One last post from NYC

Well, friends, you may be relieved to hear that this is finally the last post of our trip (some 2 weeks after we have been back in the US of A). All of the pictures are now finally up on flickr. We've had a wonderful time looking through all of them and pretending we are still on vacation. But actually, we are back to working life. Jess started this week and I start very soon...

This blog will now revert to Jess's triathlon blog, so if you want to continue receiving email updates, you can follow Jess's trials, tribulations, and witty commentary on being a 3-sport athlete.

As one final piece of entertainment, here's our "Top 5 Adjustments to Life in the States":

1. Toilet paper goes in...the toilet! In nearly all the places we visited, throwing TP in the toilet was a big fat no-no. Jokes of toilet paper tossers taking down entire towns' sewage systems - at least I thought they were jokes - quickly got us on board. Not until returning did I realize how well I'd been trained. It took us each a good two weeks to break ourselves of the trash can.

2. Openly gay people are everywhere! Oh, how I missed my brethren. We encountered exactly 4 openly gay people in our entire 3 months of travel and all of them were men, two of whom were even Americans! It was actually shocking how few gay travelers there were and what an oddity we seemed to be at times to the European backpackers that we met everywhere. This is an adjustment I'm more than happy to make.

3. The U.S. Postal Service still sucks. Well, this isn't really an adjustment, but rather an excuse to rail against the postal service on my blog. We sent two packages from South America to Jess' parents, one from Argentina which arrived in a timely manner, and one from Chile. The package from Chile never reached their house and when we finally made it home, devastated that so many of our gifts for friends and family had been lost in the mail, and cursing ourselves for trusting a South American country's postal service, we found a package slip in our mailbox. Jess ran to the post office because the slip claimed that the country of Chile had been attempting to send us a box that we had thus far failed to pick up (mind you, we had already filled out both a forward of mail request and - when that didn't work - a hold mail request) and that they intended to send it back to the "sender" the day before we got home. Fortunately, their incompetence meant that we probably had some wiggle room on that date. Jess recovered the package from the postal worker who insisted that she had "screwed up" in filling out the package slip. You decide - here's a photo. Now whose address is under "Sender" and whose is under "Addressee" (sorry, I know it's a little dark).

4. Speedy service in delis and restaurants. Throughout South America, getting someone to take your order at a restaurant is only a little less hard than getting them to bring the check. On the other hand, there is never any pressure to leave! Coming back to New York, the speediness of the service was extremely refreshing and relaxing. However, I also had to readjust to being in and out within an hour, a long line stretching out the door.

5. In the end, nothing has really changed. Perhaps the most surprising thing about coming home was how much everything was exactly as we left it. It had felt, at times, like we were traveling for years. Yet when we arrived home, all the same scaffolding lined the buildings on our block and the same dude was chilling on the front stoop greeting everyone. My office is still working on the same projects and the train is still packed.

Lastly, we just wanted to say thanks for following our South American journey and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

One Last Story from the Southern Hemisphere

Upon reflection, I felt I had to share one of my most memorable experiences from South America. As Patagonia is known for being a land of extremes, it is natural that our trek through Torres del Paine National Park (Chile) produced for me a list of superlative experiences:

1 Best Water. Throughout my many backpacking trips I have always lamented the fact that water had to be filtered or treated before drinking. It seemed wrong that water in the forest wasn't naturally clean enough for human consumption. Not only is all the water in Torres del Paine fit for human consumption (except for the one salt lake), but it is the cleanest water I have ever tasted. In fact, as pure glacial runoff, it tastes like absolutely nothing and I have never before tasted water like that. Actually, if wet could be a taste this would be it--just refreshingly wet. It's very satisfying to be hiking over streams all day, from any of which you can take a big gulp.

2. Sharpest Peaks. As a very young mountain range, the Andes are comprised of many thin, jagged spires that have not yet been eroded. Hiking through Valle Francais, surrounded on 3 sides by these sharp peaks felt quite like being inside a ring of snow-capped shark teeth.

3. Best Sunrise. On the last morning of our trek, Jess and I made the totally irrational decision to hike for 45 minutes up a steep boulder field in the pre-dawn, sub-freezing temperatures with our head lamps while being blown around by fierce Patagonian winds. We did this to see the infamous sunrise on the towers and, shockingly, we were the only ones who made this decision on this particular morning. We had no way of knowing the sunrise would be any good because it is entirely weather dependent and the weather is very local--perhaps very different at the towers than at the campsite. Our gamble paid off however and we saw the most colorful pink and purple. The sharp granite towers were also lit up in a beautiful orange-pink color behind a sage-green milky lake. This lasted for about 2 minutes, after which we promptly headed back down the boulder field for some hot tea and oatmeal in our sleeping bags.

4. Coldest Hands. As a once-frequent backpacker I have had some very cold hands on snowy and wet days. However, it was not until I found myself washing dishes in the snow with glacial runoff in the bitter wind that I really felt as if I had lifeless stumps protruding from my hands. Fortunately, it seems that blowing hot air on them every 30 seconds has saved me from frost bite.

That's it for now. In the near future, you can look for one more wrap-up post. More photos are now up on flickr and all of them should be up very soon.

Back in the U.S. with a few more stories to tell

As many of you are aware, Kate and I recently made our proud return to the States. But never fear, we still have a couple of stories to share before we put this blog to rest (and photos to upload).

The final three weeks of our trip had us in tiny towns, on a boat for four days and trekking through amazing parks. All amazing experiences and almost entirely lacking in internet connections. Thus, we turned old-school, writing journal entries to be transposed onto the blog at a later date. Kate will soon give you the story of our visit to Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia and I will now give a run through of our last big adventure of the trip... I could have called this post "How I ended up sleep-deprived, fueled for days on only bread and cheese on a glacier with dark lenses taped to my glasses" but I thought that might be taking the theme a little too far. Regardless, I think I need to start this story a little before the actual glacier...

Oct 30
4:50 a.m. Kate and I rise, strap on headlamps and scramble up boulders in darkness for an hour to view the famous Torres of Torres del Paine at sunrise (something she will describe in more detail later).

6:03 a.m. Sunrise! We brace ourselves against the glacial winds and watch the spectacle.

6:20 a.m. Freezing, we climb back down for yet another breakfast of oatmeal and tea. We break camp and hike the two hours back to the refugio where we'll meet our bus.

6 p.m. We finally arrive in Puerto Natales where we promptly find ourselves sitting outside the hostel waiting for someone to show up and unlock the door.

7 p.m. Finally inside the hostel, we fill the next five hours with washing ourselves and all our clothes, repacking, eating an instant soup dinner and preparing for tomorrow's trip to Argentinian Patagonia.

Oct 31
6 a.m. Rise and shine for more stale bread, jam and Nescafe.

7 a.m. Bus to Argentina's Parque Nacional los Glaciares. All day we snack on more bread and some cheese left over from our five day trek in Chile.

1:30 p.m. Finally arrive in a section of the park where you can see the famous Perito Moreno Glacier and its amazing blue colors (a glacier that is actually advancing). We take a boat to get up close, but not too close as giant chunks periodically fall off its sheer face.

4:30 p.m. Arrive in El Calafate, the highly touristy Argentinian city that serves as the base for exploring this part of Patagonia. We check in to a hostel, unpack our bags, and look forward to a full night of sleep and a hot, filling meal in a real restaurant.

5:15 p.m. I talk to the girl at the front desk about our options for the three days we have left in Patagonia before our flight to Buenos Aires. Immediately my interest is peaked by a trip to the Fitz Roy section of Glaciares (yes, it really does look like that!) and a tour that involves 12 hrs on your feet, at least three of the 12 in crampons hiking around a glacier. Down side is, to go, we must catch the bus to El Chalten in roughly 30 minutes, a town four hours away, and go on the tour tomorrow - the first day of the season that this particular tour will run. No other date will work with our flight.

5:30 p.m. We toss aside our dreams for a long night's sleep and a warm meal and decide to go for it! I toss things back into our bags and run to the bakery for yet more bread -- our dinner on the bus -- as Kate runs for the ATM (the next town being so small it doesn't have an ATM or a bank).

6 p.m. We hop on the bus and find ourselves to be half the occupants - one of the others being a local from El Chalten who proclaims it heaven as he shares his mate with us on the 4+ hour drive and the other our driver who keeps joking in Spanish that the horrendous Patagonian winds are going to ensure we arrive no earlier than 2 a.m.

10:45 p.m. We arrive in El Chalten and check in to the hostel from which our tour will leave early in the morning.

Nov 1
12:30 a.m. I wake after only an hour and a half of sleep itching horribly. A quick inspection of the bed confirms my fears -- bed bugs! I wake Kate, capture a bug in an empty pill bottle and make my way to the front desk. Kate describes the problem to the girl at the front desk who seems a little doubtful but can't deny the problem given my specimen and obvious bites. She switches us to another room.

1 a.m. We pack our bags again and move them to the new room. Before climbing in the beds, Kate does a thorough search and finds more bugs. The girl at the front desks allows us to sleep on the two couches in the lounge inside our sleeping bags.

3:30 a.m. Cleaning staff turn on all the lights in the lounge and begin dragging chairs around. After about 20 minutes of this, the lights go off and they leave.

5:30 a.m. We rise to pack our bags again, eat a quick breakfast of two eggs and bread, and grab yet more cheese sandwiches to fuel ourselves for the 12 hrs of walking ahead of us.

7 a.m. We leave for a 2.5 hr hike/speed walk to the base camp where we meet two more guides and are outfitted with crampons and harnesses. As it was a perfectly sunny day with a bright blue sky and we were about to spend hours on a glacier with the ozone whole hovering over us, we layered up on the sunscreen. The light also necessitates serious eye protection. Unfortunately, I'd lost my shades to the gods of Torres del Paine several days ago. The shades, however, were the changeable lens types and I still had the dark lenses in my possession. Thus, I made another incredibly fashionable decision and taped them to my glasses with medical tape.

9:30 a.m. We hike from base camp, passing a beautiful lake at the foot of a glacier nestled against a series of peaks - some steep granite spires, others black volcanic cones. From here we cross a river by means of a wire bolted to boulders on each side (hence the harnesses). Once the entire group reaches the other side we hike up and down steel slopes through forest.

Noon We reach the glacier itself and are welcomed by the most intense winds of my life. Our guides provide the following instruction for dealing with the winds, "I raise my hand; Duck!" After strapping on the crampons, we make our way up the glacier till we reach the glacial plateau.

1 p.m. We eat our cheese sandwiches as the guides set up a top rope leading down the side of a giant ice cave. They convince each and every one of us (there being 6 people in our group, including us) to have a go at ice climbing. Pick. Pick. Foot. Foot. Repeat. After reaching the top I proclaim ice climbing to be my newest hobby -- what a rush!

2:30 p.m. We make our way back, first to base camp, then to town.

7:30 p.m. We finally arrive at the bed bug hostel, a little sore, wind blown, exhausted, famished and utterly exhilarated by one of the most amazing experiences of our entire trip. How appropriate that it came in our last days in South America. Only a few days later I'll return to the States a happy, satisfied and slightly melancholy traveler.