Thank You Dad

First of all, I would like to thank my dad for raising me to be tough, not afraid to get dirty, to appreciate the beauties of nature, and to love to work hard to get to them.  He also taught me to nver give up, hold on and keep going because the end will be worth it and the journey rewarding. 

Testimony: It is.

We have spent time in a few new places since I last wrote.

We flew to Ushuaia.  It is the southern most city in the world, on an island off the bottom of Argentina.  It is a quaint small town with about 10 hours of sunlight right now.  We couchsurfed with a nice man named Luis.  He is fluent in spanish, french, english, italina, and portugeuse.  He has traveled all over the world and we had some amazing conversations with him.  He was awesome.

We were able to buy Derek some new hiking boots before heading to Tierra del Fuego National Park.  It is so beautiful.  Imgaine mountains and forrest meeting the coast and some really nice lakes.  So beautiful.  It is the equivalent of October here, so they are in the middle of autumn and all the leaves are changing.  So beautiful.  (We get autumn 2x this year).  We met some really great guys on our hike in Tierra del Fuego, Murry, Philip, and Marco.  We had incredible conversations all day during out hikes.  Meeting them enriched our experience so much.  Honestly the highlight of that trip was meeting and learning and growing from meeting those guys.  They were so great.  However, they were smarter than us and did not try to camp like we did.  Coldest night I have ever spent in my life.  The sun sets at around 6 or 6:30, so by 7:30 we were in bed and asleep by 8.  We froze.   Our feet were like icecubes in the morning.   The sun does not rise until 8ish.  So long time in the tent.  We got out to hacer pee at around 5:30 and it was about 5 degrees outside.  So considering we have 20 degree bags we did pretty well.  We spent some good time rubbing our feet in the morning, Derek put mine on his bare belly to warm them.  He is so great.

Mock engagement pic at Laguna Verde in Tierra del Fuego

Left to right: Marco (Germany), Derek, Me, Murry (Australia), and Philip (Germany).  Awesome guys.

Derek at the end of the world in Tierra del Fuego

After Ushuaia, we took a 15 or 17 hour bus ride to Puerto Natales, Chile to do to Los Torres del Paine.  These mountains are the entire reason I have always wanted to come to the Patagonia.  They are incredible things to behold.  Jagged, magestic, shear, and incredibly shaped rising out of nowhere from nearly sea level.  There are not words to properly describe them. 



It was a 4 day 3 night trek and we pushed 45 + miles, most likely more.  Everything is in km here, so it is a rough estimate.  Needless to say, we are tired.   It was so worth it though.  We had incredible weather for the first 3 days.  On the 3rd night it started to rain, so we hunkered down in the tent until morning.  Again, my sleeping bag proved to be insufficient, it is about 8 years old and has lost a lot of the down in it and is a little long for me so I couldn{t keep my legs and feet warm.  So at around 4 am Derek and I discovered that we both fit in his sleeping bag.  We were like 2 catepilars in a cacoon.  It was so warm and lovely.  And we both slept really well like that.  He is so great, he puts me in his sleeping bag, he always gets the water and washes the jetboil, uses his bandanas to dry the jetboil, lets me blow my nose in his hankies, etc. etc.

We met some really neat people along the way.  Our jetboil made us instant celebreties in the cooking hut. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.  I had to do a cooking show while making our noodles.  (I have learned to like noodles again.  As well as these delightful cookies that are like a thick graham cracker with dried fruit in them, sugar in my tea, and am even using milk, cheese, and yogurt because when you have to eat.  You have to eat.  However, i have been in South America 3 weeks and have not touched meat.)

We are now back in Puerto Natales at our 2nd Couchsurfing experience.  It is a delightful Chilean family.  They help me with my spanish.  They are so great.  Derek is in playing guitar with their son and I doodled for their daughter.  It is fun.  We love it.