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I woke from a light doze at 4:00 AM. Drifts of sand had accumulated inside my unzipped sleeping bag and on my sweat-slimed skin. Even in the pre-dawn dark, it was still too hot to be in a sleeping bag but too windy to lie uncovered on the beach. Sticky, gritty, sleepless, I sat up […] My entry on the Grand Canyon trip was short. My photo album is not. I took over two thousand pictures, and was hard pressed to edit down to the 138 best. In my blog entry, I wrote about the space between my Grand trip and reality instead of describing the details of being on the […] So, remember six months ago when I announced out of the blue that I was changing all of my plans and going to Chile? That I was finally stepping out onto the wobbly limb of professional freelance writing? Well, the payoff has arrived: In Chile, A Conflict Between Clean Energy and Pristine Wilderness appeared on […] “Lleveme. Lleveme, hermano, por favor. Take me with you. For the love of God, I’m begging you, hermano, por favorcito.” He wore baggy jeans, a pink blanket, and red, inflamed eyes. His voice wobbled as he pleaded with the Greyhound conductor, who stood in the Flagstaff, Arizona, terminal with arms crossed, and responded in […] Yerba mate (MAH-tay): the bitter herb of southern Chile and Argentina is packed into a dried gourd, leather pouch, or tin cup, steeped in hot water, and drunk out of a metal straw. It’s the drink of the gauchos (Patagonian cowboys), shared around the fire or across the kitchen table. It’s a tradition and symbol […] My third article appeared yesterday in The Santiago Times! I spent a two weeks over Christmas in the beautiful Futaleufu region “researching”. Here I am, hard at work, getting ready to raft the famous “bridge to bridge” section of the even more famous Futaleufu River in southern Chile. Also pictured is Josh Lowry, a veteran […] And I, too, feel a fire under me. I woke up this morning in Coyhaique, Chile, the capital of the Aysen Region. I’d slept later than I’d wanted. It stays light here until 11 pm, and I’m having a hard time remembering to go to bed at a decent hour. I woke this morning with […] Front page of the Santiago Times today featured a story by an up-and-coming young writer: ME! Yippeeeeeee!!!!!!! Please excuse the momentary inarticulateness. I’ll be back to crafting good sentences tomorrow. Steve (publisher) wants me to write another article for Friday’s paper, this one about the Chilean Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing on the injunction against the […] Twenty kilometers south of Puerto Montt, Steve Anderson runs a sizable camping ground, WWOOFing operation, and the Patagonia branch of The Santiago Times, Chile’s first English-language newspaper. His office is a small, many windowed tower at the top of his house, with an uninterrupted view of a sheltered, salty bay. Buoys in neat geometric lines […] I set up my tent to a chorus of laughter. Chuckles turned to cackles, then built into contagious, breathless hilarity that shook the trees and rattled the windows of the houses around the lawn. It spread across the street, into the next yard, until the entire flock of black-winged jesters exploded from the tall pines, […] |
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