Seemingly Fearless: A Tribute to My Travel Buddy

Vilcabamba, Ecuador

As I write this, Rie is somewhere over the South China Sea, on her way back to the U.S. to visit her daughter, move in with her boyfriend and interview for a new job. I wish she could have stayed on in Chiang Mai so we could share the final weeks of this amazing year of travel. But I understand her reasons for heading home, and 10 ½ months on the road together is pretty darn good.

In fact, it’s been a fantastic time, and it wouldn’t have been half as much fun without my big sister. So here’s a toast to Rie, who helped keep the cheers level high despite flat tires, collapsing ceilings, would-be purse snatchers, and the big hairy rat in Indira Gandhi International Airport. Together, we traveled on all-night buses, crowded colectivos and shaky taxi-brousses. We shared power outages, water outages, a plague of frogs—and several 30 Rock festivals when the challenges of travel temporarily got the better of us. 

Kuélap, Peru

Cataracta Gocta, Peru

 

Machu Picchu, Peru

Rie turned out to be a great spotter of distinctive potato chip flavors—Tomato Mischief in India, Nori Seaweed and Hot Chilli Squid in Thailand—and of distinctive cross-cultural fashions, like the super-cool dude strutting with his posse through the gare routière in Madagascar, wearing dark glasses and an “I [heart] Ben Affleck” t-shirt.

Huayna Picchu, Peru

Mirador de Patagonia, Punta Arenas, Chile

Isla Navarino, Chile

 

Parc national de L'Isalo, Madagascar

I intended to get trip t-shirts made up for us featuring a phrase from an email one of her friends sent early in the trip. He’d been reading the blog and said something about how “seemingly fearless” we were. ‘If only he knew!’ we thought. By then we were all too familiar with our own and each other’s recurring anxieties, from missing planes to getting robbed to running out of toilet paper. But together we managed to get past all those fears and keep the adventure going.

Gaborone, Botswana

Agra, India

Agra, India

We discovered and got past some differences too. One of us considers yogurt and granola a perfectly acceptable supper, one of us doesn’t. One of us thinks going out to hear Thai people sing country music is a great idea, one of us doesn’t. One of us thinks that if the cab is coming at 7:30, we should be out front at 7:25, and the other one doesn’t want to put down her coffee mug until 7:29. But the spats have been few, far between and minor, and after nearly a year of hard travel, there’s no doubt that we’re still friends. 

Varanasi, India

Thanks for believing we could make this incredible journey, Rie. Thanks for making it happen and for making it so much fun. And thanks for identifying all 56,743 species of yellow flower we encountered along the way. Any time you want to do this again, I’m up for it.

I’ll make sure we have lots of T.P.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

 

(KK)

Trekking Navarino's Teeth

They call it the most southerly trek on earth, this five-day loop through the wilderness on Isla Navarino, Chile, south of Tierra del Fuego. I suppose you could tromp across the Antarctic snows, but for us el Circuito de los Dientes de Navarino was enough of a challenge--and one of the best things either of us has ever done.

Hi Mom! Just setting out on the trail. (Patricio Cano)

And here's Patricio, guide, cook, photographer, with some of the Dientes in the background. Later we'd learn he also does a kick-ass Michael Jackson imitation around the campfire (KK).

Camp One, on the shores of Laguna del Salto (KK).

Patricio with his brother and business partner (www.extremewilliams.com). John hiked all the way up to Laguna del Salto to bring us some salt (KK).

A young condor (KK).

Rie and Patricio at Paso Australia, one in a series of windy passes (KK).

Honestly, these patches of last year's snow were only 20 or 30 yards wide . . .  (KK)

. . . but they make a dramatic photo, don't they? (MK)

Looking south over Laguna del Paso. Way off on the horizon are the islands around Cape Horn (KK).

A closer look at some of the Dientes (KK).

"El Árbol Cansado." By this point, we were a little tired ourselves (KK).

The hill above our second campsite. During the night, a boulder came tumbling down, scaring me silly but landing far from our tents (KK).

Near Camp Two. For a second, the Newfoundlander in me almost believed I was there. (KK)

Rie gets our tent in order while I wander around taking photos (KK).

Day Three--nearing the exceedingly well-named Paso Ventarrón. It was WINDY!

Laguna Hermosa with Cerro Clem in back, the peak named for Clem Lindenmayer, who marked this wonderful trail (KK).

And here are the Montes Lindenmayer, the backdrop for much of the third day's hike (KK).

Sunset at camp three (KK).

Day Four. Climb every mountain, ford every stream--I think we ran through every song we know, good and bad, on this trek (MK).

Day Four was all about rocks, though at break time there was a lovely mossy stream (MK).

Kath and Patricio climbing towards Paso Virginia (MK).

And climbing (KK).

From Paso Virginia, looking north over Laguna los Guanacos and the Beagle Channel (MK).

Kath at Paso Virginia, right before up up up up up became down down down down down (MK).

Here's where it got a little scary for a while, the steep descent to Laguna los Guanacos (MK).

Thank heavens for Patricio (KK).

The view from the scree (KK).

Then we got rained on, but only for a little while. Given how bad the weather can get in these parts, we were incredibly lucky. Still, Camp Four was known as Camp Damp (KK).

Many layers were required (KK).

Day Five. Patricio made coffee to fortify us. Much of the hard work was done, but still ahead was . . . (KK)

. . . el calafate. Lots and lots of calafate to push our way through. Looks yummy, doesn't it? It is, but oh, those thorns! (MK)

Rie tried pan indio . . .  (KK)

. . . an edible fungus--well, as long as edible means "if you're truly desperate" (KK).

Before we were really ready for the trek to be over, we came out of the woods to a stellar view of the Beagle Channel (KK).

And before we knew it, we were back at Patty Pusaki's B&B, ready for hot showers, chocolate cake and a long, long sleep.

¡Adelante!

Today’s Spanish lesson came in the form of a river rafting trip near Puerto Varas, Chile, half a day on Río Petrohué with the Ko’Kayak company. There were snow-topped volcanoes. There was whitewater, there was blue, blue water, there were boulder-lined riverbanks with green hills beyond. Rie stayed home because of a bad experience once on an Idaho river (her sons can fill you in), so I was the sole gringa on the outing. Both guides spoke English well, but if you’re going to yell commands as your raft plunges through the rapids, spray splashing in everyone’s face, you’re only going to yell them in one language.

So I had to learn fast. “¡Adelante!” meant paddle forward, “¡Atrás!” meant paddle backward. But then it got more complicated. If the guide yelled “¡Izquierdo, atrás!” those on the left of the raft were supposed to paddle backwards and those on the right forwards. If he yelled “¡La derecha, atrás!” the opposite was true. A real challenge, given the level of both my Spanish skills and my athletic abilities.

But it was fun, and wet, and the kick in the pants I needed. I have to
 admit I slumped a bit after Perú, sad to leave a country I loved, unable at first to quite see Chile’s charms. This afternoon, though, when we made it through another set of rapids, the guide would call to the eight-year-old crouched in the bow, “Martín, how was it?” and Martín would call back, ”¡Perfecto!”

It was.

(KK)