Torres del Paine day 1
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2007
1
112
126
Trip End
Ongoing
Torres del Paine,
Patagonia,
Chile
Thursday, February 28, 2008
During lunch we run into another Isreali named Avida. The cool thing about Avida is that he has a machete, the not so cool thing about Avida would comprise a list longer than things I hate about Finland or things wrong with Courtney Love's face. First of all he wants to do the trek in 6 days and he is quite adamant about it. 6 days, that is insane, most people do it in 10 and everything I have ever read gives as a minimum 8 days. Tom and I agreed on 8 days and now he is totally trying to persuade us to knock off 2 days. Second of all he talks about nothing for long periods of time sort of like most politicians or most women I date. Third of all he is Isreali and when Isrealis get together they form clicks which sometimes can get annoying. We eat a humongous lunch (you probably need about 6000 calories a day out here) and I am feeling pretty good about everything except Avida. The weather is perfect out and the scenery is to die for. We head out and it starts to get extremely hot out and the sun is beating down on us. I use my bandana to keep sweat out of my eyes and then I put my hat on over the bandana to keep the sun from frying my ass like a dude who recently got sent to the electric chair. We stop to eat some cookies (which becomes a time honored tradition between us and one of my favorite parts of the day) and take a rest. Avida and Tom speak in Hebrew most of the time which annoys me a bit but it's fine as I really just want to chill and not do anything for the next 20 minutes.
We get towards the end of the day but we still have one big climb to make and it sucks worse than listening to Conway Twitty or catching on fire while getting a blowjob (which actually happened to me once) or going to your cousins wedding which is out of town, staying in the same hotel room as your parents because you are poor and don't have a job, following some chick you met at the wedding to a bar, losing that chick because her friend wants to go home and you don't have enough game to get her to take you with her, being so wasted that when the bar closes you have no idea where you are so you just start walking and eventually stumble upon the town square and actually contemplate sleeping on a bench in that square but then deciding that it would be better to call your father at 3:30 in the morning and asking him to come pick you up but the only directions you can give him to your whereabouts are that you are somewhere downtown next to the town square and then making him take you to Steak n Shake on the way home because you are starving and wasted (yes, that was my most recent Saturday night btw, I even think my mother may have called me a loser in the morning when I woke up without actually saying the word). The climb was awful but we make it back down and since it's starting to get dark and we locate a stream we decide to set up camp even though it's illegal to camp in nonregistered camping sites. There is a hefty fine if caught but seriously, how will anyone find us out here. We make a huge thing of spaghetti which was probably the best meal of my life, no joke. I can't believe how hungry I am. I also can't believe how sore I am and when I get a bit of alone time I start doubting myself again. We just walked 27km (18 miles) with a full backpack and I don't think I could do this trek again. The good thing is this will end up being our longest day and our packs will get lighter from here on out. We set up the tent (which I had no idea how to do, or btw how to set up the stove and turn it on, thank god for Tom, I would be pretty fucked without him) and we climb in it before long as the mosquitos out here are awful and we are getting bit like we smell like gravy and we are hanging out with Janet Jackson after she releases an album.
The tent is pretty small especially for two guys over 6 feet. I can't stretch out the entire way and I am pretty uncomfortable as the sleeping pad doesn't provide much padding and the sleeping bag is really just to keep you warm. This fucking sucks. My head is up against the tent and I still have to sort of curl up and whichever points of my body are on the sleeping pad take the brunt of my weight and start to hurt after about 15 minutes and I have to change positions constantly. Not to mention it's fucking freezing out here at night but at least I have a good sleeping bag but my face is fucking cold and I can't sleep and I start thinking how I just made the biggest mistake of my life and how I am a fucking pussy and how I need to toughen up. I start thinking how I should be tough, I mean I used to lightly spar Stephan Bonnar (who is in the UFC, which has nothing to do with anything but my mind is all over the place at this point in time) and I went to Lincoln Middle School (which was no joke) and I experienced all this crazy shit growing up but then I start thinking how sitting behind a desk for 10 years has made me soft and a bitch which starts to piss me off. Ok, I have to try to sleep, I have a big day of proving I'm not a bitch tomorrow.
Fin
