The wind

OK, so I'm travelling again. And I feel mixed about it, because I think I've travelled too much. I feel really privileged to be in a position to go on this trip, but I've already been so privileged to go on so many trips in the last few years that I don't really deserve to go overseas again so soon, and to such an extravagant destination as South America for the second time, especially given that most people in the world will never have the opportunity to visit perhaps even one foreign country, and here I am travelling in every spare moment.

So it's hard justifying the extravagance of this trip just by saying "I've got a job next year so I can afford it." I just feel that I'm going over the top now. In my last spare summer before my move to Canberra I've chosen to leave for overseas yet again, for the second Christmas in a row, this time not even for development internships but just for fun. So that's what I've been grappling with.

Asides from that, it's been pretty good.

Started in Buenos Aires, which is one big, loud, polluted, busy city. More on it later, as I'm going back there after I finish Patagonia. I travelled with my friend Amy from uni and her partner Al for the first week, and now they have gone further south to Tierra del Fuego, while I'll return to the north.

I met up with an old friend, Wladimir from SKIP Peru, who now lives in BA, and I reckon I spoke a year's worth of Spanish in a day, which left me exhausted, but I was pleased that I could keep talking. Whether what I said made sense or not, I don't know! Speaking Spanish again has been fun, but I am constantly embarrassing myself in public by using words wrongly, not understanding basic questions, and so on. It'll be worse when I hit Brazil later this month and try my basic Mozambican Portuguese on the Brazilians...

I've been in Patagonia, in the far south of the continent, for the past week or so, and it's been fantastic. This whole region has a mystical feel to it, with endless landscapes, sheep grazing peacefully in windswept meadows in front of snow-capped mountains, where the trees are on 45 degree angles permanently due to the fierce, super fierce, winds. The sun sets at about 10pm, which is a bit hard to grasp; stray dogs wander the streets and bark at passing cars; the locals eat lots of ice cream, in the coldest place I've ever been. The wind is the most noticeable thing here, though. That and the mind boggling scenery. I've gotten to the point where I'm even a bit over snow capped peaks, I've seen so many. Oh, and the parking inspectors. They seem to be on every street corner here in Punta Arenas, Chile. It's insane.

Was originally going to hike for five days in the famous Torres del Paine National Park, then changed it to one day when I decided I wasn't fit enough, it would cost too much, I hurt my knee, and I was generally too lazy. But the one day turned into two hours, when the wind was so fierce that everyone going up the cliff turned back, except for a few brave souls (nutters) who crawled up, despite the gravel being blown in their faces and the risk of being blown right off the cliff.

So, essentially, wind. It's all about wind.