Well...Patagonia was certainly interesting.
After randomly meeting Kristin at the airport (she winded up being one of my closest friends on the trip), we were excited to meet the rest of the group. On my Outward Bound trip, we spent the first week traversing the Patagonian landscape, and it was equal parts fun, challenging, and exhausting - physically and emotionally. We had two great, but completely different leaders: Rolando and CJ. Rolando was this feisty little Chilean who could have doubled as a motivational speaker. CJ, on the other hand, was 100% relaxed all the time...I'm not even that calm in my sleep! Both were very nice, and I winded up learning some of the most important lessons of the trip from these two people.
We hiked for about 7 hours the first day, and it felt exhilarating to be in the outdoors, at high altitude, with fresh air and the strong sun smiling down on us. As the day winded down, we parked ourselves near this beautiful river, surrounded by lush hills and mountains to protect us from the intense Patagonian winds. At the end of our day, Rolando had us all lay down in a circle, with our heads next to one another. He read us an historical letter that was sent by Chief Seattle of the Dwamish Tribe in Washington to President Pierce in 1855. It was in response to President Pierce's request to "buy" the land of the Dwamish people. Here's a short clip of what Chief Seattle said in response:
"How can you buy or sell the sky - the warmth of the land?
We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water...
How can you buy them from us?"
Now, this is a very small excerpt of something very beautiful and meaningful, so I hope that you'll Goooooogle it at some point and read the whole thing because this small portion doesn't do it justice.
But the point of Rolando sharing this story with us was to remind us that the journey we were on was not just about having time to ourselves- to explore the wilderness and our deepest thoughts, both of which often get lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Our journey through Patagonia was also meant to remind us of how fragile we as human beings really are. During several moments on the trip, I came frighteningly close to being seriously hurt- whether it was passing through a landslide while hanging onto a rope, or losing my balance on a sandy mountainside, 3000 meters up...with no place to go but straight down (all i'm going to say is THANK GOD for trekking poles). But by some freak of nature, I am still alive, so I've got that going for me.
What Chief Seattle alludes to is that we do not OWN the things we think we do. In fact, in many instances, the very things we think we own may actually own us (if you have a Crackberry, you know what I'm talking about). We have to be humbled by the delightfully small part we play in the grandiose planet we live on.
And here's the heart of the Chief's message: We are all one people. It doesn't matter what the color of our skin is, what country we are citizens of, how big or small or short or tall or WHATEVER we are. Because on a very fundamental level, we are all people, and thus, all equal. It's only in thinking you are more than someone else that, in my opinion, you become less.
...And that was the first, but perhaps one of the biggest lessons I learned during my time in Patagonia.
On the note of Hiking, here's what my schedule looked like over the first week:
- Wake up, stretch, meditate
- Breakfast of cereal and powdered milk & hot coffee (probably the worst coffee ever, but oh, how delicious things taste in the wilderness)
- Pack up camping gear
- Hike for 4 hours
- Siesta & Lunch (PB, homemade jam, & tortillas, or sausage, cheese, & crackers)
- Hike for another 4 hours (the sun didn't set until about 10:30 pm!)
- Set up camp, bathe in natural waterfalls and rivers, prepare dinner of pasta or rice with stir-fried vegetables and cheese (mmmmmm)
- Journal, pray, sleep!
...needless to say, I have never felt more healthy/exhausted in my entire life. This is obviously not a practical schedule for my day-to-day back home, but I do hope to incorporate some of this lifestyle from now on (more meditation, exercise, water, writing, sleep...)
On the second day, a bunch of us climbed Mount Redondo, which was about 1/4 - 1/5 the height of Mt. Everest. I'm not going to lie...after hiking that damn thing and taking in the view as I stood on a rock at the tip of the mountain ridge, I felt pretty damn impressed with myself. It was a blessing to have been healthy enough to do that, and I certainly don't take it for granted. When our instructor told us that we would be hiking a similar mountain the next day, but with 50lbs. of extra weight on our shoulders, I thought he was kidding. But OHHHHH, how wrong I was. We did it alright, and my body hated me for it, as I woke up the next morning with a strained back. Anyone whose ever had back problems knows that attempting to hike with a heavy pack on when your back is out of commission is pretty much the dumbest, most painful thing someone could put his- or her- self through. But I kept going, and at some points, my desire to continue was sustained only by the encouragement I received from other members on my trip.
On Day 4 of hiking, the group reached the pinnacle of the physical challenge when we had to safely make it across a strip of post-landslide terrain. I didn't really sweat it....until our leaders informed us that the rope we were carrying around "just in case" would have to be used to help us get to the other side without, uhhh, dying. Sweet.
To be honest, I wasn't really that worried about it, because when you decide to go hiking in the backwoods of Patagonia, you kind of go in with the expectation that crazy stuff is gonna go down. What made me nervous actually wasn't the trek across at all - it was the anticipation of it. It also didn't help knowing that no one had been on that part of the mountain in recent history. As the leaders went ahead alone to create a safe path for us, we were all standing there waiting on a ledge about 1.5 feet wide....just....waiting. For twenty minutes. Let me tell you, that may not feel like a lot when you are curled up in your bed watching Sex in the City. But when you've got the Argetinian sun beating down on you as you quietly stand on the ledge of a cliff, 20 minutes feels as painfully unending as the current U.S. recession. I'm happy to say that we all made it safely across....but here's the ironic part.
We spent over 30 minutes preparing the rope and getting us all safely across the landslide. But the part I found to be most dangerous (which came right after the landslide part), we were not prepared for or warned about. During the next part, we were hiking across a section of the mountain that was a 65 - 70 degree incline of loose sand. If we did not dig our feet into the sand properly, down we would topple with absolutely nothing in the way to help us stop. All of a sudden, Grant, a fellow group member yelled, "This isn't backpacking - this is death jumping!" hahaha..................MY. THOUGHTS. EXACTLY.
At one point, I slipped, and I was dangling from my trekking poles (I'm really not kidding - you should have these if you do any sort of intense hiking in the future). Had it not been for our local guide Pablo catching me, who knows what would have happened. Mind you, Pablo was 7 people in front of me. How he got to me in a matter of less than 5 seconds, I have no idea. But questioning these sorts of small miracles takes away from the time we have to be thankful for them, so I'll just smile and be thankful.
That afternoon of hiking taught me something very interesting about life in general: Sometimes we over-prepare for the parts in life that turn out not to be such a big deal, and at other times, we wait too long for the forewarning of danger that we are ill-prepared when it arrives...But I suppose if you believe in miracles, then something will always be there to catch your fall. Interpret that as you wish.
If you have read my e-mail this far, you may be thinking, "What in the hell is wrong with Melissa? Has she lost her mind going on this trip?"
Well...maybe. But if you think that what you've read so far is bad...it gets worse.
My real challenge came on the final long day of our backpacking week. After a very long morning of hiking, we sat down under a patch of lenga trees to have lunch. Since we had not been near a water source for about 15 hours, I was down to my final sips of water. Not good, considering we had another 3-4 hours of hiking ahead of us. To put more salt in the wound, my food group had very little food left for our last lunch meal- only about 3 cans of tuna for 4 of us. Since tuna may be the only food that I seriously, seriously dislike, I was the only one that went hungry. And while I watched everyone around me eat and no one offer me some of their food after my group attempted to find me something for 30 minutes, I began to feel pretty disheartened. For the first time, probably in my entire life, I realized that I had to rely on people that I really hadn't developed any trust with for my absolute basic needs, like food, water, and shelter. And that afternoon, as I sat there tired, hungry, and thirsty, this is what I realized:
No matter how well you think you know yourself -
what you like, what you dislike, how you behave in certain scenarios, your threshold for pain, etc... if you go backpacking in 90 degree heat with no water or food or energy or comfort/trust in the people who surround you...
You will start question how well you think you know yourself.
...I think this e-mail has been long enough, so I'll end it here for now. But here are a few questions that I hope you'll ponder until Part 2:
1.) If you were at a restaurant with a new friend and he or she wanted to have your last bite of food, would you give it to them?
2.) Say you had to sit at home and fast for 24 hours. During your last meal before the fast, your new friend came up to you and said they needed your last bite of food, would you give it to them?
3.) Now, say you were walking through a hot desert all day. You haven't eaten for many hours, and you don't know when you will have food next because you are in the middle of nowhere. If a new friend came up to you and asked you for your last bite of food, would you give it?
4.) Whether you answered yes or no to #3...Are You Sure?
Love Life,
Melissa Joy
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