Closing Thoughts..

So I have been back home for a little over 3 weeks now. The most popular question people seem to ask me (besides the did you find yourself a woman over there question) is how does it feel to be home? Honestly its up and down. Sometimes its amazing, like when I sink my teeth in the oh so missed in-n-out double double, other times its just plain overwhelming, I have a new profound fear of malls. While home is more or less the same, minus all of the hundreds of friends now married...btw congrats! It is safe to say that I am changed. Not just physically, although the beard and hair are gone :(, but my internal core was rocked when I was over there and you don't really realize the extent of it until your back into a familiar place. You see traveling breaks you, its challenging, and dirty, and challenging, and always changing. Everyday I was put to the test in some way. There was always one situation(or multiple) that I didn't feel like going through, whether it was speaking Spanish, meeting a new person, or enduring another hair raising 12 hour night bus ride. Its that wall of resistance we as humans dread because we would rather have things be or feel easy. But everytime I would tell myself the epic words of Woody Harrelson from Zombieland, "Its time to nut up or shut up," and that would usually get me going. Now trust me after 6 months of pushing through there is a part of me that is still exhausted. But I learned that a life without challenge is not worth living just like and adventure without its downfalls is not worth going on. I learned a harsh but necessary reality of life, that most of the time I'm not going to feel like doing stuff. Initially I'm usually not going to feel like going to the gym, or going to class, doing homework, working, going to church, or even reading my bible but thats okay, I want to do these things so I push through. Like Donald Miller says, A good story is when a character finds out what they want and go through conflict to get it. The bigger the conflict the better the story. Not that we should intentionally seek conflict in every decision (work smart, not hard does have some meaning to it) but we shouldn't turn away from something because it will be too hard. Especially as Christians, Christ guarantees hardship, rejection and all of the above. But he also promises peace, strength and hope.
"The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58:11)
I feel I could write about this for days but I will digress. God is good he taught me alot and I think he will be teaching me things from this trip for a lifetime. For now I'm home, and for the first time since I started college I am content with that. South America will always have a special place in my heart with its culture, people, food, noise, smells and beautiful chaos. Thanks for sharing the adventure with me and there are many more to come!

Representing CYP in Bolivia!

Where was Bryan?

I regret to inform you that my trip has come to an end. Its a bittersweet feeling really. Coming home and seeing your family after 6 months is a priceless feeling, and so is going to the bathroom and being able to put the toilet paper in the toilet. There is a huge gap in between my last blog post to now so these next couple of posts will be to catch you up with the places seen and to sum up my trip.

The Navimag
I heard about this little gem through my cousin who had taken it before. It is a cargo ship that heads North from Patagonia to Puerto Montt. The trip in total is 4 days through the fjords of Chile.

It didn't have the luxury of a cruise ship but it definitely had a strong tourist feel.(I mean lots of old European couples) But having never been on a ship before for longer than an hour I decided it was a adventure for me. Beautiful scenery, lots of time for reading, and suprisingly good food. And I found I get a little woozy in open sea so my dream of being on the show "Whale Wars" was short lived.

Puerto Montt
Cool little Port town with an epic Fish Market. If you don't like fish this isn't your place.

Bahia Iglesia
This was an epic little beach that we stopped by at on our way up to the North of Chile. By we I mean me and some traveling friends(Christian and Laura) One of the beauties of traveling is that your never alone, there are always people to tag along with.
But we had quite a time getting there including 10+ hours of bus travel and sleeping at a bus station. But in the end we ended up there soaking up the extra strong sun rays from the hole in the ozone layer.

San Pedro de Atacama
This place was supposedly the driest desert in the world. And trust me it didn't disappoint. The town had an awesome vibe and was rocking the pueblo style buildings. I am pretty convinced they shot Nacho Libre here.Naaaaachooooooo!! Highlights included seeing a runaway horse on the street and going on a mountain bike adventure to a hidden tunnel.

The "W" II

Torre Del Paine is crowded and touristy for a reason. Its beacause its frikin beautiful! As we walked on from the main refugios we saw less people and more beauty. For instance our first day we hiked for about 4 hours with a perfect view of a glacier and at our camping site we were only a 3 minute walk to a stunning look out point. We used a variety of exclamations to express our enthusiasm as the scenery improved around every corner. Wow! Cool! and Ya! became regular vocabulary. Sometimes it was necessary to just stand in silence and attempt to take it all in. And you knew there had to be something cool around the corner when you heard the classic oh s***! phrase. But let me be honest, this wasnt four days of just staring at the flowers. No way, we worked for those views. Hiking 6-8 hours a day with heavy packs on through ever changing weather and terrain. Paul and I forgot about playing "The Game" as those packs were just too ridiculous to do pushups with. So on we went, 3 of us, Paul, Kate, and I ahead of the others to set a pace. Sometimes we said nothing and concentrated on one step of a time, sometimes we stopped to scamper up a big rock and to take photos. The downhills were welcomed like old friends and at times we would run down them shouting "Parkcore! Parkcore!" mimicking Dwight from the Office. Uphills were greeted with gritted teeth and were what I would call "character builders". At the beginning of a hill a battle would rage on in my mind between two voices. We will call them the Stop voice and the Get on it voice.
Stop:Oh man here we go again, this sucks I just want to stop and lay down.
Getonit: Nope. Get on it.
Stop: Think my hammy is about to tear I better stop.
Getonit: Get on it.
Stop: I think I have to poop.
Getonit: Dont worry, Bear Grylls poops his pants too....
But in reality I learned to love the challenge of those hills and in general my South American trip as a whole has confirmed that I constantly need to be challenging myself or I get bored. Everyday whether traveling or not presents its own challenges. There are the obvious ones like waking up and exercising, but then there are the more subtle ones like the challenge to be 100% present wherever you are, to love your neighbor as yourself,or to not care what people think about you. I call them more subtle ones because sometimes they are easier to bury them behind the list of things you need to do and so on and so forth. We are created to face challenges. We are not stagnant beings we are dynamic, always changing. If you dont beleive me look in the mirror, or look back at a picture from the 6th grade. We grow and change physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I guess our job would be to choose the way we want to grow and following through with that. For instance you can go to the gym and get fit, or you can sit on the couch and get big, either way your going to be changing. I feel I can talk for a long time on this topic but I wont because I am paying for internet right now. Maybe we can go for coffee sometime? Ok great!
But all and all the trail was great and has been one of my highlights so far. The views were amazing and the physical challenge was fun. The comradery you develop with people you hike with is the kind that is second to none because daily you are pushing yourselves to a certain destination and you wont let the other person quit. But enough of that. Just enjoy the photos....

Grey Glacer and a Wow view.





A mountain that looked like choclate and dulce de leche ice cream.


The famous Torres





The end of the trail!

Puerto Natales, Turkey, and the "W" Trail I

Puerto Natales
After hanging out with Glaciers all day you can imagine we were tired, so a 6 hour bus trip to Puerto Natales was more than welcomed. We crossed the border from Argentina to Chile, there was no doubt about it, we were in Patagonia.(of course we were there already but this was as far south as I would be going) Look up Puerto Natales on Wikipedia and you wont be too impressed but I can tell you that Puerto Natales became one of my favorite cities quickly. Its a small port town with a cool atmosphere. It was no Valpairiso or Puerto Montt in terms of energy but if your looking for a good place to stay before or after a hike this is it. We stayed at a "Grade A" hostel called Eratic Rock Hostel. Its owned by an American guy who happend to be from Oregon. It was so refreshing to be able to talk a fellow West Coast guy and most of our conversations always led to the Oregon Ducks, the NFL, Hippies, and the State of Jefferson. On top of that it was just a great hostel with a hospitable staff who remembered my name all the time. We were lucky to find it when we did because they were probably the only place in town that celebrated Thanksgiving. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, pumpkin pie and an actual NFL game. Words cannot describe how happy I was on that night. Thanks E.R.! It was also Pauls first T-day and he says he approves of the holiday but thinks that American Football is for pansys.








The "W" Trail
The next day at 7 in the morning we set off on the trail. There was 7 of us in total, spanning from the countries of the U.S., New Zeland, Poland, and Denmark. 7 people...4 days...with nothing but tuna,rice, pasta, and tons of candy.(and Pauls Black Label that he had bought) We were young and full of anticipation, I thought that we might even get a medal after the whole hike. Our flames were quickly doused as soon as we stepped on the ferry that would take us across the lake. The wind was howling, raindrops pelted our faces and the cold cut to the bone. It looked like it would be a long 4 days. It was a quiet boat ride for me. I quickly ran through a variety of excuses I could make in order to get the heck out of there. My friend Dan(from Poland) smoked another cigarette. I had to poop. We finally docked and there was a huge line of people waiting to leave the park on the ferry. As we walked past them they stared at us without an ounce of envy and I swear a woman did the cross thing across her chest. (Note the reaction also could have to Pauls really short Rugby shorts he was wearing) The weather wasnt letting up we knew we just had to do it. I had been waiting a long time to do this trail and like in any good story the bigger the conflict, the better the story. So we put our heads down and went for it.......
Next up the "W" part II

Patagonia

Ok once I again I left a long break in between blog posts but Patagonia is the type of place you could go weeks without internet because there is just so much to do. Its been an amazing 2 or so weeks in one of the most southern places in the world. Ive seen the magestic lakes of Bariloche, hiked the worn trails of El Chalten, witnessed a piece of ice breaking off the famous Perrito Moreno Glacier, backpacked through popular "W" trail in Torres Del Paine, sailed through the Patagonia fjords on the Navimag ship, and ended at Puerto Montt in the middle of a busy fish market.

El Chalten
Known as the trekking capital of Argentina, this place was a small little village tucked in between the mountains in the shadow of the famous Fitz Roy Peak. It was Paul, an Aussie named Cain, an English couple and I that had the chance to hang out together in this town. Among our favorite places was the local microbrewery and an all you can eat pizza place. But ultimately we didnt go there for beer and pizza, no, we went there to hike. And hike we did. We stayed in a hostel for a couple of first, where the receptionist at the hostel just couldnt get over the fact that the name of our Aussie friend was Cain Sparrow. He was so enthused that evertime Cain walked into the main living room he would play the theme song for Pirates of the Carribean over the loud speakers. Paul, Cain, and I rented camping equipment, stuffed food in our packs and started walking. This place had a plethera of trails that could take you days to hike, but we only stayed for one night and just picked a trail and went. The biggest thing we noticed was the wind, it was strong and cold but as long as you kept moving you stayed warm. We hiked all day, got to the campsite and pitched our tents and then hiked some more. The cool thing that happens as you move further south is that it doesnt get dark until about 10 or 11 at night so you can pretty much hike all day. We wolfed down food and then piled into a very small 3 person tent for the night. Unfortunately for us the weather was pretty white out so we didnt get the views of Fitz Roy that we longed for, but on the positive side Cain had never really been in snow so you can imagine how stoked he was when it started snowing...










El Calafate
We were sad to leave El Chalten but a huge epic glacier awaited us so we couldnt be too sad. And of course the day we left El Chalten it was a picture perfect day. Go figure. The only thing to see in El Calafate is the famous Glacier so right when we got off our 6 hour bus ride we hopped on another bus to the Glacier. It was this Glaciers fault that I was even in Patagonia in the first place. I had first seen a picture of it about 5 years ago on the internet and it rendered me speechless the first time I saw it and I told myself that I had to be there. It definitely didnt let me down. Its about 19 miles long and 3 miles wide, and it just sits there looking all blue and stuff and reflecting the sun. There is not much to do but to gawk over it and to wait in anticipation for a piece of ice to fall off. It was crazy because you can hear the cracking and falling of ice but its ridiculously loud. We were lucky enough to witness a huge piece falling off. It was so cool and got your adrenaline pumping. Everyone started cheering, hugging, and high fiving each other as if we were at some sort of a sports event and someone had just shot a touchdown or something.
Next up Puerto Natales and the W trail....

Mate & Passports

As we are getting onto a connecting bus from the town Perrito Moreno to El Chalten....
Me: "You got everything?"
Paul:"Yep"
Me: "And the mate?
Paul: "Yep, got the Mate, thats all we need.....and the passports."



Thus was born the motto of our trip together "Mate & Passports." When I last left off we were in Bariloche on our way to El Bolson. El Bolson was a diamond in the rough. Its a small hippie town about 2 hours south of Bariloche but even more beautiful. Its the type of place where everybody probably knows everything about each other but there still cool with it. We were here only one night but I wish it had been more. Once settled into the hostel it was time to eat. We had the best pizza I have ever had in Argentina and then of course, topped it off with some ice cream.


Once our bellies were full we decided to walk it out by going on a hike. It was short in comparison to other hikes we had taken and by the time we got there it was about 9 at night but it was still bright out. It was one of those sick views of the entire city surrounded by the mountains, the kind where you feel like you could just sit there forever and just chill. The next morning after our short stint in El Bolson we boarded a bus headed for El Chalten. This journey would be a long 25 hour bus journey split into 2 days. The only cool part is that we would be traveling along route 40, which is a famous road that goes all the way down to Patagonia.(Kind of equivalent to our route 66 at home) Only half of this road is paved which meant a long part of our journey was spent not in a bus but a vibrating bus. Nevertheless, I actually enjoy long bus rides. There is just something about them where I can just stare out into the distance for hours in a sort of dreamstate imagining what the next destination will be like.



So it actually wasnt so bad for me. The dirt road, in my opinion, sort of added to the adventure. Sure it felt like the indiana jones ride at disneyland, and there wasnt a bathroom, but hey I was on my way to Patagonia, who am I to complain?
Once the bus ride was finished we ended up in the beautiful place of El Chalten. This place is in the heart of Patagonia and it FELT like Patagonia. The notorious wind that we heard so many raves about met us as soon as we exited the bus for a picture. This stuff cuts right through your clothes and makes your liver shiver.
El Chalten was the place we came to do some trekking, this was the place that would turn us into men....

Bariloche~It begins....

Hello to all! I am alive and well. I realize it has been a bit of time between my blog posts so I will try to catch you up. I just finished up school this last Thursday. Finals were uneventful and couldnt of come sooner. I ended up getting all A s and one B in my classes. Not bad for taking classes in spanish huh?
Not only was I busy with classes but I was busy enjoying my last few days in Buenos Aires. On my last full day in the city I finally made it to a soccer game. Argentina vs. Bolivia It was played at a place called River Stadium which just so conveniently is right across the street from my house. The game was awesome! I would say only half the stadium was filled but it was still incredibly loud. In an unfortunate outcome Argentina and Bolivia tied 1-1. But the legend of soccer in South America lived up to its name.

On my last day in Buenos Aires I went with my host family to a place just outside the city called Lujan. It was a cool historical place and a perfect last day to spend wtih them. Upon arriving back from Lujan I scrambled to pack my stuff, meet up with my friend Paul and was on a bus headed to a place called Bariloche by 7 o'clock that night.

Now you may remember Paul from one of my other blog posts. To refresh your memory he was the one who saved us all from the mad mob in Santiago, Chile my very first night in South America. He is 6'6 and has a really cool beard. He is the only other person I have ever met that enjoys sweets, especially ice cream, as much as I do. So as you can imagine we travel well together. Some would say we go together like copy and paste.
20 hours later we arrived in Bariloche and checked into our hostel, Marco Polo Inn. It so far has been the only hostel that I have stayed that has included free dinner. As you can imagine we were pretty stoked about it. Once settled in we set out to do the thing we came to Patagonia to do; to trek. Now Bariloche is a beautiful tourist town in the mountains. I would consider it the gateway into Patagonia and equivalent to a Lake Tahoe type of vacation place. This place had everything; lakes, mountains, rivers you name it. So we set out to discover it all.
Our very first trek was up to a small lookout point called Cerro Camponario. We got there by convincing the bus driver to let us ride for free because we didn't have a ticket. I think he felt sorry for us poor gringos so he let us hop on. Once there we could have taken a gondola for 40 pesos or hiked. Of course we chose the more adventurous route. The view was absolutely spectacular. It was supposedly one of the top 10 photographed views in the world. And we clearly could see why. Hundreds of pictures later we made our way down the mountain and hitch hiked our way back to town. It wasn't sketchy at all! It happend to be this nice middle aged woman who was a dance teacher and was just on her way to town. Once in town we finished our night by grabbing some ice cream just before dinner, you know just to get the metabolism going.

The next 2 days in Bariloche were crammed full of adventure. Our second day we did a hike up to a better viewpoint called Cerro Catedral. We randomly ran into a classmate of mine from Belgrano named Mark so he joined us for the adventure too. The hike was supposed to take 8 hours total but we cranked it out in about 7 hours. To pass the time we started playing THE GAME. Now the point of THE GAME is to not think about THE GAME. If by the unfortunate chance you do think about THE GAME you have to announce to everyone that you lost THE GAME and do 10 push ups where you stand. (Note, I just lost THE GAME, and just finished my 10 pushups) As you can imagine Paul and I have been doing loads of push ups. The other game we played was the HELLO GAME. This is where whenever you see a fellow hikers on the hike, you can't say the same word twice. So once we ran out of the basic words like hello and hola, we used random words like backpack and konichiwa. The best part about the hike was not the random games but the fact that the views around every corner just got better and better. We ended our hike standing in amazement as we stumbled upon a crystal blue lake surrounded by mountains.

It made all of that treking worth it. The day ended with more ice cream and a round of drinks and a sharing of stories around the dinner table. Ladies and gentleman that is not all. The next day we decided to go rafting. My other friend who we call Kevito, also joined us for this excursion. This is probably one of my favorite activities to do anywhere, so I was pretty stoked for it. The river itself was beautiful and stingingly cold. The color was emerald green and we were surrounded by mountains. The view itself was worth the money, and the rapids brought it over the top. They were all about Class III, and were pretty fun. I would still say that as an overall rafting experience I have to give the upper hand to Kidder Creek(Holla at my Kidder Folk!) but it was still a great time. As always we finished our day with ice cream but Paul and I decided to go big and order the full kg size. We went on to shock our friends and the entire ice cream parlor when we both finished the kg(killer of gringos) size. I just may have type II diabetes now. Totally worth it.




Now we are in a quaint hippie town called El Bolson. This place is even more stunning than Bariloche. But I have a feeling that this is typical of Patagonia, it gets more beautiful around every corner.....

Got any suggestions of any games to play while hiking? Shout them out!