Pataguccionia, that fabled land. I have, in fact, stood in Patagonia, while reading the classic Bruce Chatwin book, In Patagonia, dressed entirely in Patagonia. I have come to following conclusions:1) Patagonia is difficult to reach
2) It is indeed the most beautiful place on earth
3) The brand is appropriate for the climate conditions present, and
4) Bruce Chatwin is a maliciously dull writer.
It is very difficult to travel by bus through Patagonia, and it was recommended that we move over to the Argentinian side to make our lives just a touch easier. Of course, we ignored this advice, choosing instead to move as far south as we could through the Chilean waterways. We wanted to journey forward from the gorgeous island of Chiloé (according to my airline magazine, recently named the top travel destination of 2009 by Lonely Planet). On the map, there is a dotted line indicating a ferry that travels about four hours to the mainland. When we asked about this trip, they informed us that the port town on the other side was unfortunately recently destroyed by a volcanic eruption, but that we could instead go to Puerto Chacabuco, which is more fun to say than the Pompeiiesque Quellón. ¨Sounds great. How long is the trip?,¨ we asked and they responded, ¨36 hours!¨. Fantastic. So we found ourselves spending two nights aboard a boat with no beds, only chairs bolted to the floor and stray fishermen. From the next transportation center that we tried to leave, I literally had to chase down the only van departing to take us to a boat crossing into Argentina. The port town that we were dropped off in was so windy that it knocked over a small child. While on board, we were p
racticing our spanish with an incomprehensible Argentinian who discussed the deliciousness of local cherries, September 11 and that fine representation of American music, The Final Countdown, seemingly all within one stream of consciousness. All of a sudden, he turned and yelled ¨Goat Overboard!¨ Indeed, there was a small goat who decided that the glacial waters offered him a better chance of life than the grills of Argentina. The very large ferry turned around to rescue him. How do you rescue a goat from the water? Lasso, obvi. We thought he was perhaps in recovery when we saw his entrails fly past us and into the water.
We moved south down the famous ruta 40. I believe it is famous solely because Che repeatedly crashed his bike there. When we saw the sign for the one town along the way of El Siberia, we knew we had to get out quickly. Luckily, the bus took us to El Chalten, where the gorgeous spires of Mt. Fitzroy loomed overhead. Continuing along, we found ourselves in El Calafate for Christmas. We were rejected by every single restaurant in town for Christmas Eve dinner and ended up eating a delightful homecooked meal around 11:30 pm. The next day, we celebrated the holiday in a rather unusual way, by watching huge ice chunks calve off of the Perito M
oreno glacier. I also found a secret stash of Christmas music on my ipod, and spent the day happily reciting the words of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.We returned back to Chile to embark on the seven day Torres del Paine grand Circuit with our California cousin, Kirsten. As expected, the mountains and lakes were completely perfect, and unexpectedly, the weather cooperated with our ability to see them. If you haven't been backpacking recently, we highly recommend that you go, in order to reexperience the delight that is kr
aft mac ´n´cheese (it's The Cheesiest) after hiking all day, as well as the competitive spirit that fills those engaging in hot cocoa consumption contests. We also recommend that you bring along goretex shoes, rather than old trail runners that have taken you from Guatemala to Patagonia and contain at least one large hole per shoe.
Most recently, I fulfilled all childhoold dreams. In first grade, as a result of a diaroma project, I decided that penguins were my favorite animal. I did my best to dress like a penguin at any opportunity and was even offered a role as a penguin for the famous Stamford theatrical performance of Mr. Popper's Penguins. This may have been the highlight of my life, as I was instructed to put on a penguin suit, and my only task was to slide down a slide, over and over again. Anyways, I saw my first wild penguins the other day and it was awesome.
