First longer trek...

For me it was my first longer trek, I had done a couple four day adventures, Carolina had done one, but we were planning for ten days, something that was yet unexplored.

I didn't know a lot about what to bring as food, and where to get it cheaply once we arrived in Punta Arenas, a friend of ours suggested that we go to the Zona Franca, which is a tax free zone where everything is remarkably cheap. It was good for the prices, but the selection and variety was lacking. We ended up with a lot of canned meat, spam type stuff, and of course tuna, pasta, instant rice. It was all really heavy, my bag weighed a ton, but food prices within the park are ridiculously expensive.

As far as gear went, we had most of the bigger items, we ended up buying trekking poles, which were a blessing in some parts of the hike, and some smaller items like a first aid kit, a new head lamp, a compass, but now I feel that my gear for hiking is almost complete, though I always seem to be missing something....

Torres del Paine....

I first heard about this place through my grandfather, who gave it his highest level of approval and appreciation by calling it "mind boggling." It was that story that gave Chile a new place on my map. The more I learned about Chile, the more I wanted to go, and at the heart of that urge was a plan to go to the south of Chile, to the far tip of the continent and walk all around the park on the Paine Circuit, a 8-12 day hike that takes you all around the granite, glacier formed mass that gives the park its name.

When I arrived to Chile, plans changed, and I found myself heading north for my first trip, something which I don't regret, but at the time I didn't know if I would complete that goal that I had set out for myself months back from the flatlands of Iowa.

So when I finished the trek just a couple weeks ago, it meant that a major goal had been completed, and with good company as well! (doing a long hike with one good friend, or a complete stranger is one thing, trying to keep manage it with a girlfriend adds a whole other set of issues and complications, as well as joys and advantages..)

I have a fair amount of photos, so I think I'm going to be filling the blog with them over the next couple weeks, Santiago will still be here so no need to talk about it for a while....

Chileans eat watermelon with a spoon....

There are many cultural differences between Chileans and (North) Americans, the most obvious, and biggest, would probably be the language. For the most part, the differences are not huge, people go to work with ties on, the get together for a beer afterwards, many life goals are the same.

The differences that exist are mainly in details, happy hour starts around 8 or 9 pm, breakfast isn't nearly as important as in the US, dinners are served late, so on and so on.

But then there are those differences that make my jaw drop. Last weekend I was with Carolina's family, we ate a bunch of food, the main dish being humitas, which consists of a boiled corn leaf filled with corn mush, they added sugar, I added spicy Piebre, which resembles what in the US we call salsa. Then it came, the watermelon. I was all ready to dig my face into the juicy mess and spit seeds at anyone within range, as always. However when my portion arrived, IT CAME WITH A SPOON! The shock hit me like a truck. I watched as people carved away with their spoons (though all not quite as creatively as in the photo), and was resigned to spitting the seeds only at my plate in a way as not to attract much attention. I thought that the shock of hot dog lasagna would top the culinary cultural differences, but watermelon with a spoon might have topped that one....