New Year’s Day 2012
1. After about 2 hours sleep, we were up ready to conquer the heck out of the day! Trekked to Lago Ismerelda with our new friend Aye from Argentina and Patricia from France. Patricia was in her late 50s. Every time she saw something beautiful like a flower or a cool tree or everytime we had to make it through a tough part of the trek, she would scream YAHOOO! Really loud. It was so contagious by the end of the trek, we were all screaming yahoooooo like every ten feet! Also, when she got really excited she would do this high cheerleading kicks which obviously I thought was hilarious! How cool is she!
Lago Ismerelda was bright turquoise blue, literally. It was SO BEAUTIFUL! Snowcapped mountains, Lago Ismerlda, trekking, trees, nature, good friends….how lucky am I? Perma-smile.
2. Because it was New Years Day, the trail guides were off, so we basically went on a 3 hour or so search to find this Laguna inside of mountains. Trekking with no directions is seriously too fun. I totally felt like Alyza Thornberry from the Wild Thornberries!
3. Patricia gave me her pink wool sweater and hat. She was ending her trip and said that we needed it. Monetti and I only had the clothes in our backpacks which we made the best of but Patricia was concerned for us. Ha. How cute is she to just give us her sweater and hat?? I continue to be amazed by how generous and giving people are. Its unreal.
4. After the days trek, we got back and sipped on some hot cocido for an hour while hysterically laughing about the previous night’s funtivities. Then we were off to the Beagle Canal!
5. Awesome tour guide Anna (oh my god, all our tour guides during the trip were named Anna. What? Ahhahha!) Making besties with the captain of the ship/sharing hot mate with him inside while all the tourists are on the outside of the boat.
ANNA
THE SHIP CREW, yes that includes Monetti and I
6. SEA LIONS galor!! Cormoranes (cool swimming birds) and more! The boat brought us right up to this huge rock- like 5 feet from the sea lions who were SO SO SO SO flippen cool! So cool! A sea lion gets its name because the male sea lions have this mane type hair (like a lion) only on their heads (no hair on the body).
7. Wind burnt faces! (FRESH AIR=priceless after Paraguay’s heat).
Tour of an island/ eating fresh calafate (this blueberry type fruit) from the island!
Meeting Eline from France who eventually becomes one of our besties when we re-see her elsewhere later in our journey.
8. Asking Anna a million questions. I am always that annoying one that has all the questions, but Im just so interested! All the animals, the wild life, the plants, the water, the everything! Its all so cool! When Anna asked who wants to eat Calafate, a bunch of people ran to her. I notice 3 minutes later that I was the only one in that group over the age of 10 years old. Ha.
9. Meals for the day= 2 slices of bread, 3 crackers, 2 oranges, carrots and tomatoes, chocolate covered peanuts, 1 poptart, 1 pack of cookies= backing packing on a budget. Sacrifice the food column to see the sea lions! SO WORTH IT!
January 2nd, 2012
1. Wakey Wakey! No time to waste! Gotta suck the joy out of every moment! Off we went to Tierra del Fuego where we met our 2nd tour guide, Anna, who took us on a 4 hour hike through Tierra del Fuego (translation: land of fire). T. de F. got its names because the indigenous people- Yamanas (who lived mainly off fish and muscles), used to bathe in the ocean (full of whales and sea lions and cool animals), which was FREEZING. They built these mini dome-like huts from the brush/sticks/leaves from the land and dried muscle and clam shells and then set them afire to dry and warm themselves from the cold. Then they would wear sea lion skin/fur as their coats. So there were always little domes of brush on fire. If you were to look at the land from far away, it would appear that the land was on fire- hence Land of Fire- Tierra del Fuego.
2. We learned about lighthouses and how the colors represent danger or safety zones.
3. Lots of cool looking purple shells. So pretty. Only 3 types of trees that grow on Tierra del Fuego. The Yamana used to eat these orange sponge-like round things that grew/grow on the trees. The trees grow these big tumor-like things to protect themselves from these spongy fungi. So cool, right? SO ALIVE!
4. Seeing a real natural mistle toe hanging from the tree! Whoa! Cool!
5. Lunch break-choripans (sausage bread sandwiches) and well I ate this yummy vegetarian sufflee and spinach empanadas! YUM!
6. RANOE TRIP!!!! (raft canoe) AH! Somehow I ended up being named “captain” of a canoe in which I had to steer/manage our canoe-It was me, Monetti and this nice older Dutch couple. Ha! The water was choppy when we first got in. Who do I think I am? a boat captain all of a sudden? Ha! 5 feet from us= SEA LIONS! Beyonddddddd cool. Unreal!!! Anna our tour guide who was the captain of the other ranoe, challenged us to two races. Lets just say the D1 competitive athlete totally came out! Take it down a notch Jess!
7. Hostal hopping the town to see if anyone had open beds for us to sleep! Priceless. Yakush hostel- so chill. Left-over pasta. Pasta pasta pasta. Pasta is the one thing backpackers leave behind for anyone..aka we ate pasta the entire trip (for free) sometimes with butter, sometimes plain, sometimes with salad dressing. Ha. Pasta and icecream.
8. Hanging out with our Brasilian friends till 3am; mixing cultures, learning so many funny interesting new things about Brasil. Cultural classroom fun! Really fun fun fun people. Good people add so much flavor to the adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment