Admiral Rosenqvist responds, and we prepare for indecision.

Below you will find the letter from the Admiral expressing his most sincere regrets, but assuring us that if there is space that opens up we will definitely be contacted about passage to Antarctica.  So be it. No we are

back to familiar indecision

. 

The ice royalty still rule

This past week has been really fun.  After finishing up the first segment of our volunteering we struck off to explore the park.  Check out the pictures for full detail (in the sidebar).  We went for three nights and four days with our friend Nate from Puerto Varas.  The trek is known as the "W" but we only did the second two legs, starting with the French Valley where we decided that the Snow Queen incites her minions of drunken butterflies to have snowball fights in the heavens.  Elf blood marked our paths, and we lost ourselves in a fairy tale of epic proportions that Caitlin really should write up some time.  It was really just a time of beauty and wandering in the mountains.  On the third day we arrived at Glacier Grey which is part of the South American Ice Cap which is immense (you really should check out the photos if you haven't yet).  We learned a lot about glaciers, we saw the most blue lakes ever painted and I cut myself while jumping on to an iceberg.  All along the way Caitlin took pictures of me that have continued constructing my persona.

For the record and proper notice:

I am still in Torres Del Paine, and will be for at least another two weeks. After that I might be renting a car with a bunch of folks here and going to Ushuaia as far south as one can easily get.  Or I might be going to Antarctica if the Admiral responds positively soon.  But most likely Caitlin and I will be making our way to Buenos Aires by air, bus or hitchhiking.

Of Mountains and Moist Middle-aged Europeans

Location:  Torres Del Paine, latitude 50 degrees south
Job: Unclear
Hours: 9am-5pm
Fun: Yes
Productive: Questionable
Beautiful: Of course (jaded by beauty: maybe)
Horses: check

The view:

Three days ago we sat in the refugio (where guests pay 40 dollars for a bed w/o sheets) after a long day.  Between us, a bottle of scotch and a bar of chocolate.  Our new friends Kendra, Rebecca and Danielle with us around the table listened to the howling wind and relaxed.  But the night had only started and the wet people outside had only started trickling in.  As their harsh language seeped in through the windows and doors of the rustic house we became more curious, but resolved to drink, and stay detached.  Soon we were being greeted by a hilarious Portuguese woman in somewhat broken Spanish.  She thought we really knew how to enjoy our youth and so took a few pictures of us.  But then it started.  The poetry.  We don't know how or why, but the group of ever growing smelly Iberians had huddled, and taken over the entire room, probably 40 or 50 in all.  Around and around they talked and passed a book of poetry.  We were told to be quiet.  We tried to ignore them, but they overpowered us.  As they recited, and we talked in hushed voices, Caitlin wrote her own poem taken right off the bottle of "The Famous Grouse."  Who knows what they were saying. It continued for an hour, then another, finally we left, thrust into the light of the Patagonian night.  

The situation above is part of the strangeness we experience every day.  Somehow as volunteers, we can manage to both eat in the "casino" with the other workers, get free 100 dollar horse rides through the snow capped mountain passes, use the (slow) internet for free, but also relax in the hotel lounges where guests are paying 1000 dollars for the privilege.  Neither workers nor guests can straddle the worlds so effectively or with so little shame.  How we've managed to come upon this liminal existence I can only guess at, but I certainly am liking it. 

Work the first day consisted of breaking down a bridge--I broke two pick-axes--pure fun.  Yesterday we walked to the Towers (as seen in picture above) with a group of 15 year olds.  It's a bizarre existence here in make believe world, where work appears to be play.  

OK, I don't want to get carried away. 

Happy everything, (holidays included I suppose), and I hope to hear from some of you soon--emails are great!

Nathaniel

Much travel, long buses, molluscs forgotten.

It's been a while since I wrote so I apologize in advance for the length of this post. When I last left off I was somewhere in Chiloe, working hard for a somewhat exploitative snail farmer named Ines. Since then I have come a long a way. We spent about a week more at the farm and talked our way into working a little less and getting to ride the horses. We went two or three times on those fairly untrained beasts. But the nights were gorgeous and rode them around the incredible vistas of purple setting suns and seaweed dragging oxen. Then we went back to Puerto Varas to prepare for a 5 day trek into the Cochamo valley (often dubbed the Yosemite of South America), but the pictures will do an infinitely better job relating the story than will my blog, so check them out (in the side bar). We met up with Lenka and Max, two of Caitlin's old rock climbing friends. We did a lot of watching them climb improbable rock faces.

The one part of Cochamo I will relate was what happened on the 25^th of November. Being a ten mile hike into a fairly deserted valley in southern Chile we expected that having arrived the only Americans, we would remain so for the duration of our stay. We were mistaken. On Thanksgiving day like clockwork a host of American's arrived, not only to cook a meal at the “refugio” but also as guests to participate in it. Of course we were joined by a few requisite foreigners for us to relate the tale to, but in all, the turkeys, stuffing and mashed potatoes made me feel pretty much at home. Fabulous meal, and funny coincidences, like the two 2010 graduates of Harvard who showed up, and knew my brother and best friend...

We arrived in Punta Arenas last Sunday after a a 30 hour bus through the Argentine pampas, to the Atlantic coast, about 1000 miles south and then west onto the straits of Magellan. The ride made us a little crazy, but it was mainly due to the sad circumstances of our departure. Caitlin's packpack had been stealthily stolen in the Puerto Montt bus terminal, and I was having a stomach-illness relapse, which after taking a full dosage of Cipro was fairly unnerving. Another oddity which might have contributed to general craziness was the fact that more and more people were French speaking, and fewer than ever spoke Spanish. So thoroughly distressed we decided to hang out in Punta Arenas while we filed insurance claims and stayed near hospitals (don't worry, all is now taken care of!).

So right now I'm procrastinating for what seems like the first time in about six months. You see I should be working on a project proposal for a research study. This feels good. The procrastinating especially. It brings me back to a time of certainty. To a time when I knew what my life was—deadlines were established, procrastinating ensued, and somehow, out of the abyss of Gould Library, surrounded by food scraps and the smell of old books, I would emerge with a document and be told by someone with power whether I had achieved success. The research proposal you ask? I suppose that too brings me back to college. It is a vaguely sociological study focusing on place, and national identity. I am sure that my history professors would be proud to know that I was thinking about both Pierre Nora and Benedict Anderson when I wrote those last few words. And hopefully they will find their way into whatever is written if the judges of the outside world deem the proposal worthy of success. The project in short, is to examine the place of Antarctica in Chilean national identity. The judge: Admiral Rosenqvist of the Chilean navy. Yes, this is my liberal arts education in action.

Next week we start our 22 day volunteer stint in Torres del Paine national park. We still aren't sure of what it will entail, but when I know I'll be sure to post something. I know there is some internet, so check the page out in a couple weeks. Thanks everyone for reading.  Oh right, I almost forgot—happy Hanukkah too.  Write me!

Never Mind the Hypothetical Mollusc

Here's the teaser. Since my last post, Caitlin and I have mixed a lot of cement, seen some of the most beautiful sunsets of our lives, jumped off of 30+ foot cliffs, rappelled down a waterfall , cooked in a restaurant, and touched more snails than we care to remember. We have also posed the question of life the universe and everything, asserting the unlikely existence of an all understanding yet uncommunicative sentient giant mollusc sitting at the center of the ocean. In short, we have lived for a couple of weeks. If you want to know more, read ahead. If not, I won't be insulted, this will be a long one.

This chapter in our trip is probably best described as the Time of the Mollusc. Although the word first entered our daily vocabulary in Valdivia after an important conversation I will eventually relate, albeit in brief, we have now been forced to live the mollusc in more ways than one. But I get ahead of myself.

Let us start in Chiloe where we arrived a little over a week ago. This island is one of the continent's largest, second only to Tierra Del Fuego, less than 1000 miles to the south. It was the last hold out of the Spanish during the Chilean war for independence (1826), which along with its general isolation makes for interesting architecture exemplified by odd shingles and houses on stilts. I am in Ancud, or really in a small town one hour north of Ancud called Caulin. It lies on a beach with some of the highest concentrations of Black Necked Swans in the world. Along with the penguins (see pictures) it makes Chiloe one of the coolest bird places for the non-appreciator of birds. It's like they follow us, and we have no choice but to take pictures of them.

Caulin, and in particular the Caulin Lodge where we are working, is a place of molluscs. Ines, the owner sells mostly clam dishes in her restaurant, and also runs a snail based cosmetics company from her farm/restaurant/hotel. We help with everything of course. Never had I imagined I would be touching over a thousand snails (some smelly) and opening oysters, much less doing them both in a 24 hour period. All this of course for free. Which brings me to a brief rant about labor, if you would prefer to skip this next paragraph I don't blame you.

Work is hard. It lasts all day and sometimes all night. Salaries can be a means of exploiting labor, because long hours are paid the same as short ones. Furthermore, new employees are taken advantage of by a system they don't understand. Flexible work schedules can be great, but can also be exploitative, as workers may be asked to get up unreasonably early or stay at work unreasonably late. When as Ines says, “we live our work” what are in one's eyes exploitative practices are in another's love of life, “it's boring to do nothing, so you might as well work.” Which is of course what she does, just behind a desk and at her own leisure. Nevertheless she's right to a certain extent, if you've got nothing better to do, you might as well work, which is our attitude of course. Anyhow, work is hard, and if work is life, by syllogism … life is hard.

Ok, back to the story. When we left off our heroes were in the belly of the beast. . . or rather, they were massaging the bellies of snails, and killing oysters. So molluscs. As it happens working with molluscs is not so taxing on the brain as it is on the nose and hands (which by the way is a great way to get over being grossed out). We have had a lot of time to talk about life. Yet somehow without trying even as we have myriad conversations about what we think are different things we always come back to the hypothetical mollusc. Unlike our very real and squishy friends we have come to know quite well, this being we posit exists well out of the reach of our hands and high powered cleaning hoses. This creature understands all and may or may not be god, yet has no way of communicating or even desire to do so. The problem in short is, could this creature exist, and if so, does it matter. Caitlin says yes, and in the end I say no. . . usually. Well, she usually says it might exist and it matters, and I say that it usually doesn't exist and if it did it doesn't matter, and we should just get on with our lives. It turns out that every conversation of substance can (although probably shouldn't) be reduced to this dilemma. Yet with our seemingly inexhaustible time and willingness to speak, we very well might prove this hypothesis by trial and error.

Some of you reading this, if you've made it this far through my blabber would probably have noted the influence of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the radio version of which I am currently listening to. I have decided that Douglas Adams might just be one of the greatest geniuses since Steinbeck. . . which along with Camus' Myth of Sisyphus (which my brother should be happy to know I am reading) makes for a very interesting set of thoughts and conversations. The world is pretty Absurd, and no one is really ever going to understand it, so we might as well forget about the damned mollusc.

Condors. . .Volcanoes. . . you know

We've been in Puerto Varas now for a little over a week, and are readying ourselves for movement once more.  Since last Wednesday we have played hosts at a nice bed and breakfast run by Vicki Johnson, making sure that there is an English speaking presence to reassure those who (believe it or not) speak not a word of Spanish.  It has generally been a great experience and an easy job, making our stay here really cheap and allowing us to take hot showers, make outlandish drinks (fennel mojitos. . .) and go on day hikes.  Although the weather has been awful it opened up for us on our two outings, below is a taste of the last one (see link for more pictures/movies) involving an encounter with a Condor.  

On the social front I've continued to learn a lot about Chilean society.  The interaction between employee and employer is continually interesting, and the employee culture is equally strange, including back stabbing, family loyalty and a very different work ethic than I'm used to in the States.  Being the face of a business is also a strange new experience: yesterday I was yelled at for the first time, and with such force as I have only experienced from my brother--but this time I didn't yell back.  It passed, and then I went to help Jorge, Chile's only astronaut move out of the apartment upstairs he's been renting all winter.  Yes you read correctly.  I live a very odd life.

Check out the youtube movie of our condor sighting! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ytgak4-SIE 

A map

Perhaps you would like to see where I've been.  Here is a very low tech map with all the locations in Chile I have or will go to.  I'll try to update periodically.

Double Lives

We live two lives. As travelers we travel. As workers we work and relax—we are settled. Two weeks passed as workers and it was as if our bodies had forgotten their former lives. What is this movement? What happened to sitting at the table until ten and conquering the invasive thistle menace until lunch? Where are the dishes to be done? The bread to break—so much bread was baked? All that, gone. No we move. Only how?

Leaving Daniel's farm left us puzzled. No bus would stop. One passed, another—no that one's in the other direction. Ten more pass going the wrong way. Now it's been an hour on the side of the highway. We sing songs. Soon we wonder if it's possible. Yes? What do you think Caitlin, should we? My thumb twitches. Soon it even flicks up. She gives me a look—Caitlin must have seen—now there is no choice. Defiant against my churning insides my finger flies. “Oye” a man cries, “he's waiting for you!” And so he was. The truck had pulled over, how strange, did he expect us to get on? Marcelo takes us to Temuco—two hours, 0 pesos, good conversation about how chile is dangerous, “We must be careful.” (Marcelo leaves his car running with two hitchhikers when he goes shopping).Now we are savvy city folk again. A minibus here, some urban hiking there—no problem. We arrive at Santa Isabel, the supermarket.

The next two days we spent with Anji and Danny, two old friends of Caitlin's from her time as an exchange student here five years ago. They expected us to be fun, go out and dance. We performed. Left the house at midnight, danced, came home at five. Missed the earthquake (5.8) thanks to the dancing. Slept until one. Luckily we didn't have to do it again. Here they explain the crazy schedule as a vestige of the dictatorship. As it goes, because of the curfew people would go out, and have to stay out until morning. I think it's more an imitation of Europe than anything else. It's their only hold out against becoming American's (They already have free trade, and lots of malls—we even went four times in two days!)

One pair of shoes and two movies later we left. Now, couchsurfing in Puerto Varas is reaffirming again my faith in our species. This is really a tourist town, complete with the best chocolate shop in Chile, and we know the owner. Vicky Johnson is the consummate entrepreneur, and bizarrely trusting of us—I guess that's a good thing.  As with the nature of this entire trip we going to take the next week by the seat of our pants.  We might stay here a week working in Vicky's B&B or we might leave for Chiloe which promises two or more weeks of work which may or may not include doing something with snails.  

All is well.  We are reading a lot of Steinbeck (me Grapes of Wrath, Caitlin East of Eden), and thinking about the nature of life.  

Thanks for reading and send me notes!   

Internal Logic

So much has happened in a short time!  Gone from Valparaiso—endless travel in buses with Caitlin playing word games and musing about everything (why do we binge on mints while traveling?)—now we have even left Lumaco (read Caitlin's post between-n-betwixt.blogspot.com), but how to speak of it all and not bore you?!  I won't! 

Today I hoed thistle.  It was the start of something good.  I hope.  It was the first of what will be many  days working on the Tralcao Park Farm with Daniel.  Although he no longer has his vegetable garden, or hog farm, or yogurt business, or many other projects he once had for that matter, the place still has the potential to be a fabulous first WWOOF experience.  There will be some work, but as Daniel's many projects have died off over the last 26 years there is less and less to do that is strictly speaking ´farm work´.  But he isn't concerned.  In fact, his demeanor is probably the most interesting thing about this place.  Who knew that when thrust into southern Chile after little more than a week I would be in the company of a chain-smoking-Ohioan-former-hippie with more than an hour monologue on almost any topic?  That of course is not to say that they are uninteresting monologues; who doesn't want to learn a little more about dog training?  Or the end of the world for that matter. . . (both conversations we had late into the night yesterday).  Whether his advice or predictions about the world are sage (be sustainable!) or from a Blade-Runner dystopian universe (The era of robots will mark the transformation of human spirituality, and it will be good) it makes for interesting listening.

As for important Chilean news, the miners are all being saved from the mine in the north.  The news cycle is 24/7 taken up with this story.  The people are all glued to the TV everywhere.  I still don't completely know why.  Daniel blames it on the inhumanity of the former dictatorship (finally the world cares about the little man).  I'm not sure. 

Pictures are coming super soon (maybe even today. . .)

  

And write me!  

Logistics and Tufted Cathedrals

Hello everyone!

It is now five days since I arrived in chile for the start of my yearlong voyage with Caitlin. I realize that I haven't really given a description of the trip, and that if for a couple reasons but mainly it is because all of our plans are fluid. The refrain thus far has been “we're really flexible” and I imagine it will stay that way. But for those of you who might want something more concrete here is a basic and tentative plan for the next few weeks:

6^thoct-8^th Valparaiso (Hostal Casa Aventura)

8^th-12^th Lumaco-Temuco (Old host family and friends of Caitlin's)

12^th-28^th Valdivia (Tralcao park/farm work)

28^th-15^th nov. We will either be on the Island of Chiloe or Couch Surfing in Puerto Montt/Puerto Varas

15^th-7^th dec. Torres del Paine

Also for those of you looking to contact us for some reason by phone we now have a number! It is +56 9 68637288.

Good! Now that housekeeping is out of the way we can get onto the real fun stuff. Well it's actually late and I don't think I will get to much of that that yet. But so far we've had a great time. Nothing too crazy has happened, just the usual spotting of dilapidated, decapitated, and tufted cathedrals. And the occasional street juggler (except here instead of being on the sidewalk, they are actually in the middle of the street. . .) catches our eye. After a wonderful four days spent Couch Surfing with a political science professor, which completely reaffirmed my faith in humanity, we have arrived in Valparaiso, which is a beautiful and very eclectic port town about two hours from Santiago. It is filled with precarious houses and improbable staircases leading up the winding hills of this really colorful city. Other than the murals with pro lesbian graffiti, there is little in common with Santiago, which is a bustling metropolis covered in smog (still worth going to though). But with the idyllic beauty come more tourists and thus more pickpockets. On more than one occasion the inhabitants of one neighborhood warned us to go no further lest we be very careful with our belongings. We did not have to be told twice—this was so eerie it could have been out of a horror film. So we through ourselves down a steep flight of stairs, and five minutes later we were back in the safety of the crowd, shunted through the grand Plaza Sotomayor.

Hope to hear from some of you soon. . . I love getting emails!

Ee yay ee yay Hola

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my blog.  As this is the first post I don't really have much to say.  As you all know I will be traveling for the next 8 months or so in South America and I want (have promised) to keep you all up to date about my travels, experiences, and perhaps insights.  It will also have my whereabouts and give you access to pictures!  This doesn't mean that I don't want your emails, or letters!  I would really like to stay in touch with all of you, and  promise to write back if you send me something.

Hope to hear from all of you soon, and look out for a post sometime in the month.