30 hours before leaving: sick, feverish
On Tuesday I woke up feeling off and I immediately started panicking. I hadn’t been sick at all ever since summer in Taiwan 2010 so this definitely was the worst timing possible. I felt feverish weak and couldn’t really keep down my food. Even 6 hours before my flight I just wanted to cancel my ticket and lay low in Buenos Aires—but, I trusted in God and something inside of me knew I wouldn’t regret my decision. So I leave my house with my backpack at 2 am to catch my 4 am flight at Jorge Newburry shaky, tenuous yet in a posture of prayer. The next few hours were a blur—I sleep in the café at the airport, on the floor in front of the security gate because it wasn’t open, at the airport terminal then on the actual plane before touching down in El Calafate. Stepping off the plane, I breathed in the chill and splendor of Patagonia and feel rejuvenated. We arrive at our hostel Che lagarto and I am pleasantly surprised by just how well kept the place was for a $9/night place. After a few hours of rest, I wake up and walk around a lake filled with flamingos and just think “God this place is too beautiful to be sick, this is going to be some epic epic trip.”
The next day we saw the Glacier Perito Moreno which makes the glaciers in Alaska look like small peas. I had no idea that there were glaciers that just extended on and on for miles and miles. Here is a picture:
On the trip I also met this cool South Korean student that was just traveling on his own, Jae Hyun. He was hilarious, spoke very little English and zero Spanish but was just going through South America on his own with shorts and sandals (which obviously didn’t work out too well in Patagonia). We chatted and then exchanged facebook and I became one of his 10 facebook friends. I just respected his courage to just travel alone and see the world with the ability to tolerate uncertainty and tolerate miscommunications.
The next day we leave El Calafate for el Chaltén, nicknamed the trekking capital of the world. The place is the quaintest little town with a population of around 400 people. Even though we get there at noon, we want to do a 7 hour hike right away. Still feeling sick and weak, I could not be less enthused but I used the same excuse “it’s too beautiful to be sick.” To my delight, instead of getting sicker, the physical exercise and fresh air rejuvenated me and after 2 hours of hiking I was feeling perfectly fine. The same phenomenon would continue to happen through the trip, every time I went hiking I would become perfectly fine—I’m not sure what it is, the endorphins, the sweat, God’s gift but it was awesome. The first hike brought us to Cerro Torre. Fucken’ breathtaking. I couldn’t believe the place was only 3.5 hours away and that I could still walk back for a hot shower and food.
Agape in the shower
Coming back I just felt an immense closeness to something. I had just been so blessed that I felt guilty for keeping it all in. Taking the hot shower, I realized that I was feeling closeness to God and that I couldn’t keep his blessings for myself. I didn’t want to live a life that just absorbed blessings, but that reflected/multiplied it. I want to build my life on a foundation that is beyond me and my reputation. I want to shift away from competition and towards compassion. The word that had been on my mind in the past few weeks, Agape, suddenly made sense. I remembered a quote I had written down from Coelho's "The Pilgrimage" a few days before-
"Agape is total love that consumes. The love that consumes makes everything else - absolutely everything - lose its importance. It is the love that consumes the person who experience it. Agape is much more than liking. It is a feeling that suffuses, that fills every spaces in us, and turns our aggression to dust."
The next day we went on a hike to Fitz Roy that some nice south Africans suggested to us. When we were about to turn back after 4 hours, Suze really wanted to go to the base of Fitz Roy which would be 1.5 hr scramble to the top. Even though it was cold and windy and at times we were walking in snow 4 feet deep, we eventually made it then saw this:
Torres del Paine
This trip was almost a disaster. We left El Chaltén 7 am to get a ride back to Calafate where we wanted to get a ride to Punta Natales to get to Torres del Paine. We arrive in Calafate at 11 am only to find that theres only one bus a day that goes to Puerto Natales at 8:30 am. Discouraged that we might have to waste two whole days just to get to Torres del paine and two whole days to come back to Calafate, we go to a hostel but eventually decide we would hop onto a guided tour bus that would leave Calafate at 5:30 am and then come back at midnight. But instead of coming back, we would get off the bus and start the W trek!! We quickly went to a grocery store and rental gear store and had one of the most stressful 6 hours of my entire life which led to fairly poor decision making as we later found out(lentils and rice for 4 days straight was a really bad idea).
The next few days were just filled with backpacking in awesome scenery with awesome people. I just want to give a shout out to my gurls—Farrah and B-shaq(Suze), my backpacking troopers and now some of my closest friends. We had plenty of quirky moments but also moments where we probably got to know each other a little too well (eating beans and rice every night while sharing a tent was not the best idea). And we always ended the day with some good beers and “tent talk.”
Every moment of the 40 miles we backpacked was filled with breathtaking lakes, mountain peaks, fields of flowers, etc. Here are some pictures.
All in all, I had some of the best days of my life on this trip but I’m not sad that it’s over; I’m glad I was able to grow and learn more about myself and God. I just feel so lucky to be able have done something that such a small percentage of this world can do. There were definitely moments where I just said out loud, “what did I do to deserve this?” I’ll be sure to come back one day if I ever have a family and make them do some backpacking!
dude, this trip was epic. nice writing- captured the trip well! loved the shout out to us chicas ;) . & def couldn't have done that 12 hour day with out you, though! patagonia forever in our hearts.
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