Patagonia Trip Report

Day 1: Meet up with Jeremy in Atlanta, fly to Buenos Aires, go downtown for the day, eat, nap, wander on the streets, goof around. Back to airport, fly to Calafate. Share taxi and dinner with Canadian photographer on 3 month vacation who was assigned to Olympic Games track meet. Beat him in pool after being trash talked (sucka). Share hostel with 4 Israeli military women on leave from service.

Day 2: Rent a car, drive through barren wasteland, see wild sheep, alpacas, ostrich-type-things, pink flamingos and horses. Drive through no-wheres-villa town and see Barney and Spiderman putting on a show for the kids. Highly suspect Spiderman is drunk. Cross the Chilean border, go back and get legal permission from Argentina to do so. Stay in favorite little mountain town, Puerto Natales. Watch the sunset at 10pm.

Day 3: Get a late start, drive the wrong way to El Torres del Paine but get there anyway. Help out four "we had enough money to get here, but not enough money to get home" brothers. Gear up. Hit the trail for four hours. Arrive at overcrowded campground. Show off on the local slack line and pull up bar. Cook some canned raviolis. Bond with bro.

(notice the flying rocks :)

Day 4: Get up before the sun. Sit next to a rushing river. Don't see a puma. Start hiking the accent to the towers. See the sunrise hit the rocks in a majestic manner for 30 seconds and then disappear behind the clouds for the rest of the day. Sit at base of the towers. Talk with a German in old school track shoes and a recent grad from Washington. Throw things, climb things, build things. Stay there for 6 hours. Back to base camp. Clean up, cruise back down the trail in 2.5 hours. Head back to Puerto Natales for the night. Eat the best chicken sandwich on the planet.

Day 5: Drive dirt roads forever. Don't pick up the hitch hiker between borders. Pick up a French hitch hiker at the corner of where-in-the-world-are-we and going-my-way. Share stories until we arrive at Chalten, base town of Jeremy's big climb. Check out the place (all 8 blocks of it), wonder if we are in Argentina or on an adventurists college campus. Hang out with the locals, do big cookout with campers, have meaningful conversation with Canada's #1 college rower who isn't sure if she should continue training since graduating. Snicker as she says to group (but directed at me), "yeah, but you just don't understand the sacrifice of training at that level." Share my story, embarrass her kindly, hopefully inspire her to follow her heart instead of her fears. Day 6: Wake up at 3:30am and walk around thinking its 6am. Change watch mode from "alarm" to "time" and go back to bed. Meet up with friends of Jeremy for a hearty breakfast. Pick a trail, any trail. Hike 4 hours out. See Canadian rower and "hitch hiker between borders" that we didn't pick up. Realize he's her boyfriend. Laugh, but not really and apologize. Cross a river upside down clipped to a rope. Jump across waterfall half way down. Sit near glacier at base of mountain for some hours. Stash Jeremy's gear so it's out there ready for his big climb. Hike/run back to town. Be hungry. Go out for pizza with National Geographic film crew and North Face's climbing team.
Day 7: Wake up early, pick up canadian rower, hitch hiker, and their 3rd wheel friend and take them to Calafate where I will return car and fly out. Talk about hitch hiker's motorcycle journey from canada to southern tip of south america. Awesome. Talk about rower and friend's 6 month wanderings of south america. Awesome. Drop them off and realize Jeremy has my passport in his bag three hours behind me. Not awesome. Realize he's already hit the mountains for the day and is unreachable. Fun part of trip ends. Go to la policia. Get my spanish on, get papers, get clearance, get ride, fly out to Buenos Aires. Stand in line for 1hr at airport. Be told that papers are useless, come back tomorrow with passport and new flight. Sleep on table at airport.
Day 8: 1 hr taxi ride to US Embassy. 3 hours of DMV-ish nightmare. Trade $100 for new passport. Hang out at giant park all day. Run, workout, eat red meat, decide this was a good day after all. Sit under a canopy and watch it downpour. Love it. Taxi back to airport and nervously question sanity of driver. Get laughed at by front desk airport girls and receive boarding pass. Fly out at 11:00pm. Ten hours to Atlanta, four hours to San Diego. Make to practice an hour later and have one of my better long jump practices ever and run 5x200m shake out. Help clean up relational mess of a certain high school athlete. ;) Celebrate being in the U.S. with Burger Lounge. Come home and spend evening with my wonderful wife and reminisce on helping my brother accomplish a lifelong dream of climbing in Patagonia.