The End is the Beginning; 6

January 15^th, 2012

Bread and coffee for breakfast while watching Monsters Inc. in Spanish on tv! TV??? We felt so fancy being able to watch tv! Then off we were, back on the road again to continue our drive through National Geographics. More guanacos, sheeps, horses, cows, birds, landscapes-again for the 100^th time—NEVER GOT OLD! Chocolate and rest! My knee was hating on me at this point in the trip so it was nice again to JUST sit. Sidenote- we kept passing this large Bino animal statue/sculptures (bear/dinosaur looking creature). We were so intrigued and later found out that they are called “Milodones.” They are these very large sloth-like creatures that existed in caves in Southern Patagonia right after the time of the dinosaurs! Cool! I think Becca used to be a Milodon in her last life- had to be. Roar.

Okay, so we arrived in Punta Arenas and found Hostal Costanera- a 2^nd very highly recommended hostal! This hostal was a home and veryyyy comfy! After hostal hopping/camping for some time, it felt nice to be in a home (that was a “hostal” but literally someones house). We put our bags down and headed out- trying to suck the joy out of our last days of our trip. Go figure a half hour later, we find ourselves raging in the middle of a rally in main plaza of the town!

A rally to let voices be heard!

The government upped the cost of education and many other things and there stood people demanding a fair chance at education and a future for themselves and their children.

It was such a peaceful rally with really awesome traditional bands playing sweet music. Nothing like music and dancing to pull you right INTO the culture- a whole world inside of music and dancing! Their traditional dance involved this towel/napkin flagging. It was cool- slightly similar steps to Paraguay’s traditional dances, yet different.

So there we were, cheering, chanting, dancing and just- well joining their movement. Totally in our element-we felt on fire! This is what its all about! We had perma-smiles while twirling around to the rythmns and just Being with the people. Too cooooool. We stayed at the rally till 10pm then headed back to the hostal where we met some more characters that added quite the Chilean spice to the end of our trip! Two girls from Brasil, an Australian/Argentinian couple, guy from Israel, and a guy from France (who was in the midst of traveling the world by motorcycle- Che Guevara style). There we sat, yet again, exchanging-words, stories, cultures, songs, laughs—exchanging, sharing and melting our completely different worlds and adventures into one. One of the Brasilian girls was studying Transpersonal Psychology which made me so happy! I’ve never ever met anyone who was actually studying that so it felt really cool to me that I met someone who had the same specific interests I have. She was totally lit up about it and so was I just listening!  I love that! We also met 5 girls from Germany who we ended up loving and becoming close too so quickly for whatever reason. Even though we just met, it was one of those encounters were we felt like we knew them for years. They were all in South America-doing different volunteer work in different countries but all met up for a break/vacation in Patagonia. We hung with them till 2 am-then cookies and tea then bed!

January 16^th 2012

Wakey wakey- bread and coffee for breakfast and off to the plaza to check out all the local artisans work-again NEVER gets old. So muchhhhh culture in art! Obvi, we made 3 besties along the way. We met one artisan who we ended up exchanging business cards with. Her work was so impressive and well, she was super nice! Why not! Look at us doing business in the midst of our travels. What?? We also ended up becoming besties with this lady and guy who made really unique cool jewelry. We ended up sitting and hanging out with them at their stand, almost missing our ride to go see the penguins that day. The lady threaded tereres (that’s what they call them in Paraguay- basically just waxy thread into our hair) while we hung out and learned all about her work and life.

 After artisan bestie time, we caught a ride to the port to catch the boat to see LOS PENGUINOS!!!

So we met the 5 German girls at the port- all heading out to see the penguins on Isla de Magdalena. It took us two hours by boat to get to the penguin island! SO PERFECT coasting the Pacific Ocean- such a feeling of complete freedom! The ocean- again- mother nature- is out of this world to me!

We shared cookies and laughs on the boat while looking for whales and dolphins and marine life on the way!

W hand gesture for WHALE!

And then we arrived! PENGUINOSSS!!! Oh my god!!! Ahhhh 69,000 penguins on this island!! Penguinland!! (Sarah McGrath-I was wishing you were here with me in this exact moment! I think I found your heaven! “S” for Sarah!)

Penguins EVERYWHERE!

The penguins swim/migrate to Isla de Magdalena every October because its summertime here which means it is the time of the year where there is the most sunlight-good for finding/catching fish and for warmth, etc. The baby penguins are gray and fluffy! (AWW!!!) The youth/adolescents are black with white chests. Some of them still have their fluffy gray falling off-like malting. It looks kind of weird-like the awkward teen years. Instead of having pimply skin or changing awkward voices, they have awkward hair-do’s.

The adult penguins are black with a white stripe like the youth, but the also have a black V-like stripe across their chests where-as they teenagers do not have that stripe! Penguins are considered adults at 5 years of age when they start to reproduce. The eggs are incubated in 45 days. But anyways, theres your penguin lesson for the day! The Patagonia penguins were about 1-1.5 feet tall and SO SO SO SO SO CUTE! So CUTE! I cant even handle it!

They were so close to us- at one point I got a little too close because one penguin started thrusting its head at me and then chasing me! Ahahahaha! Funny but not funny! Its their island, their home and perhaps I got too close and too homey too soon. My bad. After that, I respected their personal space more. Again, its their home after all and I am privileged to be a visitor! We stayed on the island for about an hour until Carla, the boat lady yelled at us 3 times because we wouldn’t get back on the boat. We were the bad kids. It was just so hard to leave the penguinosss because they were so cool and so so cute! 

After the penguin fiesta, we headed back on the boat on the Pacific.

where Monetti, the 5 German girls, and I were feeling extra goofy and happy because we were just on this silly high from hanging out with the penguinos. During the 2 hour boat ride back, we "walked" around the big boat...or should I say we waddled around the boat, doing our penguin walk! 

Some people were definitely disturbed by us because we were clearly 7 “adult” women, not children sqwacking like penguins and waddling like penguins. Ha- immature fun at its best! Oh, and get this! We totally saw whales and dolphins on the boat ride home! The dolphins were literally swimming and jumping and flipping right next to our boat! SO SO SO COOL!

Marine life is so beautiful and cute and cool and awesome!! National geograhics-planet earth ocean edition!

After an amazing day, we heading back to the hostal where we all cooked together and shared –guess what?? PASTA! There were some new Israeli guys in our hostal who had some left over food that they shared with us! There we were again-Germany, Israel, Argentina, Chile, United States, Australia, Brasil, France, and Switzerland- different people, different worlds, different cultures, different adventures, different everything- and yet all the same- too cool. From pulling our food together to discussing the Triple Alliance War and its consequences-still to this day-on the different South American countries to sharing popular music from each of our countries to learning new languages to sharing mate

and pisco to playing games to acting like penguins to singing to dancing bachata and back to singing some South American classic hits. Good food. Good Hostal. Good people. Good night.

Sidenote- so the German girls were on the same bus as us a week or so back (before we met them). I saw Julianna- one of the German girls- crying while the bus was stopped and we were sorting out border crossing/passport stuff. I approached her because she looked really sad and I started to talk to her. She was emotional leaving Argentina (entering Chile) because she had spent a lot of time there/made her own little family there and was just feeling a little sad to have to leave all of it, etc. Then- like a week later- we end up being at the SAME hostal out of all the hostels in a completely different country! What are the odds of that? One funtivity of our trip-in general- was the coincidences and the re-crossing of volunteers and/or backpackers.

January 17^th, 2012

Wahhh! We don’t want to leave today! Breakfast with the hostal crew

then headed to some famous cemetery in town with the German girls and our Swiss boy. There were are modeling our "fancy cookies." One of the German girls whipped out these expensive delicious fancy oatmeal cookies randomly? Where was she hiding all this time?

It was famous four its “houses” of people (instead of burying people underground).

Monetti was disturbed and creeped out that we were going to visit a cemetery as our day activity but I thought it was pretty cool. Death represents something different in every culture and I thought it was cool to see their spin on it. After that, we said our goodbyes to the German girls, packed up and headed to the airport with Swiss Welly and Polish Jessica from our hostal -all getting on the same 1^st flight but different connecting flights.  Had some airport laughs, obvi, and headed out of Punta Arenas, Chile.

We arrived in Santiago, Chile at 1am and took turns sleeping in the airport again. The airport was freeeeezing on a whole other level! I had on jeans under my sweats. I basically took all my clothes out of my backpack and layered them, including wrapping Patricia’s lovely pink sweater she gave me as a head wrap to keep the heat in. It was brutal. Ha.

Dunkin donuts, airport wandering and 14 hours later, we were off on our connecting flight back to Asuncion, Paraguay.

January 18^th, 2012

5:00pm and we are back into the heat of things. Walk out of the airport and BOOM! Nothing like the HEAT of Paraguay to bring us back! We were sad that our trip ended but were also feeling a sort of nostalgic feelings being back in good old’ Paraguay. Two crowded bus rides later we returned to our casita- where our beds lie awaiting for us in the kitchen where our only functioning fan works. The retired sisters embraced us returning as preciously as they always do/are which obviously felt nice. And there we lied, in our beds that night, hysterically laughing saying:

“Yo Mo remember when we said about a month ago. Heyyy wouldn’t it be cool to see some penguins? Imagine if we went to the ‘end of the world’ for the New Year?”

“Ya…”

Like I said way earlier… we had our hiking boots, our backpacks of clothes, some reeses, a map, and well-eachother. No plan. Well, I suppose the plan was to have faith, to laugh, and see where the trip would take us…

Did we really just backpack southern Patagonia? Again, who do we think we are? Ha. The end of the world was the beginning of an AMAZING adventure.

Trip of a lifetime.

The End is the Beginning; 5

January 11^th, 2012

7am! Wakey wakey! Had breakfast with 5 Israeli girls who were just starting there trip-asking me a million questions about the different available treks and all. Its crazy how when we flew down here, we knew nothing, no plans, no nothing and then here I was telling her the best way to see everything/do all the treks in X amount of days, etc. Again, when did I become this trek/travel guide? Ahahaa! We were dying laughing.  Who do we think we are? Kisses and hugs to the cuteee old man that ran the hostal because we were going to miss him! So gentle and sweet! 8am back on the road again- heading to Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales, Chile. Unfortunately, there was a forest fire that destroyed a big chunk of the National Park. REALLY SAD. There is the “W” trek which many people do anywhere between 3-6 days. Lots of trekking/climbing and camping. However, due to the forest fire, only one leg of the W was open which was really disappointing. After being bummed out for a few hours when we heard this, we decided Whatever! We are here; gotta suck all the joy out of that one leg! Guess that means we will just have to return at another time to finish the whole W! (Who wants to join!?) So, on the road-arriving in Puerto Natales just before 10:00am.

All the dogs in Patagonia are HUGE! Its so cool to travel and meet all the street dogs- each place has its “type” of street dog- so serious. Its so fun and so interesting and they are all sooooo cute!! My bus stop buddy…

So, in our last hostal, we met this man William- 40 year old man who left Columbia to travel South America for 5 years. He worked in Puerto Natales for two months (mastering the W trek) and lived with this random lady Melinda. He gave us her address! So at 10:00am, we got off the bus and went on a search for this random house where this Melinda lady lived. 20 minutes later we were telling Melinda how we met William and blah blah and well, she gave us a hug and some sheets to go make our beds! HA! So awesome! Melinda takes in backpackers. Let me describe how awesome Melinda is. She is a spicy Chilean lady in her early 60s with her see-through brown nail polish, wearing fleece PJ pants with soccer slippers on her bottom half, a fancy shirt and an off-white suit jacket on top. Slumber party by bottom-business by top! She is married to the most quiet and gentle old man ever, who wears a full suit EVERY DAY (He doesn’t work; just casually wears a suit everyday.) Beyond cute. We were obsessed with the combination of wild Melinda and her gentle partner. Classic.

We stayed with Melinda one night and then heading out to Torres del Paine the next day to camp and do the leg of the W trek. Melinda let us borrow her backpack, tent, sleeping bag, cocinera (I don’t know what it is called in English- the thing we cooked with), and a mini gas can to connect to this cooking device. Instead of renting from a store, we paid less money by using Melinda’s gear. Thanks Mel! Packed and ready to go! Now its time to rest before this trek/camping adventure.

January 12^th, 2012

6am- Melinda’s gentle husband made us hot coffee and then we were off! Between the two of us, we carried a tent, a sleeping bag, layers of clothes, food, water, and our cocinera/mini gas can. Doesn’t sound like that much but damn it was HEAVY!!!! The entire trek was UPHILL. We left at 10am and arrived to the camping site at around 6pm! Damn, that was hard-really hard. Moments of laughter and silliness and moments of “I cant flippen climb anymore/cry faces.” Ha. Whats an adventure without the mix of emotions!

We were so hot from trekking! The weather was breezy but the sun was strong. Sidenote- bandana is one of the best things to have while backpacking- washcloth, hat-totally lessens the intensity of the heat-very multifunctional!

Sweeeet Tree! Connect me, Avatar style!

We passed some guys on horses carrying these gas tanks.

We finally made it. Time to set up camp. How the heck do we put this tent up? How the heck do we start this fire to make some food?

After we figured that out, we were absolutely exhausted and were ready for bed- in what we very quickly learned was a ONE person sleeping bag!

We also learned that our tent did not zip, had holes in it, and only had one steak post! Really? Oh boy did these little details add some spice to the adventure! Ha. I took the string out of my hood of my jacket to try to tie the flap shut to the tent so no creatures entered at night. Sidenote: I got bit by some big flies a few days ago on one of the treks. A few days later—aka in this moment after we set up camp, I look at my bites- and they were huge! SWOLLEN like the size of a lemon. After trekking up a mountain for 8 hours, I was exhausted and now in the middle of having an allergic reaction to these bites. Whats a girl to do? Its physically impossible to trek down at this point. So, I tent hopped asking people if they had anything I could take. I was about 3 minutes short of letting this pre-med student stick a needle in my butt. What was I to do? I was crawling out of my skin, hot and swollen. It was just getting worse and worse. But, just before the butt adventure I found a kid who has prescribed Benadryl. I decided to take that and if that didn’t work then try the needle in the butt. Took the Benadryl and I was out. Woke up the next morning and my bites were still huge but at least half the size now. So, we decided not to trek that day. Just hang out at the camp site. Our bodies were exhausted from trekking and well, I was at the mercy of these Benadryl pills that were making me sleep basically all day. Later that night we hung out with these 24 year old two park rangers who showed us pics of the forest fire which were CRAZY and sad! They showed us pre-fire pics of the other parts of the W trek that we wouldn’t be able to see due to the fire- beautiful! Cool- good people, good company- the good life.

January 14^th, 2012

4am! Its dark out now. Our campsite was one hour away from Torres del Paine Glacier. We decided it would be awesome to trek at 4am and make it to the glacier by 5am-just in time for the sunset. We were all excited the night before, feeling rested and ready. But, 4am hit and damn, it was dark!! Ahh! The back and forthness- Should we do it?  We want to do the sunset thing but its dark and kind of scary. What about the Pumas? The other backpackers we met in our travels did it; we can do it! Lets do it! So we are up and out in the dark. I had my handy dandy headlamp on which totally enabled us to do this dark trek. I saw a couple standing 50 ft from us outside their tent. They were heading out to do what we are doing- the sunset trek. Phew! We are not alone. And off we went. We only had one headlamp so I was using it to see the rocks I was climbing in front of me then putting it near my butt so Monetti could see where she was walking. Haha I wish someone could have videotaped what we looked like. I put the coffee, the cocinera, a bottle of stream water and the jar of peanut butter in the tent cover and carried it with us on this trek so we could make coffee during sunrise against the glacier! Damn this was uphill, rocks falling- literally boulder climbing. SO COOL! – making it just in time for the sunrise, 5:19am!! The wind was whipping right through us! We had to stay low on the rocks so we wouldn’t fall! So Awesome!

After the sunrise coffee and peanut butter, we headed back to our campsite, packed up and headed back down the mountain. Holyyy wind!! The down climb was insane. The wind literally was throwing us around like we were grains of sand. We fell a few times, ha. But really, at points of the trek, the walkway was narrow and we found ourselves squatting down or laying down at moments when the wind was super strong to avoid getting blown off the side of the cliff. Ha, but really. We even had our heavy heavy backpacks on, but that meant nothing. We literally were at the mercy of mother nature. I starting singing and trying to walk (or run if the wind blew threw from behind) with it. Work WITH it, instead of against it. The wind and I totally had our dance on-groovin! Its rhythmns determined my steps and speed-grooovin! A few hours later we made it to the mainland. We were going to do the last trek that was open which was called “Cuernos.” All the other parts of the W trek were closed do to the fire. However, when we made it to the mainland, one of the park workers said that Cuernos is temporarily closed because of the intense wind. One of the bridges fell into the river, knocked down by the wind. He said campers are staying put at their campsites. (And there we were trekking downhill in that wind- again, who do we think we are?)

So, being that we conquered the only part of the W trek that was open, we were off to our next adventure. Vale la pena!! = (Tough trek but) totally worth it! We took a bus back to Melinda’s house from the National Park. Swang on some swings by the water for a while then called it a night. Exhausted! Thank you Torres del Paine! You are insanely cool!