere for four days, before getting my re-entrance into Chile.
  
• Other trip highlights include Arequipa, Peru, which seriously has the most beautiful main plaza that I've seen in South America. It's a beautiful city, if a little foul smelling on account of all the diesel autos. There, I hiked around in Colca Canyon... the gulp... second deepest canyon in the world. Ha! I hiked it with a few other people and they had the fish-story way. You know, how the fish that you caught gets bigger with every telling. They swear when they tell of their trip, that they will have climbed down and out of the DEEPEST canyon in the world (which is Cotohausi and in the same neck of the woods). And I kept saying that they can't do that, it wasn't the deepest canyon, and we all laughed at me. But they're right, it sounds way better to day deepest canyon in the world, than SECOND deepest. I also climbed up Misti Volcano (totally unclimatized, not a good idea!). Highest I've ever been at 5,825 meters, more than 19,000 feet. I made it, cold and dizzy. About 7 hours to get up (from a high camp), starting at 3 a.m., and only 45 minutes to get back down to the high camp. Coming down was SO much fun, like skiing, all loose sand, down down down.
  
• For the last couple weeks I've been beach hopping on the Ecuadorian coast. It's so nice to be warm. I hear it's frozen solid in Puerto Natales (where I go back in August). Been going for lots of barefoot beach runs and refreshing myself in the equator-warm Pacific afterward. I love this part. Oh, and all the yummy fresh fruit juices. I don't know how I live without fresh squeezed juice every morning. I'm going to have to figure something out for that.
  
• Tomorrow, I'm headed to Quito, where I'll stay for a bit, do some hiking, hopefully climb Cotopaxi Volcano, and work on some web site stuff.
  

That's all for now...

Snow, lots of snow

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing a blog after a way too long. I’d start it like so: I’ve been thinking a lot about… karma, for instance. Or. It’s snowing like mad and it feels eerily like Christmas.

But now, I’m forced to start with last night. I got bit by a dog. On the way to yoga riding my bike in the biting cold. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do in these situations. Do I go to the hospital, do I stay and do yoga? When I checked my leg in the mirror before entering the yoga room, I found a pretty big wound, starting to bubble up with sangre. I called my amiga la doctora, she was in the hospital and told me to come right away. She numbed the back of my thigh and stapled and stitched me three times. Now I can’t run, can’t bike, and can’t do yoga for about 10 days, lest the staples pop and scrape me up even more.

Man. I was supposed to be in training for the Big Rock Festival triathlon, coming up on the 19th. Now it looks like I won’t even be able to participate, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll make a speedy miraculous recovery. I’m on a program of five rabies shots, taking antibiotics, etc., so everything’s groovy. All in all, very lucky. People are taking good care of me here.

I’m getting ready to head up north at the end of the month, for the winter. I’ll be back in August to work on the magazine again. Everything here pretty much shuts down for the winter. Not sure what the plan is exactly. Hopefully take Navimag up to Puerto Montt. Do some Black Sheep distribution in the Lake District, and then be in Santiago by May 7 for a little (vow of) silence.

There go the glaciers

We've been having amazing weather for more than a week. I mean it's hot and there's hardly any wind. Locals who might be in short sleeves in 45-degree F weather are in pain. I'm loving it. The other day I heard it was up to 25 degrees C, that's in the high 70s. And that never ever happens. We're talking blue skies and sunshine. It's just so lovely and so clear, you can see mountain ranges across the fjord that you can hardly ever see. I don't know the names of them, because it's never clear enough to see them or try to identify them. Though, this morning I woke up with the music of my dream still in my head (calentimiento global). Other than the fact that I'm definitely dreaming in Spanish, I'm not sure what it means that I'm dreaming so fervently about global warming conversations. Anyway, the warm weather and completely breathtaking, mindblowing views make me happy. And they're kind of a tease, making me think, Oh, I could live here. It's so beautiful. But I was really missing the sunshine before this "heat wave," so that's why it's a tease.

Thing is, I really do like Natales. It's a cute town on the Pacific, on Seno Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope Sound) sheltered by fjords and with mountains jutting straight up out of the water. If you just take a look at the people walking around town, they all walk so slow. Nobody's in a hurry, people stop and say hi everywhere. And if you're not in a conversation with someone who actually lives here (it's really a tourist town), you're talking to a traveler. These conversations are usually lovely and refreshing. People come here to go to Torres del Paine, and as is the case with most travelers, they're looking for something. Beauty. A step back. To gain perspective. Even when it's raining. So, yeah, I like it here. Forever? No. For how long? I still don't know.

When I first got here I stayed with lovely Marijke and Sergio for about five days. Marijke, who was doing the cycling trip from Ushuaia to Alaska, got sidetracked and is no planning to go cycle in India and Southeast Asia for six months with Sergio. On the 19th, they swam across the fjord in freezing water, this was the first time crossing, and they did it quick. They really are amazing, and I was so happy I could be there to give them towels. What a production it was and what a day! This was also the first day of our lovely weather, lucky as they are, and they has sunny blue skies and calm, sin viento, water.

Then my dear Chilean friends Ivian and Pedro invited me stay with them for a while. It's a bigger place, though I do miss Sergio's real coffee in the morning. I really adore Ivian and Pedro, we have a blast together, laughing a ton. Now they're gone for three weeks on vacation, so I'm watching their dogs. It kind of worked out perfect. Ivian even helped me get my stuff out of the other house. When I first got back here, I was super nervous about how people were going to be and all the things I had to do. But now that I have a place for a while (and can look for another place without being in a big hurry) and have my stuff out of the other house, and have talked to Roberto a bit, I feel a lot less anxious. Plus it's been so nice just staying with people and being with friends all the time. It's the unknown and anticipation that cause so much stress.

And really, upon getting here, I had the same feeling I had when I arrived to the States: just that I'm so lucky. So lucky in the States to have family and friends who love me and who I love, that I feel healthy, and that I have options. Here I feel the same, lucky to have friends that I love and who love me. And even luckier to still have all my family and friends in the States. Maybe that's an obvious. But this whole thing would be a lot more difficult without the support of mi gente. I mean, if I fail miserably, I know that someone will take me in and still love me afterward, and I didn't always know that. It took me a while to know, and it feels so good, not only to know it ,but also to see myself finally be able to. And So, thank you.

We're all just ships...

Each one of us is the captain of our own ship. And on the journey we let on various passengers and crew. They get on and off, come and go. The influx of passengers is a daily activity. The trick is to not get stuck, don’t toss out the anchor. Keep on keeping on… Maybe the ship gets capsized or moves slowly through icebergs, where you end up only inching along for a while. But someone will get on to help fix the leaks and you’ll steer your way through the icebergs and keep moving forward, if your anchor’s not down.

We had this great little talk with a handsome young 21 year old we met during our trek. He works and basically lives completely in the campo and is saving up money to study art in France. When he was 15 he died for about 20 minutes and watched everything from above his own drown body (I already mentioned the lack of swimming knowledge in Magallanes, right?) His energy was pure and deep and calm and beautiful. Marijke and I were doing the big circuit, which takes you behind the Torres del Paine. In a complete circle. We met him on our first day out, and perfectly, again on our last day in the park.

There were so many people we met, and it just felt so good to be in constant motion… I had a lot of time to talk with myself. My anchor’s been down, but I’ve been reeling it up, especially the last week hiking. I think Marijke and I both finished the big O different people. And me, I’m more at peace than I’ve been in ages, maybe ever? I feel like it’s overflowing. I wish I could put it in a bottle for use when I’m not feeling so llena de paz. But I’m sure I’ve got a few extra bottles of it laying around somewhere among my vital organs. So here we are, back in Natales. I’m not sure yet what’s about to happen, but I know it will be right and that everything will be OK.

The Paine Circuit

December's paper just went to press yesterday morning, and I definitely feel like I need a bit of a rest after it. So tomorrow after a long time without visiting the park, I'm heading into Torres del Paine tomorrow morning. It'll just be me and my Dutch friend Marijke doing the big circuit, about 8-9 days. The first night we'll be staying in Ecocamp where Roberto works, and I think he'll be there that night, too. We'll see. I haven't really been doing any exercise since I've been in Natales, so I think I might be more out of breath than I'd like, but super looking forward to it. It's still closed because of snow on the biggest pass, etc., but mostly it's closed because the government park organization can't get its ish together to open the refugios and make repairs to the rope ladders and what not. Anyway, that just means that we have to be careful. Anyway, I'll take lots of pictures and hopefully upload all my end of the world pictures some time soon. I think I stopped uploading pictures somewhere in mid-Bolivia.

Nos vemos when I'm back from the park! xoxoxo