A week and a half ago, it was Friday. More importantly, it was the Friday before the Sunday that was my birthday. I like birthdays. More than that, I like attention paid to me on birthdays, which is why I bitched at Gwen that I was not going to get screwed out of my birthday lunch just because she would be on vacation as of Monday. Gwen humoured me – she has to, we have to work closely together and we share an office, so she is fully aware of the results when I wear my crankypants – and there was some sushi and some giggling.
Yes, I successfully manipulated my way to getting my way. Unfortunately, as a result of recurring crankiness of late, I'd made no damn plans for the weekend. You see, I am currently sulking (off and on) that *I* am always the one making the kayak weekend plans, and I'd like it if *other* people organized something and invited *me*. Alas, that particular sulk has not been very effective. 'tis true, I haven't organized much by way of kayak trips. 's also true that this means that I had no plans on *any* of the first three weekends in July. That was all very well and good for the long weekend as the garden desperately needed some attention and I was not keen on long weekend traffic. Besides, I'd spent the previous four weekends in my kayak, it was ok to stay home. But, at around 8:30 a.m., at work, on the Friday before my birthday, I realized that the chances of my throwing up into water that weekend were pretty much nil (what? Last year, I spent my birthday seasick, throwing up over the back of the ferry to Isle Royale. The year before, I barfed into the Pacific Ocean while crossing to Ramsey Island in the Queen Charlottes. Two years makes a tradition!)
Lucky for Gwen, I only got about 45 seconds into *that* self-pitying rant (and this was *after* she had suggested sushi for lunch!). At that point, my computer squawked and the little bubble that shows email in my personal account changed colour. I multi-tasked by ranting about no stinkin' plans and clicking over to the email at the same time (also, I took a swig from my coffee cup). And there was an email from Tom, saying he was going to Massassauga, he’d be at Site 312, should I want to come. Now, I'm not particularly shy, but I am a total weenie when it comes to meeting strangers through my website. No, really, I am. I'll tell you all the people I met through my website in the last few years: there was Rick and there was John. And with those guys, I was still all weenie like, and I'd been talking back and forth with them on email for *months* before I was well, fine, ok, let’s hang out. 'cause, you see, what if you meet me, and I’m not nearly as much fun as you made me out to be in your mind from reading my blog? Well, ok, that’s not going to happen these days, since I don't *write* anything in said blog, but once upon a time! I did fun stuff every weekend! And thus people assume *I* am fun and then what if they find out I'm a big old lying fraud, and they don't think I'm fun at all?
And thus it takes a lot for me to be all, hey, some stranger emailed me! Let's go kayaking for the weekend! Strangely enough, I have no hesitation about deciding this after meeting someone for about five minutes while paddling, but the leap from email to weekend on the Bay is a much bigger one. Consequently, if Tom had sent that email on any other day, I would have been all, hey, I'm sure he's nice and interesting, but I'll just go hang out with the people I already know (these being, of course, the people about whom I’m sulking because I am not inundated with invitations to paddle on weekends…)
So, because it was already Friday, and because I had no paddling plans for my birthday, and because I was in one of those moods, without even thinking about it I replied with an ok, I'll meet you there. And then, with the exception of the relaxing sushi lunch, had a stressful day where I had to get things done an hour ago, because I needed to leave early to go home and grab my gear and load my boat and drive drive drive so that I could paddle to get there already.
Yeah, well. That sort of worked out. I launched at 9:00 p.m. Sure, in early July, it's light late, and it's not like it was that far to Site 312. I had not accounted for one navigational glitch. It was really quite dark by the time I got to the island that I was pretty sure had Site 312 on it, though I couldn't remember where on the island. I did see a fire, and I heard a chainsaw from the approximate direction of the fire. Hmmmm. So I paddled closer, and since I kept my headlamp turned off to keep my night vision (unless I heard power boats, in which case I made sure I was visible!) I got close enough to see some guy standing beside the fire holding an axe.
Let’s recap, shall we? It is almost 10 p.m., it is dark, and I am in the (sort of) backcountry, in my kayak. I hear a chainsaw, and then I see a guy I've never met before and have exchanged a total of three emails with holding an axe? What would you do next?
Me, I thought, I hope *that* guy is that guy (it made sense in my mind), and landed. Lucky for me, that guy was indeed Tom, and he put the axe down to show me the tent pad he’d scoped out while it was still light. And the rest of the weekend was really quite nice, there was some paddling and some beer drinking and some swimming and some Polish distilled honey drink and – oh oh oh, you gotta try this – some fire-roasted onion on rye bread that tasted better than candy – and it wasn't scary at all. I got to try sitting/lying in a Hennessy hammock for a few minutes. We went to Wreck Island. I learned some new stuff about birds. We heard the world's worst backcountry concert *ever* from the same site that had the chainsaw noises on it the night before. And it's not saying much, worst backcountry concert ever, because how many of those do you hear? But what if I'd heard, say, 250 backcountry concerts in my day? The fiddle and guitar torturing that came from next door would *still* have been the *worst backcountry concert ever*.
Also, I did not throw up.
Oh, on Sunday morning, I asked Tom what was with the nasty looking cuts above his one eyebrow. He told me he'd cut himself with his axe on a previous trip, and it bled so much that he soaked his t-shirt and then some. And then he said he'd taken a self portrait, with the axe and the bloody t-shirt and everything. Oh man, I *so* wanted that picture. Alas, that Tom is no dummy, he was onto me right away and said he wouldn't give me the picture unless I told him what I'd do with it. And since the honest answer would have been "so I can stick it on the internet and make it look like I met up with a crazy axe murderer"… yeah. I didn't get the picture.
Actually, I got no pictures that weekend. I didn’t take a camera (I forgot it. You try packing all your gear for a weekend, including loading the boat, in 35 minutes and see if you remember everything). And yet this is the weekend I chose to end the blogpause with. Go figure.
Because I seem to have given up on the website...
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| Overland Vicuna to Hurtado |
In this first one, Gwen and I took advantage of a day without plans but with a rental car. We had been foiled in our attempts to see the Topado glacier, and started out a bit... pissy. We got over the pissy by the time we ate our lunch on Cerro Mamalluca, and then we consulted our crappy map to see if there were other roads that would let us go high. The road to Tololo observatory is private, with a big locked gate and guards. No go Tololo. But the road to Hurtado was public. Driving it required me to overcome my fear of narrow, gravelly roads sin guardrails. Also, it required a bit of a more aggressive treatment of the manual transmission that I'd advocate on my own car. Let's just say that I'm really glad I've been driving a manual transmission for 20 years now, because I had enough other things to worry about.
We felt pretty damn proud of ourselves when we checked in with the carabineros in Hurtado. I think we would not have thought a parade in honour of the gringas negotiating that road, complete with its many goats, would have been out of place. What we didn't know that it was still many many miles of gravelly roads with buses hurtling at breakneck speeds around switchbacks before we would see pavement. And now - gulp - it was dark.
When we got back to La Serena, many beers were consumed with great gusto. And then some fried fish. And pisco sours. And wine. 'twas a good day, even without a glacier.
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| pinguino |
Darrell had a contact with a fisherman named Guido, and thus we turned our noses up at the organized penguin-watching tours. Our biggest challenge in setting this one up was to figure out how to call Guido from our cell phone - I ended up handing both the phone and Guido's card to Cesar, who did the dialling. From there, it was smooth sailing. Our tour was the best, ever, even if we had to say gracias to the senor all the time. The senor was smiling on us, though, because he sent us a dolphin escort. Our tour lasted twice as long as the organized on, and was way more fun. So there. Gracias Darrell is more likely.