Firsts (and some new unedited poetry)

Soundtrack

The Weird Sisters
Lhasa
Bob Dylan... still
Coldplay
Pink Floyd

I arrived in Chile Chico after what I thought was a tu7multuous ferry ride 2 1/2 hours accross Gereal Carrera. In the open part 5 or 6 foot waves threw spray around, enough that water dripped in the van door! Jarek and I bought groceries, petrol, tried to phone a guy who was said to have gone down the river Jeinimeni but couldn´t locate him...
Maria at tha ample hospedaje mad us a big lunch and we chatted and relaxed for an hour or so. Then we started surveying. at 4:30 we left the Land cruiser and after scrambling up and down impossibly steep sandy pampa and negotiating nearcliffs and rocky riverbed we arrived back at the vehicle at 9pm in the dark, with one headlamp and a gps to guide us.
Next day I wait while Jarek sorts out his life, all his stuff. He essentially travels with everything he owns in his vehicle - paragliding, pacrafting trekking... for months. So at 1pm we finally get going and after parking the vehicle and having a quick lunch we continue surveying. For 7 hours we survey and at the end we have surveyed 20 km in total. We walk back to the vehicle but the last 3 km we hitch a ride in an estancia owners truck. Red and green cliffs drop down to the river far below, cleaving the dry pampa in two, Argentina on one side and Chile on the other. River below, with bizarre cliffs of mud and almost-sedimentary rock and to the left mars-like protrusions of red rock from the eery green pasture. And above, shadowy lenticular clouds sit like looming pacific tornados. And the wind is howling.
At times, as we slid down impossibly steep sandy banks I was reminded of my childhood at our grandparents cottage when Maura Stephan Monica and I would slide down the sandy banks off the dirt road from the cottage - they seemed so big then and it didn´t matter that we got so dirty.
We camped by the river and the next day set out at 11:30 to finish surveying, as the rest of the river runs right along the road, within one kilometer. This part we surveyed much more easily and by 5pm we reached Lago Jeinimeni in the park, among the red and green and rusty mountains. The road into the park would be absolutely impossible without a massive 4*4 vehicle - we cross rivers and its like a mountain not a road.
I had never been in a packraft so we ran the first 4-5 km of the river that evening to get me used to the feeling - the level was very low so we were hitting our asses on rocks alot especially so high up the river where no rivers have joined yet. As we sat by the fire drying our stuff two trucks pulled up full of American and Argentine fisherman. They turned out to be suuper nice and they ended up shuttling us back after day two. They found us on the dark road under the patagonian moon on the dark pampa, wet and tired after 8 hours of paddling down half the river. We bumbed our way down between the cliffs and scooted through canyons. As we passed more and more confluences, the water got bigger and bigger - more fun less bumping asses. After this day, I had sunstroke, a sore shoulder and was beat tired. We listened to Bob Dylan (at my request) in the truck with Taylor and Pedro under the dark sky on a black road winding through the immense pampa. There may have been one moment where we were all secretly singing "...and how does it feel to be onyour own..."
We ate in silence under the shadow of the dark mountains and we went to bed. The next day, after lots of laughter and some warm goodbyes we left, hitting the water where we had taken out the day before, at the late hour of2pm. A little 13 year old boy from the estancia where we parked the vehicle came down to watch us wet up and set out. Long day. Bigger water. Not as bumpy because of the bigger volume but sometimes a bit scary. I) had some close calls, got pinned on some boulders and filled with water but never flipped. Even at one point got pinned, filled with water and spun around backwards in some big stuff, but i recovered and got to shore via an eddy and emptied out!
Once the canyon opened up into an ample river valley things were more fun, it was like being at a water park!The last ten km was less turbulent. We reached the bridge just before the river empties into Lago General Carrera and we packed up at dark and hiked the 8km into town, wet, tired, with all our gear! At 200m from the hospedaje two vehicles pulled over... the fisherman!!! bad timing though it would have been better if we didn´t have to walk the 8 km! As we traversed the final 4 km into town invisible dogs barked and growled at us prompting us to pick up sticks and stones for security. One even appeard under the cloud and the pitch black and the one flickering street lamp to bark and menace in person at the queer sight that we were... but we were fine and arrived for a warm shower a huge meal and a comfortable bed!
The next morning I bought lunch and we left the hospedaje to hitch back to the car... who should go by us not 100m from the hostel but the fisherman going to fish for another hour before their return to Coihaique. We jumped in the back of the pickup with three dogs, two coolers and a ton of fishing gear and went halfway, before they decided they didn´t have time to fish and had to drop us. We walked 8km and then got a ride the last three or so to the car, ate and came back.
In the end it was the first time I had ever packrafted! We were the first people, as far as we know, to go down the Jeinimeni from ist source at Lago Jeinimeni all the way to the mouth at General Carrera. 60km of pure class III which is not hard but there were essentially no breaks so it was right tiring! Its not as crazy as it sounds but its probably alot more fun than it sounds! A BLAST!! and lots of great scenery and people as well as some really cold water and some intense surveying!

Yesterday I walked across the Chilean/Argentine border, only getting a ride the last three kilometers to Los Antiguos where I got a bus to Rio Gallegos and from there to Puerto Natales. I have begun the pilgrimage that 150,000 eco-blind tourists do each year. I am in the goretex mecca of south america and I will soon be in one of the most famous national parks in South America, Torres del Paine. Hopefully i can locate the beaten track, and get off it!!!
As I walked in the heat of the pampa I sang Lhasa de Sela´s "La Fronter" (The Border) in my head - a beautful song - look it up on Youtube!!!


Poetry.

A question for the wind
I ask the wind about those white bones
That scatter the sandy ground, and about
The sun that beats the neverending pampa
Till it goes red and green and mars-like;
I ask the wind about this canyon,
That cleaves deep into the green plateau
And about these forgotten sheep, mummified
And parched by the cracking heat and a red sunset
Creeping to the cliffs and falling down the mud;
I ask the wind about the golden grasses,
Sparkling each morning with dew like delicate eyelashes
Until they dry and become mirrors to the sun,
Tufts exploding from the sand and the low thistles;
I ask the wind about the permanent wind
And to all this it howls; it whispers; it coos
And it cries; it even screams sometimes in the rocks
But it never answers me

The Antioasis*

There is nothing out ther:
An endless string of white towers
And a universe of parched tufts of grass
All shades of burnt, where except for fence posts
That run the endless sleepy road, direction does not exist
Under a baby blue, a steel-speckled sky
Oh, and the rusting skulls of sheep
Forgoitten on the plateau unable to hid from the sun,
And the rotting carcasses of cars dead of old age,
A spot on the universe, a spot on this exhausted land.

* * *

When there is nothing everything is garbage
Because everything pollutes nothingness.
There there is a petroleum antioasis in the flat plateau
When lines of poplars and pines like weeds
Are the only break in the rusted corrugated metal
And sloppy red hollow bricks,
When a disorganized mess of rusty oil barrells
And containers mar the incomprehensibly human
Grid on a star gazing pampa and old toothless men
Bored, even of the bottle and burnt from the long sun
Pace 20m sections of stupid perfect sidewalk
Between bricks and garbage and a coke bottle
And when this antioasis is ringed and cordoned
By inhabited enclaves of junk and barbed wire
Where remnants of millions of plastic bags cling to its teeth
And suffocate this place so all you can do is
Watch the shimmering lights move slowly out like ants
To smaller oases on the infinite flat,
When all there is to wait for in the day is
The swirling dust, and a few dollars, you just
Numbly stare at the ass in front of you, even if its not
Beautiful - or a better thing would be to look for a street
At the right moment, that runs east-west
And watch the sunset in colours (the only colours out here)
And the rising paper moon - A real oasis
In the human zoo

*The antioiasis is not counterculture. It is just a metaphor - the worthless pollutes the priceless.

Rio Gallegos

Even with my caffeine vertigo
When I stumble like an uncertain sea
Over the highway bridge, the overpass
With the balance of a drunkard,
Even my wavering legs can see its flat and stretches
As far as the (yes) the I can see,
And the long morning sun casts my shadow forever on the pavement,
I can´t see the end of this Galician waterway
That seems to stretch north to North into
A gamut of dzzying directions that spin the board
Underneath old rolling cars and poplar trees and the fresh crisp sunrise air