Padova -> Berlin

Getting ready to go to Berlin. Geez, I should really know by now that if I pack my backpack easily and everything fits in perfectly then that just means something is not right and I forgot to put in something big.

The last few days my family and I participated in a 6k "race," dipped our toes in the Mediterranean and caught an orchestral concert in Pescia. My attempts to explore this amazing abondoned 3 story house were foiled by a car full of guys that chased me down on my bike. Then I hopped a train to Florence where my feet remembered the way to the market and I managed to buy 5 pairs of sunglasses, arguing the price down 15 euros. Then I headed North to Padova and was almost in tears when I stepped off the train. I had about an hour to myself before meeting Erika so I walked to our old apartment, past the place where the junkie abandoned his orange pants, past the house where big dog and little dog used to live (RIP babies! you are missed), and past our old bus stop where we used to wait every morning before school. I even visisted the old piss steps and wanted to make a ceremonial pee offering but it has been barred off.

Now I'm with Erika and it is so nice. I really love this girl. I got to meet her adorable Brazilian partner Tiago last night in Treviso. Language barriers be damned, we had a fun time.

Lucca

Yesterday my mom and I took our bikes on the train to nearby Lucca, a small city surrounded by a wall. We rode around, stopped at a cafe then she left to go to a castle with everyone else but I had to stay. Lucca is pretty and the bike was so nice, so I rode around all afternoon exploring. Turns out my Italian is not too shabby though. Okay, well my Spanish sometimes passes for Italian anyways.

The day before we went to the small market in town and I got a stove-top espresso maker and an herb mincer, graduation gifts from my mama. Lela made one of the best lunches I've ever had. She has a way with spices, plus the vegetables here are like so ridiculously fresh and flavorful. It kills me! The tomatoes are actually red all the way through! Oh, and I'm totally filling my pack with olive oil and pine nuts before I head home. And cynar, haha. We had a dessert party for my parent's new friends and distant relatives which was pretty awesome, but by the end of it I was so tired I passed out in my clothes and slept for like 12 hours.

The day before that we explored some random hillside village and quite by accident met an ancient Spadoni named Rosa who will turn 100 in October. We were passing her house and while we paused at her mail slot which read Spadoni, her son invited us in for espresso.

Seattle -> New York -> Milan -> Prato -> Pescia -> San Salvatore

I made it, one day later then planned, but whatever, whose keepin score. I'm in beautiful Italy with my parents and brother's family whom I haven't seen last summer! Just as I had secretly hoped they welcomed me with handmade raviolis, local cheese, prosciutto and espresso. Although I was jet lagged more than I wanted to admit, we went to a festa in Pescia and watched some bands play. I had some gelato di melone which was off the hook but the jury is still out on whether Argentina does it better. I need to try the tiramisu and chocolate first but the gelateria we went to was sold out on almost everything because of the festival. I'll also need to do a wine comparison, but I already know that on pasta and the like Italy blows Argentina right out of the water. But thats only because Argentina is too busy throwing down killer asados. Bought a ticket to Berlin and I'm getting excited about it. Prague will happen some other time I suppose, but for now I'm looking forward to buildings pockmarked with bullet holes from wwII.

Can´t sleeeeeep

Ugh, I woke up at 6 this morning and couldn´t get back to sleep. Haven´t gotten a whole 8 hours in quite a while. Whats wrong with me? Hmmm, maybe it the endless rounds of maté I need to get through the day on not enough sleep. Yesterday there was a dead dog lying outside the lavanderia that at first glance looked like it was just sleeping. Eventually someone covered it with cardboard. I hope its gone today, poor thing. My class gets back from Uruguay today! So happy to be reunited. They just went for one night, because we have to leave Argentina every 90 days because of the tourist visa, but I didn´t need to because I spent the last month in Chile. I would have liked to see Uruguay but didn´t want to spend the money on a ferry ticket for just one night. I´m glad I got to be in BA for the end of Carnival. Foam fighting on the street was amazing, even though I got dragged into it by a surprise attack. Katrina and I were walking on the street and some guys came up behind us. They asked Katrina if they could get by us so she turned to them and they started spraying her with foam, straight in the face. So of course I start laughing until they start getting me too. Since we were covered in foam we thought we might as well go get our revenge so we ditched our things, bought some cans and spent the rest of the night running around in a rain of foam. I bought my plane ticket to Prague. So excited but had a lot of trouble figuring out how I will get back to Milan. Looks like my best option is to hop a train from Venice the night before my flight and then couch surf, only I get into Milan a little after midnight so I will have to find some night owl to host me. I spent some time yesterday working on my pathetic couchsurfing profile but I really lack the ability to describe myself. How would you do it?

I´m at the begining of the end in the place that I began.

Oh man, I'm sitting a table away from a guy making a paper mache mask, I love it! Hostel craft time is the best. So my last few days in Iquique were action packed. We rented a car and hit the road for our last batch of tide pool surveys. We found lots of new species including GIANT FUZZY CHITONS seriously the size of my hand, bright blue anemones, big sucker fish that clung to rock faces and would drop off into the water when they sensed our presence, and one feisty octopus that changed brilliant patterns in the flash of a second. The waves in this area could not be trusted though and the beach was jagged rock, so it was difficult to do counts. There were times when I would be like 3 meters from where the waves were coming up and then suddenly a freak giant one would appear and we´de have to make a run for it. The first time this happened I wasn't fast enough and got knocked over onto the rocks, landing on my knees. Good adrenaline rush though. After spending the whole day out we stopped by this beach side ghost town that had a castle up on a rock and a cemetery. We found out later that almost everyone in that town died from a tsunami. The next day Jorge picked us up and took us out into the driest desert in the world. Our day began with a bang, seriously, we were stopped by police on the highway and we weren´t sure why until there was a giant explosion out in the desert in front of us. Still not sure what that was about. Jorge took us to this abandoned nitrogn mine, a sad, spooky place where the Chinese workers were treated horribly. They were paid in fake coins that were only good at the factory store so they couldn´t buy anything down in Iquique. When they protested this, they were fired upon with machine guns and it was said that their blood ran all the way down into the ocean. It was these Chilean factories that really woke people up about worker´s rights. Afterwards we headed out to the geoglyphs which were really so much bigger than I expected. It was indescribably hot and dry out there, I can´t imagine how people were able to make them up on the steep slopes. They are 8000 years old and were the billboards of those times, advertising water, livestock and such. Then we drove through the flat, cracked desert for a while before reaching this bizarre town that exsists in the middle of it, just this oasis of green that looks so out of place in the harsh landscape. The town survives on natural springs and they produce mangos and oranges. We spent the afternoon in a hotspring that was partially underground. You could go back into these clay caves to almost complete darkness. We bought a bag of oranges for juicing and it was probably the best orange juice I´ve ever had in my life. Our last day in Iquique we spent saying goodbye to the beautiful Pacific and getting knocked around by waves but this time on the sandy beach. There happened to be a porteño at our hostel who was an asado master, so we had a bqq then reluctantly packed our bags. At the airport we had the biggest face-off with customs over some presents that we are determined to get home. We were arguing for at least 30 minutes. Security was being so ridiculous but we couldn´t back down and managed to get all 14 gifts onto the plane. I know the guy just wanted to keep one for himself, because thats what it came down to. Although I love Chile, it can seem totally strict at times and I love how Argentina just doesn´t give a shit. Like I got here with a bag of mangos that the dog sniffed out, and I was like here, take em, but security shrugged and said they didn´t want them. Its so funny because I was declaring all this stuff, but they never actually took my declaration paper from me. Anyways, now I´m back in Buenos Aires to wrap up class. Got to see baby Luca last night and he really is so beautiful! Now I somehow must finish my journal and species accounts once and for all, although its insanely hard knowing I will be finished with school in less than 2 weeks. I just want to slack off and play in the sunshine.

don´t dream it, be it

Soooo don´t appreciate whoever randomly put on a CD full blast that opened with the sound of a tsunami warning. Yeah, I know I´m paranoid, but there has been 3 earthquakes since I´ve been in Chile. But things are good. Yesterday I got to live out one of my dreams of running and flying off a cliff. Seriously, I´ve dreamt it so many times it felt like I had done it before. I glided up and over the city with the turkey vultures. I got lots of pictures of my feet. After tide pooling yesterday I went for a swim and got totally taken out by a massive wave. It was enormous and broke right over my head. I should have body surfed it but instead I tried to stand my ground like an idiot and it devoured me. Now my back has a thousand knots in it. I wish I was kickin it with some massage savvy homies, but it looks like my only option is to find some professional stranger and pay them cuz my self massaging only reaches so far. We went to the movies again and saw 127 hours. I cried a lot. Probably more than I was suppose to. Got to talk to Naomi this morning. Can´t wait to do that every morning this summer!

the sun burns!

So we stayed out tide pooling just a little too long yesterday. Ouch...first sun burn in a while, and I was wearing and reapplying sunscreen. Katrina on the other hand, only put it on her face and now has second degree burns on her back. I miss spike, my volumptious aloe plant, cuz the bottled stuff just doesn´t cut it. But the tide pools were so amazing, we couldn´t help staying out so long! I found baby starfish, sunstars, crazy giant fast-moving jumping crabs that would run around jumping from rock to rock, so many different colors of anemones and my favorite creature ever, the chiton! They come in the most beautiful colors and patterns, I´m totally inlove with them.









Last night we took it easy, watched a zombie movie and ordered the worst pizza I´ve ever encountered. It like dissolved in my mouth. No amount of hot sauce could make up for how nasty it was. We just changed hostels for a night, but I grew to like the old one. Check out was at the very generous hour of 11:30. I´ve never known a hostel with such a late check out. I´m kind of worried a bit about my low income burning man application, because I hadn´t realized they had already started accepting apps. Definitely gettin on that tonight, hopefully its not too late. Had a stressful dream where I missed the bus to Buenos Aires, Katrina spent 9,000 pesos on box wine and I broke my mate gourd. I blame the rotten pizza.

ho-mance

Spent valentines with some true loves of mine, the trusty sharpie and exacto blade. Also took the cliché long walk on the beach with Abi Juanita Kathryn. We found some crazy sea-stars with more legs then we could count. Planned a day out with the owner of our favorite burrito place. He's going to take us some hot springs and an old abandoned mine. We've eaten at his place every day we've been here and its the best food I've had in forever. Spicy guacamole, freshly blended peach juice, and tecate with salt, lemon and tobasco. Benha is sick in bed. He's been puking all day, so Katrina and I have been doing what we can to help him relax. It looks like Katrina and I won't be getting our diving certification down here, but plan to do it in the Puget Sound this spring.

¡Iquique!

So the average rainfall here is 0 cm. This is a beach city surrounded by giant sandy mountains of nothing. No plants whatsoever. It took us 36 hours to bus here, up along the beautiful coast during tsunami warnings. There was an earthequake off the coast right near where the big one hit a year ago that caused that deadly tsunami. Luckily nothing happened but its wierd because I was totally thinking about it while we were on the bus but had no idea it was actually a possibility. We are staying at a typical party hostel which is kind of annoying and impersonal, so the search is on for a better one. Last night we went to the cinema! I haven´t been to the movies since last summer and it was really nice. We got popcorn and everything. Saw El Cisne Negro. Today we swimsuit hunted, found nothing, but we went to a street market and I bought some wierd dress with a bollywood scene on it and another kind of ugly shirt with tigers drinking water. I don´t know why but I really like them.

blog attempt

Wow, I think I have just met the most annoying computer in the world. I can´t believe i`m paying for this.

I’ve been inspired by my parent’s blog to write more, but since I only get to be on a
computer for bits at a time, you’re just going to get some giant blog dumps gleaned from
my written journal which is almost as sporadic and poorly kept as this blog. This was
written two weeks ago:

Life is crazy good and just crazy. I’ve been camping the past two weeks at different
national parks. We’ve been hiking every day in monkey puzzle forests which are
insanely beautiful and prehistoric. The monkey puzzle tree is considered a living fossil,
since it is so ancient and use to kick it with the dinosaurs. According to the Mapuche,
the trees marry each other by linking their roots or using birds as go-betweens. My first
hike I got lost with Amy and Katrina. It’s hard to figure out where you are in the middle
of a forest of trees so unclimbable that they would “puzzle a monkey.” By the time we
bushwhacked to a path it was pouring rain and I was completely soaked. The next day
we moved camp to a lake and the next hike we tackled I got even more lost, only by
myself this time. I wandered off because I fancied some alone time and wanted to
sneak in a swim, so I found a spot where the river pooled deeply, stripped down and
jumped in. The water was heart-stopping freezing cold and I decided that wouldn’t do so
I attempted to find my way back to camp instead. I tried following the river but every
path I found turned out to be animal trails that would end a few meters later. I tried to
cut across a field that turned out to be knee deep swamp. I started getting kind of
worried and frustrated so I just began crawling under the spiky calafate bushes in
search for a path but they just got denser and denser. It was hot and there were flies,
big biting ones that would not leave me alone even after I tried explaining to them that
no means no! At this point I started to freak out because I had no water and I start
screaming at these flies when I heard a whistle. I looked up and there suddenly
appeared two gauchos on horseback with three dogs following behind. The older one
took off his boots, rolled up his pants and lead me through the swamp. I followed them
to higher ground and ran into Sam. I was so happy to see him after feeling so lost and
alone! We walked back and bought a goat from the Mapuche village. Turns out what
happened to me was one of the luckier cases. Pretty much everyone in my class got
lost and two of my classmates weren’t found until way after dark (it gets dark here at 10
pm). It’s probably good they didn’t know about the puma skins hanging up at the
Mapuche houses. My professor lost his new cell phone while crawling under bamboo
whereas when I crawled through calafate I found someone’s digital camera with a 4gb
memory card. I was also the first person to get back. We crucified the goat over the
bonfire and it was ridiculously delicious. The next few days consisted of more hiking,
feather finding, wild mint mojitos concocted by my professor and wrestling matches
spurred by said mojitos. Then we moved on to El Bolson, stopping in Bariloche for a
mamuschka fix. El Bolson is a wonderful place, a town in a valley between beautiful
mountains. Throughout the day you can see hang gliders up above the mountains,
looping around like condors. The campground we stayed at felt like festival camping and was 4 blocks from the town plaza. The farms surrounding the town are where most
of Argentina’s hops are grown, so the town is full of artesenal breweries. This adorable
march-forth-like band played at our campground and I danced until morning. Lots of
people in clown makeup, it felt like home. The next day we went out to the lake for
some swimming. We kicked it with some sweeties from Buenos Aires and cooked up
some tuna melts on the sandy beach. I fell in love because a boy played me some
smashing pumpkins and radiohead songs on the guitar with an adorable accent. Then
we went back into national park land and continued our hiking expeditions. Took a ferry
out on the lakes to see a glacier and old growth forest, smeared calafate berries all over
our faces to make war paint, had a girls night out by the lake, threw Tez a birthday party
complete with puppet show and a dinner where every dish consisted of potatoes, made
patches for Ashley’s baby blanket and then headed back to El Bolson where we learned
that Ashley had her baby (a boy, little baby Luca!). Then I said goodbye as everyone
went their separate ways. I woke up and my little pup tent was all alone. My family has
scattered and for the next month we will be having separate adventures.

Went to brush my teeth in El Bolson, looked next to me and there was a Nessa monster!
She led me to a Pete! And then life was good. We stenciled (clothes, pup tent, Nessa’s
leg), drank cynar, crossed peligroso bridges, hedge dived and read nurse novels. You
know, the usual. Got to stop in Bariloche one last time for some new woman and
mamuschka. Camped in the hostel parking lot cuz there was no room at the inn. Then
went off to Chile, where it rained a lot and there were sick kittens at our hostel. We
bought them cat food, did some gambling, ate seafood stews, danced with some locals,
then Nessa and Pete left and I was bummed out and homesick for a lil while, but I’m
better now. I’m in Chiloe, a beautiful island thats surrounded by islands and mountains.
Its absolutely surreal and feels like the never ending story sometimes. We rented a car
and have been driving around seeking tide pools to study. I stumbled across two red
octopi crawling around on the beach! I also got chased by a pack of scary beach dogs
and threw my field notebook at them which was really dumb. But a fisherman found it
and returned it to me an hour later. Now I’m having repetitive dreams about getting
attacked by dogs. We found a beachside farm that let us camp on the beach for a
couple days. It was heaven. They sold us garden vegetables and I got to work on
overcoming my fear of geese which backfired because I only got more squeamish after
the geese started chasing car while hissing! Now we are in the most beautiful
campground that has a zip line over the water for 10 bucks. Low tide isn’t until noon
tomorrow, so I think I need to take advantage and go flying after breakfast. I’ve been
curing my new mate gourd which is an interesting process because it feels to me kind of
like bonding. Why have I been bonding with inanimate objects lately? I find myself
talking to pup tent when I’m trying to coax her into the bag every morning. More like wrestle, she is a fiesty one. Its probably cuz I miss my teddy bear. Wait, I didn´t really just admit that...I was sad to
part with my trusty rope sandals, but when I was packing them for Chiloe I almost puked
because they smelled so bad. My attempts at hand washing them were all in vain. Aw well. Headed up North to desert! Iquique, here we come (after 2 days of bus riding)...

why must weekends end?

I have lost the will to shower. I just don't see the point, especially since I haven't been able to do laundry in forever. I finally had a weekend and it was the best thing ever! Adventures with Nessa and Pete were epic and its really too bad that Pete's camera got stolen, mine got lost in some hedges, Nessa lost here memory card, and then we smashed her camera while dancing to a ska band in clown makeup. So all my pictures from the past month and a half are lost. Its really tragic. I had some good videos, like me jumping off a waterfall, befriending a monkey and Nessa acquiring husbands. So many pictures, I just have to let it go. I have a new camera now, that I found in the monkey puzzle forest. I just got a charger for it, so now I guess I will just have to make new adventures.

heaven

in el bolson, lil hippie town and i love it. live music everywhere! saw the best band last night. i think i need to move here. sorry port townsend!

bye bye baby bariloche

Leaving Bariloche tomorrow morning. Its so crazy, I only have 2 weeks left with all my class, then we split up. I'm going to miss this family. Today I went on a secret mission with Kelsy to the piercing shop. Second time getting pierced in a foreign country. Then we stopped one last time at Mamuschkas. I made a mamuschka stencil and we stenciled everyones clothes yesterday. I had to go overboard and by 4 bottles of spraypaint, so I'm determined not to let any go to waste. Working on a Riki Oh stencil. We had an amazing empanada party last night. I was so over empanadas, but they are delicious when you make them yourself and use fresh ingredients. Katrina and I took an epic nightwalk and painted the town. I'm in the strangest locutorio/comic store right now. My favorite one has been full all day so I braved the rain and found this one, and its completly deserted and half the computer buttons don't do what they say they will. So I will be far away from internet for the next 2 weeks, then will be in El Bolson on the 29th to meet up with Pete and Nessa. I've wanting to go to El Bolson for months! Oh, and Naomi is coming home May 16th! And she's working with me all summer! I'm so happy about this. I miss her way too much, its been tough. Anyways, miss everyone. Trying to distract myself from ever feeling homesick but you know, can't always be helped. Love you!

ughh..

Last day of spanish class was really annoying. I spent hours yesterday putting together the cutest presentation about Mamuschka, interviewed the shopkeepers, and even bought 35 pesos worth of chocolate to share with the class on cute mamuschka napkins but instead of doing our presentations, our teacher had us fill out worksheets (that we could have totally done on our own time) for 3 wasted hours! And so we had like 5 minutes left of class and she has us go around and just say where we went. Ami had written a song for the project and I was going to help with that too, plus hearing where everyone went in the city and who they interviewed would have been a lot more interesting then filling out a f-ing worksheet. Yeah, I dunno why I was so irritated this morning, could be the 3 nights of insomnia or the fact that I forgot to slap on a patch this morning. I booked it out of there and instantly felt better after getting a face full of sunshine and mountain breeze. Walked around town with Ami and we both bought really soft and adorable handmade underwears and hoodies. Now I´m off to go track down some spraypaint, which will make everything better.

patience...i lack this when i´m hungry

Grrr, why do they have to close the kitchen right when I get done with spanish class and am totally starving! It doesn´t help that it was pouring today and I refuse to wear my ugly poncho walking to the other side of the city where my class is. I need to find a decent secondhand raincoat. I doubt my tent is waterproof, which worries me because I´m camping in the mountains for the next 2 weeks. Luckily there are many other tents I can crawl into. I feel off today. Like I couldn´t settle down last night, even boring podcasts couldn´t put me to sleep for the longest time. I can´t remember my dream, but they´ve been kind of disturbing lately. Like I wake up and I tell myself to forget them because they are unsettling. And I feel sick but have to put together a presentation by tomorrow, and memorize 50 plant and animal names in spanish. But at least our final exam is going to be eating empanadas and singing spanish songs. I just learned a lullaby about how if you don´t fall asleep little baby then the white devil will come eat your legs off.

geekin out

I am totally enamored with my new ipod and find new uses for it every day like incredible podcasts for music, story telling and spanish learnin, free apps, like seafood watch and lunar calendars. Plus I can call home on it. I can listen directly to soundcloud or watch movies on it too. Its like this little pocketsize computer. Alright, enough, but I´ve just never had new electronics before. I was the last person ever to get a mobile phone and all my ipods were used. So anyways, my birthday party on Friday was incredibly fun. I came home from the coffee shop at around 8 after doing a bunch of homework and found everyone grilling food outside. There was wine tasting and mimosas, and a huge dinner accompanied by indian music videos. They gave me a pink tanktop that says i heart brc, which means bariloche, but also stands for black rock city. Its been so sunny and beautiful this past week. Last weekend I went hiking with some friends and camped by a river. That night was the best sleep I´ve had in a while. In the morning I just didn´t want to get up because the sound of the river was so soothing, but the sun started beating down on the tent and I had this dream that I was trying to undress to take a bath but every time I pulled off my shirt there was another one under it. I called Lindsey for help and she brought some scissors and started cutting my clothes off, but there kept just being more and more layers underneath and started freaking out because I was so hot and trapped. I finally woke up and jumped out of my sleeping bag. I made some incredible pesto the other day with Terra. We went on a walk and found a cheese shop accross from a pasta shop, and got inspired for some italiano food. So excited that I got my ticket! Now I just need to get a ticket to Prague. I´ll be gone for a little over 2 weeks, wish it could be longer, but I´ll probably be so broke by then and that euro is stronger than the dollar so that´ll suck. I can´t imagine how I´m going to go back to speaking Italian. I can just see myself trying to communicate in broken spanish and getting nowhere. But I really don´t care because I´m so excited to go back there! And I get to see baby Micah! I was just looking at some pictures of him and his cute little cheeks and I just really wanted to hang out with him. So happy that I will be able to.

obsessions

Alright, last night I dreamt about feathers a third time! When I was little I used to dream I´d be walking along finding odd coins and the further I walked the more I would find. Well its like that but now its feathers, and I want to cry when I wake up because I don´t have them anymore. This weekend Amy traded me the most incredible owl feather she found for one of my belts. For now its being kept on the makeshift alter in our room. Damn, its so pretty...

gracias

tengo hambre!!!

Killin time while I wait for the kitchen to open. I`m back in Bariloche for two weeks learning Spanish. Found the best coffee shop with cafe irlandes for only 8 pesos so I`m making good headway on homework. Kitchen is open, bye! False alarm, five more minutes. Sooo hungry! So, dale, my bus ride here was a mess. Some guy almost hit me because I didn`t want to give him money, but then he stopped himself and only kicked a plastic bag in my direction. But at least I had the Last Days that Lindsey sent me and my new ipod complete with savage love, so I was pretty content. We were stuck in traffic for hours because of a car race. People lined the highway for miles to catch a glimpse of the race cars on the way to the race, and these cars just so happened to be surrounding our bus, so we crept along as people ran infront of the bus to take their picture with the cars and the drivers. When I finally got here I went straight to mamuschkas for some paco, I mean chocolate. Kitchen open for reals.

condor de los andes

So I never really got around to writing about Bariloche and I have some time to kill so here it is. We stayed at the coziest hostel with a view of the water. I could watch the sunset from my bunk. The town is beautiful, surrounded by mountains and full of chocolate shops. There is a mexican restaurant that is actually good which is totally amazing! Our class went white water rafting and we took on some level 4 rapids, but had a guide always shouting orders, kind of like a drill sergeant, which totally killed most of the excitement. I would so love to take that river on with a two person raft and my dad. We went on a couple of plant walks, one with a local university student and the other with a doctor who studies the medicinal uses of plants. We had some days off which were spent doing equal parts homework and mischief. Okay, maybe a little more mischief, I snuck to the top of a church bell tower. But I also spent a lot of time at outdoor stores and preparing food for the 6 day hike. The first day of the hike were totally what I was expected, a beautiful walk through the forest on a clear path, then camping by a river. Day two we cleared the timber line. Day three was absolute maddness. We climbed straight up snow and then rocks. Having a heavy pack throws off your balance so much. I learned how to rockclimb! But I had to be rescued once. Then we slid down skree on the other side of the mountain, every step sending you down an extra meter and causing mini avalanches. Day four there was snow, 90 mph winds and we had to summit another mountain. We had to kick step up the snow (we didn´t have any kind of equipment other then bamboo walking sticks) and drop down whenever the wind gusts hit or be totally knocked over. Felt so good to make it to camp. The last two days were back in the forest, the only big excitments being some river forging. We got back to Bariloche and pizza and beer were in order. Then we took a bus to Chile, through a snowy mountain pass. The bus was sliding off the curvy steep road and the driver was busy counting money and drinking mate. We had one of the best class dinners ever, full of live music and pitchers of beer and ordering mishaps involving tripe soup. I really love Chile, and can´t wait to spend a month there looking at tide pools. Alright, I´m kicking myself off the computer. LOVE!