Last hiking in Chile

4 day trip up north to Antofagasta and then Socaire. Lots of instant soup and ramen and chocolate. rock climbing and a couple of hikes. The second peaked at 5020 meters/ 16,470 feet. Pretty high. I got altitude sickness at 4350 meters and had to return. We got up at 3am, left camp at 4, and started trekking at 5, about two hours in the dark with only the light of our lanterns and the full moon which didn't set until about 10 or 11am. Everything froze, including my water bottle on my waist. I'm not sure the coldest it got, but at 9am it was -4 celsius (about 25?). The water I tried to wash the plates with froze on the plate... Incredibly beautiful, colors, the pure white of the salt flats and the driest desert in the world. Headache the entire weekend (base camp at 3300 meters). A geologist's dream.

When in a foreign country (and that includes from Alabama to Wyoming as well), always remember to taste the barbecue sauce before applying it.

If everyone looks for the exotic, what do you get when you find it? Yourself. It implies the ocular contortion of watching Friends as something exotic, because it's the exoticism of the object of your exoticism.

What you learn by trying to escape is that it's impossible. Why then do you study abroad?

And in the pairing of those two ideas lies a an immense web of irresolvable painful implications.

Every act of an United Statesian leaving the States for a Latin American country is interpretable as an assertion of hegemony.

If only it were that simple, if I could just blame the US government; if I could just blame us; just blame me.

a transition period. all my foreign friends have left, my two best friends leaving in the last 2 weeks, tami then, felix now, today. My best chilean friend moved to another city last month. Lucky died this week. Last night I dreamed that the pope was brutally assassinated, decapitated.

it's all chilean from here on out. but i now have a group of chilean friends in the U.

taking french classes which are very entertaining. teaching english by copying my french teacher. spontaneous and fun. there was no electricity so we did the lesson by the light of two cell phones.

a question. when was the first time you had a history class that reached the 20th century? they ought to reconsider the chronological priorities of the state curriculum. or is the priority fulfilled already? i find it hard to believe that's an accident.

what if you go back and the past closes itself off like a sphincter after a swallow? and the present swallows you like a minnow whale yesterday becomes never back then and with a goldish tint like a circus night and christmas lights the big ones size C-9 but they don't make them anymore but you might find them in an antique shop but there not more than a curiosity you plug it in and it reminds you reminds you and then you go on like the photo that pricks nostalgia nostalgia but but why look at it because there's nothing you can do. your a minnow in time's river and you don't escape and history pushes you forward and swallows the minnow because the river has no good neighbor policy. should you say that it should be that way? circle fountains and they throw trash in it like disillusioned wishpennies and teredé on the bench with ice. please forgive me, thoughts for myself so i can look back afterwards and feel the past's sepia prick. pastel de jaiva in the central market cocacola tooth aches hot days cold open door nights the bus full of earphones and eyes and you're never chilean unless you're chilean the beep in the metro station beep beep of the plastic cards with money kissing the scanners hello peek hour and you pack in like peas and lastarria the jutting bricked street and tourist venders and the italian man selling real coffee and books the elevator that smells distinctly the little wire sculpture tree and circle stains from water glasses the chair that must be fixed every time sat in or the seat threatens to split the frustrating curtain rod that falls when you open them and light that's not light enough always a water glass from the sink the toilet that goes on strike the gas space heater the shower with intermittent hot water sunday meal with the grandmother the undesired sound of blue metal gate shutting in the middle of the night the keys that are the same so they are tried until they work and the dark when you enter and crash into the bench next to the door the whistling when juan enters the hello when cecilia enters the bike wheel plicking when nicol enters nothing when vivi enters and the disaster when cristian enters and makes toast and forgets them all 6 of them and puts jello in a bowl with yoghurt and sugar on top because he needs to go on crashing and he shows you all the food there is so you don't go hungry and you have to eat before you go out sundays reading the paper but working skype instant coffee and sweetener changed to mate for better the camera never used the jacket stolen the pants too small the fotocopied books ever read but its not illegal and the impossibility of doing everything the effort of making friends and feeling of stupidity in classes why do they know more about the us than i do? the us is disneyland not just a place to go and its for fantasies whats wrong here is right there and thats one day where well get to me and the country is it really like in the movies? new york or miami allende pinera pinochet bachelet spanish freeways and telephones and electricity and copper the south the farm metri and goats the light in the afternoon in the goat field and don eduardo the beard and checho. paul kalkbrenner berlin calling and the sickening clickishness of san joaquin the classrooms too hot too cold.

Hiking Punta Lagunas, Cajón del Maipo

Hiking just outside Santiago last weekend, 3171 meters of altitude. An 80 meter rock wall like a slice of bread, full of fossils; a condor, and the view.

Mostly in Santiago the aftershock is all political conflict. Warning systems and communication failed, the President reported when she shouldn't have and was misinformed by the Armada about their not being a tsunami even though there had already been several. Reluctance to send military aid because of political historical conflicts between the left and the military.... That's the cleanup in Santiago. There are still aftershocks (apparently they'll continue for at least 2 months) and occasional buildings evacuated because they are discovered to be about to fall. The grocery stores are rather empty and people are attempting to resell things to make money. Everyone still talks about nothing else even though everyone is sick of it (and not to sounds callous, it's just that much of the way it is talked about aggravates the conflict instead of supplying aid to those in need).....

Farming in Metri

Life sweet life on the farm in Metri, southern Chile. My goats, squashes, the yellow house for volunteers, my french friends Antoine, Lena, Cami, and Nico, the famous Checho - the man I worked with every day for 8 hours, who has worked their for 20 years but done just about every type of hands on work on the farm, in the sea, with houses you can imagine, with whom I lunched and got to know his amazing children.... Castro and its all alerce wood church on the island of Chiloé. The lagoon and the ocean next to the farm, the water source and bathing pond.