12.13.01 - 9:47 p.m.

Hello diary , I am in Patagonia right now and tomorrow we�re going to do a 5 day 4 night no expenses paid hike through Torres del Paine. I think that means "Towers of Pain" but it probably doesn�t. The towers are these huge granite pillars that jut out of the landscape forbodingly. They�re supposed to be spectacular. We�re also going to hike through Glacier Grey. I�ve never hiked through a glacier before but you can bet I will bring my scarf. (I bought a scarf in Cuzco. Julie got the same one. This whole trip, we�ve behaved like we�re twins. In some sense we are.)

We just finished shopping for food. Lots of instant noodles and oatmeal. It is amazing how good shitty food, tastes when you�ve been hiking all day, but I am still thinking that oatmeal and instant noodles will not fill me with joy. Maybe we can forage for Thin Mints on the trail.

What else... we flew in from Puerto Varas, where we spent the day whitewater rafting. Whitewater rafting is FUN!! It was a little scary though because there were some english speaking tourists and some spanish speaking tourists and since we were the only ones who spoke both, they put us in the spanish speaking boat. It was like a spanish test except if you fail, you drown. Luckily we only had to remember 5 commands-- adalante, abajo, derecho atras, stop and adalante furioso. �Stop� in english apparently translates to �Stop� in spanish.

When we finish hiking down here in the south (close to antarctica, i can practically see it from here. i would like to go to antarctica. i knew this girl in school who had been to every continent. she was a geology major... studying geology is a good excuse to travel) we�re headed to Buenos Aires, where the economy is falling apart and we will have to barter pelts to get into the fashionable discoteques. And then we�re going back to the US, and then I�m in Las Vegas to visit amma & anna & aj, and then.

The future is something I think about, without making progress. Part of me wants to sign on to the JET program and go teach english in japan for 2 years. But i probably won�t do that. I think maybe i�ll go back to San Fran, save up some money and then finish learning spanish in cuba or central america. i want to keep going, going, going to different corners of the earth. My parents are hosting a refugee writer from Sierra Leone as part of las vegas�s persecuted writers program. My parents are pretty inspirational i think.

misc thoughts: i think traveling is more interesting if you have some kind of purpose. for instance if you are a skater going to brazil to do skating demos for big brother magazine, or if you are an entomologist traveling the world searching for exotic species of ants. another example is eclipse watchers. i read this article once about the eclipse watching scene (it is a scene!) There are people so obsessed with seeing eclipses that they spend all their time and money traveling around the world to countries that give the optimal vantage points for solar-lunar eclipses. isn�t that kind of cool? when you travel with a purpose you are more than just a tourist. tourism, when you are self conscious like me, involves an unhealthy degree of self loathing. i never want to see another white guy with dreadlocks. i am just kind of rambling here but trust me, these sentences are connected.

i should get going, it�s getting late. we are so far south that it is 10PM and still light outside! this is a good time in my life and i think the chance of getting eaten by wolves is slim. i want to fall in love with a person, but in the meantime i�m in love with the world. put that on a hallmark card and see you in 5 days