Sobrequipo

I finally made it to the Futa, arriving three days after Joel on Dec. 19th. Getting here was an adventure in itself--a five-day marathon of busses and hostels and hitchiking, all with my kayak in tow (literally, bungeed onto a tiny folding Samsonite luggage cart) and my Spanish lost somewhere between the airport in Santiago and my junior year of high school. From Santiago I headed directly south to Osorno, falling asleep at dusk in the city and waking at dawn in what looked like the Willamette Valley. From there, I headed east and up into the Andes, cresting at a dusty high alpine border crossing before dropping into the resort town of Bariloche, Argentina. After two days in Bariloche, I headed south to Esquel. leaving the forests of the Lakes District for the high plains of northern Patagonia. The crosswinds whistled over the roof of the bus. From Esquel it was another bus back up to the Chilean border, a small municipal van to the town of Futaleufu, and a day hitchhiking with six Israelis to camp.

We´re camped 30km from town the only major road here, a single-lane gravel route that roughly follows the Futaleufu River, on a fully-functioning ranch next to a play wave. We live out of a quonset plumbed with fresh water, and share our pasture with sheep, horses, chickens, turkeys, and the occasional farm dog. This camp is the rare piece of budget real estate along a river run mostly by large rafting companies. As such, it´s a central point for visiting kayakers--first a group of Argentines, now a growing group of Russians--with whom we´ve paddled almost every day.

The river itself is spectacular. The turqouise water pinballs through the valley with amazing energy. The current surges and boils. Eddy lines are thick and constantly changing. Waves tower 7 or 8 feet, sometimes green, sometimes crashing. It is an absolute blast to paddle. I´m sticking to the class IV section for a while, while Joel has paddled the Terminator section upstream and is already looking for harder lines. My USB cable is missing, so pictures will have to wait. Until then, imagine paradise.

ciao

And I'm off

Writing regularly again feels a bit like waking up in the morning, so I'll try to get through the grogginess as quickly as possible. Tomorrow I'll be in the air southbound to Santiago with a boat, a paddle, and as little of everything else as possible. From there, I'll be traveling further south through Argentina, over the Andes, and back into Chile at the northern edge of Patagonia to the Futaleufu River. I'm anticipating this leg to be the most difficult of the trip: solo, with my Spanish rustier than a sunken ship and 100 lbs. of awkward gear.

My mental image of the Futa, formed mostly by the movie Paddlequest, is just like Happy Gilmore's "happy place," except that the girl in lingerie with two pitchers of beer is Chilean and the midget dressed up like a cowboy is Chris Spelius. However it turns out, this should get me through 20 hours of bus travel.

Get stoked...