Mom Says I’m Running Away

Day: 424

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Two days ago we returned home, beat up and weary from the last three months on the road. The next morning after arriving home in the middle of the night I was sitting on the couch, when my step dad, Mike, asked me; “This seemed to be your hardest trip yet, huh?”.

I sat there and thought about it for a moment and the memories of constant illness (between Felicia and I, one of us was in such bad shape we couldn’t leave our room for about a third of the trip), The horrible weather and constant rains we had in Ecuador, The bus ride with me vomiting out the window for 16 hours, the constant looking over our shoulder for someone who might be following us or waiting to “bump” into us and relieve us of our things, the stress of knowing that every meal you eat might ruin your day, and the constant pressures of trying to build a healthy and loving relationship in the midst of all this. The stress throughout this last trip was heavy and Mike might have been right when he called it my “hardest trip yet”…

Then I sat there for a moment longer, and let all the good experiences wash over me; seeing the sunrise over Colca Canyon with the girl I love beside me and condors flying over me, the local Chinese immigrant we found in a Chinese food restaurant in Rurrenbaque who sat and spoke with Felicia in Chinese for an hour about how he sees the local culture, riding horses through the sunscorched deserts of Tupiza with a 15-year old guide, climbing around the inside of the old Bolivar theater with a excited local telling about his efforts to have it restored after a fire swept through it, and hundreds of other perfect moment Felicia and I would never have experienced if we hadn’t put ourselves out there in the midst of all this strife to try and find tidbits of life and excitement.

I am happy to be at home right now, its relaxing and comforting to sleep in my own bed and have clean food in the fridge… but I don’t think it will be long before I start planning and scheming on how to get away again and put myself through untold misery, to find the passion that I live my life for.

Tomorrow I turn 29. I glance back and see that a year ago I celebrated in Tibet with a bottle of vodka and had know Felicia a week. A year later as I write this and she is peacefully sleeping in my bed 5 feet away, 8829 miles from her home and, although I can tell at times she is horribly homesick for Singaporean street food, I want to thank her here for putting up with me for the last year and coming to be with me. We are unsure what the future holds for us (we are both near broke at the moment), but we are holding each other as we plunge into life.

Day: 374

In the San Pedro de Atacama desert in Northern Chile.

Day: 373

One of our primary reasons we came out to San Pedro de Atacama is that it is the driest place on the planet and you can see the stars clearer here than anywhere else on earth.

Needless to say, after we got here and checked into our hostal, the clouds rolled in and a place that gets 2mm of rain a year decided to rain right then. We spotted a bar that was screening a football (soccer) match with Felicia´s favorite team, Arsenal, and Liverpool. I calmly drank a beer while she screamed at the screen along with all the other raging soccer fans. Afterwards it had stopped raining and we signed up for an astronomy tour with french astronomer, Alain Muary, who runs stargazing tours here.

(getting kicked out of the internet cafe for siesta hour, nmore to come)

Day: 372

One last excessive travel day for the next few weeks started today, with the goal of making it from Arequipa, Peru to the San Pedro de Atacama desert in northern Chile where we plan to make our transition into southern Bolivia.

A cab pulled up at our hostal at 6:35am and we headed to the bus station in Arequipa where we caught the 7:30am, for a 5 hour ride to the border town of Tacna, Peru.  After an hour and a half or so of getting the next two legs of our trip settled with a local travel agent, we piled with 3 other people and a driver into a big Ford and headed for the border.  We were easily stamped out of Peru and just as easily stamped into Chile, the driver guided us through the whole process taking us right to the agents he seemed to know.

With the time change it was after 5pm when we got to the bus station in Arica, Chile where we waited another 5 hours for our night bus to Calama, where we would have to change again for one more short ride to San Pedro de Atacama.

Essentially it was an entire day of travel, but at least nothing awkward happened, as sometimes does in border towns (other than the two shady guys who watched me take money from the ATM in the Chile bus station and proceeded to stake out Felicia and I while we sat in a cafe for 5 hours. Finally the security guards took notice and checked them for bus tickets, when they didn´t have any they were kicked out of the station)

Day: 178

The priority of today was, of course, to see some penguins.  The tours didn´t leave until later on in the evening so Alex, Eleanor and I started our day with a late start (much due to the late night from the day before) then it was off to the gigantic graveyard just outside of town which houses some huge musoleums as well as graves stacked atop each other for the lower classes of Chilien society.

Bored of death, we went for a cafe con leche and passed a slow afternoon in a cafe on the main street anticipating our evening among flightless birds.

Our tour guide (who was actually just a taxi driver) picked us up at our hotel and took the long road to get us out to the penguin colony, about an hour away.  Eleanor and I (Alex had declined, saying he had seen penguins before) had extreme fun taunting these little guys and learning how to speak penguin (which is more difficult than one might expect.). Our “tour” was far too quick, it being the actual first nice afternoon (weather wise) we had in a long time, but before long we were on our way back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel  (later):

“I just checked my e-mail and realized it´s Austrailia day!” Eleanor (being an Aussie) said to me.

I figured it was some big doings down under from the excitement on her face and asked “Well, how does one celebrate Austrailia day?”

“Normally we just get drunk and grill something…” Me, being a man who is always willing to indulge in the culture of others, was happy to be deputized as an honorary Aussie for the evening and forced to drink excessive amounts of booze.

Sometime later I asked what the day celebrated, and to my amazement she actually didn´t know. She figured it was important and we just decided to figure it out later, seeing as we were already deep in celebration.

Day: 177

Getting into Punta Arenas in the early afternoon with Alex and Eleanor there wasn’t much to do. We found the soonest bus ticket to get back into Argentina which was the morning of the day after tomorrow. The only real draw of Punta Arenas is it’s nearby Penguin colony and since we had a couple of days we planned that for tomorrow and set out to find lunch.

Lunch took place at a small Chilien dive bar, with many rounds of beer, lots of meat and many more beers it was soon time for a siesta. The afternoon flew by.

By early evening we were just sobering up, we decided on a walk and dinner(primarly to find a couple of pictures).

“Want to get drunk?” she asked me around 9pm.

“Sure”

It wasn’t long before we had bought a bottle of Stoli and were blowing the rest of the night in a vodka induced haze.

So far this town is treating me well.

Day: 176

So without the time to get everything cleaned up and dried last night, I took it upon myself to suggest I stay in Pueto Natales to catch up on things and start fresh tomorrow.

This was a spectacular idea, until about 5:30pm, when I had done 4 days of blogging, bought a bus ticket for tomorrow to Punta Arenas, had clean clothes, drank three coffees, ate lunch and took a walk with Eleanor, showered, repacked my bag which was still slightly damp, and took a mean-ass 2 hour afternoon nap then woke up around 5:30 completely bored. I walked this tiny town at least a dozen time hoping something new and interesting would spring up, but to no avail. Can’t wait for the bus at 9:30 tomorrow. Kind of weird to be excited about a bus…

At least I get to see penguins soon!

Day: 175

With the combined effort of the entire Cape Horn storm front and enough water to raise the Ark out of those obscure Russian mountains The Weather has crashed down on our Hero.  Armed only with his Boy Scout wits, his Olympiad puddle dodging skills, and the second worst tent ever made (the first being the old army tent I was force to sleep in through a East Coast hurricane for 10 days in 1993);our hero awakens to the once soothing sound of rain on his tent. The sound is no longer soothing as a small stream has took up residence next to his head whilst he slept.  Trying to decide his next play against this formidable Nemesis, he decides to duck out of his tent for a quick piss in the woods.

Slightly relieved, even before the impending doom that is his fate, he looks to the sky and curses in futility.

“Fuck”

Choices must be made quickly; make for the water or the road. The road is longer but won’t inflict the pain upon our shrinking funds, the water is a weapon of the enemy but has a boat and hot coffee… Where to turn? With no Choose Your Adventure readers to make decisions for him, he turns to page 109 on his own, rolls his drenched-muddy-tent, throws his last remaining dry clothes in a shopping bag, slings it all on his back, and sets off to use his puddle dodging skills to there best.  His shoes last 30 minutes before the trail has become a river, his sweater makes it 15 more before it is thoroughly soaked from dripping bushes that slapped their wet leaves against him with a vengeance.

Then there’s a woman; every story has a woman.  On the trail ahead she is taking part in the battle against the same enemy as the Hero.  Quickly joining forces, moral improves.  Stories of their own struggles are shared, bring relief that each one is not alone. The battle is far from over; shoes are overflowing with liquid, squishing with every movement; bones are chilled with the strongest weapon of The Weather, sliding down slopes covered in mud, and the backs are aching with the weight extra water that is saturating everything they own.

But alas, on the horizon the dock is in sight. only a short ways to go and victory would be ours. sort of.

Soon the Hero’s were greeted with a warm cup of coffee and a welcome only due those returning from vicious battle. Yet it was only a reprieve, and they knew it, the day would involve a struggle to fight with other champions for a seat on the only boat away from this horrendous power.  Then spend the rest of the day on a bus filled with similarly soaked victims, breathing that stench of people who haven’t bathed in days and are now soaked to the bone, shivering, in want of being anywhere but where they are.

Our Hero has made another narrow escape this day, possibly because the Weather did not realize the weakness of the pinkish-white flesh of our Hero to the hole in the ozone layer and the combined effort of the Andean sun, thus never unleashing it’s ultimate weapon on this rugged adventurer. The day ends as it should, with a glass of wine, a hot meal and a shower.

Day: 174

I find rain on a tent one of the most soothing sounds in the world to sleep to. The only problem is that that in the morning everything is soaking wet well you pack your bag. I was up earlier than anyone else in the campground (I too found this amazing), was packed and on the trail by 7:30am.

By 9:30am I was at the next trailhead/campground, where you set up camp and do a 11 mile day hike up into Valle del Frances (French Valley) to see what is supposedly the most amazing view of the entire park. My wet tent was up in a matter of minutes and I was crouched over my backpack rummaging around for breakfast, when I glance up at someone walking by. I stare for a second and said.

“Jasper”

He blinked, paused, and said:

“Wow, last I checked up on you , you were in Costa Rica”

Neither of us seemed to take it as exceptionally weird the we set up camp within 20 ft of each other, with no plans to, after not seeing each other since the airport in Istanbul, 10,000 miles away last April.

A side note, For those of you new to “Mom Says…”: Jasper and I meant in the South of Turkey last March, Traveled for about a week together along with another fellow name Akbar, and he was present for the highly controversial “Crockery Heaving” incident of 06′.

I meandered over to his site with my breakfast, shared a camping pan full of tea and caught up on the last 10 months of each others travels.

I still wanted to get my hike in (even through the clouds), and he was taking an easy day. Sometime after 11am I set off, promising to come sit under his tarp and share dinner around his camp stove (bonus for me! Hot food!).

I hike for a few hours and near the top I meant a couple other friends from a few days ago, Alejandro (The Socialist-Italian) and Amanda (German), they were headed down and seeing as we would all be back in Puerto Natales tomorrow night we made plans to meet up then. It wasn’t quite the same surprise bumping into them, I knew they were somewhere on the trail and figured I would find them somewhere. I am surely becoming popular, dinner invites two nights in a row!

I made it to the summit (sweating) for the “best” views of Torres del Paine, saw nothing. I decided to give it an hour to see if the weather would clear, I wrote this entry out, ate some chocolate, aired out my smelly feet, then finally gave it up and set off, disgruntled, down the mountain again. The clouds were moving in and by the time I made it back to camp the deluge had started. Dinner was spent with three of us huddled under a small tarp around a camp stove trying to decide the best use of our ingredients: crackers, salami, powdered split pea soup mix, powdered milk, dried tortellini, a can of tuna, some raisins, and a few tea bags. At least there would be plenty of water.

Day: 173

Round trip bus ticket from Puerto Natales to Torres del Paine National Park: 12,000 pesos ($24)

Entrance fee to what is hailed as South America’s greatest national park: 15,000 pesos ($30)

Catamaran ride across the lake to the trailhead: 11,000 pesos ($22)

Three days of tent and sleeping bag rental: 15,000 pesos ($30)

Camping site: 3,500 pesos ($7)

10 mile hike: Free

Not being able to see the pride of the park, The Torres del Paine towers, because of the weather: Priceless…

Crap. It has started to rain.