Caminante, son tus huellas

el camino, y nada mas;

caminante, no hay camino,

se hace camino al andar.

Al andar se hace camino,

y al volver la vista atras

se ve la senda que nunca

se ha de volver a pisar.

Caminante, no hay camino,

sino estelas en el mar.

- Antonio Machada 

Translation:

Wanderer, your footsteps are 

the road, and nothing more;

wanderer, there is no road,

the road is made by walking. 

By walking one makes the road,

and upon glancing behind 

one sees the path

that never will be trod again.

Wanderer, there is no road -

Only wakes upon the sea.

Caribbean Paradise

How do I describe my life down here? What words can I use to describe the beauty that surrounds me - the different shades of green, the luminous quality of the Caribbean, the smell of rain in the forest, the feel of the sand under my feet, the taste of coconut rice and beans? I am blessed.

Today I woke up late – around 7am. The birds wake up around 5:30. I allowed myself some sleepy, half-conscious train of thought while still in bed. The forest smelled fresh this morning after a short rain the night before. I decided to take Harley for a walk. Harley is a Brazilian Mastiff with whom I share this property. He is massive. He was excited to get out, but less excited at my interest in identifying every bird I spied on our walk. The diversity of birds that one can see in a tree astounds me. Standing in one location, I saw at least 10 species of birds arrive, socialize, chatter and leave. I tried my best to memorize the details of their coloration, shape and behaviors so that I would later be able to identify them. Due to Harley’s persistence, we continued along the “Mango walk” – named for the impressive mango trees that spill over with mangos when it is the season – up the hill to a clearing with an impressive view of Caribbean coastline. It is an overcast day, there is thunder in the distance, hovering over the ocean, blurring the line where ocean ends and sky begins. We continue along, listening to the birds and looking at the jungle plants that I have yet to become acquainted with. I hear a thump thump of a woodpecker and turn around. At first I see just a hole in a rotting tree trunk and continue on. Thump thump again. I turn around and a little yellow and red head sticks out of the whole, looking a bit guilty. He looks around – up, to the side, down. He has his beak slightly open as if he were panting from all that hard work. I admire the brilliance of the yellow and red on his head. Harley comes up and slobbers on my hand – a signal that we must continue on our way.

Back at the house, I diligently scribble down the Latin names of all the birds I saw on the morning walk and enjoy a bowl of granola, fruit and homemade yogurt as I look out across the ocean. I wonder how the surf is today. Where can I surf? I give Julie a call. Where are you headed? She wants to go to Manzanillo. I tell her I’ll meet her at beach break and we’ll make a plan. Beach break is looking pretty shabby – small and choppy. Julie says, Let’s head to Manzanillo. When its bad every else, Manzanillo is good. So we put the boards on the roof and head off to Manzanillo.

Manzanillo is at the end of the road. Where the road ends, the Gandoca Wildlife Refuge begins. We drive as far as we can, park the car, strip down to bathing suits and barefeet, grab the boards and take off for the 10 minute walk to the surf break, passing through gorgeous jungle forest and spectacular views from rocky outcroppings. The surf break is not a place for beginner’s to paddle out. There is a narrow channel walled by sharp reef on either side. Julie paddles out and I watch for awhile, not sure how confident I am in my ability to navigate this treacherous paddle. There are 4 guys out surfing and they are good. I am intimidated but not willing to completely back down yet. Two guys come into the beach and encourage me to paddle out. One guy shows me exactly where to go and what to do and sends me on my way. I keep looking back for directions and he yells for me to paddle hard. I jump on the board and off I go. I am shaky when I arrive at the break, but elated. I wait patiently for my confidence to build as I become familiar with the wave and how it breaks. I watch closely as others ride it. Once my nerves have settled, I wait for my wave. When it comes, I do what my body knows and paddle hard. I feel the wave behind me and give one last strong paddle – I’m in! I stand up, on the lip of the wave and immediately turn the board to ride along the face, trying to avoid a steep drop. I can’t believe it – what an amazing wave – gorgeous! I pull out just in time, land on the board and off I go, paddling out for the next one. I’m surprised to feel like I know what I am doing. Surfing is like that. One day, you can paddle out and feel like you have no idea what you are doing in the ocean. It washes you around, spits you out, pummels you with its waves. Those days (like the day before) I ask myself – do I really know how to surf? But the next day, you can perform like a champion, surfing as if you had been every day of your life. Your experience in the ocean hasn’t changed but the ocean has, the waves have. In addition, it is a question of self-confidence and faith in your ability to handle a board in the ocean. I guess today was a good day for it.

After a couple of hours in the ocean, 2 really nice waves, 2 short rides that ended less elegantly and a couple of anemone thorns in my big toe, we decided to head back through the jungle to the car, stopping briefly in the freshwater creek to clean the boards off. Back in the house, I made myself a healthy salad with boiled egg and rice and find myself sitting on the deck of the house, staring out at the beautiful expanse of ocean, wondering how I arrived at this point in my life. Trying to trace back the sequence of events that brought me here, to this deck, in the solitude of the jungle, looking out across a great expanse of ocean while the pitter patter of rain and the hum of crickets gently plays background music. Looking forward to what the world will bring next.

Long time a-comin'

Haven't written in awhile. Been lost in the Caribbean jungle down here. I blame the heat. Just added a few links to the site so you can see some of the organizations I work with down here. Here's a picture just to entice some visits to my Caribbean paradise.

Puppy pile

My travel companion

Barley

How can I work things out so that I can adopt this adorable creature???

Food shopping!

Yes, that is toilet paper on top of the car! 648 rolls of it!!

Contentment?

I was looking into an expansive sunset, I could seen a big, round moon rising in my rear-view mirror, the river floated along on my left and the mountains rose to my right. With a smile on my face, river water in my hair, a two-month old puppy on my lap, I drove towards the setting sun in contentment.

The day hadn’t started as wonderfully as it ended…Stephen and I were on food-shopping duty. We had started the morning at Puelche – Argentina’s version of Costco – a huge warehouse, filled from floor to ceiling with bulk food items (The main difference being that Puelche somehow landed a lakefront property with a view of the Patagonian Andes . . . I would have rented a room there if one were available). We had the task of buying enough food for 40 people for 2 months. Yikes! We had a list of all the items and quantities needed and only 6 hours, 5 friendly Argentine employees, 4 credit cards and 12 flat carts later, we had everything we needed. It took two trips to actually move the food away from Puelche with the Nissan truck strategically loaded from floor to roof with bags of rice, pasta, milk powder, etc etc. The 648 rolls of toilet paper and the ten 3-kg bags of cereal were strapped onto the roof rack. The plan was for me to take as much food as possible (and the puppy that was adopted by our guacho-landlord’s son) to our field base, an hour north of Bariloche in the wild, windy steppe. As I chugged along with the loaded-down Nissan out to field base, I expected any minute to look in the rear view mirror and see endless rolls of toilet paper or bags of pasta strewn across the highway. But all was going according to plan (the puppy had even stopped crying and was sound asleep) and I was strangely excited by the challenge of organizing all the boxes, cans and bags of food into 6 distinct piles. But, of course, as always, nothing really follows a pre-determined plan out here . . .

I arrived at our base camp and saw no sign of Juan Carlos (our guacho-landlord) anywhere. From the look of his boarded-up house, it appeared that he had left for awhile or had been gone for awhile. That blew the leaving the puppy idea. No way was I leaving a 2-month old puppy alone, crying, hungry for food and love. I would be haunted by his crying for at least the next year. So, eager to get started on my task and become a food-organizer guru, I walked to the brick in the chicken pen where we always keep the key to the house. I was taken aback when I discovered the key was not in the brick. I looked again, and again… and again. I couldn’t believe it - Shit! The thought of all that time shopping, strategically packing the car and driving only to turn around and head back to Bariloche with the car still filled with food made me feel a bit desperate. So desperate that I started digging around in the chicken-shit dirt, startling the hen with her chicks, hoping that the key had been buried. I looked everywhere for the key, tried to break into the house, looked under the brick again, looked through random collections of trinkets outside Juan Carlos’s house (What the hell does he need a broken plastic Christmas ornament for?) and finally gave up hope of being able to get into the house. I had to think of a different solution.

The attic!

There was a storage space above the house where I could put just enough stuff to leave room for the remaining food (still in Bariloche) that hadn’t fit in the Nissan. I drove the car right next to the house so that the toilet-papered roof rack was aligned with the attic entrance (not really big enough to be a door). Thanks to my climbing experience, I was able to balance between the narrow opening to the attic and the roof rack of the car, passing package after package of toilet paper from roof rack to attic. I alternated between roof rack and attic, tossing boxes, rearranging them, then throwing more boxes from car to roof rack, roof rack to attic. I was hot, sweaty, very dirty and very dehydrated when the inevitable happened – my foot slipped. Luckily I had a hand on the rim of the attic entrance and hung on to the dusty surface with sweaty hands (dust + sweat = mud; mud = very slippery). I had about 2 seconds to get at least one foot on something. My Croc-clad foot found an edge on the door handle which held just long enough to stretch and lower my other leg out to a chair. And 6 seconds after slipping I was astonished to find both feet on the dusty ground, unharmed. I took a break and drank about 1.5 liters of water as I assessed the situation. I had emptied more than half of the truck in my dehydrated delusional state. That was enough. The sun was low in the sky and there was no sign of Juan Carlos – he wasn’t going to show tonight. With only my happily sleeping puppy friend to chat to, I made a plan. We would leave Juan Carlos a note about the key, arrange a few more items in the attic and head for home, making a necessary stop at the river for a quick dip. Puppy seemed to agree.

The Limay River was a big river. Big and cold. It was the river that flowed out of Lake Nahuel Huapi – the lake that bordered Bariloche. I had never swam in the river – the big, bubbling circles on the surface suggested deceptive undercurrents that could offere a surprise for a lone swimmer and I was in no mood for another adventure (well, maybe just a small one? I was an experienced swimmer after all.) On the way home, I spotted a road turning off into some willow trees along the river. I pulled off to the side and followed the road down (Oh, the joys of having a 4WD vehicle!) It opened up to a lovely clearing on the banks of a peaceful, deep swimming hole. No sign of deceptive currents. Puppy was excited by the many chicken bones and smells of strange, intriguing foods around the campfire ring. I changed into my swim suit (one thing I learned in Venezuela – never leave the house without a swim suit!) and dove into the cold waters. Nothing like a quick dip in frigid waters to refresh the mind, body and spirit.

We hopped back into the car and puppy decided my lap was the only suitable place to nestle himself and I decided having him in my lap was less distracting than he screaming. So we drove like that into an expanse of soft oranges and yellows, the river floating by on our left, the mountains on our right and the moon rising behind us. I was content. The feeling of contentment is a bit strange for me – I am usually trying to improve my situation or look for something better, something more adventurous, more exciting, more “me”. But driving through the expansive landscape of eastern Patagonia, refreshed from a swim in a big, wild river, awed by the colors of sky and land and warmed by an adorable puppy nestled in my lap, I felt very content. And this feeling of contentment after a should-have-been frustrating day of food shopping, near misses, lost keys and puppy-sitting? Where would I rather be? What would I rather be doing? Nothing, really. A puppy, a sunset, a river, mountains – is that all I need?

From the base of Chica

Condor Census

It was hot. And dry. I was sweating, but you wouldn’t have known because either the sweat evaporated in the hot sun or was soaked up but the dust that blew onto every exposed piece of skin. It was impossible to keep myself separate from the surrounding dust – it became an integral part of my skin. Even with thick socks and hiking boots, the dust would creep between my toes, under toenails and cake my cracked heels. I applied sunscreen about every 20 minutes but still felt confident that no amount of white lotion, no matter what SPF could compete with the intense rays of sun. Common sense told us to stop walking and sit in the shade, yet we continued trekking in full sun. Sometimes conversation kept our minds off the heat, sometimes we trudged on eagerly looking up every couple of minutes for a glimpse of the light green of the willow – a sign that water was close. Fortunately the valley through which we walked was spectacular. Bits of volcanic rock rose above the brown slopes, forming faces of monkeys, witches, ancient gods or goddesses.

There were three of us in this enchanted valley: myself and two of the volunteers on the expedition, Emily and Rich. The only other visible animal life was the horses that seem omnipresent in the steppe landscape. It is unclear to me whether they are wild, feral or domesticated. But there are horses everywhere – never corralled and rarely accompanied by any hint of human presence. So it was just us three, the horses, the rocks and their mystical formations, the sun, the big blue sky and the expansiveness of the steppe. When we arrived in the valley that houses “Roca Chica” we immediately took off for the river where we were told there was a swimming hole. We wandered down a small path that led us through prickly and spiny bushes, peeking through willow tree branches in search of the famed swimming hole. After contemplating bathing in a small knee-deep pond and finally deciding to continue on, we found ourselves on a piece of volcanic rock overlooking a large pool with a waterfall pouring into it. We stripped down and jumped in, loving how the shockingly cold water took our breath away.

As the day wore on the sun and the rocks seemed to play tricks on us - the rock formations seemed to subtly change as the sun moved: the monkey rock turned its head slightly to the east and the witch rock seemed to lift a hand ever so subtly. We sat looking at one rock in particular – Roca Chica, “Small Rock”. It wasn’t so small. In fact, it was quite an impressive mound of volcanic rock, left exposed after years of erosion. We watched that rock ever so closely, scanning with our binoculars for any signs of Andean condors (Vultur gryphus) that might be resting on one of its many ledges. The most popular ledges were very visible due to the white droppings covering them. Unfortunately, the few condors that passed over Chica decided to continue on to a new location for whatever reason, but we continued scrutinizing the rock, searching for anything that might be a condor. I have never before observed the changes of light on rock as intimately as I did that night or the next morning. Sometimes the light allowed us to see the intricacy of the textured rocks and other times they appeared completely two-dimensional. And these changes seemed to occur within minutes of each other. I would look away for a couple of minutes, turn around again and see a different rock, lit up in a distinct new way.

We found a lovely little spot to camp for the night and settled in, creating our bedrooms, kitchen and making a home for the night. Except for the hour we spent making a simple dinner of rice and veggies, our time was dedicated to watching “Roca Chica” and wondering at the tricks the light was playing on our eyes. About a half hour before the sun disappeared, the whole valley seemed to light up with millions of different colors. There was a patch of white crumbly rock in the distance that seemed to have a ribbon of blue that made a wave through the rock. And the hills that had appeared to be a dull brown earlier in the day were suddenly filled with shades of reds, oranges, browns, greens and yellows. The valley floor was aglow with the yellow flowers of the dominant bush. The band of light green willows that lined the weaving river was suddenly fluorescent and the sky turned a deep, dark blue. Rays of sunlight crept through angulated rock protrusions and cast eerie shadows onto the other side of the valley. We were awe-stuck and enchanted by the display of beauty.

Sunrise the next morning offered a similar display, but we watched with more anticipation, perhaps a bit impatient for the sun’s warmth to take the early morning chill out of our bones. We carefully studied the patches of light and made guesses as to where the sun would rise. As soon as the light hit the top of Chica, a draft of cold seemed to wash over the valley, as if the light on the rock was displacing any warmth left in the valley. Without any sort of rational explanation, patches of light appeared on our side of the valley and it seemed impossible to figure out when the patches would move toward us. The patches of light danced along the pine trees and shrubs until one of the patches of light finally touched our rock. The chill disappeared and we had about a half hour of perfect temperature before we were again reminded of the intensity of the sun’s rays in the open, dry steppe.

After hiking to the base of Chica and collecting condor pellets and feathers, we reluctantly turned our backs on the valley that housing Chica and headed back towards the road. We didn’t see many condors, and none of them shared the valley with us for the night, but the display of beauty was more than enough reward.

Pretty waterfall near the Refugio. True to the name of this website, I wandered somewhat aimlessly until I found this spot and was mesmerized by the churning water, so I stayed for awhile.

El Cajon del Azul

Here is the part of the river for which the "Refugio" was named. In Argentina, when something is "cajonado" it is tighlty squeezed. And the water, as you can see is quite blue, or "azul". This picture was taken from the bridge that spans the meter-wide gap between one side of the river and the other.