not exactly a short blog entry...

I´ve been slacking on my blogs lately, I know. In my defense, I´ve been enjoying the summer and spending my time at the beach and taking scenic walks. Also, I left for vacation (ha, I know..isn´t this whole trip vacation??) for 2 weeks this month to head down South to hang out at the Straight of Magellan and do some hiking and site-seeing.

We totally gave in and decided to take the plane down south to Punta Arenas, as I previously mentioned in a blog, 45 hours in a bus didn´t quite have the same ring as 4 hours in a plane. My Americano friend Jon and I, and Jon´s amigo, Hunter decided to take-on Parque Torres Del Paine. Its one of the must-sees of South America, and they didn´t lie...it was phenomenal. After some preparation for our trek- ie, renting a tent, packing sleeping bags, stove, clothes for 5 days with tempermental weather, and of course, food to last us during our strenous trek, we were off.

Preconceived Notions: Since I have read so much about the park and the treks within the park, and it seems like EVERYONE is doing it, I figured it would be a bit difficult, but that I wouldn´t struggle too much. There are old folks climbing around, younger kids with their families...this can´t be too hard, right?

Day 1: We take the 30 minute ferry ride across Lago Pehoe to start our trek. Keep in mind, we each have approx. 45 lbs of weight in our backpacks, that we will continuously have on our back. We begin. We already befriended this funny german guy Freddy in our hostel yesterday, and he is walking with us..on the ferry boat, we meet another German girl who also joins us.
I think the boys are a LITTLE too excited to start our trek, because they take off on a rampage speedwalking through the trail . After 30 minutes, I want to KILL them, and am thinking ïs this what the next 5 days are gonna be like¨? Classic syndrome of young males, eager to start, and eager to finish... and classic syndrome of me, cursing at them under my breath. After about 45 minutes, we decide to tell them that I actually intend on ENJOYING this week, and would prefer to look at the scenery rather than my feet to make sure I don´t trip...I think they get the point, and they admit they were a little over-zealous.
The hike is stunning. Nothing too difficult yet, but these spectacular views of the lake. The water is this odd cerulean-blue color which I learn later in my trip is caused by the melting glaciers, and the particles within the glaciers make the awesome blue color. Then we hit the giant glacier..it forms off the water and extends to the horizon (or at least as far as I can see...which in my opinion is the horizon) We decide to hikee the extra 90 minutes to get to a campsite that is situated directly next to the glacier..can´t be that bad...right? This was my first error in judgement of the week. The 90 minutes isn´t actually very far in distance, but its directly up a mountain. I couldn´t be happier to get there and setup camp and make dinner. Theres nothing like waking up in the morning though, and washing your face and body in a river/waterfall with the freshest water from the glaciers on top of the mountain...
Day 2¨: This was a long day... 23 kilometers to our next site..and some tough terrain. Jon keeps finding new walking sticks approximately every 15 minutes, and gives me one...I´m so excited about my stick that I wasn´t paying attention to my footing, and boom...I trip. Tripping is one thing, but with the weight of my bag, I go down like a sack of potatos (or what I imagine potatos would look like when they fell...) I´m ok, no serious damage, but i ripped my pants, and my knee is bleeding... what else is new. Nothing too major, and 2 weeks later, its starting to heal finally!
Favorite parts about going to bed at night...we have a tiny tent, but the three of us all sleep in it together and cuddle up becasue it gets cooooold in Patagonia at night! Also, Jon talks a lot in his sleep, but speaks spanish...so i constantly wake up hearing him say ¨por ejemplo...¨But my FAVORITE part of going to bed, is after we have group Tea-time, we boil water and put it in my nalgene, which I place INSIDE of my sleeping bag at a feet...it works as the most amazing personal heater...true story. As usual, I have too much tea and wake up at 4am to use the facilities. (By facilities, I mean the woods). The next day, our camping neighbors tell us that there were 3 puma sightings at our campsite in the middle of thenight last night... sweet. I could just picture getting attacked while I´m peeing (sorry for the blatantness) at 4am in the woods by a giant cat...that would be a great way for mom and dad to get the news. ¨sorry thirers, but lisa was found with her pants down when she was mauled by a puma last night¨...good story. ANYHOO... day 3:
Day 3 was terrific because it was a packfree day...we had a day hike to the Valle De Frances, where you hike up these amazing trails and sit next to this gigantic mountain covered in glaciers. We had noticed the evening before that every 30 minutes or so you hear this giant crash of thunder, which we learned was actually NOT thunder. It was this glacier on the moutain, and the crash was when there would be an erruption, or mini-avalance of snow, and a huge chunk would fall down. When you get to see it, it looks somewhat minute, but in the grand scheme of things, its actually enormous. And the sound is just totally mind-blowing. I spent a good 2 hours staring at the mountain in complete awe.
Day 4: Well, day 4 brought some difficulties. I experienced some knee troubles due to the heavy weight on my back, and walking down these super steep-trails...it was too much pressure and my knee was totally throbbing. Day 4 was our longest day... we had at LEAST a 9.5 hour trek to get to our intended campsite, and I wasn´t sure I was gonna make it. I told the boys to go ahead of me, and that I think I may stay at a campsite a little behind them... we left at 830 am for our day. The terrain we crossed changed immensely throughout the day. Istarted walking around the shores of a huge lake which felt like we were in the TV show Lost...it was awesome. And then the hills kicked in. The valley that Iw as walking through resembled the Shire,and I kept expecting little hobbits to jump out. My walking stick was this awesome twisty stick that reminded me of Gandolf, and thats all it took for me to travel into my hobbit-world for the next 3 hours. I think I was even singing some of the ho-hums from the cartoon movie...hah. Crossing streams regularly for water kept me going, and I was really enjoying my walk-alone. But then came the river. As soon as I approached I new I was in for trouble. Primarily because I was wearing my sneakers the whole trek, since I left my hikers in Miami. I´m standing there contemplating my options, which aren´t many. I can attempt to cross on the rocks, but there is NO route that is completely above the water, and my sneakers will without doubt, get totally soaked...and thats gonna be terrible walking another 7 hours in wet sneaks... However, the real issue troubling me, is the water is flowing really fast, about knee deep, and I can just visualize the current getting the better of me, and my bag throwing off my balance, and me going into the water...totally..bag and all. This would be FAR worse. obviously. I attempt to cross in about 3 places to find the routes impassable. Finally, the brightest idea yet comes to mind, and I put on my sandals, role my pants up and use my walking stick (who I named Omar) to succesffully cross. It took me a good 40 minutes in total...but I made it.
At this point of the hike, I´m about 6 or 7 hours in, and decide that I was gonna get to the intended campsite, if possible, before dark. I begin my ascent up the mountain. There are no more rivers, and my water is empty. Its hot and sunny outside, and the trail just keeps going up. I swear, it never ends. Whenever I get close to a point that looks like a peak,. its like Disney World where the line turns to the right so you can´t see it, and it continues to go straight uphill. At one point, when I finally reach the peak and am on the tiny narrow path, the wind kicks in. No joke, 30 miles perhour, and it gets a hold of my backpack and just wips me to the side. I look to my right, and its basically a huge cliff...obviuosly nothing to hold on to, and i´m leaning 45 deggrees to the left trying to balance myself, crouching down and walking so I don´t topple off... sweeeeet. I finally reach the point thats 90 minutes from my intended goal...I ask them if the last part is real difficutl, and they tell me its not bad compared to my last 10 hours... OK. they lied. I was scaling Shale rock, that has inches of slab to place my feet and no real crevices to place your hands as you literally scale sideways across the 15 feet, praying my balance is on my side. and then up these mountainous trails where I am literally holding on to tree routes to pull myself up.
NOTE¨: Although I desribe the difficulties and problems I encountered...let it be known that the views and sites that I had during these walks were by far some of the most beautiful and indescribable panoramic scenery I have ever seen. The pictures on my previous blog can only meagerly portray the beauty.
back to my trek... after 12 hours of hiking, Suprise!! the boys weren´t expecting me, so we were all super excited I made it. And what for?
Well...DAY 5
Waking up at 430 am is NOT fun, justfor the record. Esp. when you are camping...its freezing, and not to mention PITCH black. However, the whole purpose of our extra long trek was to make it up the mountain for this morning. We have a 75 minute climb (yes, climb, as in climbing huge boulders and rocks, not walk) to the peak of the mountain to catch the sunrise. We take off, flashlights in hand, blanket wrapped aorund my shoulders superman style... ( I like to think it would give me special powers for my climb) Definintly not the most simple things I´ve done in my time...but at least we were going up, I guess. The last 15 minutes though the rocks turned into fine gravel, so every 2 steps you took up, the earth felt like it was melting below your shoes, and you not only slid down 5 feet, but also created mini-avalanches, which is quite unfortunate to whoever is behind you...needless to say, we were all getting pegged by masses of little rocks, which didn´t feel so hot on my kepela. But we made it...the sun begins to peak. Now, a sunrise is a sunrise, so I was wondering why i just did this hike, but than you turn around... the ¨torres¨, (Torres means Towers...)hence the park name, torres del paine.. There are these magnficent towers that peak over the park, and for 5 minutes during the sunrise, the sun turns them this unbelievable shade of orange. However, the wind on the peak where we are in simply unbearable and everyone is diving under boulders and rocks for cover. Literally, I think my camera will fly out of my hand into the abyss...and if this happened, I probably would have jumped after it.... I didn´t walk 80 kilometers to lose my camera! But it didn´t...
So, like i was saying, the sun peaked, and the towers turned orange. There was a rush of photo-taking by all 15 people that made the trek to the summit. 5 minutes of snapping away, and then...poof, the orange towers disappeared. And then it was time to go back down.

In total, we hiked about 50 miles and 50 hours over 5 days, but less it be known this was no walkin the park. The feeling of victory and satisfaction to arrive at the base on saturday morning was simply tremendous. I felt so triumphant, and even more so, proud of myself that I sustained by far the most difficult trekking I have ever experienced in my life.

After a few days of travelling to Argentina to see the massive iceglaciers in El Calafate, it was time to leave the straight of magellan, and head back north to Valparaiso. Jon and I thoughtit would be fun to take the bus back, since we weren´t pressed on time. We were wrong. The first bus was 30 hours. This was actually soemwhat enjoyable as we watched really stupid movies with spanish dubbing and ate a ton of unhealthy food because we were famished from living on Tuna and crackers and spaghetti for 5 days. However, the 2nd bus which was 14 hours was not fun. It was a normal bus where your knees hit the seat in front of you, and someone on the bus was having some intestinal problems apparantly because the smell was super foul. the bus attendent dude thought it would be appropriate to spray lysol for thesmell, which actually further suffocated me. the family behind us had purchased 2 seats, and had 5 people (3 kids), who were sleeping on the floor, so when i looked down at our little foot room, there was a little pair of feet sticking into our seats. Jon thought itw as cute, I didn´t. needless to say, after 45 hours on abus, we made it home sweet home to the YMCA. It was nice to have a real bed, and shower.

Well, theres the start of my book, and this is just a brief runthrough of my 2 weeks... good start though. If anyone actually takes the time to read this...well, thats terrific.

Patagonia...torres del paine

sometimes i wish i was moses and could part the water....

we stopped and had lunch here during our trek one day. nice view..

645am... sun rising across the mountains... it was so windy uptop we nearly fell over

we hiked the extra hour up the mountain so we could camp next to the glacier... unbelievable

its super windy up here

el calafate, argentina. glacier perito moreno

where are we going? Im tired...

glacier grey behind me that forms off the water

645am...just after sunrise, and after our 75 minute hike up boulders to the top of the mountain to watch the sun hit the ¨torres¨behind us and turn them bright orange. im cold

its a small world afterall...sing it wit me

i´ll start the blog entry with the bad news first, because frankly, it can only get better from there...
i had a rough week in Valparaiso this past few days. I took off thursday from work and decided to have a day to myself, walking around the city, taking a boat tour in the port, going to beach, etc. I decided to go back to the Y for lunch, since i eat free, and why pay the money. Unfortunately, i became a bit too comfortable in the cafeteria because i know about 70 percent of the people that eat there for lunch, and ilet down my guar,d and placed my purse on the ground. When i looked down, Mi bolsa no estuvò. Someone snatched my purse directly next to me while i sat with 4 friends, and no one noticed...totally unbelievable. Nothing too valuable, but lots of frustration, no keys, cell phone, or little notebook with personal notes.

FRIDAY, we had this terrific dinner for all our chilean friends. (the americans cooked, it was great). One of the girls waslooking at my camera and all of a sudden, i heard a yell. She deleted ALL 200 pics that i recently took from the past month while living in Chile. All my pictures from camp, sleepaway camp in the mountains, scenic-city-and beach pics...ALL deleted. That was a bummer. (So, the 8 pictures I posted last week on my previous blog, is all we have left to remember from 200 pictures, so i expect everyone who reads this to look and appreciate those pictres, because thats it folks for now...)

So...sunday, i decided to leave Valpo before the third bad thing kicked in and ruined my weekend. I took a 4.5 hour plane ride south (I contemplated the bus, but 45 hours just didn´t have quite the same ring to it) and I am now in patagonia baby. Tomorrow morning, I start my 5 day trek in the National Park, Torres Del Paine. We have our tent, cooking gear, rain gear, and food for 5 days (So lets pray it doesn´t take longer to finish or else we starve). We´re super excited to start the trek. Today, we were renting some gear at the hostel, (tent, stove, etc) and the guide was chatting away. I asked him where hes from, and he tells me NY. Oh, funny, me too. Where in NY? He tells me BINGHAMTON. No way, me too! than he says, actually, Im from Vestal.... Youre kidding me, right?
Here I am, in the southern part of chile, where the Magellan Straight lies, where the navagable pass for sailors was discovered years and years ago when travelling by boat around south america. Here I am, in Patagonia, in the Southern Hemisphere, thousands of miles from home, and probably almost 2000 miles from where I live in Valparaiso, central chile. And the guy who works at the hostel here and leads tours went to the same highschool as me. What a small frickin world.... (i asked him if i could have a job...he laughed, but i was serious)

Need to get some quality ZZZ´s tonight as we leave at 7am tomorrow for the park, and will be sleeping little, freezing a lot, and working our legs like they´ve never been worked before. Buena Suerte to us. Upon our return, I´ll be crossing the border to argentina to renew my visa, and to visit El Calafate, where Perito Moreno, the massive glaciers are. Hopefully by the end of this trip I will have 200 new pictures to replaced the deleted ones.
chau chau

Superbowl. ESPN VIVO

Yes, I did watch the superbowl on sunday. Even in Chile, ESPN vivo broadcasts Americano Fùtbol, Êl Superbowl, over South American Soccer. This is the first time I´ve ever seen preference to american sports over soccer in my 10 weeks here.

As we sat in a touristy sports bar with big screen TV`s, anxiously anticipating the game and commercials, the spanish broadcasters had a similar pregame show that we would see in the US. They did the stupid ^mini field^ infront of the stadium, showing us important plays and teaching the firsttime watcher of the superbowl, the concept of football. Please. There was no Susie Kolber as our sideline reporter during the game, but the spanish ESPN tried real hard to Americanize their broadcasting. They even got Latino girls dressed up as cheerleaders to stand in the background. Priceless.

There were a few major differences watching the superbowl in spanish. Obviously, total commentation was in spanish, which I didn´t mind. HOWEVER, I had high expectations to think that I would see the commercials. We didn´t- It was a little dissapointing at first, but after I watched the commercial about a man from Mexico who runs marathons (apparantly REally really well....) 9 times, and than watched the same Soccer goal from a sideline kick an additional 14 times, well...i guess you could say that these 2 SOLO commericals replaced the superbowl commercials sufficeintly. At least I know evertthing there is about our Mexican MarathonMan, and what i REALLY want to do, is watch 3 hours of running...nothing else next week. Geee, that sounds like a great afternoon of TV.

Other highlights of the game...
Ah...yes my favorite part. You know when they post silly questions on the TV...with whats your opinion...who is contributing most to the game tonight...yadayada... And you can TEXT your vote? Yea, well, when the polls came through, it was by people in Mexico. Not that the american publics thought on American Football makes the slightest difference to me, but I can tell you for sure, I have less care about what Mexico thinks about the Superbowl: During the second question, we were waiting for results tocome in from a small town in Guatemala. We´re still waiting for those results, I think they should arrive towards the end of the month whether or not Manning is keeping the team together.

Apparantly Chicago has a Latino player on the team. He doesn´t actuallyplay (at least i don´t think he does...) But the third commercial that we watched (third, and FINAL...we circulated these 3 commercials for 4 hours, splendid) was the personal interview of him. The funny part was his spansih was so bad, I could have been speaking. I don´t know if he is just really unintelligent (which has its possibilities), but the reality was, he didn´t even really know how to speak spanish...and he was the featured player for ESPN Vivo. Ha, i found it amusing.

As for the game... one of the more entertaining first quarters that I´ve seen. Although I prefer to concentrate on the halftime show, with Prince. He totally rocks.

Campamento Colliguay