The Commencement of a Very Rigid Search

Puerto Natales. Wednesday. 15:56.

From Friday until yesterday, I have: hiked over 50 km; climbed more than ten mountains; fallen into a river; stood at the foot of a 10,000 year old glacier; hung food in trees while sleeping so pumas wouldn´t kill me; eaten lots of tuna; drunk only glacier water; hiked past avalanches; showered only once; seen hundreds of llamas; gotten lost, climbed a mountain without a trail, got to the top to see the sun rise over mountains beneath me, and then prayed to survive the descent; survived; discovered that it really IS possible for every muscle from mid-back down to throb with exhaustionat the same time; and have seen more natural beauty than I thought existed. This has been my life for five days. This is Torres del Paine.

Torres del Paine is a national park in southern Chile. It was formed over 10,000 years ago when the Ice Age ended. It is a geologist´s dream in that some of the mountains´rock is 150 million years old. It has lakes that are robin´s egg blue, pampas, huge glaciers, snow capped mountains, mountain valleys with crashing rivers, waterfalls... completely breath-taking every second. Check out photos here. http://marcelo.ubb.cl/perl/gallery.pl?id_zona=17&npagina=1

Two highlights:
1. The second day there, Katie, Dan (the guy of the group) and I woke to hike a short trail to see the sunrise and turn the mountains orange. Somehow we got lost, climbed a mountain and saw rocks crash off the side beneath us. It took an hour and a half to climb to this high place. Once there, it was breath-taking, but I discovered one of my greatest fears is to be on an edge from which I could tumble and die. I don´t fear insects, or heights, or really much of anything, but now -- edges and falling. But we got over the other side of the mountain and found the normal place and the usual trail, and were so glad... and then we felt super hardcore.

2. The second night (same day as above), Katie and I were hanging out with four guys outside the lodge at the campsite. Two of them, cousins Diego and Nestór, invited us to hike with them the next day. Our American group was exhausted and was going to skip the middle of the W hike, and Katie and I so wanted to do it. We woke up, found Diego and Nestór, hiked two hours, set up tents, dropped our bags, and hiked the 3.5 hours to the lookout point. That night, we got back and hung out with these two, and two other guys from Santiago until 100am, drinking tea outside our tents and conversing in Spanish. They were all so patient with our Spanish, and such interesting guys. We laughed constantly with them, and they taught us a lot about the language and culture... It was great to hang out with people from South America who are our age. Last night we got into Puerto Natales, walked to their hostel and cooked dinner with them.

Now Katie and I are off to El Calafate, Argentina, to see a massive glacier, and then to Bariloche...