pure mornin

sorry to leave you hangin, dad. i'll continue....

I often get the question of what I do during a day, so I might as well spell it out. I woke up bright and early today with Shay, and did the usual routine--I get breakfast together and french press some coffee downstairs while she gets ready. Today it was oatmeal and pears, yesterday I sauteed some banans with just a little butter and brown sugar and cinnamon for the oatmeal. I try to throw in some variety. She went off to school; this is the most commitments she's had in a day so far-- school 10-2 then internship till 10ish. I watched some foodie videos, I've discovered Mark Bittman on NYTimes.com is damn funny and has some good albeit simple ideas. I then went on a few mile run around the Club Hipico horse track. Its really not the ideal running route with the dust, cars, and horse stank, but it avoids intersections. Then stretching and situps, and some pushups, although I slacked on those cause my chest is weak. I hit the shower. but.... there are few things more peeving than being fully soaped up, and having the water go ice cold. (The gas ran out. Each shower hooks up to its own heater and gas tank, the upstairs one is broken). So, much to the behest of my man-bits, I quickly rinsed my lower half, grabbed my towel and shower items, and relocated to the other downstairs shower. Ahh, warmth again. With conditioner then in-hair... ice cold. Again. The other tank hit bottom. I chuckled and cursed at the same time. With some 'oh f-this' angst, I rinsed, washed my face and got the hell outta the cold hell of showering here. I lunched on a sandwich, and went to the grocery store for milk and fruit. The milk here comes in room-temp 1-liter boxes, weird right? Most are terribly designed, too; you have to cut them open, with no option to reseal. Now I'm here, about an hour later, having crossed off a few things on my do to list for the day, and working on the next thing....this. Oh, and I am enjoying a beer, the cold shower warranted one. We picked out several different individual bottles from the Jumbo in an attempt to find at least one decent Chilean beer we can enjoy...and bingo! This one is a winner. One of very few winners. Also on my list today is: to finish up my Spanish resume, and get it out there, do laundry, attend the asado (bbq)/dinner that housemates are throwing (I'll humor them although, this may be pricky, but I'm sure I could make it better), and give the sad OK to mom to send in my humble denial to attend USF Law. Today, as a whole, is a shift away from some pessimism that has infected me as of late. The house, area, lack of funds, blandness of Santiagoan (almost) everything, helpess frustration of the cost of school (and thus the starting on square one yet again), and...gramps....all had my head spinning. I have no intention, however, of straying from the title of this blog. Hell, add an exclamation point to it.

I've decided today, though, to cut my losses. I will expound on the highlights since I left off, at the mouth of Torres, and catch up to today-- to right now.
the Trek. After we set up camp, we got daypacks and cameras and headed up to the Torres del Paine. It was the longest and toughest day hike of the three, but different and inspiring around ever turn. We went from the valley up, into the forest. On the occasions we emerged, we could see the valley and river far below, and the completely opposite, barren landscape of the mirroring uphill of the valley. The last 45 minutes of the hike was near vertical rock and boulder hopping, and then we reached them. It looked...fake! Its grand-and-picturesque-ness was almost unbeleivable. (pictures!) It was a 7-8 hour hike, altogether. We got some flame on the potatoes and sausages, put 'em in foil with seasoning and cheese, and then stuck 'em in under the coals. Then added some avocado and hot sauce; it was good, even if the potatoes were a bit undercooked. It didn't rain that night--a nice start.
The next day was both rough and relaxing. We arose and headed out to the next camp, on the first hike with the full weight of our packs. It was tough terrain. When we arrived 4-5 hours later at the next refugio, we decided: stick it out here for today. Hike to 'Campo Italiano' at the base of the next day hike (up Valle Frances), drop our packs, do that hike. Then get our packs again, and head to the final camp. We wanted to cook ourselved that night, but discovered they didnt rent stoves. So we signed up for an expensive refugio dinner. It was satisfying but not nearly as satisfying, actually, as the other meals we cooked ourselves. For reference in the pictures: this is where you see us dining on bread-avo-chorizo-tapatio 'salad', skipping rocks on the glacier-water lake, and me falling off a log, and the big meat dinner plate. We met Maya here. I rigged the tarp over the tent as best I could, because we saw the rain clouds coming. Sure enough, we woke up with a very damp tent. Well, a wet tent. Those fancy 20 dollar tents kind of absorb the water through to the inside, instead of shedding it. The tarp saved us though, more or less.
We donned what 'rain gear' we had, and I fashioned a trash bag over my pack to shed the water. We stuck to the plan I told you about. At Campo Italiano, we joined with Maya, because she shed her trekking partner (who couldn't handle it and went home). Valle Frances was one of my three favorite day hikes (lol...). It was dense with wonders...waterfalls, stream-trails, fairy-tale trees, and a persisting view of the massive snow-ice covered mountain ahead. This hike was only a few hours, total. Then we shouldered up our packs yet again, and with the clouds cleared, trekked four hours more to the final camp.
The final camp had a 'kitchen and dining' hut for campers, equipped with stoves! So we dined there. Our dinner was gnocchi with tomato cheese sauce and threw in whatever else we had left, like some chorizo. I set the up the tarp more effectively that night, as you can see in the pictures. I did my best to keep the tarp from touching the tent--to shed off the water, not let it soak through. It was a challenge given that the tarp wasn't quite big enough, and I had a scraggly tree, rocks, and some shrubs to tie onto. But it worked out.
Maya, Corrie and I hiked to the glacier the next day, Shay and Greg left and had massive cheeseburgers in Puerto Natales. The glacier was breathtakingly massive. It just stretched on and on.
We caught a ferry across the lake, and back to the beginning. Funny to think what took us 3 days of trekking, we backtracked in a matter of hours. And the ferry cost 20 bucks, wtf.
(I'm getting into more detail then I meant to for this 'highlights' section!!)
bbbbzzzzzhummmmm (fast forward sound)
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA! (After a bus to El Calafate, a night there, and another 36 hour bus ride)
BA is wonderful. Ecclectic, alive and enlivening, inexpensive, beautiful, stylish, good food, great meat. But one bad hostel; very bad. Bedbugs. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. Shayla and I woke up with the telltale lines of bites everywhere. Shay took classes in this stuff for the Co-op, so she explained all the nasty details of these resliant little ****s. The lay eggs and come with you. They live anywhere and everywhere. They survive forever, waiting to feast. asldkfjaew;ifjadls;f. Gross, and they were feasting on US. So, we got the hell outta there, to a really awesome hostel nearby. Shay explained that they come with you via eggs. The eggs dont hatch for over a week, and that extreme temperatures will kill them. So, we did our best to contain our belongings, and when we retured home, high heat in the dryer for everything. (So far we are bug-free!). Otherwise, BA was fantastic. Shay and I stayed the final few nights in Shay's previous house-mom's apartment. Oh, and we had an incredible (and spicy! I had to douse my face with cold water twice, I was out-of-practice) dinner at a south-east asian/Argentinean fare place. Greg and I ate some rabbit.
The earthquake happened during all this, and shook us up a bit (hehe). But puns aside, not so funny, a lot of damage was done.
Greg changed his flight plans to leave out of BA, but first, we headed to Mendoza (a few hours from the Chilean border) for a day and a half. We shared a parilla dinner. The first course consisted of the insides of a cow, I'm still not sure which parts exactly. I thoroughly enjoyed the blood sausage, which I usually would rather tiptoe around. The meat was the best I've ever had. They know how to handle a cow in Argentina, from the raising to the cooking. We also took a bike tour of the wineries, olive oileries (?), and specialty fooderies of Mendoza, which was delightful. Greg and I parted ways.
Shay and I met back in Santiago. She then found out that, because of the quake, she didn't start school until the 22nd! So naturally, we bought 2 tickets to Brazil for the day after. Of course, we didn't know that we needed about 10 days to secure a visa. We found that out after. So, we tried our luck at the Brazilian Consulate, who told us sorry, we'd have to change the flights. The airline wasn't havin' any of that. Not at first, anyway. A few calls later, we got our money back, thank god.
Madison, Allie (our housemate), Shay and I went to La Serena instead. La Serena is a beach town about 6 hours north. We secured a 3 bedroom apt on the beach for a few nights, at the cost of a hostel, and enjoyed ourselves. A tour on the beach one day, a tour through Valle Elqui another day, and a trip up to the massive cross-chapel in the neighboring poorer fishing town of Coquimbo. I liked Coquimbo more. One of those days, on the bus into La Serena, a very curios thing happened. A man in the seat in front and across from us made a clicking sound, and turned toward us. The clicking sound was something you might here on a National Geographic program of indigenous African peoples, or from aliens on a Star Trek episode. This man seemed equally as stern and intense as either of these would be. He then fished into his backpack and revealed to us a whole live crab, and held it out to us in what might have been an offering or a warning, I'm still unsure. With that, he said, in english, 'remember, you remember...' We said, no, pero gracias, senor weirdo. He faced the front again, but swiftly swung around again, holding a leg of that same crab he kindly removed for us, and repeated, 'remember', and said something else in his secret clicking language. He smelled like rancid sea. The bus driver stopped the bus, and led him to the rear, where somone took care of him. then, with a slap of the tougue from the roof to the floor of his mouth....'click click, click'
I wonder if that crab leg had special powers. It was still moving, after all.

We returned to Santiago to finally attempt at settling into 'real' life and a routine. This was upset, however, buy the realization that the house we were in was an overpriced disaster. The more we thought about it, the more we had issue with. The solution of course was to find a new place; but, this is somewhat of a full time job. Nevertheless, a week later we signed on for three months at our soon-to-be new place. It'll be in the heart of the livielest, 'hippest' (as hip as you get 'round here) area, and at the foot of the biggest park in town (a big mountain). It is clean, and beautiful, and clean, and kitchen to only 4 people. Yet, its part of an umbrella building of apts that share the same great outdoor patio, equipped with a bbq, and tables, and lounge chairs. and its clean, and has a shower you can bend over in. And, the police impound, equipped with 24-hour towing, is not on the sidewalk below our balcony. And its essentially the same price! We move in the 16th.
I joined Shay and her program on a day trip to Pomerie, too. The town thrives on crafting anything and everything from the earth of a local mountain. If Peir 1 got a hold of this stuff, you'd be paying hundreds of dollars for handcrafted home-goods from vases to those outdoor fire oven things to masks. Cool pueblo. (pictures!)

The 'real' life element of our time here has set in now, and we are gathering our routines in a place across the world from where we'd call home. I need something purposeful here, yes, something to 'put on my resume' after its all said and done. I'm workin on it. It's quite weird to think we're not even at the halfway point yet, but then again, I know it will go by faster than I can imagine. We have whole new chapters to look forward to, too, like another Mendoza trip, another home in Santiago, Haleys visit!, and Peru (and Bolivia, funds permitting). And tomorrow night we are seeing one of my favorite bands who are touring through Santiago--Placebo.

So we are back to now, all caught up. I put the laundry in during this, too. Y ahora tengo que poner la ropa en la secadora.
Te vaya bien, chow!!

(yes I know it's ciao)