So...Hi.

So I know that I have not blogged for about a million years, but it honestly has been a whirlwind month. From the second that I got back from Chile I have been going non-stop. I had about two weeks from the end of that trip until we peaced out to Brazil. So, I am sorry that I have not been able to extrapolate every single solitary detail of my adventures in Chile. Then, I must expound about Brazil. Frankly, there are only a few things that I can say about Brazil, but I will explain when I get to that part in my story.

P.s. I am listening to “Love and Memories” by O.A.R. I feel cool as I blog about my travels.

Anyway. Chile. I feel like I have mixed feelings about it, but I do not think that I have fully experienced Chile as it was meant to be experienced. But I don’t think I fully described where we were and all that entailed, and all that commenced. So after about 7 hours on a bus from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile, where we were borderline interrogated at the border. They were some of the most intense border patrol, we had to get out with our luggage and put it through a conveyor belt and answer questions about if we had honey and fruit and nonsense in our bag, to which we all said no, and then we got back into the bus and ended up in Santiago. I didn’t really know how I felt about Santiago, because it was hot and there wasn’t a lot around us, and I didn’t know anyone and we didn’t know where the van to take us to Lo Valdez was going to pick us up. We took taxis to the cross streets and it ended up being this plaza type thing, and we were terribly concerned that we were not going to find this van, because they told us that they had a specific pick up time for the lodge, and we didn’t want to miss it, but we had no idea what we were doing. We walked around the plaza, and asked everyone around us what the deal was and nobody had any of what we were talking about, which freaked us out and we were starting to run over Plan B (which we didn’t have) and we walked around the plaza, looking for a green van, and no one had seen a green van, so we called the company from a random phone/internet place, where I spoke in Spanish for 15 minutes to a woman who could no understand me, nor could I understand her Spanish. The lady, unfortunately, was about as helpful as a foot in that situation, so I walked back to where were dropped up, where Hermano spotted, at long last, the van we had been looking and waiting for for two hours. With all of our bags and nonsense strapped to the top of this rickety old van, we headed up the Andes. We ended up spending about two hours in the van, one our to San José de Itaipu, and then the other one to Lo Valdes. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the lodge, but then we lost it once we saw the view around us. Lo Valdes was, literally, a house in the middle of the mountains. No matter what part of the lodge you were at, there were mountains all around you. We were at about 7 thousand feet, but the mountains were still higher than we were. The whole time we were there it was clear as a bell, with nothing but blue, blue sky and a brilliant sun shining on us. It was cool at night and warm during the day. The lodge itself was terribly simple, it was built in 1932 and is just a simple wooden lodge, with a dining room, a patio, and upstairs there were a few rooms with bunk beds and a sink, and a communal bathroom. Not a gross hostel type bathroom, but simple, clean toilet and showers. There was no wi-fi, no international telephone, no cable, and an electricity curfew. As I describe it I realize it sounds awful and primitive, but I like to use the word simple, or quaint. Because it was not done in a sleazy or gross way, but it was just simply the way it was. Very minimalist. But wonderful at the same time because it reminded me that we don’t need all of that stuff to enjoy ourselves or have a good time, and it simply made me just look around at the immense beauty that surrounded me.
You can imagine the shock that I experienced when I realized that the current renter that ran the place while we stayed there was a middle-aged British man named Andy. It was probably one of the weirdest and coolest surprises I have experienced in my life.

I feel like the utter awesomeness of Andy deserves its own paragraph in this blog. He, in all actuality, deserves his own blog entry, but I feel like at this point it is too late for him to have that. But still. Andy is, hands down, one of the coolest men I have ever met in my life. I do not know his old story, obviously, because he is a British man, and they do not expound gratuitously on their personal life until you know them very well. We did find out, however, that (ps. I am writing this on a bus, on my laptop, and I feel like this is what I am destined to do for the rest of my life. Write about my travel experiences and revel in the fact that my life is awesome) he was born in Uganda, lived in Kenya for some time, then moved back to England. He somehow ended up in Chile, that part we did not find out. But he is from the Oxford area, and the moved to Chile, married a Chilean, and has an adorable 5 year-old English-Chilean daughter, named Isadora. It is very funny because she understands English but does not speak it. She only speaks Spanish. There would not really be a need for her to speak English, because her mom does not know English, nor does anyone else in Chile. Anyway, Andy has traveled all over the world. I do not know why, but he has. All he wears are those awesome hiking pants and fleece pullovers without a shirt underneath it, and with worn hiking boots. The minute the sun goes down he straps on a forehead flashlight and wears it around until he goes to bed. He spends obscene amounts of time outside, where he hikes up mountains and repels off of glaciers and all sorts of nonsense. He is very reserved, but very direct person when he sees fit, and that I think initially put a lot of people off towards him, but he’s actually a terribly cool guy. Example number 1. The second day that we were there, we realized that the price that we initially thought we were paying had doubled. We all started to panic, and we didn’t know if we could afford to stay as long as we thought, and then we would have to go back into Santiago, but where would we stay? What would we do? We had no idea. I do not remember how Andy was notified of this problem, but he was, and he figured out a way for us to all stay the originally number of days that we had planned. It was so nice of him. He could have just as easily said no, that the fees were set and we couldn’t do anything about it, but he made it work for us so that we got to stay and experience the Andes. Anytime he talked you thought that either Daniel Craig or Colin Firth was around, because they have the same Oxfordian accent that is awesome. With that, however, was the snarky, dry British humor. Example number 2. When The Lackey and I were hiking up the volcano (that story will come later) and were nearly about to die, Andy walked by and says “If a seven year old boy can do this, you can” (there was a 7 year old boy with us on the trek who scaled mountains better than a goat. Will expound on that later as well). Which promptly filled me with rage.

There will be another installation soon.