Life As Canvas

In Lima, bodies form a sporadic current pushing its way through pedestrian streets where hoarse pleading voices ring above the rest and desperate men try to pull you into their Internet cafes or ask you if you happen to want to get a tattoo. Ice cream shops line the walkways, women wander through the crowd selling pens and pencils or church candles or any thing they come across, I even saw one selling little bells.

Everyday people will offer the smallest of household things, from Dixie cups of jello to calls from a cell phone, and more than once I’ve seen a man with a bathroom scale, selling people their weight for a few cents a pop.

And all the time bodies upon bodies, women overflowing in their tight jeans, toppling on high heels, boys in baseball caps, old men on crutches, groups in business suits, exchange space they take on the street, shuffle by, brush by, squeeze by. Taxis, so many to make up an anthill of a city, beep about everything in a range of horn tones.

At these times I feel the rough wool of my new llama sack scratching against my wrist. It’s still there, no one has tried to take it, yet. The gringo tends to tense in these places where locals go about their day and lilly-white maidens such as myself are scarce and attract a whole lifetime’s worth of whistles and kissy noises.

If I weren’t nervous for my belongings, I’d stand in the middle of the crowd and close my eyes, feeling this great river of skin and heat move and plead and claw at itself against the music of horns and sirens.

Yesterday morning the city woke up bright and hot and I made a trip to the post office, a building on the edge of the safer side of town. From there I was pulled by some strong curiosity just beyond that edge to the river, from where I was pulled again to cross it. And there, buildings with no windows, dusty black buildings that were once brand shiny new display old broken decorations and deserted top floors. Little rainbow umbrellas shade plump ladies lining the riverbank with their metal carts of fruits and blenders. They looked rather cheerful there to me who was looking from afar and squinting into the sun.

On a street corner, glowing in his fluorescent vest, a policeman caught sight of me and my gringo boyfriend and asked us to turn around, por favor, and walk back the way we’d come. It’s muy peligroso here. So back we went, to navigate through the bodies moving through each other and looking into each other asking for something, just a little change.

I know what pesky bureaucracy is, having lived in France. But the Peruvian post office? I never thought I’d make it out of there.

I strode down the streets of Lima with a smile, my cardboard box of llama products and other knick-knacks under my arm, thinking about the city and the way the guides always say it’s ugly. But Lima actually has its charms. Must learn not to listen to guides. Glad I sold mine to a guy in a hotel. And there, beyond the pigeon-filled square with the big, sparkling fountain, beyond the president’s house with the guards and the tanks out front, there was the post office, looking sharp. I stepped in optimistically, hoping the line wouldn’t be too long. The line, as it turns out, wasn’t long at all, but the procedure itself is a doozy.

First, the frowning woman behind the counter had to open my meticulously taped box to be sure I wasn’t being bad.

Then, I had to have it re-packaged, which meant going outside to one of the stands where I paid a girl to actually sew it into a cotton sack, a big Frankenstein seam running down it’s belly. This took a good 15 minutes.

Then back into the post office to have it weighed. “126 soles” (40 bucks!) said the woman, still unsmiling.

“Address it,” she said.
“Do you have a pen?”
” No.” So off I went, to pay for the one-time use of a felt pen at the same stand outside.

Back into the post office. She then wrote “126 soles” on the box with her nonexistant pen, breaking my polite American smile.

“Photocopy of your passport,” she said.
“I need a photocopy of my passport?” I repeated, laughing at this ridiculous process.
“Sí.” She wasn’t laughing.
“Where can I…”
“Outside.”

Okay, okay. Outside I went to make a photocopy and then back to the post office. I waited in line, rallying my confidence to talk to the woman about this 126 soles business.

“Hi.” I slapped my copy on the counter, “Do you have anything less expensive?”
“No, no.”
I paused.
“Anything… slower?”
“Sure, at 99 soles, but it’ll take 30 days.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, then.” Then she actually grimaced and shoved some papers over for me to fill out, still not offering her pen.

Back outside to buy a pen.

Once I’d produced my work she took it, processed it, and stamped it. She gave me a paper, pushed my box aside, and said, “Go pay on the other side.”

A line. Waiting, I hoped it was the right one. This lady did smile a little and took my money, stamping my paper and sending me off out in to the daylight yet again. Ahh it was finally done. Looking down at my receipt, then, I noticed she had stamped it with the word “Cancelado.”

I hope that means “paid.”

So I’d gotten clumsy. So I’d been drinking “papaya juice” with my morning breakfast, though I knew well that papaya in a blender doesn’t make much juice and tap water was almost inevitable in the mix. “If I can eat tacos all day on the streets of Mexico City and brush my teeth with the faucet water at night, I must have a stomache of iron!!” I foolishly thought.

Then I went too far.

They call it “Ceviche” and it is actually quite good. Spicy, lemony raw fish of all sorts make up this regional dish. A friendly drunken local on a bus was ashamed I hadn’t tried it, yet, so I promised him I would in my pitiful broken Spanish. A promise I should never have kept.

Later that night, as I read a copy of “Anne of Green Gables” I’d found in Cuzco, my belly started a-quaking. Cyril came back from his Kiteboarding lesson, then, and simply stated: “I think I might throw up.” And then he did. And so did I. All night. What a pretty couple we made.

Travel can be a fairy tale when you’re staring through misty hillsides down into lush valleys of palms and fruit trees or frolicking over the shadows of an ancient society or watching glaciers tumble over upon themselves. But it can also be long, hellish hours hanging on to the porcelaine rim of your hotel toilet, cursing that drunken stranger and his friendly intentions.

4:05 am and I found myself falling into an uphill rhythm in the dark, something that is slowly becoming familiar to me. I’d decked myself out in all of my raingear, taking the rushing river outside the hotel for rain, expecting the worst. The worst has been my luck in the weather department, lately. Alas, this time the skies held their contents in and, unfortunately, so did my rainpants, in which my legs were throbbing and sweating under the uphill sway of my body, hot and sticky in the muggy jungle air. Lone drops occasionally added contrast to my skin, cold rivulets hitting my head or sneaking down my back by way of the nape of the neck. Everything, the vines and trees, moss and rocks, even the darkness itself, was dripping.

Wheezing lightly, wondering why a month and a half in the high altitudes of Bolivia hadn’t helped my lung capacity by the time I got to Peru, my mind wandered to the two days it took us to get there, bus stuck in the muck, rock slides on the road, thick curtains of rain that melted the way right before our eyes, milky brown mud half way up spinning tires, pushing the bus, walking along the train tracks, chatting with local men who, with a lock of the eyes, offered to be my “guide” on my next visit, looking out steamy windows to see the land change from mountain rocks to furry green valleys full of coffee, fruit, tea, cacao, coca, birds, bananas, clouds and their wet contents, and pueblos there where the Inca have lived for centuries, leaving so many ruins behind and now opening restaurants to feed tired gringo explorers. We didn’t want to take the train to Machu Picchu with the other tourists. It costs too much, it’s a monopoly owned by Chile, and then there’s no adventure in it at all. So we contented ourselves with pushing buses through mud and clearing newly fallen boulders from our path.

Honestly, after months of seeing Machu Picchu posters in travel agencies in the streets of Bolivia and Peru and after two days of crazy (yet great) transport, I was just happy to finally be there. I didn’t really expect it to impress me much, cynical as that seems, yet I had gotten up at 3:45 and followed Cyril up steep stone steps, river rushing below us, darkness above.

By 5:30 we reached the top of the hill and made for the park entrance where we were met by a sleepy guard but there was no one else around. I looked for the people from the Inca trail, as they usually tend to arrive before everyone else but none were to be seen. Somehow, we were the first ones up, though the tourist buses arrive at six when the park opens. Internally I gave myself a little high five and glared at the people fresh off the bus from my post at the front of the line. I felt as though I’d earned it.

The doors opened, then, and we ran into the park, my legs still burning from the climb up, and made our way to the top of a hill where, looking down on Machu Picchu, the awe hit. Ringed by low wisps of cloud while the sun just tipped above the hilltops, streaking them with warm light, the site was completely empty but for the birds.

Sunlight sparkled from drops of dew in the grasses. I took my moment, then. Just a minute of stillness while my eyes and my mind took it all in.

Everyone else filed in and kept coming in bunches. By eleven the park was full of people following paths in every which way. We made our way back down, then, happy to have gotten up early, happy to have hiked up the trail, to have pushed a bus through the mud, to have chosen this crazy life.

More photos on my flickr site!

A teenage girl and her mother, in traditional dress, appeared across the street from Jack’s Cafe, where a collection of tourists were buying souvenirs as they waited to get in.

The mother and daughter wore brightly colored shirts and sweaters, pink on red on yellow, with the typical Inca skirt to below the knee, sandals and felt hats. They were undeniably beautiful, their black hair shined in perfect braids and through some quality of their skin they radiated health. The girl’s face was twisted into a typical teenage expression. One that seemed to say “When will we get this over with so I can go home and listen to Shakira?” Her fingers lightly grazed the llama’s fur while her mother assessed the situation.

The Americans across the street bought belts from an old woman weaving on the corner and laughed loudly when the father of the family tried on a sweater from a persistent man in a sun faded windbreaker.

They looked happy in their clean khakis and running shoes. The girl stared at them absently, her face blank, her hand still stroking the llama. None of the laughing foreigners across the street were getting out their cameras, so the mother moved on, feeding the llama grasses. Keeping her gaze behind her, the girl followed.

I imagined she had done this since she was a little girl, going into town with momma and the family llama, all dressed up in their most colorful things. The things the tourists would want to have as their own. They would pay for photos while the girl and her mother would hold the llama and smile. This would be the image the tourists would take home to show their friends. Beautiful, colorful, traditional, smiling Peru. And this image would cause their friends to dream up an exotic world of dark braids and woven blankets.

Then the girl and her mother would move to the next tourist plaza and the next, exchanging fantastic dreams for coins until their pockets would become heavy. They would walk the llama back home and start dinner, maybe turn on the TV. This is only speculation. But I never see the most colorful mothers and daughters with their llamas on the less-touristy side of town where Peruvians fill up the streets, not a gringo in sight.

On that side of town men yell discount prices into loudspeakers and llama-kebabs sizzle tempting smoke into the crowd. Peruvians peruse the markets and the vendors on wheels for a new bootleg DVD or some fresh meat and vegetables just off the truck where passers-by will see skinned cow heads and various other parts watiting to be schlepped into a market stall.

This is by far my favorite part of town. Though Cuzco is beautiful and full of history on the polished touisty side, with palaces from the Incas and churches from the Inquisition, it also has its fair share of pizza places and Chinese food and expensive boutiques with European flair and prices.

The teenage girl and her mother catch my attention – they are wholly interesting to me as a tourist but they are not the authentic Peru that pulses and heaves, yells and laughs and smiles on the other side of town.

Some girls in the street with their baby lambs or goats (so soft) charge for photos. Also accept soda as a gift.

In a refuge on Huayna Potosi mountain above La Paz, I turned in my sleeping bag, unable to doze off. Before bed time our mountain guides had made us a soup and some Coca mate, which is boiling water poured over Coca leaves, very popular in Bolivia and said to both give energy and help one sleep. As contradictory as this may seem, I had decided to give it a try.

We went to bed at 8pm, expecting to wake at midnight, as it is the best time to start a trek to the summit. We would dress, sip some hot chocolate, and take off into the dark. At least, that’s how it was supposed to work. But waking up means sleeping and my heart was pounding too hard from the elevation, the coca leaves, or maybe simply nerves, to let me rest.

I’ve climbed a mountain once before, but I was 10 years old and felt at home on its friendly slopes. With my dad I proudly reached the 11,000 foot summit just after dawn, getting to skip a day of 5th grade for it. But this time too many things had changed. I was in Bolivia, relatively out of shape, with a guide who only spoke Spanish on a mountain twice as high as my favorite volcano back home. Though Huayna Potosi is known as an easy 6,000 meter mountain, 30 percent of the people who try don’t make it to the top. Altitude sickness has some of them spinning in their heads and vomiting, others just have bad luck.

These facts mingled in my head as I ordered myself to sleep but then a familiar rumbling sound shook my belly and my already stressed heart took a leap. It sounded like a glacier cracking apart. They do that, these South American glaciers. They rumble and echo and crash. But then it happened again. The wind picked up, pushing against the side of the refuge, and a flash filled the room. Sitting up to find out what the others thought of this, I saw but sleeping lumps on the floor. No one else seemed to notice the lightning storm and, with half an hour left before midnight, I tried to ignore it, myself.

Before long, clinking pots and breakfast sounds rustled the room. Theo and Porfis, our friendly guides, were preparing tea and organizing their ropes and harnesses as they whistled Bolivian tunes in the room below. Sleepily, we rose, covered ourselves in layers of fleece and snow gear up to the nose. We had our hot chocolate as planned, and then headed out the door into the night, wind and snow pelting our faces, unable to see anything but round white headlamp light making circles on the snow. A slow rumble in the valley shook my senses but the guides didn’t seem to mind.

Crampons creaking in the snow, cord dragging between Porfis’ harness and mine, Cyril taking up the rear, ever so slowly we stepped up the mountain and away from the warm refuge. Left foot, pause. Right foot, pause. Making sure not to slip. Tension in the line. There was nothing but darkness to contrast with the white snow flakes flying in front of my head lamp beam.

The higher we climbed, the harder I breathed. Through the light fleece of my ski mask, I couldn’t suck in oxygen fast enough. We were rouding 5,200 meters when I ripped it off of my face and wheezed, a sudden wave nausea rocking my belly. “What am I doing?” I thought. “Isn’t it good enough to travel in South America? Is a 6,000 meter mountain top really necessary?”

Just then Porfis turned around. “Do you hear that? It’s the storm.” He said, but there hadn’t been any thunder. “Hear the static?” I shook my head. “Come closer,” he said, and I leaned into his backpack, my ear hovering above some metal anchors he had strapped to the back. At first I thought he was talking about some sort of local legend. Hearing nothing but my breath and the wind, I smiled politely and shook my head again. But then he turned and I heard it. He was buzzing and crackling like one of those radiation detectors they use in Chernobyl. “Static,” he said, “Muy peligroso.” But he decided we’d keep on going for a while to catch up to the other amigos who had left before us and then we’d decide what to do.

Snow whirled around from every side, up into my hood and down my neck. As the valley kept rumbling below, so my belly turned over and over itself, threatening to spill its contents into the snow. But slowly, we kept trudging on. Left foot, pause. Right foot, pause. Thus we caught up to the amigos, who told us there was so much snow coming down that they couldn’t find the trail.

At 3am we reached 5,650 meters (18,536 feet) and had a good laugh. We were lost, the snow was getting thicker, I was about to throw up, my guide was buzzing and, with a hint of defeat in his voice, he decided it was time to turn back.

Around 8am we woke up warm in our sleeping bags to the sounds of clinking pots again and ran to peek out the windows at the mountain top. We had wanted to see the sun rise from 6,000 meters but our typical bad luck weather got us again. As it was, the sun rose as we slept and by 9am the mountain was gleaming white against a clear blue sky, stirring bitterness in the boys of the group. “Think of how the view would have been from up there!” They said, cranky and let-down.

Through the night, snow had layered the valleys and mountain tops white. I took my hot chocolate outside and reveled in the sun, took in the wispy clouds weaving in and out of the peaks and smiled. I couldn’t be let down by such a sight. And besides, making it to 18,536 feet in an electrical snow storm at midnight is pretty good, I think.

Just before turning back – we’re smiling because we’re thinking about our sleeping bags.

From a bus in Bolivia, looking out at the small chaos of the streets, the carts of food on bikes, latin music blasting from the taxi nearby, young ladies with babies slung to their backs, markets of fruit and skinned meat, construction in the middle of the street and Jesus stickers about everywhere, I felt like I was back in Mexico again, which was a pleasant sort of disoriented nostalgia.

Bolivia is lively chaos from the low sultry jungle to the tippy top of the civilized world. We flew from beautiful Argentina where poverty is guilded by European facades and pretend luxury falls short of its promises to Santa Cruz, Bolivia where nothing is hidden at all. To my utter and predictable delight, Bolivians have a raging sweet tooth and the streets of Santa Cruz were lined with ice cream and cakes.

Two days later on the bus to Potosí, the highest city in the world (3,967 meters), we wondered at what we saw. Lush fields lit by warm evening light like quilts lined the road and whenever we stopped women in skirts and bowler hats with colorful bundles on their backs sold corn, strange drinks in plastic bags, and other goodies to the Bolivians aboard. The fields then turned to canyon walls and we snaked up the road, dodging kids on bikes in the mud, landslides from recent heavy rainfall, gaping holes in the road that would quickly have brought us to our death, farmers and vagrants, cows, goats, pigs, llamas.

I fell asleep and then awoke with a start, looking out the front window to see the edge of the dirt road stop, followed by blackness. My belly lurched as I felt the bus swoop to the side and realized we’d just missed sliding off the dirt into nothingness. Later I woke up again and noticed the drivers trading places… one took over while the other went to sleep in the luggage compartment. Some people got off to pee in the bushes and I rubbed my eyes sleepily, watching a pig nose through some garbage on the side of the road. Home felt so far away from this weird, magical world.

Potosí itself is a wonder, and one to be earned.

13,015 feet above the sea, about 2,000 feet above Mt. Hood, my lungs struggled, my diaphragm spasming. I felt like a poor, struggling fish out of her bowl. From the hotel to the market – three blocks uphill – I had to stop to pant for a while. But once acclimatized, we toured the silver mines which once brought great wealth to this part of the world, or at least the Spanish Conquistadores, hungry for easy riches and quick to employ Inca and African slaves to get it. 8 million people died working there over 250 years.

The mines still function today, and are still dangerous. It wasn’t until after we took the tour that we were told a Japanese tourist fell 70 meters down a mine shaft to his gruesome death only a few years before. Workers range from 12 to 40-something years old and are happy to do the sweaty, heavy work for 100 Bolivianos a day (about 12 dollars). Life in the mine is mostly one thing… dark. And it’s like the mines you see in movies with carts going by on tracks and sounds of picks clinking into stone and far off explosions shaking the walls. To calm the nerves, stand the heat, and keep their mouths occupied, workers chew on coca leaves, which are completely legal in Bolivia as long as they’re not made into cocaine. We bought some as gifts to the miners before our tour and chewed on a few to see what they might to. My cheek turned numb.

Our guide lights some dynamite with his cigarette.

Miners drag the one-ton cart back into the tunnels.

Our next adventure was a three-day 4wd trip through the desert to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest (and of course, highest) salt flat in the world. The first two days were mostly spent cramped in the back of the car, bumping along the road for three or four hours at a time. Sometimes the driver let us out for photos for 10 to 30 minute intervals.

Laguna Verde was one of our short stops. It had a strange soap-like foam around the edge from the natural chemicals in the ground.

We ate llama meat and chicken that had been in the car the whole time but so far, so good, belly-wise. All of this rear-numbing time trying to occupy ourselves with ipods and conversation ended with the third day, which made the whole trip worth while.

We stopped in a little village to buy some touristy things and then off into the Salar we went, our tires squishing through the water on the surface, a great whiteness stretching out before us.

In some places it was dry and sharp, the salt forming perfect square crystals. In other spots, an inch of water covered the white mass, making a mirror of the world and erasing the horizon.

The light blue of the sky stretched on until it hit distant mountains and, where there were no mountains, seemed never to stop. Here, men work piling the salt into cones for 10 hours a day. Paid by the ton, they make about 30 Bolivianos a day, which pans out to about $3.75. They wear ski masks to avoid cooking in the sun, its rays already intense in the high altitude bounce off the white salt and burn any color of skin in sight.

While we wandered around taking pictures of this strange other-planet-like land, one of the workers waved us over and asked if we’d like to take a picture. “What have you got?” He asked, “Do you have any Bolivianos to give me? Do you have any presents?” He asked Cyril if he could have his hat, even though he was already wearing one. Then he asked me for my watch. “Por favor, señorita.” He pleaded, adding I could buy a better one in town later. We refused but shook his hand and made our way back to the truck to wait for the sunset, one of the most colorful I’ve seen.

Now we’re in La Paz, ready to embark on a new adventure tomorrow… our biggest yet. But I’ll save that for the next entry.

30+ hours in a bus proves to be a bit much but Bariloche, in the northern part of Patagonia, is as beautiful as everyone says. I’d like to know what winter snow does to the aligator-back mountains and the many deep turquoise lakes surrounded by pine trees and Alpine-style cottages.

There’s not much to do in town besides eat chocolate (and you know I’d do that all day if I could) so we decided to go on one of the treks around the Andes and do some camping while we were at it. We consulted a woman in the Andes mountaniering club (Club Andino) and she pointed out a three day trek, raving about the glacial views and telling us it was “muy, muy lindo.” First we’d take a bus to the base, then we’d hike for three days, then we’d take a tourist boat back to town. Simple! Unfortunately, she left out a few things…

Here are my personal journal entries from our trek:

Day 1: Since his 30th birthday two weeks ago, Cyril’s been on an exercise kick and pulling me along in his wake. I hurt. Sometimes when he’s clocking my progress in elevation meters/minute up the side of a mountain, telling me “Keep going, you’re half way there!” I want to vomit at his feet just to prove a point. Other times, I’m happy for the little push, knowing I’ll be proud of myself in the end and of my muscular hiker’s thighs.

Today we hiked up to a refuge which was about 1,200 meters elevation gain with our packs of food and camping gear on our backs. The dirt trail zig-zags at about a 45 degree angle (sometimes steeper) up through trees, exposing roots in every which way but since I was with Cyril and since there’s a “shortcut” that climbs straight up slippery loose dirt slopes, we quite predictably forged up the steepest chutes.

Sweat fell in big juicy drops from my forehead as my throat tightened. Every step was a temptation to stop. But in time trees gave way to light and the clay earth I’d been pawing at in front of me turned to a lip above us, onto which we stepped while I took a moment to catch my breath. Sweet agony!

The trail turned rocky but somewhat flat and we wobbled along to the refuge that sits between two glaciers. From the outside it’s a tiny cube of corrugated metal and wood.

I expected to see metal bunks and climbing gear strung across the worn wood floor. Instead, it opened up into a restaurant/bar, a fire blazing in the corner of the room, a big picture window looing up at the summit of the mountain above which in turn was reflected in the laquered tables, about five of them in the room. Cooking steaks and other tempting smells dragged us in and hot chocolates sipped to light music (Sting) in the background kept us a while.

We slept in the tent and before turning in, stopped to stare at a marmalade moon hiding between black streaks of cloud. Cyril glanced at his altimeter. “Weather’s going to turn bad.” He said. Now it’s time for bed.

Day 2: Today I feel like an old lady. After hanging around the refuge talking to some friendly Californians we realized we were off to a late start. Everything was envelopped in thick white cloud. The map stated 8-10 hours of walking time between the refuge and our campsite and we hit the rocky trail at about 12:15, plunging down into the fog, slipping over loose dirt and scree. To get up to our next camp site, first we had to go back down to the base where we had started.

Cyril, pressed for time, began running down the trail. He gave me his hiking poles and I used them to catapult myself along behind, my pack making for a bulky mass and throwing off my balance. Jumping over roots and rocks, we made it down to the flats and hauled across the fields, stopping to eat by a picturesque brook by 3:00.

We took off again and suddenly masses of bamboo lined the trail. I wonder if it’s native to Argentina? Sometimes we lost ourselves in patches of it as it pulled at our packs and tugged my hair. All alone in this section of the trail, we found we had to squish through mucky swamp mud. I like the sound it makes. I don’t like the water creeping into my shoes. Ours were the only footprints we saw all day, which seemed strange after the popular refuge.

By 5:00 our campsite was still hours away, according to the map, and we began to climb. Our deceptive map told us 300 meters of elevation gain were ahead of us, but the trail forced us up about 700, still surrounded by bamboo, then we slid down the other side of the mountain where it began to rain lightly.

By 7:30, with shaking limbs, we crossed a river, reached the campsite and set up the tent. I about died of relief. There is still absolutely no one around and I look forward to eating some camp spaghetti and falling into a deep sleep to the sounds of rushing water and crumbling glaciers thundering down from the cliffs above.

Day 3: All was well last night at bed time. My throbbing feet happily took their repose in the soft down of my sleeping bag. They were nice and comfy on top of my raincoat, serving as an extension of my short therma-rest. Pasta warm in my belly, Cyril already sleeping soundly, I closed my eyes and barely heard the first raindrops hit the tent.

By 4am the clouds began to wring themselves out, dumping masses of water over the valley and pelting us in the kind of downpour one only wishes to experience from the inside of a solid structure, hot chocolate in hand. I rolled over and tried to dream of that hot chocolate.

By 5am we woke up in a puddle of water an inch thick. Everything was blackness and water. Touching the tent floor yielded little waves and wet fingers. Freaking out, I imagined our trail washed away in the deluge, leaving us stranded in the middle of the soggy forest.

My bag, having spent the night on the dirt under the rain fly, was dripping by morning, as were all of my clothes. We had nothing to do but walk to keep warm and to finish our trail where we hoped to catch the boat.

Today I missed home for the first time. It came and went, just a pang, while water dripped down my arms and legs. We had to scramble over piles of fallen trees, slipping in the relentless rain only to carry on through running water and mud, to sink into puddles and lose our footing on slopes. There were no views but thick chutes of bamboo, making for a sort of hallway with dripping leaves hanging over our heads and hitting our faces.

Raincoat, rain pants, hiking boots, rain cover on the backpack, all of these things began the day soggy and reached full saturation about halfway along the obstacle-course of a trail. I thought of home, of my friends, of my family, of dry socks and chai…

And we forged ahead, not caring anymore whether we walked in puddles or slipped in the mud. Three hours later, a village appeared through the trees and our pace dropped. Oh I wish I had a photo of the looks on the tourists’ faces when we walked into the boat waiting room. They were all dry and well-dressed, some speaking German, others Spanish or English. We must have looked like beggars emerging out of the forest fog, dripping and tired, half-way limping with blistered feet.

Now we’re waiting for the second tourist boat, drying off in a fancy hotel, thinking about our trip to Bolivia. You know you’re making steps in travel when you don’t mind drying your undies under the had dryer in the ladies’ room of a 4 star hotel.

From Ushuaia to El Calafate (glacier Perito Moreno) to El Chalten (Mount Fitz Roy)

Somewhere down in the depths of South America, way down in the big toe of Argentina in that mysterious place called Patagonia, if you’re lucky enough to get an open seat you can take a bus from one backpacking town to another. There, you’ll bump along dirt roads to cross rolling hills of yellow grass and farms that stretch on for hours. Some guides call this an expanse of nothing but to call it nothing is plainly rude. In early morning light the fields ripple out on either side of long gravel highways, blue shadows hardening thier lines across the sky.

Then curves turn to dips and dips lead to lakes of turquoise and jade, also streaked by shadows of cottony clouds, turning water into striped gemstones. And when, from your perch in your bus seat, you think your heart might burst from the clashes of colors, of honeys and greens and blues, the mountains peek up above it all, islands of texture, rock, ice, snow.

The mountains, you can tell, know of thier effect on first-time passers-by and like to veil themselves in clouds, letting the wind whip around them and, in an instant of awe, they’re naked before you, the sun streaming in from cracks in the sky. Suddenly you realize that all of the surrounding color, the softness of the open fields, the grasses and lakes, were only conceived of to praise the rough wall of rock that towers above them.

Not far from the mountains fit for fairy tales, where glaciers slip down granite peaks like lazy lizards and crash, with thunderous authority, into the sea forming floating islands of ice fit to fill stadiums, there lives a shade of blue that, once you set your eyes upon it, you’re sure it’s the blue all other blues strive to become.

Floating Palaces

Cracking and Splashing Glaicers

Into the Castle

Glowing deep in the bellies of bobbing icebergs, it is the original blue. It chills with but a glance and shimmers at you from it’s home, a chunk of glacier turned castle of ice. I am sure that this is where blue was conceived.

What more can I say? Mountain hikes and frigid lakes are summertime in Patagonia and I am all rosy-cheeked with some mix of awe and windburn. I didn’t think places like this really existed – and I’ll never look at an ice-cube the same way again.

Next stop: Bariloche, “Alpine” village of the Andes, known for spectacular views and (pinch me, please) extraordinary chocolate.

Diving in Cozumel