Two weeks after writing my last blog entry, here I sit, back in Perú, the month and a half spent in Ecuador a brief blip on the radar of my memory, an excellent interlude, but wedged so tightly between the wonders of the Peruvian mountains and jungle that it’s hard to truly savor, like a thin slice of mild cheese between two slabs of hearty seed bread.  Alison, the little sister, had been studying in Quito, Ecuador on an exchange program since February, living with a local family and making weekend trips with her class to cloud forests and the Galapagos Islands.  June was her last month in the country, and I showed up on the first to share it with her.  Alison was my city guide, teaching me to use the public transit system and orienting me so I could find my way back home.  I watched with pride the ease with which she navigated the city, always three steps ahead of me, confident, fearless, direct.  In the evenings, after classes and homework, we talked, shared photos, watched DVDs.  We took a weekend trip to the famous artisan market at Otavalo, and she brought me to La Esperanza, a tiny mountain town where an afternoon fog drifted between the eucalyptus trees and the cobblestone streets.  One afternoon we climbed to the top of the tower in the city’s basilica, and another weekend we spent at a friend’s cabin outside of the city, riding horses and dancing late into the night with the local boys.  The stress of finals and a busy university schedule restricted our excursions, but I was happy just to be there, to experience a bit of Ecuador at my sister’ side, and even more happy to learn more about the vibrant young woman that my little sister is becoming.

For a week or so I tramped around the central highlands south of Quito.  I summitted El Corazón (4790m) and hitchhiked into the Parque Nacional de Cotopaxi and slept in the refugio (4800m) on the edge of the volcano’s glaciated cap (5897m – Ecuador’s 2nd highest).  The altitude had begun to wear on me, and for once in my life, the peak didn’t tempt me.  I nestled in my sleeping bag in the kitchen area and talked to the ice-encrusted climbers as they returned, one after another, foiled in their summit attempts by high winds and fresh snow.  Breathing the icy air as I crossed the frozen volcanic rocks to reach the separate bathroom, I remembered Antarctica.  Recently, everything reminds me of that place.

In the city, and on the mountain tops, Ecuadorian culture was elusive, distant.  I missed the closeness to the people I’d had in Perú.  Ecuador is much smaller, the size of Colorado, and three fourths of the population lives in less than half of the land.  It feels more crowded; the hills are patchwork quilts of farmlands, whereas in Perú there are more trees, more uninhabited spaces.  The predominately cement construction lends the countryside an unfinished look.  Re-bar spikes protrude from the roofs, and roofless or windowless houses stand empty.  Pollution clings to the walls, staining them dingy gray to match the perpetually cloudy skies.  Winter means rain in the highlands.  As I moved south from the capital and down from the alpine region, however, the country gradually opened up to me.  There were more days of sunshine.  I discovered the market in Latacunga.  I learned a few words of Ecuadorian Quichua, caught some rides with local families.  Sebastien, a Frenchman I’d met in Quito, caught up with me in Latacunga, and together we traced a six-day circuit through several small towns in the western Andean foothills.  It was a smaller, less remote version of my adventure in Perú with Wilson, and here more than anywhere else, I felt like I was finally experiencing Ecuador.

The market at Saquisilí, the one that began with a bang, or rather the clatter of hooves on the roof, was the other highlight of our circuit.  We wandered through the animal market, watching the interactions, the bartering, the posturing, and the exchanging of wads of greenbacks for the tethered, terrified sheep, goats, cows, llamas, pigs and their young.  Cuys (guinea pigs) and chickens chirped in net bags on the ground and herbs and grasses lay in huge piled hedges to be navigated.  The rest of the market spread across four different plazas and spilled over into the streets and alleyways.  Under tents and behind booths, men, women, and children hawked their wares.  Fresh butchered meat, health drinks, veggies, fruits, fried fish.  Grains and pastas in great sacks, spices in colorful piles.  Enormous cauldrons of soup and rice and boiled chickens.  Utensils for the kitchen, the office, the car, the bathroom; things for cleaning, locking, organizing, decorating, chopping, storing, and hauling.  Shoes, clothes, jewelry in piles, batteries and pens held out between arms draped with shoelaces and ribbons.  Pickpockets and shoeshine boys and beggars plied the crowd.  Uniformed ice cream salesmen raised their voices to compete with the aproned “gelatina” ladies.  And everywhere, the crowd of buyers, indigenous and modern, the purposeful and the gawkers, dodging, ducking and weaving, mingling in a tapestry of culture and commerce.

The first five days, we hiked up, then down, then up, then down.  River valley to river valley, straight up and over the peaks in between, descending 1000m then climbing 1000m.  Like climbing over a 4,000-footer in the White Mountains, without switchbacks.  Straight up, then straight back down the other side in one day, five days in a row.  Unlike in New Zealand, the rivers at the bottom of these valleys were crossed once, easily, with a rough log bridge, then forgotten.  No trails meandering along the valley bottoms, circumnavigating the hills in the middle – we traveled direct, and at an average altitude of 3300m (10,800ft).  It’s impossible to talk about the trip without dwelling on the elevation.  Our maps were poor and we didn’t have an altimeter, but with every step, I knew that we were high.  My lungs knew it and my heart beat out protests in Morse code.  Up, up, up, then down, down, down.

In between breaths, Wilson taught me words in Quechua, the language of the locals.  We’re passing through their land, he reasoned.  We should speak their language.
“How are you: imaynalla cashanky,” he’d prompt.
“Ee-la-mayna…eee-ya-llama…how was that again?”
“Imaynalla cashanky.  And the response: aliyammi cashany, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“One phrase at a time!” I’d protest, and put one foot in front of the other and pant the unfamiliar syllables like a mantra.

We carried no food, only a bit of bread, cheese, fruit and nuts, and I brought my emergency jar of peanut butter and a spoon.  Our meals Wilson begged and bartered from the campesinos who lived along our route.  On the third night, I sat next to Wilson on a wooden bench inside a tiny mud and thatch hut.  On the rickety table in front of us, our hostess placed two bowls heaped with rice, runny fried eggs and boiled yuca root.  Nodding to us that we should start eating, she settled back on her low stool next to the cook fire, tucked her skirts between her legs, and poked another branch between the rocks, sending a fresh wave of smoke into the already thick air.  I took a pinch of salt from the bowl and applied it liberally to the egg before mixing the bright yolk into the rice.  Starved at the end of a long day’s walking, the simple carb-and-protein blast made my stomach sing.  The white, potato-like yuca was dry and starchy, but with a thin layer of salt, delicious.  Satisfied, I leaned back against the wall and sighed.  Straw fibers from the mud bricks tickled the back of my neck, and a curious cuy (guinea pig) startled me as he brushed against my toe, cooing and burbling to his brothers, huddled in the corners of the small cook hut.  The only light came from the small fire, dim, but enough to make out the shapes of the family sitting by the fire, watching us eat.  I felt shy under their gaze, a gringa, wearing in my synthetic-down jacket and head lamp.  When the daughter stood up to clear our bowls and serve tea from the kettle, Wilson nudged me insistently under the table.  “Practice your new language!” he said in English.  “Sool-pie-coo-ee,” thank you, I murmured to the daughter, who froze and looked up from her pouring.  My stomach fluttered and I tried again, “Ee-mahn-soo-tee-kee?”  What’s your name?  She turned to her parents, and the three began to chatter excitedly.  “They want to know where you learned to speak Quechua,” Wilson translated.  Suddenly I was under the spotlight.  I blushed, my eyes watering from the smoke, excited, overwhelmed by a sense of unreality.  They asked me questions.  I could barely get the answers out.  I smiled nervously and tried to breath.  What was I afraid of?  How different these people are?  How much I stood out?  They laughed at my poor attempts at Quechua phrases, but Wilson beamed, proud of his “gringa”, showing me off.  “They love you now,” he assured me.

Three days later we crossed the next pass, Abra Choquetacarpo, 4500m (14,700ft).  It was cold and I was having a hard time breathing.  My senses were on overdrive; every step registered: soft squishing mud, the brush of dew-soaked tussock blades against my leg.  Every blink, every breath had its own savor, and everything I saw sent my mind zooming back through the people and places of the last three years.  New Zealand: Graham, Jasmine, Dr. Gonzo, Lumir, Aussie Bob, long solo hikes when I felt invincible; Antarctica: André, all the good and all the bad; Wyoming: Cal, the Tetons, Jan.  Chile and Argentina and Patagonia and the recent days with Wilson.  Rich, I whispered to myself.  As if here in Perú I’ve finally stored up enough experiences to recognize it.  Rich.

On the other side of the pass, I skipped alongside Wilson on the long Inca road.  It’s seven feet high, five feet wide, a smooth stone highway built into the rocks on the side of the valley, built to speed along the Inca chaskis (foot messengers).  The even white line of the road stretched out ahead of us, and our conversation wound around to become a monologue: Wilson dreams of traveling the world - wants it so bad he can taste it – but money and family problems weigh on him like sandbags on a hot air balloon.  I listened, impressed by his determination and maturity (he’s three years younger than me), and at the same time humbled by the sudden, clear realization of how easy I have it.  I listened, but something in my head was breaking free.  All the times I’ve talked about how money’s not necessary to live, bragged about my minimal living expenses.  How easy, how trite, when you don’t have medical debts or a family to support.  Every moment I’ve spent whining about “too many options”.  I want to bury those thoughts, erase them from existence.  An abstract vision of what my future might be spun around in my head, something rattled and clicked into place.

Two days we spend in Huancacalle, the first town we’ve seen since leaving Cachora a week ago.  It’s one dirt road, lined with whitewashed adobe houses, but there are two or three hole-in-the-wall shops where we buy bread and cheese and bananas through the grated door, and a hostel with electric hot water in the outdoor showers.  It’s Sunday, Mother’s Day, and we wait in line at the top of the hill to use the town’s one telephone so that Wilson can call his mum.  A tiny, baseball-cap wearing woman serves us dinner and breakfast in her kitchen.  The plastic chairs and stained tablecloth, the bare light bulb that hangs over our head, the sink where she turns a tap to run water and rinse our dishes, these are unspeakable luxuries after the past week of smoky bamboo shacks.  Dinner is beef loin, with rice and tomato slices.  Breakfast is the same, with fried trout instead of beef, and black coffee to follow instead of tea.  Our hostess has a silver-rimmed fake tooth and a bright, smiling face that she has to keep uplifted when she talks to us; she barely comes up to my chest.  She, Wilson, and the man who works with her keep up a running commentary while we eat, about me, excluding me.  I’ve spoken Spanish to them, even tried out my Quechua, but I’m a gringa, and our hosts insist on believing that I understand nothing.  It’s harmless, joking, but I feel trapped by my appearance, accent, and culture.  They won’t look past the stereotype.  Still, I like this woman, with her electric laugh, and her efficient way of chopping washing talking cooking all at the same time.

And on the eighth day, it rained.  Wilson and I crossed our final pass in a cloud, a few hours along the road from Huancacalle, a mere 3700m (12,000ft).  The wind whipped the cold rain into our faces.  Three local women passed us as we stopped to dig out our heavy rain jackets and warmer layers.  They carried large bundles on their backs in their traditional, colorful mantas.  Pausing a few steps beyond us, they reached over their shoulders to pull bits of plastic out of the top of their bundles, which they wrapped around their shoulders like capes.  Rain pooled on their wide-brimmed felt hats and their sandaled feet squelched in the red mud as they smiled at us and kept walking.  After about seven hours, our easy, well-graded road petered out in the middle of a lush, green hill.  Houses dotted the hillside and the heavy clouds trailed between tall eucalyptus trees.  Pampaconas.  A chorus of little kids appeared out of nowhere and extended shy hands to wish us “buenas tardes.”  I passed out pieces of hard candy and gum, bought for the purpose in Hunacacalle.  The younger kids were terrified, and I was too, a little.  We sat in another tiny, smoky cook hut to wait for our rice with eggs and potatoes.  The woman cooking for us squatted on a cinder block while she scooped hot oil over the eggs.  When she stood up to pull down bowls from the shelf, I could see a tiny white cuy sleeping under her skirts inside her cinder block seat.  Outside, kids played with our bags.  One of the braver boys poked his head into the smoke and held out my adjustable walking stick.  “What is this for?”  Wilson grinned.  “For killing bears.”  The boy shrieked with glee and ran out again, shouting to his friends.  The rain closed in again before we left, and I hugged my arms to my chest in the sheltered doorway of the cook hut, steeling myself.  I noticed one small boy sitting in the doorway opposite, playing quietly in the mud with his bare big toe.  A pink knitted hat dwarfed his thin, dirty face.  Out of the rain, but not the cold, the boy’s nose was running, and he watched us, the strangers, with huge eyes.  Wilson made him laugh, teasing the chickens, and I resolved never, ever to complain about anything again.

Below Pampaconas, we follow a river we don’t know the name of, through countryside we don’t have a map for.  Directions are asked of the men and women we pass on the trail.  It’s the harvest season, and mule trains pass us, carrying potatoes down to the river, corn up into the mountains.  “Chht…chht…hup, chhhhht,” the campesinos blow through their teeth to keep the animals moving, flicking small sticks and long pieces of grass against the mule’s flanks.  They pause to clasp our hands and say hello as we pass, their deeply lined faces turned upwards in easy, sometimes toothless smiles.  Half-chewed coca leaves tucked into their cheeks distort the sides of their faces and turn their smiles green.  The women wear multiple layers of skirts and sweaters, and under their hats, their hair hangs in long braids down their backs.  The men wear jeans and t-shirts with incongruous slogans in English.  Everyone wears rubber sandals made from recycled tires.  Cracked heels and dirt-crusted toenails testify to years spent working hard in the chakras and running the trails behind the mules.  My Quechua is improving, and draws laughter and occasional confusion from children and adults alike.  I am repeatedly struck with awareness – where I am, what I’m doing - like a bolt of lightning, grounding me in the moment.  I’m absorbing knowledge faster than I can process it.  I’m trying not to romanticize what I’m seeing, I’m trying to understand it and be a part of it, but it’s impossible for me to blend in, and I’m uncertain of my role and how to relate.  My culture is a filter; everything I see and think is run through twenty-five years of life as a US citizen.

On day thirteen, when we rode out of the jungle and into Kiteni, my eyes bulged at the site of pavement, cement sidewalks and internet cafes.  Wilson steered us toward the outdoor mercado for a late dinner.  The meat and french fries were served out of an industrial sized pot that sat over a portable gas burner.  One month in Perú, two weeks in the boondocks, and this was normal: eating dinner at a bench in front of a “restaurant” strapped to the front of a bicycle vending aparatus.  We’d arrived with about thirty other people in the back of a truck loaded with sacks of raw coffee beans.  Coffee grows wild in the jungle, and the villagers who live close enough to the road harvest the beans to sell.  Those who don’t, pick it, roast it, and grind it in their own huts for their families - and serve it to the rare gringa passerby.  ¡Riquisimo! We caught the truck in a small town on the edge of the jungle in the late afternoon.  Five young boys sprawled across the bottom of the truck bed and looked at Wilson and me curiously as we hauled our packs over the wooden sides.  The road, still very much in the jungle, was narrow and rough.  Dust rolled back over us every time the truck slowed to turn a corner.  Palms and lemon trees hung low and encroaching and threatened to knock us from our perch atop the sacks of coffee beans.  The smell in the back of the truck was both rich and repulsive: humanity, raw coffee, dirt, plants, damp wood.  It was slow going.  We stopped every ten or fifteen minutes outside of small houses or along the side of the road where people gathered with their overflowing bags of raw beans. The driver’s wife, a large woman with a meaty face, climbed out of the cab to negotiate, paying cash per kilo. The boys leaped to the beat of her harsh voice: “¡Pan, dos soles! ¡Cinco sacos! ¡Papas, cuatro kilos!” The two older boys strained to heft the tremendous sacks to the top of the pile, while the younger boys swung like monkeys from the center beam, rushing to fill orders for vegetables, riced cans of condensed milk, passing bags of supplies down to the waiting campesinos. They hammed it up for my camera, absolutely brilliant, entirely a part of their surroundings. We picked up more passengers, and the boys shouted to them to move forward, look out, make room!  We resembled immigrants: families, belongings wrapped up in blankets and plastic bags, a box of peeping baby chickens, men straddling the wooden sides of the truck.  Later, the five boys sat in a row on top of the truck’s cab, silhouetted against the back glow of the headlights on the lush jungle foliage.  A nearly full moon rose just before we reached Kiteni.  It was a beautiful night, the end of the first part of the adventure, a prelude to the next four nights to come…

(Don’t forget to check out the photos)

There are two Cuscos. One, which includes the central Plaza de Armas and the adjacent streets with their “turistico” restaurants and tour agencies, belongs to the extranjeros (foreigners), and vibrates with the heavily-accented English of a hundred different touts and vendors swarming around the tourists, looking for money like mosquitoes hunt unprotected skin. Postcards, watercolors, handmade jewelry, painted gourds, finger puppets and musical instruments are paraded and displayed; young girls stand in the middle of the plaza passing out cards, “Massage, lady?  Waxing?  Pedicure?  Manicure?” Restaurant employees hover in the doorways with menus to attract clientele. “Yes, lady, yes, we have a free drinks for you!  Free drink!  You want Mexican?  Or you want tee-pee-cal foods?  Si, yes, we have, only ten soles!  Please, lady, come, come!”  Competition is fierce and therefore prices are low, but even so, the cost of one meal in a tourist restaurant would buy five in a local place.

Outside of Tourist Cusco, pollerías line the streets, selling rotisserie chickens in pieces (an eighth of a chicken with a plate of French fries and buffet salad costs four soles – USD$1.50), and in the mercado (market) there are dozens of abuelitas and mamichas (literally: little grandmas and mamas) standing over small gas ranges cooking up almuerzos completos (complete lunches: a huge bowl of thick soup with corn or potatoes to start, then a plate piled with rice, salad, and the main course of chicken stew, or a piece of fish or beef or sheep, or with French fries cooked with tomatoes and onions) for less than one US dollar.  Clientele have their favorite stalls, and at the popular ones the benches overflow and people eat standing up, passing the bowl of ají (hot sauce) back and forth, shouting for kachi (Quechua – the indigenous language – for salt). A roll of toilet paper is provided to wipe the grease from your fingers.  And in the same mercado: dried pears, spices, shoe polish, rugs, chocolate, flowers, cheese, fruits, corn, woven fabrics, ceramics, flour, vegetables, backpacks, cleaning products, pig heads, shawls, fruit juice, towels, herbs, quinoa bars, freshly butchered cow portions. There are metal drains in the cement floor for washing down the fish guts and cow blood and spilled soup. In this Cusco, they speak Spanish and Quechua only.

The city is a carnival, and everyone in it is a barker.  Women stand on the corners wearing yellow aprons, holding cell phones, selling air time, announcing their wares, ”llamadas llamadas llamadas llamadas“. On the outskirts of the city, combis (crowded, battered vans) rattle through the potholes with a man or woman hanging out of the open door shouting the destination, “chin-CHAIR-o-chin-CHAIR-o-chin-CHAIR-o!” but barely slow to admit or deposit passengers.  I watched one woman in stilettos and a business skirt run full tilt after a combi destined for Urubamba while the caller held out an arm to help her aboard, all the time commanding her to “sube-sube-sube-sube” (“get on, get on!”).  I love the combis.  They’re slow and they’re crowded; they stop for anyone who waves an arm from the sidewalk or shouts “¡Baja!” (“Stop!”) from the inside.  “Too full” isn’t a concept that the combi drivers acknowledge.  People sit on top of each other and stand in the space between the seats where your feet are supposed to go.  Abuelitas with five different bags of farm produce doze in the back seats while clean cut business types pass dirty-faced children back to sit on top of the bags of potatoes.  Young mothers carry infants on their backs in brightly colored mantas, the little ones nearly invisible in the folds of fabric, until a tiny grasping hand fights its way clear or the van jolts through a pothole and suddenly you find yourself staring into two curious brown eyes.  I love the crush and the proximity, the smell of the earth in the clothes of the old men, sharing smiles with the other passengers when the road gets rough or when the sliding door gets stuck and both the driver and his helper have to get out and yank it open. Peruanos seem always to be smiling.  There’s a saying here: in Perú, everything is possible, but nothing is certain.  I like Perú.  You can’t drink the water or find paper in bathrooms (a roll of TP in a Ziploc bag is a permanent resident in my daypack), but for thirty-five cents you can buy hot corn on the cob with salty Andean cheese from a woman on the street corner, and if the combi is too full, you can always ride on the roof.

*

The country is poor, but the people are descended from the Incas, from kings, and they are strong.  Their ancestors constructed stone citadels on mountain tops at elevations greater than 3000m (9,800ft), quarried, carried, shaped, and stacked rocks, some the size of cars.  They carved steps out of the hills steep enough to give tight-rope walkers vertigo, but I’m willing to bet that they didn’t need to use their hands to climb them. Jeni and I, however, out of breath and without shame, perfected the “four-appendage” climbing method over our six days approaching and exploring the most famous Inca ruins, one of the new seven wonders of the world: Machu Picchu. Why did these people build in this place?  So high, so remote, so difficult.  The strength that must have been required and the ingenuity - a marvel.  I must admit my knowledge of the history and the culture and the methods is lacking.  It was not the details so much as the overall honda of the ruins that brought tears to my eyes, once, twice, three times, surprising and unexpected, welling from some vein in my soul as yet untapped.

Our approach to the site took four days.  The anticipation grew during the hike. Long, full days, each one better than the last.  It was a different experience for me: hiking with a group of twelve; mules to carry the packs; breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks all provided and cooked and served under a tent with chairs, a table, napkins, cutlery.  Many in our group had never been on a multiple day hiking trip.  For one young Korean girl, this was her first hike. Ever.  One guy had half-healed broken ribs, and two contracted altitude-aggravated stomach bugs.  Even Jeni, my fellow hard-core hiker chick, was suffering from bronchitis – yet no one ever complained.  We took it slow, we took a lot of rest stops, we talked, we bonded; we had a blast.  I learned a good lesson in anti-snobbery, and the slow pace meant that I took heaps of photos.  It took us two days to climb from Mollepata at 2900m to the 4600m (15,091ft) pass below Mt. Salkantay (6271m / 20574ft).  The word “WOW” was never far from my lips, though I rarely had enough breath to speak it.  Atop the pass, we built a cairn of rocks to honor Pachamama (the Incan mother earth).  Dozens of other small rock towers stood on rocks across the barren saddle.  Clouds drifted between our legs and among the rocks: Pachamama tasting her offerings.  On the other side of the pass, the route meandered down the side of a valley past small farm houses of branches and stone and thatch.  Locals rode past us on horses or stood in their doorways, watching us pass.  Families live in huts on the sides of the mountains, raising their children and their crops kilometers from roads and from their neighbors, linked only by rough foot and hoof paths.  There’s no such thing as “wild” space, it seems.  The land is used, inhabited, despite the altitude, the remoteness, the difficulty of the life.

As we descended, the terrain changed abruptly.  “Welcome to the Jungle” began to play in my head as banana trees replaced alpine grass and bamboo and flowers and creepers crowded the trail.  I had to step aside to let a spider the size of a lime with dark hairy legs pass.  Wilson, our guide, picked grenadillas for us to try, a type of passionfruit with a hard shell and pulpy seeds inside that look like frog eggs: sweet and juicy.  On the fourth day we reached the train tracks and got our first view of the mountaintop fortress of Machu Picchu.  It was hot, and we were sweating, surrounded by banana trees and the sound of insects, and there it was – Machu Picchu – right there.  I could imagine Hiram Bingham and the original explorers in 1911, bushwhacking through the jungle and then suddenly noticing some interesting terracing on top of the peaks.  And then we were there!  Day five – we made the steep climb to the ruins to arrive at six AM when the gates opened.  Jeni and I lagged behind a bit, hesitant to look.  After so much time and planning and energy, here we were.  It was a bit silly, but we held hands, looked at the ground, and shuffled towards the edge of the first overlook, then counted to three and raised our eyes at the last moment…awesome.

Words and descriptions are pathetically inadequate.  There are rock walls and buildings and structures, there are gardens of orchids and a temple that resembles a work of abstract art, all shapes and designs blending into one another, in harmony with the surroundings and with Pachamama.  The ruins are literally built into the top of a mountain.  The walls give way to cliffs which drop dizzyingly to the river below, and in all directions are similar peaks, steep, green, and dramatically independent of the valley and each other.  Jeni and I spent one day, then came back for a second full day, paying extra for the privilege, exploring, climbing the surrounding peaks, relaxing, absorbing, meditating. I don’t remember ever being so content, so utterly at peace in a place.  On the day before my birthday I was sitting on top of Montaña Machu Picchu with Jeni, mixing guacamole in a plastic bag and staring down at the ruins and at the mountains around above and below. And I was smiling.

So ends chapter one of the Peru Story.  Stay tuned for more, and check out the photos.  Two new albums: “Argentina” and “Peru #1″.

On the first day, it snowed uphill.  It fell down one side of the valley and the wind blew it back up the other, into my path, blinding and horizontal.  That night, camping at Laguna Salto, I lay in my tent listening to the wind.  It would begin as a low rumbling, somewhere behind the hills, and build steadily into a locomotive of rushing air and frightening sound until it was on top of me, flattening the windward side of my tent until it flapped around my ears where I lay.  I curled up in my sleeping bag and jacket, hearing the elements thrash it out, feeling small and powerless.  On the second day the sunshine coaxed me out of my down cocoon.  Peaks bright with morning light caught my eyes and stirred me into action, up the hill, across the approach to Paso Australia.  I achieved the pass but the celebratory dance was cut off abruptly as the wind slammed into me with the force of an 18-wheeler, pushing me off my feet until I sat, just below the pass, with my back and pack to the wind and my heels dug into the scree against being thrown all the way to the lake at the bottom.  The wind was spinning miniature tornadoes across the lake surface in all directions.  It was even worse at the bottom of the second pass.  I was walking across a deep glacial trough, alongside a lake.  Jagged slices of granite surrounded me on all sides.  The sky was still bright and blue above me, but I was wearing gloves and a hat and jacket, moving into the wind, gritting my teeth and screaming back at it when it blew hard enough to stop me in my tracks.  I found shelter behind a tall rock and stopped to catch my breath.  The wind was like a living thing, ripping down from the peaks, over rocks and through the thin tufts of grass growing next to the lake.  It snapped, like a plastic tarp being torn off a woodpile and shredded.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted of wind, blown raw.  Even after I’d found a sheltered campsite for the night, the sound of the breeze being dispersed among the trees made me flinch.  Why am I here, I wondered, and for a brief moment, wished I was elsewhere.  The wind scared me.

On day three, I woke with silence ringing in my ears.  Stillness greeted me as I climbed out of my tent, and I cooked breakfast outside, without needing to build a wind-break.  I walked on tip-toe the entire day, holding my breath as I summitted Monte Bettinelli in sunshine and calm air and reached the rustic hut on the shores of Lago Windhond.  Day four, the same.  Not a breath of wind to impede me.  I retraced my steps over Monte Bettinelli, marveling for the second day in a row at the panorama that lay spread before me.  To the south, the islands of Cape Horn, dark blue and misty, but visible.  Westward gleamed the white steep peaks of the Cordillera Darwin, and between here and there, the rough spine of the Dientes themselves, the soggy yellowish lowlands of Navarino, and countless lagoons and beaver ponds, sapphires in a gold setting.  Superlatives rolled through my head, but not through my heart.  For the first time in many solo hiking missions, I was not content.  Something had changed.  I’d shot myself up with my usual fix, but failed to reach the same high.  The wind had stripped away my confidence, my courage, and pressed  an acute awareness of my mortality into my skin.  Alone on the top of Monte Bettinelli, I felt no awe, no wonder or magic at the landscape.  I felt alone.  This was what I’d wanted: to be on my own at the end of the world, fighting the elements, testing myself.  And now I felt only a desire to be safely on the other side of the hills, finished, and back among people.

see the rest of my photos from the island

This blog, I sometimes feel, has become that hungry beast.

It began innocently enough – I could whip off a light, informative entry in about fifteen minutes, a half an hour if I was being thoughtful, an hour at the absolute maximum if I’d been slack in reporting on my travels.  You all read it, and wrote wonderfully encouraging comments.  Once stroked, my ego began to purr, and I started putting a bit more thought into each entry.  Themes emerged, and I got excited about organizing my updates around ideas instead of events.  Reader reviews (bless you all) were positive, and the beast began to grow.  Once informed that I had something good, I wanted it to be better.  And better.  I needed substance, depth, details!  Internet sessions became longer and more expensive, and entries came fewer and farther between.  The pressure began to build.  Weeks now pass between entries as I struggle to find the time and energy to tend to the beast which will no longer be satisfied with quick updates.  This creates both a backlog of events on which to report (with feeling and wit) and a certain sense of suspense among you all, faithful readers.  “Where are you?  What’s happening?” you ask.  I’ve begun to avoid my email account guiltily, but I can still hear the blog-beast as it paces, testing the hinges, ready to break out.

The following, therefore, is the hiss of the safety valve as it vents a jet of steam, relieving some of the pressure.  Quick and artless, but effective.  I’m letting the beast out the back for a run.  Apologies if it eats any of your kids.

So, back to the place where I fell off the track…
There was the curanto.
Then the Navimag.

Then the Parque Nacional de Los Torres del Paine, the jewel of Chilean Patagonia.  I hiked for the first three days with Angus and with Clementine, Ben, and Jerome from the Navimag, then went my own hardcore way.  I trekked for ten days in all, in the hottest, clearest weather in Patagonian history, then came back into civilization (Puerto Natales) and took the job at the erratic rock hostel.

The job at the rock led to a trip to Cabo Froward, the southernmost tip of the American mainland – visited by the Pope in the early 90s – accessible only by boat or by a two-and-a-half day hike along slippery beaches and through vicious, sucking turbal (peat bogs) and across freezing, chest-deep rivers.  There were eleven of us, all self-sufficient and keen trekkers, but despite our high spirits and determination, were turned back a half-day from our destination because of dangerously high rivers.  Instead of succumbing to disappointment, we spent an evening drying our underwear on sticks over the campfire and bonding as “Team Toasted Panties”.

Another month of work at the erratic rock followed before I could start counting down to the Circuito de Los Dientes de Navarino – the Teeth of Navarino.  It’s the southernmost trek in the world, and it’s the only thing I knew about in Patagonia before arriving.  I arrived in Puerto Williams (the tiny town you’ll recall from my last entry), made a stir as the crazy gringa, then disappeared into the wilds for eight days.  The hiking was rough, the weather rougher, and I emerged on the other side of the eight days with a whole new respect for the word “remote”.  I do have a proper update in the works with details of the trip.  It’s three-quarters written, and it’s a story I don’t want to skip.  It’ll get here…eventually.  Photos exist as well.  Stay tuned.

After the Dientes, I crossed the border into Argentina and spent two weeks between El Calafate and El Chaltén, two dusty frontier towns built up for the sole purpose of serving the tourists who descend in droves to either 1) visit the Perito Moreno glacier or 2) hike in the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares.  I did both.  I spent a week and a half in El Chaltén, a town still under construction (est. 1985), sleeping in my tent and going on day hikes, seeking out new and exciting vistas of Cerro Torre and Monte Fitzroy (the two showpieces of the park).  Winter arrived about the same time that I did, and for the last five days of my stay I was hiking and camping in the snow.  Beautiful, but I think it’s time I moved on from Patagonia.  I’ve been in South America for nearly four months, and three of them in the deep south.  Time to check out some new places.  Therefore – I’m off to Peru.  I fly from Puerto Natales to Santiago tomorrow, then get a 26-hour bus to the Chile-Peru border, then through another series of buses and towns will arrive in Cusco, Peru on the 16th or 17th.  It’s going to be epic.  When I get to Cusco, I’m going to be tired.

Hope this fills in the gaps.  In the meantime, here’s this piece of unrelated news: the film “Ice People” (documentary about life in Antarctica filmed while I was working at McMurdo) will be premiering at the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 24 to May 8.  If you’re in the Bay area, check it out!  If you’re not, but still crave a taste of the cold, you can still enjoy the trailer.

This was the Navimag, not a luxury cruise. This was a four-day ferry ride with beds and a bar. Our meals were uninspiring, but filling, and were served on blue trays in the small cafeteria. My bed was a cozy upper berth within the labyrinthine lower cabin, with a soft, narrow mattress and curtains that could be drawn closed. The public address system crackled and popped with announcements throughout the day: movies, informative lectures on history, flora, and fauna of the Patagonian channels, and approaching points of interest along the way. The staff member in charge of announcements was a young German woman, and her careful delivery of messages in first Spanish, then English, then German became a subject of hilarious imitation. I’d been skeptical of taking the trip at the start. Though not fancy, this definitely wasn’t the sort of thing I’d normally do – it was expensive, and it was touristy. The Patagonian coastline is remote, inaccessible by road: the Navimag is the only option for those wanting to explore the 1500km stretch between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales. Touristy or not, I wanted to see the Patagonian waterways, so Angus and I shelled out the cash and set sail.

In spite of the two hundred other people making the journey with me, I felt an incredible sense of intimacy with the environment.  Other than one tiny settlement that we passed on day three, we were the only people for miles and miles and miles.  No Carnival cruise ships rock these waters.  No commercial fishermen ply their trade, no pleasure yachts offer three-hour dinner cruises.  We saw one or two private fishing boats, and a lone yacht under sail. The channels and their treasures seemed to exist only for us. The weather changed, grew colder as we pressed further and further south into the uninhabited heart of Patagonia. On the afternoon that we passed the Pio XI glacier, the skies were the color of steel, and the wind tasted of ice. The third largest glacier in the world, Pio XI is eight kilometers of ice flowing slowly from the mountains to the sheltered waters of the channels, massive, mind-blowing. I stood on the deck with the rest of the passengers, and listened to the deep, rumbling voice of the ice as it settled and cracked and flowed. Huge white-blue icebergs floated on the still water, small only in comparison to the massive glacier face. Elbow to elbow, my fellow travelers and I were awed, all whispers and smiles. Marc leaned close to speak in my ear. “Everyone is so quiet.” I shook my head. “What is there to say, what can I possibly say in the face of all this?”

Later that evening, the glacier growing smaller in our wake, Angus, Clementine, Jerome, Marc, Ben and I drank pisco sours with glacier ice. Even in our glasses, the ice retained its voice; it cracked and popped and snapped and hissed until it sounded like we were drinking rice krispies. The sound of the ancient ice mingled with our chatter, our French and Spanish and English and our laughter. And the tourist ship rolled on through the night, a tiny floating hive of humanity, a speck in the sea, southward bound.

More pictures of the curanto, the cruise, and a photographic preview of blog entries to come…

In the morning, the sound of the cabaña roof being irrigated woke me, and I stepped outside to see shimmering green grass and steep green hills, misty behind the spray of the water.  Volcán Villarrica was bright white against the sky, and the other local volcanoes, Llaima and Quetrepillan, looked jagged and prominent further along the horizon.  Chris came round with the 4-wheeler (imported from NZ) and hauled Angus and me to the worksheds where his Mapuche (Chile’s indigenious tribe) workers waited with the tractor and a trailer full of hay.  “We’re going up the top,” he told us.  “Hang on.”  It took about twenty minutes to get half way up before the tractor ran out of gas, and Angus and I were obliged to walk the rest of the way while Chris and the workers went back down to top up the tank.  I was wearing long pants.  Chris had told me earlier, “My workers aren’t used to seeing women show their legs.  If you wear pants it’ll keep them from falling off the tractor.”  The track was steep and dusty, and it wasn’t long before the long pants were sticking to my legs.  The plus side was that they kept the tábanos off my skin.  These were huge, Jurassic Park bugs, flies, black and orange and persistent.  Their bite, Chris said, is quite painful, but it takes them so long between landing and biting that they make easy targets for killing.  Angus and I slapped and swore our way up the hill, finally reaching the top, out of breath and sweaty and covered in bruises from where we’d administered countless tábano death blows.  It was worth it.  We could see all three volcanoes, the farm, and the lake from the top paddock.  “This is just like New Zealand…it’s almost a bit disappointing,” Angus said.  “I know,” I replied.  “That’s why I like it.”

We spent a week relaxing and exploring the farm, the lake, the town, and the surrounding mountains.  Pucón is the Queenstown of Chile: touristy, trendy, and expensive.  Chileans as well as Europeans flock to the Región de Los Lagos during the months of January and February to go white water rafting, to hike Volcán Villarrica, to soak in natural thermal pools, and to spend money along the manicured main street of the town.  Chris’s farm is well-located in that it’s far enough away to feel secluded and peaceful, but close enough for him and Dagmar to do good business selling their venison to local restaurants, where it’s served as a regional delicacy.  Angus taught me to windsurf on the lake in front of the main house, and Dagmar helped both of us plan some of our trip south to Patagonia.  We learned how to navigate the local bus routes and spent time wandering both in town and around the closest national park, Huerquehue.  One day hike took us up into araucaria territory – the monkey puzzle tree.  Its bark is a jigsaw of odd shapes and rough edges, while its branches are long, slender and uplifted, like the tail of a tree-hugging mammal.  On another day, we rode with Dagmar for three hours to Valdivia, a coastal university town, sooty and run down and more authentic-feeling than either of the cities Angus and I had seen so far.  We discovered the contemporary art museum, located in the remains of an old brewery.  The building was deliciously industrial and rich with character; the exhibits paled in comparison.  The long drive between Pucón and Valdivia also provided time to listen to Dagmar’s yarns of being a sailor and sail-maker, an outspoken, direct German woman in a man’s field.  Her trade has brought her to Antarctica, the Carribean islands, and beyond, and her straightforward, talkative method of storytelling, punctuated with long bursts of laughter, made the miles pass quickly.

The weather changed at the end of the week: from hot, stifling days to 50F (10C) with rain and wind.  The volanoes have fresh snow on their summits.  Summer seems to have fled early.  “Extremely unusual!” Dagmar told us, shaking her head.  Angus and I are on the move as well, from Pucón to Puerto Varas.  We’re heading south to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.  Yesterday we rode the bus for an easy-as-pie five hours, and will explore Puerto Varas a bit in between the raindrops before boarding a ferry in Puerto Montt and sailing for four days along the Patagonian coast to Puerto Natales.  Here’s hoping for sunshine!

You’ve seen this phenomenon in movies.  There’s some powerful, unconventional, emotional performance.  The audience is quiet, stunned, uncertain of how to respond, until one person stirs, putting his hands together once…twice…and then a little bit faster and a little bit faster as others begin to join him.  Slowly at first, but steadily, until the entire audience is on its feet, clapping, cheering, united in their adulation and enthusiasm for the performers.  It’s become a bit of a cliché, but after sitting in a bus on the side of the Pan-American highway for an hour, waiting for the six passengers that the bus driver forgot at the last station, the slow-clap seemed the only appropriate response.  As the bus shifted into gear and lurched into traffic, finally, I grinned at Angus and put my hands together once…twice…and then listened with glee as the entire bus erupted into cheers and hollers and laughter.

It was meant to be an eleven-hour bus ride from Santigao, south to Pucón, to Angus’s uncle’s farm.  First the bus was late.  Then it broke down.  Then it had to wait for the passengers it had left behind.  At first Angus and I were nervous, then incredulous, and then it just became entertaining.  We took turns at the window, watching the countryside roll past.  The hills around Santiago were brown and dry, but as we moved south they became greener, lusher, larger.  From hills to mountains to volcanoes.  We listened to our MP3 players and communicated in signs (Charades, rather than English or Spanish has become our first language.  As I struggle with the Spanish, I’m losing command of the English.  Inarticulateness is a new experience for me.).  Angus, the artist, drew himself an elaborate tattoo and I befriended the old Chilean woman across the aisle who wore a pale flowered dress and waved a black lace fan back and forth in front of her face.  She drew my attention to the recently-erupted Volcán Llaima as we drove past: a smoking black cone ringed with ashy clouds.

This was day four in Chile, and despite the monotony of the road, probably the most relaxing.  The first three days, in Santiago, I was in a daze.  Not four hours after landing, I was sitting at a table with a Chilean family, eating corn, tomatoes, and barbequed meat, struggling to speak Spanish, struggling to accept that this was reality.  Raquel, Raúl, and their children (José, 17, and Juan Pablo, 20) were helpful, welcoming, and patient, but it all seemed too far out.  Angus and I lazed through the scorching summer days (85-90F, easily) next to the family’s pool, ate what was put in front of us, and tried to follow the conversations that rolled around us like a hot Spanish wind.

Raúl took us on a walking tour of downtown Santiago (el Centro), where we saw La Moneda, the house of La Presidente, and had our picture taken with the carabineros in front of the mansion.  They wore sharp white uniforms and carried thin, jeweled swords.

For New Year’s Eve, the family ate a late meal, then took to the streets at midnight for the fireworks (fuegos artificiales) display.  People choked the streets, flinging confetti, kissing and hugging and wishing each other “¡Felíz año nuevo!”  Children ran and shreiked, champagne was poured, and when the fireworks ended, the party really got started.  Angus and I rode with José and Juan Pablo to an outdoor event stadium, and from 2 AM to 8 AM we danced, drank, and tried not to get lost in the crush of the 6,000 other young (16-20 year olds) revelers.  Raúl picked us up at the front gate of the arena at about 9 AM, just as the heat of the sun began to be unbearable, and we spent the rest of the day passed out by the pool.  The whole celebration might have been a hallucination; it still surprises me to realize that it’s 2008.

The timing of this place is disorienting.  The days begin late.  Breakfast is light, and the biggest meal of the day is at 1 PM.  There’s a snack around 5 PM, a light dinner at 10 PM, and then off to the discos when they open at 1 AM.  The keyboards in the internet cafés are different.  For the first time I can correctly apply accent marks and upside-down question marks without needing to consult Microsoft Word Help.  Supermarkets are overwhelming, and as I can’t understand numbers when they’re spoken to me, paying for things is a trial.  The young boys who bag my groceries get tips.  Taxi drivers do not.  Stray dogs are everywhere.  There is so much that is different, my eyes got tired, and my head hurt from trying to translate and absorb.  It was a relief, therefore, to get onto a bus and to have thirteen hours of nothing-time in which to work on assimilating the past days’ barrage of information and newness.

Not to say that the strangeness and unreality has disappeared.  Living on Angus’s uncle’s farm is like being in NZ.  We’ve been here for five days, hiking and exploring the countryside and enjoying being able to speak English.  I keep forgetting that I’m in Chile.  Still, there are new things to learn and plenty to keep us occupied, and there will be stories to follow.

In the meantime, ¡felíz año nuevo a todos!  Check out the photos: http://community.webshots.com/user/susanm483 and check back again soon!  Ciao for now…

Lou, the trip organizer, is a local antiques dealer with whom I’ve become acquainted over the summer. The other two, Joe and Tom, are friends of his from way back. The trip is an annual one for them. For the last twelve years running, they (and sometimes other friends) spend the last week in August tramping, fishing, or otherwise enjoying the great, Wyoming outdoors. My invitation was rather more spontaneous. I was standing in line at the grocery store in front of Lou and Tom as they bought a few last minute supplies.
“How’s it going, Lou? What are you up to this week?”
“Hey, Susan, not too bad. Getting ready to head up into the mountains for a few days, up into the Winds, maybe up to the divide. Want to come?”

Experience has taught me to jump with both feet forward; that “yes” is almost always the right answer; that “why not?” can be a way of life. Still, I had to pause before responding to Lou’s invitation. Trust has been a much harder thing to cultivate since I’ve returned to the States. Ours is a culture of suspicion, and it took less than two weeks at home before I was reeled back in. That night, I considered the invitation, worst-case scenarios flitting through my mind. Little, bright red warning flags waved frantically, but I wanted to go. I recalled having similar qualms back in May when I was packing to move in with Bob for the summer: can I trust this man? At the time, a good friend asked me to consider the situation in terms of my experiences in NZ. If I was in NZ, would I be worried? No. So why am I concerned now? Is an American somehow more likely to be dishonest and out to take advantage of me? No. I took her advice, took a deep breath, and I’ve had a great summer. I decided to apply the same thinking to this hiking trip. I packed an extra knife, put on my best “Not a Victim” face, and on Saturday evening strolled into Lou’s house with my shoulders squared and the hopeful conviction that all would be well. Trust inspires trustworthy behavior, I thought. I shook hands with Joe and Tom as we were introduced, firmly, and with confidence. You do not intend me harm, I told them silently.

Sunday morning. We drove an hour east of Dubois, entered the Wind River Indian Reservation, and then rattled along for another hour on a narrow, steep, dirt road that was studded with rocks that seemed intent on gouging out the bottom of Lou’s van. Ruby the yellow Labrador stood with her forelegs on the console between the front seats, trying to keep her balance and watch the road at the same time. At the trailhead, Lou distributed bags of food, carefully doling out equal weights. Except for me, that is. I got the dried bags of pasta and the granola bars: the lightweight stuff. I frowned, but quietly packed away my share. How are they to know that I carried forty-five pounds for ten days through the Fiordland wilderness? The men swing their packs onto their backs, and I begin to do the same, but suddenly Lou is there behind me, lifting my pack off the ground for me. He’s trying to be helpful, but it’s far more awkward this way.

We have an easy afternoon to start. It’s three and a half miles to Twin Lakes, where we set up camp on a wide, rock ledge overlooking the two lakes. There’s a deep rift in the rocks between the lakes where water flows from one lake down to the next, and the sound of the rushing cataract is an excellent soundtrack to our first night. Marinated pork tenderloin and pasta cook slowly on the open fire while Joe plies the water of the calm lower lake with his fly rod. I wander about with my camera and Tom and Lou bathe discretely behind a piney outcrop. Later, we eat, and watch the sun go down. The guys tell me that they’re pleased to have me along: “12 years, and we finally get a woman to come!” It takes a while for the group dynamic to gel, however. I can see my uncertainties reflected in their eyes. Where I worry about harrassment, they worry about having to carry my pack or having to listen to complaints about dirt, blisters, and food. They say it’s not specifically a “boy’s trip”, but I see them wondering if this means they won’t be able to swear and burp and tell dirty jokes. Their instincts tend toward gallantry; mine keep me distrustful. As we bed down for the night, the sky threatens rain, and Lou tells me that I’m welcome to “platonically” share his tent if it starts to pour. I thank him politely, thinking privately that it will take something close to a hurricane to make me feel comfortable about crawling in next to him.

Day two and three pass without incident. The terrain of the Wind River range is stunning. With each foot of elevation gained, the views become progressively more spectacular. Lofty peaks, crashing streams, and pristine pools. There’s even a beach at the end of one lake! Tom and I can’t resist climbing down the rough, cliffy drop to walk barefoot on the coarse, yellow sand. This is heaven. We reach our base camp destination, Lake Solitude, elevation 10,800 feet. It is a breathtaking spot, as far west as a person can walk before coming up against the wall of the continental divide. The weather has been fantastic. We can’t believe our luck: nothing but sunshine, blue skies, and warm nights. I’ve slept outside every night, within shouting distance, but out of sight of the men. On the 27^th, I lay in my sleeping bag and stared at the sky as the shadow of the earth slowly eclipsed the moon and turned it dark orange. The men have warmed to me, and I to them, and every night we cook together, drink camp margaritas (powdered lemon Gatorade, tequila, and sliced limes), share stories, and argue over who has to get water to wash dishes. We tease and harass each other with careless impunity, and I laugh like I haven’t in a while.

Chivalry is still looms large. Lou, in particular, seems incapable of believing that I am competent enough to take care of myself. We have to cross a river, and I actually have to argue with him to be allowed to carry my own pack across. I endure a number of instructional sessions on fire building, trail finding, and pack adjusting. It’s not that I think I know it all, or that I can’t appreciate a helping hand, but I resent the unspoken assumption that because I am young and female, I need someone to take care of me. I get along more easily with Joe and Tom. I earned their admiration on day three when they caught sight of the quarter-sized blister I’d been nursing without complaint since day one. After that, they treated me with easy-going respect, as an equal. I’m pleased to be able to upset their stereotypes of women in the backcountry, and even more pleased to see my own concerns made ridiculous. These are good guys. There is, however, a distinct element of pursuit in our trip, a subtle wooing, an unmistakable flirtation. I am young, healthy, and single. They are older, divorced, and incapable of hiding their interest. It’s a scenario I’ve experienced and witnessed on countless occasions throughout my travels: the attraction of older men to younger women. Between Tom, Joe, Lou, and me, the immediate attraction is sexual; as the days progress, their interest changes. “I envy you, what you’re doing with your twenties,” Lou tells me. “It’s taken me to my forties, and now I’m ready to start over again and do like you.” Tom says my stories of backpacking and living out of a car remind him of his own youth: “I love your spirit, how adventurous you are.”

Summit day! From Lake Solitude we climb 1,000 feet to the continental divide, then haul ourselves through the thin air, up another 500 feet to the top of Mt. Kavageah (which may or may not be the correct name). I lag behind, constantly stopping to gawk at the view. Mountains! I am in awe, in my element. Following the men, I range in and out of hearing distance. All morning, they’ve been talking about potential business opportunities. Cash flow, real estate, interest rates, and locations. I can’t relate. Even as we reach the peak, they’re still weighing the pros and cons. I smile. This is hiking with 40-year-old men: not lewd suggestions, not salacious winks or outright aggression. Instead they discuss remodeling plans for houses, disputes with neighbors, and investment strategies, topics considered from the perspective of three men on the brink of middle age, looking for something to lend a little bit of spice to their lives. It occurs to me that this has been the theme of my summer: older men. An entire summer of feeling young, inexperienced, naïve and slightly off-balance. Constantly negotiating the questionable waters of male-female interactions, from staving off (or simply fearing) sexual advances, to fighting to prove my physical and mental capabilities, to trying to be a good listener for a recent divorcee. How wonderful it will be to spend time with women. To seriously discuss the mid-twenties growing pains with friends who understand rather than to nod politely at the concerns of men undergoing a mid-forties crisis.

After achieving the peak of Mt. Kavageah, and spending a second night on the shore of Lake Solitude, the four of us make our way back to our camp of the first night. Twin Lakes, the return. It is a hot, dusty afternoon when we arrive, and I announce that I’m going to swim to the island. “It’s just begging to be swum to,” I declare, dropping my pack and moving toward the shore before I can cool down or change my mind. “Better you than me!” Joe calls. I can hear them behind me having their doubts. It’s about thirty yards away, and the water is chilly. Still, I try to breathe rhythmically and keep my body moving, keep the blood pumping. Halfway there, I wonder if this is a mistake. Even when I reach the island, I will have to swim back. Have I, in my determination to step foot on that island, made a bad call? I’ve survived for two years on instincts and stubborn determination. I’ve willfully ignored the dangerous undercurrents of human interaction like I’ve chosen to disregard the substantial distance from the shore to the island. I keep swimming. Too late to turn around now. Five minutes later, I pull myself onto the rocks of the island, and hear the men cheering distantly. I grin to myself and wave victoriously in their direction. I’m winded, and cold, but I made it, with energy to spare for the return. Sheer guts and luck, I’m sure, have a limited capacity. But not today. This trip, these six days, has hit the recharge button on my trust. And when I make back to the main shore, I’m going to sit in the sun and drink the cup of hot tea that Lou has promised to have waiting, and enjoy the easy camaraderie of four hiking companions around the campfire next to a lake in Wyoming.

Trip photos here!