I'm in a cafe called Chocolotto to snag some wifi and I ordered a strawberry juice. What is wrong with me.
I'm also in a large port town called Punto Arenas. By large I mean comparatively to the other port towns in Patagonia. It's composed of cafés and backpacking apparel stores and a strange knitting shop, which I'm totally okay with. I think the world needs to have more cafés and backpacking apparel and knitting stores. There's also a rusty shipwreck. I named it Beefheart so that I can be Captain Beefheart (a band you should look up... I actually still need to look them up, so this isn't a formal recommendation... A hipster just told me about them). The rocks on the beach seem like they would roll on your feet like little massages as you walk. But I wouldn't know because my hiking books are practically glued to my feet by now... Those dusty grey things encrusted with mud. But I can't complain because they have saved me on more than one occasion.
We were on the bus station floor eating peanut butter and raw oats twenty four hours prior to starting Torres del Paine. Angeli called it a dinner for Rachets. Alex called it a cookie. I was spooning more peanut butter when Alex proposed we extend our trek from the five day "W" circuit to the nine day "O." Angeli and I looked at each other. "Sure" we both shrugged. Turns out we had a bit of a time miscalculation, which we discovered on the trail, so we had to combine a few days to complete both circuits. Best decision of my life.
I feel healthier by just being in Patagonia. The water is aqua marine and sparkling from minerals and crystel clear when you cup it in your hands. The rangers gave us the clear to drink it unfiltered, so I stuck my face in every stream we passed to come up gasping from the cold and purity trickling down my throat. There is a certain moss that only grows here because it is too fragile to grow anywhere else. Patagonian air is the only air that is pure enough for it to survive. And I can tell you that it flourishes.
While trekking I felt incredibly independent. Of course I'm with two other incredible companions, but we sometimes just walk in solitude with the trees and mountains. It's wonderful to be solitary with someone. To listen to their footsteps. Of course there's the loud moments too, like trees falling and the wind and glaciers cracking. Apparently they closed the O because of weather after we started it. We got super lucky to start it when we did. There are some things I just can't explain with words. This trek was one of them. I think it is all together too beautiful to explain with any human sense. My eyes couldn't even handle the beauty sometimes. And if the fingerprints of God are this beautiful, how much more beautiful is the source of something so pure. Is there a state beyond 100% purity? I can't even fathom it.
I have to cut this short because I got kicked out of Chocolotto. It doesn't get dark here until 10 so I didn't realize the time. I was sitting in the street trying to cling to the last bars of wifi outside the door when a nice man named Oscar started to talk to me. He said he could tell I was from Argentina by my accent. A stray dog came up to me and wanted to cuddle. My heart was melting, so I figured it was time to move to a pub to get an Irish coffee. But now I need to go waterproof spray everything I own before we fly to our next trek tomorrow. So here's some pictures and a goodbye for now.
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