Home

Back home now 4 days. Srule and Esther proved their undying love by coming to fetch me from JFK at the crack of dawn on what happened to also be Christmas Day. I don't know that I could've handled coming home without knowing they'd be waiting with such open, happy arms and eagerness to see me at the other end. And a coat. Ahh right - in NYC, December is quite cold!!

Being here amidst my things and my life, everything feels both comfortably and scarily familiar. It was fun to walk into my apartment and realize with fresh eyes how cozy and full of pretty non-hostel-like character it is! It was also unexpectedly reassuring to discover how naturally like home my home actually felt. As happy as I was to be traveling all of this time without a thought for the things I'd left behind, it was still pretty nice to see them again. Even NYC with its crazy city buzz has felt welcoming to me somehow - this being perhaps a nice perk of returning during the holiday season..?

The scary part of all this warm familiarity is knowing how easy it will be to pick up exactly where I left off - how quickly that "as if I never left" feeling sets in when you return home. It worries me to think that all the things I saw and did during what seemed like such a luxurious stretch of time before I left in early October, will become just part of a nice story I get to tell (to whoever is willing to listen) in a matter of moments. How can 2 1/2 months of life-changing adventure transmogrify into nothing but a blip?!!

And yet I really hope it doesn't. I really hope that this time, having opened myself up through travel in a way I never had before, I will internalize some of what I've learned, about the endless possibility of beauty and my own capacity for wonder. About remembering how to be wide eyed in the world, and the opportunity this affords to rediscover your sense of self and what you have to give, which is really one of the best things about travel, I find ... how it inspires and excites you to want to be your best self.

Or, as the quote from Kent Nerburn more precisely puts it:

“This is why we need to travel. If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull... The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.”

So I come home with the hope that I can keep pursuing that "edge" even as I settle back into a life of routine full of family and friends and a dog that I love. Oh yes, and work. Routine itself is not inherently evil or bad, I just have to find the one that is right for me. This trip has given me renewed enthusiasm for figuring out what that is, and also some clarity as to what that might be. Knowing too that continuing to travel as much as I can in life will be a big part of it. Hey, this blog may very well become a series!

Till then... I wish everyone a happy, full-of-blessings New Year!

Love,
Karen

B.A. nights

So I am happy to report I've been pretty successfully partaking in the famous (notorious?) Buenos Aires nightlife. The hype about it is ALL TRUE, being here makes partying in NYC seem like a soiree. And partying in pesos is amazing! Everything so miraculously affordable it is laughable, the prices for drinks and steaks and taxis and things all divisable by 3.8. So the ticket for the fancy club you thought cost $30 only really costs about $8.

And we've been to quite a few of them, Crobar, Niceto, Club 69, Museo. Tonight it was drum and bass night at Bahrain. I have cumulatively partied more these past 5 days than I did in my 20s. And while it is gratifying to be making up for lost time with so many nights of consecutive clubbing, it also pleases me to know that soon the madness will be over and I can get a good nights sleep again... guiltfree!

Between the crazy nightlife and this Milhouse hostel experience, being here in Buenos Aires has felt like a time warp. I share a room with 5 others, who are travelling from South Africa, Israel, England and even San Francisco. Coming "home" after a day's strolling and sightseeing, I walk into the hostel bar lounge where people are either playing pool, chatting in small groups, checking email and/or drinking an alcoholic beverage of some sort. Going to my "room" consists of lying on my bottom bunk and probably chatting with whoever else is also there about their day and forthcoming plans for the evening. Everyone is open and engaging and has interesting things to say. I have never had an easier time or so much fun meeting new people.

I will greatly miss this aspect of travelling, the openness of others, the stories they have to tell, the ease with which people seem happy and willing to get to know you.

So yeah Buenos Aires has been pretty amazing. There is obviously loads more about it that's been wonderful, the city so beautiful and interesting to absorb. And I've walked everywhere, to the Recoletta, Palermo, San Telmo ... and eaten gelatos and steak (almost) every day... and been to a few tango milongas ... and shopped and gotten my hair done. Slowly checking most everything off my list...

For my last day tomorrow I hope to make it back to Palermo for some more wandering and also to the Recoleta neighborhood to visit the cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. I will probably at some point also eat another gelato, maybe buy a pretty (and highly affordable) dress. I know snow awaits me back home in NYC so I will generally try to make the most of this last full day of summer in Buenos Aires.

Love,
Karen

Buenos Aires

I am spending my last week in Buenos Aires for the grande finale of all this. Staying at the self professed ¨party¨ hostel, the Milhouse, on main drag Avenida de Mayo where once again I feel the mother hen. But a party hostel seems most appropriate for B.A., where it is gauche to show up for anything before 2 or 3 am and where I am hoping peer pressure will help keep me awake.

Today was my first day and I walked an hour to my first Spanish class - where I am the only student!! - in San Telmo, grinning and occassionally also gasping with happiness along the way. Despite being a large city and home to aprx 13 million people, I feel like I want to absorb as much of B.A. as I can on foot. This city is beautiful. The weather this morning early summer perfect, with every other street offering up some shop or monument worth seeing or coming back to. I had not planned a particular route other than to reach the corner of Defensa and Brasil, but managed to still see Plaza de Mayo, Casa de Gobierno (¨the pink house¨) and Plaza Dorrego, along with a few museums and some pretty churches.

My teacher, Julia, is great and after conversing in Spanish for 2 hours at the cafe, took me on my first (and probably only) city bus ride to Plaza San Martin near the Recoleta. The emphasis of our classes is conversation and since I am the only student, I get to dictate our pace and focus. I am grateful for this freestyle approach, am furiously writing everything down in the hopes of emblazing as many new Spanish words and tenses on my brain as I can before I go home.

I also have such a long list of things I want to do and see and *eat* while I am here, and am grateful to have a full week instead of the originally planned 3 days to enjoy Buenos Aires. These include:

- Parilla at ¨La Vieja Rotisseria¨ and maybe also famous ¨La Cabrera¨
- The markets of San Telmo and Palermo Viejo
- Visit to the cemetary of Recoletta
- Tango lessons and/or show (milonga)
- Wednesday night happy hour at ¨Museo¨
- Day trip to El Tigre
- Dinner and drinks anywhere in Palermo Hollywood (I´ve been told)
- Clubbing B.A.-style (we shall see about this one!)

Helping me along with all this is the strength of the dollar against the peso. All in all, this will not be a terrible way to end my trip.

Love,
Karen

Rain on December 14

Raining in Cordoba ... in true form, I am happy for rain. Also on this particular morning, as we prepare for a long busride to Rosario.

Also on this particular morning, happy birthday to my sister!! Who is off celebrating somewhere with her husband after too much time apart...

I love you Poke. Happy Birthday!

Last 2 Weeks

Down to less than two weeks now remaining, and it feels right to be spending them drinking wine in northern Argentina: Mendoza, Cordoba (where I am tonight), then on to Rosario and finally, Buenos Aires!! This leg - and that´s how I´ve been viewing this trip I guess, divided in ¨legs¨ based on activity, mental state, GDP, etc. - so different from everything else so far, Peru being among the most indigenous and least developed of the South American countries, and Patagonia being Patagonia ie. like being on the moon.

Up here in Northern Argentina where I flew straight from Ushuai last Sunday morning, the vibe is more Europe - with a flavor all its own, enhanced by the early summer sun (yes, it´s beautiful summertime here!), and the personality of the people who do seem distinctly South American and yet remind me too of Israelis in nature (appropriately and funnily enough, there are LOADS of them tonight at the hostel where I´m staying ... and about 15 of them in the kitchen
right now cooking up ¨Shabbat¨ dinner... before hitting the Cordobian nightclubs, as one of them informed me).

I already miss Peru and I miss trekking every day with its clearly defined daily goals. (And I know I will miss, when I come home, the planning every day for something new, looking it up in the guidebook, talking to other travelers to glean what I can about where to go, what to see, the not sitting at my desk. I will miss the Spanish and the South American culture - already I regret all the countries I haven´t seen!!).

But for now, there is the wine, and I plan to drink plenty of it, good and amazingly cheap here in Northern Argentina, before I leave. We´ve certainly taken advantage in Mendoza so far, bringing a bottle home (aka to the hostel) with us every night. We´ve been eating steak too, though I am trying to pace myself a bit with that one, knowing Buenos Aires with its highly recommended restaurants is next.

More to come.

Love,
Karen

Ushuai, Ushuai

How the name rolls nicely off the tongue. As if being at el fin del mundo isn´t romantical enough, the name itself sounds like a dream. Or like something wonderful to eat. Have yet to find out if it has any significance or how exactly Ushuai came to be called Ushuai though I am curious. Either way, I rather unexpectedly fell in love with it, the idea to visit at all more of an afterthought with time left to kill after Torres del Paine before SJ set off.

Maybe it was the penguins we visited first off on a catamaran tour of the Beagle Channel. Undeniably as adorable as you expect them to be, waddling and playful and full of torpedo-like energy diving in and out of the frigid water (we did confirm with Captain Sergio that were we to fall in we´d die of hypothermia within the first 5 minutes - making the lifevests aboard the boat quite pointless we thought). Seeing them was pretty amazing, especially when one seemed to stop below the boat to look up and right at me. I swear he was making eye contact. (I have pictures!)

Or maybe it was the proximity of things. And how short the walk to the Old Prison and Maritime Museum (yes these are one and the same) or the best hot chocolate. Or to the local favorite Irish bar The Dublin which we visited 4 nights in a row, making conversation with really nice and actually engaging people who had just returned from filming a 9 part documentary miniseries in Antartica, or piloting ships around the world, or were just traveling through like us. Despite being a small Patagonian port town, Ushuai also had a distint international buzz that made it seem larger than it was without being intimidating.

And from most every vantage point, you can see the Beagle Channel and the ships docked there and the glaciers that hover on the northern side. So that even if you´re just heading to the supermarket via San Martin street, you´re reminded you´re at the end of the world because that´s what it looks like when you look around. On my last day in Ushuai, I also walked down San Martin street and past the supermarket to go visit Glacier Martial, just 7 km away. I WALKED to a glacier - from downtown!

Our hostel Yakush also helped make Ushuai feel like home. Having by now honed our expertise in hostels, it was hands down the coziest place SJ and I stayed in in Patagonia. We prepared and ate our meals in a large light-filled communal kitchen where everyone talked to one another as they hustled around the stove and drank from their respective really good and highly affordable bottles of Argentian wine. Light filled also during dinnertime because the sun doesn´t begin to set in Ushuai (or the rest of Patagonia for that matter) until around 9 pm.

So Ushuai is now on my growing list of fantasy places to live one day, alongside New Mexico and Paris and Barcelona. Whether or not this ever happens, it was the perfect place to conclude my time in Patagonia, before heading back up north to face the civilization that more closely resembles what I know, with its bustle and traffic and attainable horizons.

W Trek, Torres Del Paine 11/26 - 11/30

Finishing the W trek through Torres Del Paine park in Chile is one of the best things I´ve ever done: a four day trek through the vast and everchanging Patagonian landscape of glaciers and lakes, streams and waterfalls, granite peaks and frozen valleys, and lots of desert scrub; through intense colors and contending emotionally as well as physically at times with wind, snow, rain and sun. It was beautiful and it was tough and when I finished it I was never more tired or more high on so much beauty and the accomplishment of what I´d done (my biggest big deal of a hike so far in life). Below is a day by day replay of the incredible experience we had:

Thursday, 11/26: We´ve spent the whole day busing back from El Chalten so Staci Jon and I are kind of tired and cranky when we finally arrive back in Puerto Natales at 9:30 pm. It is also very cold and windy as we make our way from the bus stop in the growing darkness via the supermercado to stock up on some snacks for the trek. Then over to the Patagonian Adventure Hostel, run by the lovely Marissa and Jorge who´ve helped arrange everything: our bus to the park the next day, reservations at the refugios, the prepared meals we said we wanted. We barely have enough energy to repack our bags for the 4 day trip ahead, send some check-in emails back home and roll into our bunks for sleep. Everyone at the hostel is backpacking too and are either returning from or heading out to TDP the next morning as well. Our ¨big day¨ is finally here. Lying in bed, I am a small bundle of excitement and nerves and fall asleep at last to the sound of the wind blowing loudly outside the window.

Friday, 11/27: The bus picks us up promptly at 7:30 am - fortunately it is ¨door to door¨ service so we are still finishing our toast with butter and jam for breakfast at about 7:25. We arrive at the Laguna Amarga entrance to the park by about 9, at Refugio Las Torres shortly thereafter and are off on our very first trek in TDP by 11. Today is a long day, about 19 km roundtrìp and we are off to see the so called ¨crown jewels¨ of the park, Los Torres: the three gigantic pilars of granite created by glacial forces and towering at 2900 m/ 9400 ft. We are clearly energized and excited about our very first day, but what I don´t anticìpate - even though I´ve tasted and heard plenty of it - is the crazy wind. Going at 70+ kph. A guide on his way down warns about it, tells us it is dangerous and to be careful, and that a woman was knocked down just the other day and broke her arm. When we get to Passiage de Veinte we see what he means. It is a narrow path of a passage across the side of the mountain, where you can easily lose your footing if the wind is determined enough about it. I make it through a few panic attacks, a challenging final 1 hour climb over rocks and boulders, to arrive at last with one final step in front of the Torres. For a perfect view. On what has turned out to be a crystal clear day. We are lucky it seems and what lies before us erases all of the frustration and near tears that came before. It is like a movie set. We don´t stay very long because it is so cold up there too, so we turn soon thereafter to begin our descent back through the Ascencio Valley.

Saturday, 11/28: Today is an easy day. Only a 11k one way stretch along Lake Nordenskjald. The sun is out and at some point it becomes warm enough to wear shorts. We have our full packs with us today but compared to yesterday this feels like a stroll. The wind is kinder too. The views are beautiful, serene and pastoral by Day 1 standards with its scrub and harsh deserty mountains and rocks. We arrive at our next ¨home¨, Refugio Los Cuernos, by 4:30 pm and manage also to score bunkbeds even though we were told they were ¨sold out¨ and we´d need to camp. So our mood are high as we settle in. The evening comes to a pleasant end over a few card games (ie ¨Ässhole¨) with our fellow bunkmates, Alex and Carly, pisco sour(s) prepared by Emiliano, and a nice hot dinner of steak with vegetables and rice.

Sunday, 11/29: We are mentally prepared for Day 3 through the high valley to be our longest day (23k) and we eat appropriately at breakfast: some nice porridge, a bowl of scrambled eggs, toast with lots of butter and jam. The trek consists of a steep trail into and out of Valle Francés into the heart of the Paine Massif via Campamento Italiano (where we get to leave our backpacks hidden in the wood shed!); and a final, relatively easy 2 hour stretch along Lago Skottsberg. Snow flurries see us off and last for most of our visit in the valley itself. It makes for fairly poor visibility but we do get to see a roaring river, three avalanches (!) and the valley´s famous peak formation with fancy names like Mascara, Espada, Hoja, Catedrál... I find myself walking alone for much of the hike along Lago Skottsberg as SJ, Cary and Alex are all at assorted paces up ahead, and at one point too, I see a pair of condors soaring up above. They are beautiful to watch, with their ginormous wing spans and graceful arcs around each other. When we do all finally convene at Refugio Paine Grande, SJ, Carly, Alex and I celebrate our final night with more pisco sours - which I have offically decided taste better here in Chile.

Monday, 11/30: We do a relatively easy 12k today to see Glacier Grey. SJ and I are feeling pretty spent on this, our last day, so it is a bit of an effort to set off - especially after we hit a minor snowstorm about 15 minutes into the trek. We have decided to go only as far as the first mirador vs all the way to Glacier Grey itself and we arrive admidst very strong cold winds. It´s fairly overcast too but we do get some pretty impressive if a bit cloudy and appropriately grey views - all very ethereal, surreal-seeming. We turn back knowing we have offically completed the ¨W¨ of which Glacier Grey trail is the last little arm (per the shape on the trail map). At 6:30, our catamaran sets off across Lago Pehoé to take us to Gaurderia Pudeto for us bus back to Puerto Natales. We arrive tired but hungry and arrange to meet our new posse of trekking friends for a dinner of woodfire pizza, after depositing our backpacks at our respective hostels near the Plaza des Armas. We agree noone can shower before dinner so we all arrive glamorously dirty and smelly and noone cares.

And there you have it. Good to finally get this out, and I´m sorry for the delay. There are so many details not captured here, so many images emblazoned on my brain that I hope I remember forever. Along with the high that being here in Patagonia has inspired in me for the first time, making me fully feel how truly majestic and beautiful life can be and how anything at all that we might want is possible, if only we can imagine it.