12.56am: roughly 8 hours to go before i start the next leg of my
journey, and lordy, am i pumped! like any normal kid growing up in
western civilisation, i have several times been high as a kite from the
effects of too much chocolate, off-my-face smashed, and occasionally
flying on grass, but i tell you what, *nothing* gets me higher than the
excitement of knowing i´m about to set off again. ...but i´m getting
ahead of myself; after such a long silence, shouldn´t i be recapping
what i´ve done so that you can at least have a background to what i´m
going to do? a lot´s happened in the last few months, and on many
levels (emotionally, physically, mentally, ...), so bear with me if
this reads too much like a dot-point school report...
despite the overcrowded, touristy feel of
southern Chile´s Torres del Paine National Park, i have to say that the
8-day 125km hike i did there is one of my highlights of this trip.
blessed with excellent weather (with only a few days´ light drizzle),
the week-and-a-bit was such an enjoyable exercise in knowing how far i
could push my body beyond pain barriers. one day involved almost 30km
with open blisters on both feet, and 2 hours worth of cringeing as
both thighs cramped with *every single step*. it was the longest hike
that i´ve done independently (ie, not having a planned buddy to share
the weight of pots, food, tent...), and i loved it, - just thinking
about it again sends a little tingle all over my body (and as i write
this, i´m beginning to realise that i have slightly
masochistic tendencies)! in a couple of weeks´ time, i plan to tackle a
slightly longer segment, but on a road winding through part of the
provincia of Salta: an irresistible idea as soon as i saw the photo at
the following site: <<http://www.hotelmanantial.com.ar/cuesta.htm>>. go to the site; i promise you´ll understand where i´m coming from.
sign in a public bathroom: ´please only urinate here´. i was very
tempted to do a Borat-inspired number, but the absence of ziplock bags
foiled my plans.
not
surprisingly, phsyical challenges are a lot easier to overcome than the
mental ones: the working stint that i did soon after the Torres del
Paine trek (mentioned in the last email) was an exercise of a totally
different kind: testing my discipline and ability to commit when there
were so many other tempting options on the side. working and living 10
weeks with 9 young´uns from northern argentina (age range 19 - 25yo), i
quickly learnt that there´s a lot to be said for humility that the
greater part of western education seems to omit. don´t get me wrong;
the benefits of self-confidence and high self-esteem are immeasurable,
but i think we´re sometimes tricked into thinking that the belief that
you can do anything you want (if you want it bad enough) is a right
rather than a luxury. but aside from the philosophical, the
2-and-a-half months at Lago del Desierto also gave me much experience
in lighting and maintaining fires in the rain/wind/snow, cooking for 12
over an open fire, and chopping wood, - things that look great on any
life-CV!
in
general, in spite of the ´urgh, geez, not again´ feeling when you wake
up in the middle of the night needing to pee, i´m getting to quite like
the thrill of unzipping the tent, scuttling 20m to the nearest bush to
wave my bottom for all the nightworld to see, and scurrying back to the
warmth of my sleeping bag. it´s the simple pleasures, really...
from
Lago del Desierto, i jumped straight into the next stage of travels:
roadtrippin´ with a couple of froggies whom i´d met in the south of
chile, at a mutual friend´s wedding. seems like a bout of the runs and
accepting dubious medical advice (´drink coke, it´ll help´) is all i
needed for an instant connection to spring up at the wedding reception,
and for over a month, i took it easy cruising in the back of the car
that the 2 friends had bought. although it was a luxury to not have to
worry about transport, or where to stay (the last resort being sleeping
in the car), car travel is decidedly not for me, at least not in south
america, where there is so much rich human life/company out there to
enjoy. (roadtripping around australia, on the other hand, is definitely
on the to-do list...). feeling increasingly claustrophobic, but at the
same time wanting to stay with them, made for a tough decision, and
eventually, the fact that i was getting knarky and irritating even
myself led me to leave them for a couple of weeks.
i´ve
finally found a decent guide to self-taught German, and can´t wait to
find out how Eloy Martin fares in the Reisebüro. paralinguistically,
it´s going to be fun finding out if i´m going to make
spanish-transference mistakes (the guide´s in spanish), or if i´ll make
the same mistakes as any english-speaker... since i anticipate the
majority of you glazing over with boredom here, i´ll take my leave.
´til next time!
(more photos: 'roadtrippin with the froggies' gallery)
