You know, when I changed jobs and stopped traveling, I was pretty smug about it. It felt good to feel like I was making real changes with respect to my carbon footprint. It made me feel moral to turn down some opportunities last year. It was nice to buy vegetables and not have them spoil, and to establish better routines. I ignored the comments which pointed out that I would miss seeing new stuff all the time. More than that, I delighted in pointing out that I didn't see new stuff all the time, since meeting rooms and hotel rooms hardly count as something new. After the Greenland/Iceland trips, I was done.
Well, of course not done done, after all, there is still fun to be had. But the trips I did - the Adirondacks, Maine, Thunder Bay, the 1000 Islands - they were all a) close to home and b) not work-related.
And then, on my first work-related trip in some time, I went to Chile in March. Sure, the weather was good, but there was no time for anything adventurous and besides, I was sick the entire time. Clearly, I wasn't missing much, I thought. But I also felt that old familiar resentment of, damn, I'm in this really interesting place and I am not seeing anything. So, with a second trip to Chile coming up a month later, I added a weekend.
So here's what Gwenny and I did in April: we went to Refugio Lo Valdes in the Cajon del Maipo and went hiking. The Refugio is the hut of the German Andean club, and it is superb. It is particularly superb if you do not have the time or the inclination to futz with organizing logistics. We went on a stunning one-day hike. We ate some good food at the Refugio (and drank even better wine to go with it). I also ate an empanada that I found questionable at the time (but I was hungry) in Banos Morales, and shortly afterward came down with violent food poisoning. That part was probably good, since - at the end of that hike - I had these pangs for my old life, where these sorts of opportunities were more frequent. Food poisoning reminded me that, sometimes, the worst thing that can happen is to have to take a plane when you feel so very ill. Then thre was the part where I barfed on the tarmac.
But, you know, that weekend at Lo Valdes was totally worth the barfing. Pictures are here.
Posted by Johanna at May 30, 2009 09:58 AM