Destiny Unbound

Welp, I celebrated our independence with a whole lot of phriends at Watkins Glen, NY. USA! USA! USA!!!

Photo #4 and 6 courtesy of G. Lucas. Photo #5 courtesy of Phish!

Tall Buildings

Welp, it has been three weeks since i have left South America, and man, it has been a busy three weeks! I am still living out of a backpack (which is a-okay with me) and feel like my life has yet to slow down! Maybe it's just all this fast paced, on the go all the time city living - who knows?

Since my return I have traveled to Pittsburgh and Ohio, visited family, did a bit of packing, did a bit of moving and shaking, returned to Atlanta, did some unpacking, and started a new job. All in two weeks! While i was initially worried about the reassimilation process - understanding street signs, menus, what people are saying, driving in crazy traffic, and dealing with the hot hot heat. - i think i've been staying too busy to really worry about any of it. Life is just as crazy now as it was five months ago living in a 2br 1 ba house with seven strangers, albeit a little busier.

Gone are my South American days of living life all foot loose and fancy free. I used to wake up at whatever hour suited me, sans alarm clock, and ask myself, "self, what will you do today? Go fishing? Explore artisan ice cream shops? Read another book or maybe just go sit in the park and try not to get lost? Is that enough to feel accomplished and feel like you've made the most of the day? Sure it is! You're in South America!" To live the easy life... it was good.

Now, my days are are a bit more structured: wake up at 6:18, hop in the car and drive to begin work at 7:30, sit in a cube behind a computer pushing buttons and clicking the mouse in the hopes that i will not destroy or crash the database, hop back in my car and do battle with traffic, and then go hang out with my family for the rest of the night! Wash. Rinse. And repeat. It's not exactly adventuring across the Patagonian wilderness, but its not exactly terrible either. Living the city life and surviving my cube life is definitely a challenge, but it is an interesting change of pace and very nice to be with my family.

Language Less of the Day: Someday my darling when i am a man, and others have taught me the best that they can - they will sell me a suit, cut off my hair, and send me to work in tall buildings. So it's goodbye to the sunshine and goodbye to to the dew. Goodbye to the flowers and goodbye to the sky so blue . I'm off to the subway - I must not be late! I'm going to work in tall buildings. Say it with me now! Algún día mi amor cuando yo soy un hombre, y otros me han enseñado lo mejor que se pueden - me venderán un traje, me cortarán mi pelo, y me enviarán a trabajar en racacielos. Así que es adiós a la luz del sol y adiós a la condensación. Adiós a las flores y adiós al cielo tan azul. Me voy al metro - No debo llegar tarde! Voy a trabajar en racacielos.

Everything Merges with the Night

Welp, i finally visited Valparaiso - the vale of paradise! Staying much more true to it's name than my hometown in IN, Valparaiso is a very beautiful and colorful city. Houses cling to hillsides and steep, narrow streets create a maze of pathways through town. Very cool, indeed.

Living for the City

Welp, i am spending my last 4 days in Chile doing the city thing. I just finished a 12 hour bus ride and arrived in Vina Del Mar. I will check out the ocean and explore the city today, experience the night life later, and visit Valparaiso tomorrow.

Also worth noting, i made my first phone call in almost 7 months today! From a pay phone, taboot taboot! How strange, but enjoyable, it has been to live phone free in the age of cellulars. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Spanish Lesson of the Day: Living in the larger cities, impulse thinking keeps you busy! Say it with me now! Vivir en las ciudades más grandes, pensando impulso que mantiene ocupado!

The Fishing Blues

Welp, i went fishing today on the Rio Trancura. Lots of risers, but it was a really tight river with lots of brush along the banks. I had a hard time casting and didn't catch a damned thing. It was kind of frustrating, but good time nonetheless.

Language Lesson of the Day: A day spent fishing is kind of like pizza or sex. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good! Say it with me now! Un dia de pescand es como pizza o sexo. iCuando es malo, es mejor aún!

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Welp, am i wrong to believe that The Complete Calvin & Hobbes is a book that can stand beside The Republic in terms of philosophic theory and political influence? Maybe so, maybe not.

Language Lesson of the Day: I have left Argentina and am in Osorno, Chile waiting for my bus to Pucon. In ten days i will return to North America. What a pretty afternoon. Say it with me now! He salido Argentina y estoy en Osorno, Chile esperando por mi bus a Pucon. Voy a volver a Norte America in diez dias. Que un tarde bonita.

I Wana Be Your Dog

Welp, I spent my last day in Barlioche walking around the city center and making friends. Say hello to Duke and his pup.

Slow Ride

Welp, i went on a bike ride today. 58 km or so. Barlioche is truly a beautiful city. I like it very much.

In My Own Dreams

Welp, for the past week or so i have kept myself busy kicking around el Chalten hiking in the woods and climbing high on mountains. Not too bad a way to waste a little time. Probably the best part of the trip was being able to experience fall in the mountains. The air was crisp, the wind calm, and the trees were transitioning to all sorts of shades or red, orange, and yellow.

Now, after two twelve hour bus rides i am in El Bolson! I don't really know much about el Bolson other than it's really pretty and pleasantly warm. Apparently there are very nice farmer and artisan markets on the weekend. Also, i have been told i can go volunteer to work at a farm if i want to kill some time and a free place to stay... Might be time to get my hands dirty!

Halley's Comet

Welp, i'm in Argentina! I have to say that after five and a half months in Punta Arenas, it really is a breath of fresh air. The streets are cleaner, the people are easier to understand, the food is better, and everything is cheaper. Additionally, i can see mountains from town! Not saying i did not enjoy by time in Chile, because Chile was amazing. Especially Parque Torres del Paine and Peninsula Brunswick. But this is what i imagined Patagonia to be like.

Today i took a bus to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, home to the Glacier Perito Moreno, Cerro Fitzroy, and Cerro Torre. I spent five hours in awe gawking at the ridiculously large glacier. It is one of the few glaciers still "gaining" and is the world's third largest fresh water reserve. AWESOME! Soon i will walk and sleep among the famous mountains.

While i have only spent one day in the park, i am almost certain it will become one of my favorite places i have visited in my travels. It certainly is not least accessible, least visited, or least secluded, but it is easily one of the most stunning. I intend to spend close to two weeks hiking all that it has to offer starting tomorrow. Go figure that one of my favorite places i have visited in South America shares the same name as one of my favorite places in North America.

What is the central theme to this everlasting spoof, i wonder? Sparsely populated, glaciated national parks? Maybe... but probably not. I think it's just walking around in the mountains. I recently wrote to my father about my love for mountainous locations. I told him i didn't know what it was exactly. I told him that it´s hard to describe, but there is certainly something. There's something that makes me feel right and keeps forcing me back. After i left MT, i thought it was simply a love of gravity and speed and playing outside. But now that i have spent time living away from mountains in Wexford and Punta Arenas i have learned that it goes far beyond that. More than anything, i believe it comes down to a feeling of rebirth, a renewal of spirit, and a coalescence of scattered energy and thoughts in me. Thoreau put it more succinctly when he described it as living deliberately.

I will come back to this in future posts. Now i will leave you with photos. Enjoy!

Down With Disease

Welp, I leave Punta Arenas to head for more northern latitudes today. Working and living abroad has been an experience i will never forget. It's too soon to say what i have taken from my time down here or how it has changed me, only time will tell, i do not regret taking the adventure. It has been hard being away from my family for so long, but such are the pitfalls of traveling. Needless to say, i am excited to begin my month long journey home today.

Also worth noting, i am throwing out my boots after five (maybe six?) years of solid use. You've been good, boots - but you just aren't keeping my feet dry or providing me the support i need anymore. We had a good ride, but nothing lasts forever.

35 days until i am back in the U.S.A. Here's to making the most of my time!

Language Lesson of the Day: This has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way. Say it with me now! Todo esto ha sido maravilloso, pero ahora me estoy saliendo.

Fish On

Welp, after five months in Patagonia i finally managed to get out to a river and get my hook wet! This past weekend i hopped on a bus with my friend French Will to the Rio Penitente. While the Rio Penitente is advertised as a premier fly fishing destination near Punta Arenas, it proved to be very popular with the locals but lacking in fish! Over the two days spent on the crystal clear waters i saw one good sized brown trout and hooked another that measured about six inches in length. Given that this is a fish tale, i'm probably being generous with that estimation. To add some insult to injury, i couldn't even land the little guy! The bit of shore i was pulling him onto was very shallow, and with all my care and caution he spit the hook out before i could get a picture. So it goes. Just another fish tale really.

As mentioned earlier, what the river was lacking in fish it made up for in people! And i'm not talking crowded by MT standards here, but i honestly saw 20+ Chilenos wading it's banks over about 5k of stream! What was even more surprising was the number of fisherman i saw spin casting. Over the two days i spent fishing I only saw one other person fishing with flies. I believe the low numbers of fly fisherman can be attributed to Patagonia being super windy. It was damn hard putting my fly where i wanted on the water. On the plus side, this was the first time in my life i was able to throw out 20 yard casts with ease. Go figure there was nothing in the river to bite.

One of the plus sides of fishing a crowded river is that we had ample opportunity to talk with the locals! Aside from "Buenas, que tal?" our main question was "donde estan todos los peces ocultando?" or "where are all the fish hiding?" Most of the Chilenos would just smile and shrug and make a joke of our crazy gringo questions. Fortunately, one Chileno took our question seriously and took the time to explain that this past winter was too cold for the fish or something. I only understood every other word he said, but I always thought cold weather was good for cold water fisheries. Chalk it up to being lost in translation i guess...

Green Acres

Welp, i hopped on a bus and got out of town this Saturday! I didn't really know what i was in for when i purchased my ticket, but the price was right and anytime spent outside of Punta Arenas is a good time indeed! Turns out i bought a ticket for an ecotour on the Isla Riesco about two hours NW of town.

What's an ecotour you ask? Well mine involved a bus ride to a working estancia (spanish for ranch or farm!) outside of town, lectures about the local flora and fauna, a guided tour of the trees on the ranch, a demonstration on how to sheer wool, as well as a sack lunch picnic on the ranch. Probably the coolest part of the whole experience was that this was not a very touristy trip to make. The entire tour was presented in Spanish and i was one of only three gringos on the entire bus! While it may not have been the most exciting way to spend a Saturday, it was a great way to get out of town and to really soak up some local culture.

Also worth nothing, owning a farm has been bumped up much higher on my things-to-do-in-life list. I'm not really interested in own animals, so maybe i should say i want to own and work a decently large garden and orchard.

Gotta Travel On

Welp, it's been a while since i've written a meaningful blog entry. And it's actually going to probably be a little while longer before i write another, because there just isn't that much going on right now. The race is over and we're tying together loose ends at the office getting everything cleaned up and taken care of. I feel very fortunate to have been able to provide cartographic solutions and work the race, but five months in Punta Arenas is getting to be a bit old. I am ready to start traveling north and preparing for my return to the U.S.

My tentative travel plans for my remaining time in South America are as follows: two and a half more weeks in Punta Areans -> Bus to Puerto Natales for the night -> Bus to Calafate, Argentina to see Perito Moreno Glacier and spend the night -> Bus to El Chalten (the trekking capital of Argentina!) for a week or two to hike everything there is to hike and celebrate their annual trekking festival -> bus to Pucon, Chile to visit my host family from this past October and kick around some -> Bus to Santiago to visit Vina Del Mar, Valparaiso, and wait to fly back to the U.S. April 18th -> See my Sister, Mom, and Charlotte Grace!

Language Lesson of the Day: That silly wind will soon begin and I'll be on my way going home to stay, going home to stay. That silly wind will soon begin and I'll be on my way, and I feel like I just want to travel on. Done laid around, done stayed around this old town too long and it seems like I've got to travel on. Say it with me now! Ese viento tonto pronto comenzará y voy a viajar. Volviendo a casa para quedarse, volviendo a casa para quedarse. Ese viento tonto pronto comenzará y voy a viajar, y yo siento que sólo quieren viajar. He dormido y he estado en esta antigua ciudad para demasiado tiempo y parece tengo que viajar.

Remember the Mountain Bed

Welp, i found Stjepan's pictures from the second leg of the route exploration. Here are a few i thought were worth sharing. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: This is a photo heavy post! I figured one photo for each day should do it...

The Update

Welp, i've been back in Punta Arenas for a while now and the race is officially coming to a close. Team Adidas Terrex was the first team to finish the abbreviated race course (shortened due to extreme weather! and in my opinion extreme gnarliness, but shhh! you did not hear that from me...) for the three peat. Congrats guys.

I will say this regarding the race; It was even more crazy than i ever imagined it could be. That's saying something.

I ended up only working check point 5 because my health did not recover as quickly as i reported it did and my sickness was lingering. It may have had something to do with the nine hours of sleep i got for a total of three days, but so it goes. All in the name of the race, right? I am happy to report i only have a sniffly nose now and my fever has been gone for almost four days now. Here are a few pictures from my "office" at cp5. I felt incredibly fortunate to experience two consecutive days of sunshine while out on the course. That is practically unheard of...

The Goin' Gets Tough from the Getgo

Welp sports fans, with the start of the race a mere day away, i can finally share with you the maps Lee and i have been working on for the past several months! Each team of racers receives a pack of 17 maps featureing an index map overviewing the race route in its entirety, and 16 large scale maps used for navigational purposes.

This years race format will be as follows: Bike 60km -> Kayak 47km -> Hike 73km -> Kayak 58km -> Hike 191 km -> Bike 188km for a grand total of 617 km!

This is the index map detailing the race route in its entirety. It features the start, the finish, everything in between including mandatory race check points, transitions between race disciplines, and then some! The scale is 1:750,000 and the map is projected in UTM zone 19.


And so as not to make this redundant i will share maps featuring the check points i will be responsible for guiding camera crews around - check point 5 and 10. The maps are a 1:50,000 scale with 20 meter contour intervals derived from NASA SRTM imagery.

A unique problem we faced in creating the orienteering maps was keeping the meridians running perfectly north south, and keeping the parallels perpendicular to those, all the while minimizing perceived distortion in the landscape. To do this, Lee and I created custom map projections for each of the large scale maps.


Worth noting: I feel super fortunate to be working around check points 5 and 10 as they are , in my opinion, two of the most scenic check points in the race. Check point 5, named Paso Profundo or the Deep Pass, sits high above a beautiful valley surrounded by waterfalls and mountains with some pretty severe relief. Check point 10, named Mirador Fiorodos or View point of the Fjords, situated high above a beautiful, glacially sculpted valley lends itself to an amazing vista of Estero Obstrucion, Ensenada Rodgriguez, Estero Excelsior, and numerous glacial lakes. And that´s pretty much that. Feels good to be done, feels better to be heading out into the field again! Have a great week everyone!