So Long, South America

With the sense of perspective gained from 30 hours of airport travel, I can now see how the end of my trip to South America serves as a microcosm for the experience as a whole: a large span of wandering improvisation, a healthy dose of adventure, and a touch of the unexpected. To start with the last, I am sorry to admit that my last weeks in South America included contracting a case of "don't eat the strawberries in a developing country, genius." Just when I was most ready to get out and savor the last days of mountains, warmth, and grammatically shaky Spanish, I found myself instead confined to our hostel bedroom, becoming intimately familiar with CSI spinoffs and past seasons of America's Next Top Model. However, I am happy to report that in that time I managed to (a) fill an REI.com shopping cart with gear I couldn't possibly afford, (b) compose a list of the best dance songs of 2011, and (c) get absolutely nothing of any importance accomplished.

It pleases me even more to say that after my recovery from Montezuma's Andean Cousin's Revenge, I was able to seize the day with a little bit more vigor and purpose. Brianne and I wrapped up our time at Seeds of Hope by teaching the children to make (somewhat freeform) friendship bracelets, and spent some time wandering Huaraz for last-minute alpaca purchases.

No, not that kind of alpaca purchase

Then we decided to say farewell to the Andes in true rustic style by attempting another day hike to Lake Churup, followed by a night at the Way Inn Lodge in the mountains. As has been true to form with our Peruvian treks, the climb to Lake Churup proved both beautiful and far more arduous than the phrase "day hike" seems to suggest. After taking a rural van packed with campasinos and papas to the "town" of Llupa, a herd of assorted farm animals led us past houses and fields to the Huascaran National Park. From there we huffed up a steep path, puffing for air at 14,000+ feet, and finally scrabbling to the finish by pulling ourselves up a rock face using steel cables. Needless to say, as the consistency of our legs approached that of overcooked noodles, we were a little humbled to find out that a 71-year-old man and his 65-year-old wife had done the hike the day before.

After that we spent a peaceful stay at the Way Inn, followed by our last overnight bus of South America, and concluding with a spell in Lima to re-acclimatize ourselves to sea-level oxygen and the presence of Starbucks.

The Way Inn Lodge

Plaza de Armas, Lima

Last sunset in South America

Now, back in Michigan for a three-week home-front leave, I find myself confronting the question of whether I got what I came for in South America. Unsurprisingly, the answer is a little of both. I got more than I expected, in mountain vistas and physical challenges, in sudden friendships and far too many heavy souvenirs. And also I got less than I expected: specifically, less unity of experience. In retrospect I realize how my time in New Zealand, during which four months was sufficient to canvas almost an entire country, contributed to my assumption that "going to South America" was even possible. As if visiting a few major cities and a handful of national parks was sufficient to have an impression of an entire continent. Whatever experience I'm actually taking home is quite a bit more fragmentary and elusive than that, and will take some time to catalog. When I think back on the past three months I see a scattering of bright moments, but so far cannot make out the connective, thematic lines that will eventually trace discrete experiences into a narrative constellation. But I look forward to the time to reflect, to the chance to miss alfahores and fresh mangoes, and to watching how the waves of memory smooth and round the past into something new.

Holding onto Huaraz

Our arrival in Huaraz, Peru not only began our longest stationary stint in South America, but also signalled the beginning of the end of our hispanophone adventures. The three weeks spent in this Andean trekking hotspot would be our last destination in the southern hemisphere, and our first (almost entirely) non-graduate-school-related travel experience of the trip. Despite the early onset of we're-almost-home syndrome, we wanted to make the last hurrah of South America count.

So...first things first, we wasted no time in confirming the existence of fine French press coffee in Huaraz. Cafe Andino - whose mismatched armchairs, tofu fajitas, and gorgeous mountain views put me in mind of Boulder, Colorado - quickly became a haven for us on rainy, homesick, or stressful days.



Stormy view of Huaraz from Cafe Andino

Next, we dove into our second volunteer experience of the trip: offering up our tutoring services to an organization called Seeds of Hope. As it turns out, the at-risk students Seeds supports would have been much better served had our intentions to learn Spanish progressed a little bit further. We had thought we might be giving English lessons or leading farm vocabulary games, but when presented with our first geography worksheet and asked to explain it to expectant middle-schoolers, we realized our linguistic (not to mention mathematical) preparation had been a little lacking. Give professora a second to remember how to find the lowest common denominator...and then give professora a moment to look up "common" and "denominator" in the English-Spanish dictionary. Luckily, our students are willing to teach as well, and between answering questions about my bicycle and what street Shakira lives on, tutoring has given us a chance to practice our basic conversation skills.


During this indescribably long day, we attempted an origami lesson. Approximately half the children mastered the paper crane in the first half hour and proceeded to produce, seemingly without fatigue, an alarmingly large flock of colored birds. The other half tacitly gave up on the "learning" part of the exercise and instead used an innocent-sounding "ayudame, profe" to recruit one of their gullible professors to manufacture cranes for them for the next two hours.

Finally, we enjoyed one of the best possible highlights of a long spell abroad: a visitor from home. My very own tocaya (name twin), Lauren Berka, used her Thanksgiving break from graduate school to come visit us in Huaraz and and thus gave us an excuse to treat ourselves to the best the city has to offer. In the series below (my apologies for the explosion of photos), you can see us sampling Andean brews, tackling the Laguna 69 trek, attempting a Peruvian Thanksgiving dinner, and wandering the mountains outside of town.

Laguna 69



Breaking my personal altitude record at 15,090 ft (plus two)



Approaching the Llanganuco Lakes

Thanksgiving dinner with Lauren and the other Seeds volunteers



The Cordrillera Blanca outside of Huaraz



It's always difficult to stave off the first tinges of itchy feet as you reach the end of a journey. But a visit from a good friend, gorgeous mountains, and a multitude of unknown Spanish verb tenses have helped anchor us in Huaraz. I hope that when I write to tell you how our trip wraps up, I will be able to say that I savoured my last tastes of Peru and South America.

Climbing to Cusco and the Cloud City

Making the trip to Cusco and Machu Picchu is Peru's gringo rite of passage. The postcard shot of the famous ruins backed by green, finger-like mountains is one of the most coveted photo opportunities in South America. An entire tourist industry has exploded into being to charge visitors a pretty penny to hike, train, raft, or bike their way to the mythic spot. And as much as my inner-Dutch self rebelled at the price tag of the journey, I had heard enough testimonies from past visitors (like Brianne) to know that I shouldn't miss the chance to see them for myself.

Luckily, Cusco's beauty has survived the crush of foreign tourists, and despite the prevalence of hawkers and five-dollar-a-photograph llamas, it's a charming and picturesque city. Brianne and I stayed in a quiet hostel on the hillside, which afforded us gorgeous views and literally breath-taking hikes up long stairs in the high-altitude thin air. We took a break from graduate applications to explore the city, try Peruvian Pisco, and become almost twice-a-day regulars at a tiny but delicious veggie cafe.

Veggie burger + falafel taco = dos gringas felices

But the real fun started when I got to planning my solo trip to Machu Picchu. I needed an entrance ticket, two train tickets, and two bus tickets to get there and back, and Cusco seemed to be conspiring with the tour companies to make an independent acquisition of those items as difficult as possible. After a half-day romp around the city looking for the suspiciously unmarked Instituto Nationale de Cultura so that I could buy my entrance ticket (literally you have to walk by the doorway three times looking confused and white before a security guard stops you and whispers "Machu Picchu?" like an underground code word), and a very frustrating evening trying to navigate PeruRail's website (which went something to the effect of: "We accept all credit cards. Except no, not yours. Here's your ticket, except that no the transaction didn't actually go through. Do you have a ticket? Maybe..."), I finally got all the pieces in place for my trip. I spent a semi-sleepless night waiting for my 6:30 AM taxi and then started the long, tiring, gorgeous, expensive, wonderful day at Machu Picchu.

The scene at the ruins is overwhelming in more ways than one. Sunburning tourists everywhere in khaki shorts, guides filling the air with historical tidbits in European languages, and a vista so unbelievable that no matter how many times you photograph it, you always seem to miss the essential element. It can be hard to share an experience that large-scale with so many other people. Even when I found a quiet spot to rest and take in the view, a French tour group would wander by, or a gang of eleven-year-old Peruvian schoolboys would want their photos taken with me (true story). Fortunately, being alone in a crowd has always held a certain appeal to me, and I enjoyed a day with my inner monologues and Ipod-compiled soundtracks. I did my best to carve out my own snapshots of a place both overexposed to tourists and stubbornly inaccessible to them. I like to think I walked away with a little something of my own.

Border crossings

Since I last found time to write, many of the foundations of our trip have shifted. October has turned to November, and counter-intuitively the weather has warmed from fleeces and wool socks to short sleeves and sandals. We've left Chile for Peru. And we have finally, at long last started handing in our graduate school applications. We might very well be on the verge of a whole new state of travel, but before it arrives I should back up and fill in the busy steps that led us here.

Our farewell to Chile was one of our trip's pleasant surprises. The Chilean chicas we met in Torres del Paine (Elaine, Pamela, and Manola) invited us to come visit them in Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. And we, being two people who will always follow up on a free bed in a beautiful city, accepted. Our friends, it turned out, were the daughters of some fairly important Chilean naval officers, and we spent four fabulous days being toured around, spoiled with free laundry, and stuffed with delicious food. Valparaiso's streets are kaleidoscopic and Vina's beaches are gorgeous, but the highlight of the stay was the chance to relax with friends, have a movie night, and eat so many chips and biscuits you might need a stomach pump.

Valparaiso

 

The beach at Quintay



Pamela, Me, Brianne, and Elaine

You may have noticed that our Chilean friends look every bit as gringa as we do. In fact, you may very well suspect us of bringing in German and Scottish ringers to make ourselves look more culturally engaged. But Valparaiso, like the United States, has a long history of European immigration, and many of the Chileans we met there could have passed for Swedes. As for our Chileans, they gave us a spectacular send-off by introducing us to Piscola and taking us dancing until 6:00 AM: the perfect preparation for a 30-hour bus ride leaving at 7:00 AM. We dozed easily in and out of the marathon ride from Santiago to Arica (in the north of Chile), waking only occasionally to take note of the expanse of desert outside and the terrible movie selection inside.

After a night of recovery in Arica, we took a packed taxi ride in a Ford Taurus across the border to Tacna, Peru. From there, yet another bus hauled our tired selves from Tacna to Arequipa, our first real stop in Peru. Finally we had a four-day stay to rest our fluid-swollen feet, power forward on our graduate school applications, and greet Peru by exploring a truly beautiful city.

Sunset from the roof of our hostel

And yes, Peru has brought us (finally) to the beginning of the end of graduate school applications. Unfortunately, hitting submit has so far brought less relief than a general sort of post-partem anxiety. Is this really all I have to show for months of agonized labor? Can I have it back for a second and try to sound smarter? What's more, applying to graduate school has evolved into something of an existential state for me. It's part of my identity. I live in hostels and apply to graduate school. What will I do with myself after it's done?

It's time to find out I suppose. We're in Peru, November spring flowers are blooming, and a whole new phase of the trip is beginning. Cross your fingers that next time you hear from me, I will be celebrating thirteen completed graduate school applications with a Pisco Sour and a Cusco sunset.

Aventuras Patagonicas

The word "Patagonia" has held a mystique for me since the day I first developed an unaffordable obsession with performance clothing. In fact, my vision of Patagonia the landscape matched my attachment to the windblock, moisture-wicking baselayers made by Patagonia the company: I wanted to experience something so gorgeous and outdoorsy that I would instantly become a more hard-core, rustically attractive version of myself. I pictured myself hopping briskly up rugged cliffs, my climbing gear in my weight-efficient day pack. And now here I was, ready to board my flight to Punta Arenas, my backpack stuffed with application paraphernalia, a sorely underused copy of Spanish for Dummies, and a box of oatmeal. Ready or not, here I come, Patagonia.

We started to get a taste for the scenery to come on the plane flight, which offered us some unexpectedly clear views of the mountains and glaciers below:


After spending a couple days in Puerto Natales repacking our bags, stocking up on trail food, and (yes) sending our GRE scores to graduate schools, we boarded the bus for the Torres del Paine National Park. We were layered for warmth and hungry for adventure.
 

Early morning in Puerto Natales

First view of Torres del Paine


The Torres reflected in a gratuitously gorgeous lake

From our first glimpse of the Torres and the Cuernos, I was like putty in Patagonia's craggy hands. The busdriver, seeing our ridiculous grins, jovially pointed out the picturesque views and commanded us to "take a picture of this," and "get a photo of that." Ah...las gringas felices. We arrived on the east side of the park, set up camp in the Torres campground, and headed out for our first hike. We were sans packs and feeling optimistic, but this first day ended up providing both our most scenic weather and our most challenging climb. We tackled a steep hike with jackets around our waists and sunburns blossoming on our faces, but were more than amply rewarded by the view from the Mirador de las Torres.

Our day two spirits were high from the spectacular scenery and warm weather we'd had for the Torres. We breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we had at least seen one section of the park at its best, and crossed our fingers that those photos wouldn't be the last beautiful ones we took. The day started cool and cloudy, but with patches of friendly sun and some wonderful lake views.

Toward the end of the hike, our faces started to feel the first gusts of the famously strong Torres del Paine winds. We would hear the low roar approaching from across the lake, feel the first wobbles of lost balance, and then have to find a rock or tree to cling to as the wind whipped us sideways and kicked up clouds of swirling mist over the lake.

Oh yes...it's all fun and games when you're trying not to fall on your back like a top-heavy turtle because the wind has turned your pack cover into a sail. But there were darker times to come. We arrived at Refugio los Cuernos, where we decided to set up camp so that we could have dinner indoors away from the increasingly threatening winds. Yours truly began to experience a familiar, helicopter-parent-type anxiety about my tent, and unfortunately the mischievous imp of unforeseen complications that has followed our steps so closely on this trip decided to make another appearance. The second time we went out to our site to check on the tent, just ten minutes after I had made my first paranoid inspection, the strong winds had snapped one of my tent poles and sent the broken shaft through the rain fly. Devastation. I felt like I had accidentally dropped something heavy on my puppy. We had to disentangle the tent, pack up our stuff, and hobble back to the refugio, where I instantly dissolved into tears and broken Spanish.

But in the end, karma gave us a very wonderful consolation prize. The managers of the refugio - no doubt alarmed by my crying, nose-blowing, and incorrect verb conjugations - gave us two beds inside for the price of one. What's more, they gave us an unused tent to borrow for the rest of the trip so that we could finish the hike as planned. I still spent the night mourning for my damaged tent, but we also passed an evening grateful for the incredible generosity of strangers.

The next day we set out into the extremely blustery conditions of the night before. After sweating through all our clothes on the first day, we were now hiking through blowing snow, and ended up having to pass over the French Valley section of the hike because of low visibility and even lower temperatures. But by the afternoon the skies had started to clear and we had wonderful views going into our next refugio.

That night we met up again with three Chilean chicas we'd seen at almost every step of the trail. We had found out the night before that they actually spoke excellent English and were glad to find them again at Refugio Paine Grande. We shared some chips and mini bottles of wine, made dinner together, and ended the night by singing the yodelling song from The Sound of Music. Truly, the start to a fabulous friendship.

We decided to camp the next night with them as well and in the morning packed up for Refugio Gray, which sits right by the park's biggest glacier. The hike is normally a relatively easy three and a half hours, but it ended up being a little bit more challenging with the unbelievably strong winds we met as soon as we crested the ridge and arrived at Lake Gray. We had to plant ourselves almost at 45-degree angles to make progess along the trail, and at one point almost lost my pack cover, Brianne's hat, and one of our water bottles trying to snap a photo from a windy viewpoint. But we did see some great views of the glacier and it's little hoarde of icebergs, and arrived at Refugio Gray very ready for the warmth, rest, and free hot beverages.

That night we made smores over the woodstove with our Chilean chicas, Elaine, Pamela, and Manola. We shared them with the staff at the refugio, who of course gave them the thumbs up. Who could dislike a smore? The guys then stayed and chatted for a while, sharing stories about the park and giving Brianne and I a chance to practice our "understanding, understanding, understanding, COMPLETELY LOST," Spanish comprehension game. We spent a good last night in the tent and then packed up for an early morning hike to the glacier and then back to the boat to head out of the park.

Our legs were exhausted. Our stomachs were begging for something non-rehydrated. But we were incredibly grateful for five days of no grad school, no trip planning or budget crunching, nothing to do but enjoy a place we've always dreamed of going. I may not be the outdoor warrior I thought I would be when I tackled Patagonia, but I definitely have an amateur's little-sibling love for being dirty, tired, and totally satisfied with just a few glimpses of life's beautiful places.

Happy, sleepy, and very ready for a shower