Gato de pelo

Fine cat hair sticks to every inch of my clothing, sneaks its way into my food, and is a constant visual companion in my grandmothers home in Kent, Washington. Her three half siamese cats and my grandmother are my new companions as I work out my spring quarter school plans. My spring independent project is Tree Canopy Research and Climbing. I will be reading two books, writing papers and taking three tree climbing courses. The first one is April 10th to the 16th in Atlanta, Georgia. I will be taught how to safely access and climb trees with the founder Peter Jenkins, of the first recreational tree climbing organization in the US.

http://treeclimbing.com/

After this week course I will be able to acess the tree canopies on my own. For safety reasons I will practice with my re-acquainted friend John who is a certified arborist for the city of Kent. It has been 11 years, along time since our days punching each other on the bus. Besides this exciting transition I will be adding a new member to the family, her name is Smurfett and she's a blue 2003 Honda Element. Perfect for my adventures into the wilderness with plenty of room for gear and AWD for nasty roads. It's time to go read my Forest Canopies book and roll around in some cat hair. I hope everyone is having a nice transition into spring. I'm finally accepting that it will be spring, for a while since I've been back I keep thinking it is going to be fall. This year will be my third summer.

The Juggling is Better

Remember the VERY first post I wrote here? It was about my pasayo, a clown, that followed me around collecting new spanish words and putting them in mate gourds. Then he would try to juggle them and clumsily spill the words out everywhere so at night I had random spanish words racing through my head.

Six months later and I thought of this as I tried to go to bed. Instead of spanish words interruting me during sleep, this time it was preventing me from sleeping. Estoy cansado pero quiero ir a dormir. Si tengo muchas cosas en mis mochillas.... I am tired but I want to go to sleep. Yes I have a lot of things in my bags. And on and on it went. I realize now the pasayo got better at juggling but when I get home to the states he will probably drop a few gourds.

I´m headed on the plane tonight to finally go home. I´m exausted, I´m ready to relax. I will miss Argentina but know I will be back to climb some mountains and confuse the pasayo once again. See you all soon!

Series of Fortunate Events

I admit, tears came to my eyes as I stared out of the bus window at the landscape before me. The tall snowy peaks of Mt. Torre and Mt. Fitz Roy were in the clouds but the scenery below it was just as magnificent. I felt a tightening in my chest and new, at that moment, I had been searching all these years for something unexplainable, and here it was right before me. Time to back up a little, my grandmother and I were on our way to Parque Nacional Monte Leon just a few days ago. This area is a reserved piece of land in the middle of nowhere along the Atlantic coast. We were truding up the hill out of Puerto Santa Cruz when the rental started sputtering and clanging. I pulled over and the car completely died. Great. Maybe we smacked one to many rocks on the bottom of the car while driving across the rocky road from El Calafate. We got some help getting it to a mechanic and the people that kindly helped us called for an english translator. And this was where we first met James Louise. ¡Dios mio! He took us to his home, fed us tea and biscuits and called the Hertz car company for us. Simply put, we would have never met James if our car hadn´t broken down. He is the curator of the museum in Puerto Santa Cruz, english teacher, and musician. He owns two pieces of land in Argentina, one of them being north of El Chalten called El Condor. He actually drove us over 200km to the intersection to El Calafate and El Chalten but no gas stations had gas so he had to leave from there while we caught a bus. The locutorio is expensive here! Time to go explore the area and dream of the day when I will get to come back and ride horses through the fresh breeze and trek along the icefield behind Mt. Fitz Roy. Chau

I stood contently in the middle amongst chattering friends, watching the smiling faces, gentle pats on the back, abrazos y besos. Erik stood nearby tending to the asado meat choices of cow, pork, and chicken flaming over the hot coals. Some sat at the large table while others mingled around the balcony porch underneath the starless sky of the polluted city. ¨Smear some pork fat on dem lips,¨ Benjamine commented to baby Luca, with his gummy toothless grin (thats the baby, not BenG, although I could picture him so with a comment like that). Mama Ashley held him gently then passed him off to other members of his new extended family. Musical flute tunes by Morgan flowed around the bodies and intertwined with the pulses of the city street life.

I wrote this last week at about 5am when I couldn´t get any sleep. I had just gotten over a flu and had three presentations to prepare for, then had to plan my granmothers arrival. I got to bed around 7am that day, got up at about 9 am. I probably wasn´t too productful, found myself crying randomly when nothing was going right. But in the end all went well. All presentations were the best they could be, considering the circumstances. I got all of my upper division credit so I might as well go for a Bachelors of Science with a minor in Spanish, si?

Now Im in the over priced town called Calafate named after a spikey shrub. Calafate, a word I use to curse with after countless hours of it piercing my legs in the backcountry. The cold winds are so strong here I wouldnt be surprised if one day this town rolls over into the large Lago Argentino. The beautiful milky blue lake is fed by the famous Perito Moreno Glacier. Today mi abuela y yo took the rental car to a remote area of the park for lunch and a walk. Later we visited the glacier and watched as this fast moving glacier, two meters a day, threw large chunks of ice out into the lake.

Tomorrow we are driving to the Atlantic Ocean, Parque Nacional Monte León and staying at an estancia. From there we will be exploring some caves and visiting Patagonias residents, magellanic penguins, sea lions, and sea birds. After this we are driving back inland north of Calafate to El Chalten. If the weather is nice we will get to see Mt. Fitzroy and Mt. Torre. THEN, back to Calafate, Buenos Aires...and home! Que bueno, estoy listo.