Oops I blogged...

Well, I truly honestly really really super mega totally never thought I would do this, but in case anyone´s interested, I figured I would give it a go...


First off, the very word, ¨Blog¨to me sounds like something one might leave in a toilet, and to have "blogged" is reminiscent of yet another way we might have slanged the action of defecating. Sorry for the grotesque opening, but if anyone ever asked me what I was doing on a computer and I replied, "Oh you know, just blogging," I preempt what I can only describe as a feeling of embarrassment - embarrassment for not being seated on the throne while answering that question through the safety of a bathroom door.


So, without too much more disclaimer other than the fact that there is obviously no possible way in ____ to relay months of experience and traveling in a beautiful foreign country where language is a constant source of struggle, and to also note the fact that I so much despise disclaimers, here we go...


I was gonna start with a journal entry, but I decided it would be a good idea to first attempt an abridged recall of some of my favorite times in Buenos Aires (hereafter, BA).

I´d never used a bidet before, never even seen one. There are three knobs on top, and while experimenting with which side is hot, which cold, and what the hell the third one is for, I inevitably - and in hindsight, humerously - shot myself square in the right eye with a stream so strong it watered the ceiling. Whoops.

Ok, that´s actually all I wanted to get out.

1/17/10 - 0:38

"Sweet, mission!" Says my 14 year old brain...

11:50

(con´t from last night)

Opps, fell asleep. Well, Brett´s sick with some kind of lung infection, he had a 102 degree fever for a couple of days, though it´s down now, his hiking abilities are compromised. Lemme backtrack, rebobinar un poco...

After the storm subsided, and wheeeeewy what a storm that was, we had an asado. It was indoors due to the weather, but still we had our first asado as a group. Wine and goat and bread. Mmmm. Goat (chivo) that was living, breathing, walking, grazing, and thinking whatever the hell it is that goats think when they do their goat things, earlier that day. Good thing we eventually got out of here though (here, what am I doing back here?), I think everyone was beginning to get a skewed idea of what Sierra Institute is all about. Salads, wine, goat, big castles overlooking vast river valley of the patagonian steppe, beer, roofs, flushing toilets, bidets...

We left the casco (main house) of Estancia Ranquilco for the confluecia of the Río Trocomán and Río Picunléo the next morning, barely an hour and a half hike from here. Breakin´ em in - the students, that is. Our 3 days and nights at the confluencia held many experiences for the group: for some it was their first time actually backpacking in somewhere, setting up camp, filtering their water from the flowing glacial melt of the Andes, making dinner over a fire in a setting not quite so kitchen-like, sleeping under blankets of down-filled sleeping bags and stars... Many firsts. First circle, feelings and emotions emerging naked and unburdened through the firelit spaces between our faces to be welcomed, sheltered and reflected amongst our fellows, woven into beginnings of community and comraderie. It goes something like that. First times cutting salami with new virgin blades, resulting in 3 salami-related finger lacerations in the first 3 days...Sheesh.

We saw andean condors, olivaceous cormorants, torrent ducks, black-chested buzzard- eagles, trout, lizards, snakes, trees, flowers all in a green-brown blur that will systematically become more focused as we delve into both macro and microscopic worlds that exist perfectly regardless of how we classify them.

So, leaving the confluecia on the 4th morning for vertientes de los radales began hot and hard. No wind, no cluds, full sun by 9:00AM, chaped faces and burned forearms, blistered feet and heavy packs, all the while Brett in the middle of a 102 degree fever. I was sweeping, which essentially meant pulling a couple of people up the scrambly scree slopes until we reached our midway mid-day shady rock outcropping of salvation where we ate lunch and slept for 5 1/2 hours. Vertientes was only another hour hike, but at 5 in the afternoon in the unforgiving (and what reason does it have to forgive in the first place?) January summer sun in the Patagoinan steppe, it was still damn hot. It doesn´t get truly dark here in the summer until 10:30-11ish, and then the stars, oooh the stars...

Finally reaching our oasis-like mud-sopped meadow with Brett feeling like he had been run over by a bus, we struggled to find sleeping spots somewhere in between goat trails, steep prickly slopes, and the meadow saturated with inches of water and mud. This proved a chore.

We cooked a stew of vegetables and split peas and slept promptly and deeply under that blanket of southern cross, of Magellanic clouds, of nebulae and void, of planets and supernova, of that darn southern sky. Getting closer...

Now on a course of antibiotics, poor Brett, though still damn high in character and spirits (and maté) is unable to hike any further to our next destination where the resupply had been arranged via horsepackers from the casco. The plan we came up with yesterday morning over a maté was for me to hike back to the casco, drink a few beers and wait for Ashley, TA and everyone else to return from town and inform them of the change of plans. To continue any further Brett will need a horse which I will ride in along with the resupply. There we have the part where the 14 year old part of my brain thought, "Sweet, mission."

I haven´t ridden since I was 5 or so, and the way horses are used out here actually make sense: they are a necessity, not a luxury. In a way it makes me laugh at/question the whole equestrian crowd a bit in the states where the horses are ridden for pleasure, and are also somewhat of a status symbol in more ways than one. This was not the only time I had to ride around doing various errands for the group, and I´ll get into further detail of my horseback adventures at Estancia Ranquilco following these events as I have time.

You stay classy, san francisco.

Opps, I blogged...