November 9th-
I’m at a sanctuary this evening.
It’s so quiet and calm, the distant noises of dogs barking, cars and motorcycles driving up a mountainside somewhere. Church bells are ringing. I’m laying in open grass against a tree, on top of a pillar of rock where a statue (Arch Angel Miguel) stands high above a dramatic canyon on three sides. The river churns sleepily far below me, and waterfalls pour into it in a few places. The sun is just passing behind the hills which are a patchwork of green, tropical farms and eucalyptus forests. The sun is just now fading off the colorful village built into the steep slopes. This is a peaceful place for the evening.
We found ourselves today in Las Lajas, in the province of Ipiales, Colombia. This is the spot of a famous church built like a castle and bridging a dramatic canyon. The cathedral is below me from this lovely spot where we will camp. We’re probably not supposed to camp here, under this statue with its sword flung to heaven, on this pillar of rock jutting high above the canyon, but there are picnic tables and supposedly it’s a “sanctuary”. We will stay and enjoy the view.
We fed a stray dog earlier and as we setup camp here he came bounding in to greet us. He’s beautiful! We named him Pablo and we love him! We’ll feed him dinner too, and he knows it, he’s waiting. He’s our dog and will protect us tonight.
Amy’s away from camp, it’s just Pablo and me here now. She went into town alone to find us something for dinner while I wait here with the stuff. The sun is setting and they just lit up the cathedral in the most bizarre, Las Vegas style way; all different rainbow light changing across this castle. Kind of odd but I like it.
Today has been an extremely sad day. My friend Alexa’s mom suddenly passed away in an accident. Donald Trump was also elected president and while I hate that guy with a burning passion, I don’t even care about it compared to losing Michelyn Queenan from our lives. It puts it into perspective for me. I don’t grieve for the political future of our country, although it would be appropriate to do so today. A fascist regime is about to take over the USA which will probably threaten to destroy our fragile environment and only make worse the absurd wealth gap between the rich and poor. Still, I instead today grieve for Alexa’s mom. I think she’s here with Amy and me today, because she was Catholic and this church has been so ornate and beautiful to explore. She of all people would love this place.
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That night Amy returned and Pablo stayed loyally with us. He growled quietly outside the tent all night at the various barking of stray dogs in the distance. At one point a megaphone boomed in Spanish across the whole valley, preaching of revolution, of “mucho corruption” and other powerful words I couldn’t make out. Music followed. In the morning we packed up and Pablo followed us for a long time but eventually we had to say goodbye. We hitched a ride for the city of Ipiales in the back of a truck, then made our way into Ecuador. We crossed the border on foot, and began the journey to Quito…
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December 13th-
Life is hard. If I can be sure of anything it’s that. But life is what you make of it and I thank God for the little things. Like today I am thankful that the sun is starting to go down and it’s getting less ridiculously hot because I’m on top of a mountain in Chile’s Atacama desert and it’s summertime. The Atacama is stark. Not a single plant grows, I see just golden desert and a range of volcanoes in the distance. I’m on this mountain range called the Cordillera de Sal, made completely of crystalline salt coated in reddish dust. I’ve spent almost the entire day sitting up above the Valle de la Luna, naked with a sheet wrapped around me in the dry breeze like some insane desert monk. Finally I’ve decided I want to actually DO something so I will start writing because it really helps to organize my head.
The town of San Pedro de Atacama at the foot of Volcan Lilcancabur
Today my life is moving on to its next chapter and so I will try to start this journal again. I’ve missed so many great stories that have happened in the last month since I hopped on that one way flight to Bogota, Colombia. To sum it up, I travelled for 6 weeks with Amy and in that time we took a lot of long bus rides, usually for very cheap, and crossed the South American continent. We spent time in the rainforest, time in the desert, time among glaciated mountains and quite a few days falling asleep lazily on the beach. It has been a whirlwind of a trip, with not nearly enough time spent in any one place, but it has been one of the most aesthetically gorgeous trips of my life. We also made a lot of nice friends and learned a surprising amount of Spanish. Still I can’t speak! But I’m better now than ever in my life.
Today I’m alone again.
In the Cordillera de Sal
Amy and I said goodbye yesterday at the bus station. We had spent the day in the Chilean coastal town of Iquique. I got on a night bus to Calama and she took a 25 bus journey to Santiago. My bus pulled into the heart of the Atacama desert at 5:30AM. I stepped off the bus in a sleepy haze and was quickly awoken by the biting dry cold. It was absolutely freezing! I downed my rain pants and two sweatshirts and lay in the bus terminal thinking of what to do. Well, since I’m on my own again, and not bound by any tight schedule, why wait for a stupid bus? I’ll just go hitchhike, it’s a beautiful morning!
So I walked into the frozen desert dawn, very far across the city. As I hit the city’s edge after about an hour of walking, the sun peaked shining strong over the horizon. My fingers were numb in the cold, but immediately I could feel it’s heat. I sat for a while on top of a hill beside the highway, looking out over the lifeless expanse in the refreshingly cold morning. The place was a dump, covered in trash but I was happy to be there. I felt this crazy sense of freedom.
After taking a poop, I went to the highway and was quickly offered a ride to the town I was for some reason going to – San Pedro de Atacama. The driver told me something I would soon experience firsthand: here in Atacama you experience four seasons in a day. Night is winter and morning brings spring, summer comes in the afternoon and it’s fall by evening.
Sure enough, once in San Pedro the weather felt sublime as the day warmed up. It’s a small town surrounded by marvelous desert scenery and made entirely of one story adobe buildings. It’s an oasis of green in the desert. However, I knew it was muy turistica and very expensive so I didn’t buy anything and made my way out- plunging into the sunbaked land!
I wandered the desert, making my way over to this barren and mystical looking mountain range. I climbed around it to setup camp at an overlook. That’s about when I took off my clothes and wrapped myself in my sheet for the shade. I fell asleep on my sleeping pad, my sheet setup like a tent over me, and woke up to the summer of the Atacama day. In my dreams I was very hot and ready for a swim. Upon waking, I was still very hot but there was nowhere to swim, just a literal pool of my sweat on my sleeping pad beneath me. The breeze was desiccating, the heat was extreme, and the water was being leeched away from me like being squeezed out of a sponge.
It was bad, but I made due for the next few hours as I sat and watched the earth turn. This place has the best dust devils and I watched from my perch as they spun out across the infinite wasteland. That’s still what I’m doing now, just watching as these little tornadoes violently carry the sand away. But suddenly, like clockwork the sun’s strength has lessened. Yes! As It’s gotten low in the sky the desert autumn has begun. It is still hot, but I think soon I will be able to enjoy myself again…
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As evening begun the weather did suddenly become perfect like it had been in the morning, if not even nicer. That was very welcomed because I had no natural shade in this spot. All I had was this salt mountain, which was literally made from glassy, quartz-like crystals, vey surreal. It dried me out unbelievably. Atacama is the driest place on earth aside from Antarctica and I feel it. It makes my skin flake off and my eyes go bloodshot. Still it’s awesome, and the sunset changed the bizarre moonscape into an array of colors. Pink, red, orange and finally purple, the largest volcano Lilcancabur glowed in the fading light. Then right beside the volcano, the full moon rose huge and I watched. For some reason it’s arrival changed the horizon green as the opposite horizon flushed pink. I was very impressed by the display, but once the darkness started the cold settled back in. The cold air was hard to fathom after such a hot day, but it felt amazing and I couldn’t stay awake to watch the stars come out.
